Memorial Day Break 2017

Well, it was not intended, but we are taking a break this week on Ron’s Amazing Stories. Not to worry all is well. If truth be told, a week off will have nothing but good things for all in involved. We will return next week with a completely new show and if everything goes as planned it will be Horror Express #16. Jason and I will be answering a hoard of questions, have an old time radio show about shadow people and a special look at episode #17. As always we do have a podcast for you this week. We will replay one of my favorite episodes from 2016. So, please enjoy it!

The Calendar:

May 04 – The Fairy of Inverness – (RAS284)
May 11 – The Beast Must Die – (RAS285)
May 18 – The RocketShip – (RAS286)
May 25 – Gun For Hire – (RAS287)
June 01 – A Woman of Many Names – (REPLAY).
June 08 – The Horror Express – (HE16)

RAS #287 – Gun For Hire

On Ron’s Amazing Stories this week we present a short-story written by Mack Reynolds. It is called, Gun for Hire, and explores the one thing a utopian society forgot to include, a hit man. Also, on the show our friend from Berlin is back with a third installment. This time Tom Williams takes us to Berlin in in the year 1961. (See Photo Below)

Our Classic Story This week – Gun For Hire

We have a short story called Gun for Hire by Mack Reynolds. A Gun For Hire explores in a light hearted but painful way, the fact that hired guns are just that: hired. This story is amazing and speaks to us as much as it did when it was written in the 1950’s for the pulp mags of the time. It is read for us by Phil Chenevert who does a truly impressive job.

Spotlight – Dallas McCord Reynolds

Dallas McCord Reynolds was an American science fiction writer. His work is best known for its focus on socioeconomic speculation. That is a lot of word power that simply means, “How money and people impact on the future.” He liked to write thought-provoking stories of perfect societies from comic or satiric point of view. Reynold’s heroes usually seek to improve their societies by direct revolutionary action. Sometimes their revolution is meant to advance a people’s level of civilization, sometimes to send it back to a simple way of life.

Mack was a popular author in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. You could find his works in both novels and science fiction magazines. Mack Reynolds loved to use pen names and he used several throughout his writing career. These names included Dallas Ross, Mark Mallory, Clark Collins, Dallas Rose, Guy McCord, Maxine Reynolds, Bob Belmont, and Todd Harding.

I first learned of Mack Reynolds from his book, Mission to Horatius. It was written in 1968 and it was was the first original novel based upon the NBC television series Star Trek. Now, you might be thinking that I loved it. I thought it stunk. The producers of Star Trek agreed. They were concerned that it was dull, poorly written, and contained offensive descriptions of Sulu. Gene Roddenberry intervened and it was corrected, but not re-published. In 1999 Pocket Books did so to celebrate holding the Star Trek license for 20 years. I have never read the “improved” story.

This Week’s Podcast:

On Ron’s Amazing Stories this week we present a short-story written by Mack Reynolds. It is called, Gun for Hire, and explores the one thing a utopian society forgot to include. A hit man. You can listen to this podcast on Thursday at Ron’s Amazing Stories, download it from iTunes, stream it on TuneIn Radio or listen to it on your radio Saturday night at 6pm Eastern time. Check your local listing or find the station closest to you at this link.

The Calendar:

May 04 – The Fairy of Inverness – (RAS284)
May 11 – The Beast Must Die – (RAS285)
May 18 – The RocketShip – (RAS286)
May 25 – Gun For Hire – (RAS237)
June 01 – (RAS287)

RAS #286 – The Rocketship

On Ron’s Amazing Stories this week we are jammed pack full of tales. We have a two listener stories, one of which just might the most dramatic yet! We have the second in the original RAS series, A Moment In Time and OTR tale that is nothing short of epic. You won’t believe your ears.

The OTR Story – The Rocket

Our OTR story was written and produced in late 1945 just after the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, the actual tale takes place in the year 2000 which makes this a science fiction story (from a certain point of view). It comes from the OTR series Lights Out and is a warning to the past, present and the future. It is called, Rocketship and if it doesn’t terrify you just a bit, you missed the point.

Program Note: The Horror Express has been delayed by at least a week. I will have more information on this on next week show. Not to worry there are no issues. It is a me problem and I just ran out of time and had to push it.

Ron’s Amazing Stories Empire

As you know the podcast has gone through some changes the past few weeks. Now that all of the work has been completed I thought it would be a good time to go through the new structure of the Ron’s Amazing Stories Empire. Empire might be a bit strong, but it is what it is. Thank you for your patience during the transition. The podcast now consists now of four websites. All are tied together and they support each other.

Ron’s Amazing Stories – This is the main site and is where the magic happens. All of the podcast are distributed from here. All our destinations are fed from this single source. Think of it as homebase.

http://ronsamazingstories.com and http://RASpodcast.com

Ron’s Amazing Stories – The blog – Here you will find all of the content on the main site and the home of blog posts like the one your are reading now. It links back to all of the other sites.

https://ronsamazingstories.blog

Ron’s Amazing Stories – The Archives – On this site you will find the archived episodes that have been donated to the public domain. This site contains all of the episodes that are no longer available on the main host site. This summer I plan to take down more of the podcasts and move them here.

https://archive.org/details/archived-RAS-episodes

The Horror Express – This site is dedicated to our second podcast, and Its main function is to act as a communication page. It is place where you can send comments and questions to both Jason and myself. In case you were wondering the main website is also responsible for the distribution of the Horror Express. The URL for this site will be changing soon.

https://horrorexpresspodcast.wordpress.com

There you have our little empire. If you have any questions or comments you can use any of the sites listed to send them. All comments left are fed into a single gmail mailbox.

Thank you for reading!

-Ron

This Week’s Podcast:

On the podcast this week I just may call it, “Power Stories”. It is jammed pack full of tales. We have a two listener stories, one of which, just might the most dramatic yet! The OTR tale is nothing short of epic and of course we continue with our five minute mystery series. You can listen to this podcast on Thursday at Ron’s Amazing Stories, download it from iTunes, stream it on TuneIn Radio or listen to it on your radio Saturday night at 6pm Eastern time. Check your local listing or find the station closest to you at this link.