Inside Man

Newlywed Lester Shay feels out-of-sorts. It’s not his marriage – he’s been married for three months, and loves his wife Thalia, just as she loves him. But he’s been having strange thoughts about mechanical objects. It’s almost as if he can read their thoughts – ESP of a sort – and the pain of worn-out ball-bearings, and stuck typewriter keys is beginning to wear on him. This makes his wife unhappy because he’s too abstracted to pay attention to her – at least, the kind of attention a new wife wants...

This is an MP3 audio recording of H. L. Gold’s Inside Man, a short story from the 1965 issue of Galaxy Magazine in a dramatized, slightly edited reading of the story, produced by William Mills. Inside Man was nominated for the Nebula award in 1966. As the editor of Galaxy, Gold was of a later generation of science fiction than the famous John W. Campbell of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, and preferred stories based on up-to-date science fiction concepts.

I’ve listened to recorded books before, but this is the first one I’ve had the opportunity to review. This particular recording is 32 minutes long (long enough for a morning commute!) and begins with a brief literary biography of H. L. Gold which is quite interesting. The story itself is very short, but it’s a very good story and well scripted for audio drama. I will note, however, that unlike Books on Tape or Recorded Books, it is really an audio play with three readers, rather than one person reading the story straight through. The three readers are all quite good – they speak clearly, and interpret the story well. I enjoyed listening to it, and found it funny and thought-provoking at the same time.

Reviewed by: Jean