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Perchance to Dream: Selected Stories Audiobook
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Publisher Description
The profoundly original and wildly entertaining short stories of a legendary Twilight Zone writer
It is only natural that Charles Beaumont would make a name for himself crafting scripts for The Twilight Zone—for his was an imagination so limitless it must have emerged from some other dimension. Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont’s finest stories, including five that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes.
Beaumont dreamed up fantasies so vast and varied they burst through the walls of whatever box might contain them. Supernatural, horror, noir, science fiction, fantasy, pulp, and more—all were equally at home in his wondrous mind. These are stories where lions stalk the plains, classic cars rove the streets, and spacecraft hover just overhead. Here roam musicians, magicians, vampires, monsters, toreros, extraterrestrials, androids, and perhaps even the Devil himself. With dizzying feats of master storytelling and joyously eccentric humor, Beaumont transformed his nightmares and reveries into impeccably crafted stories that leave themselves indelibly stamped upon the walls of the mind. In Beaumont’s hands, nothing is impossible; it all seems plausible, even likely.
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“Beaumont’s short stories provide fantastic listening—all the more so as told by the skillful variety of narrators in this production…Stefan Rudnicki takes the lion’s share of the narrations, and, given that he excels at science fiction, he also steals much of the show. Yet every narrator executes his or her story with a strong, spot-on delivery. Taken together, the stories make for a well-curated collection with narrations that listeners will enjoy.”
— AudioFile
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“Twist endings get a bad rap in our oh-so-sophisticated millennium, but in Perchance to Dream, they’re in the hands of a master…Throughout the book, Beaumont challenges perception, norms, and our smug reliance on appearances, using supernatural and science fictional elements to drive home his points.”
— NPR -
“This is a worthwhile and important collection, preserving an author’s work for a new generation of readers. Read them. Get angry. Be shocked. Laugh. Charles Beaumont’s work will certainly provoke your imagination.”
— Weird Fiction Review -
“These stories recall a more innocent Americae…Beaumont celebrates the American landscape in prose that’s often lyrical…Each with its satisfying twist, often surprisingly surprising, these stories charm and entertain while mapping out the landscape of (white, male) American anxieties in the middle of the last century.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“Beaumont’s stories offer flashes of true horror, subverting shock value with vertiginous questions about good, evil, and human nature.”
— Seattle Times -
“Terrifically creepy pieces that almost always end with a twist…Beaumont deserves the wider audience this volume can provide.”
— Library Journal
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About Charles Beaumont
Charles Beaumont (1929–1967) was a prolific American writer of speculative fiction, including the signature collection Night Ride, and Other Journeys, also available from Blackstone and Skyboat. His stories provided the source material for over twenty classic Twilight Zone episodes.
About the Narrators
Paul Boehmer is an American actor best known for his numerous appearances in the Star Trek universe, in addition to Frasier, Judging Amy, Guiding Light, and All My Children. He is a 1992 Masters of Fine Arts graduate of the Professional Theater Training Program at the University of Delaware. As a narrator, Paul has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as an Audie Award.
Paul Boehmer is an American actor best known for his numerous appearances in the Star Trek universe, in addition to Frasier, Judging Amy, Guiding Light, and All My Children. He is a 1992 Masters of Fine Arts graduate of the Professional Theater Training Program at the University of Delaware. As a narrator, Paul has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as an Audie Award.
Gabrielle de Cuir, award-winning narrator, has narrated over three hundred titles and specializes in fantasy, humor, and titles requiring extensive foreign language and accent skills. She was a cowinner of the Audie Award for best narration in 2011 and a three-time finalist for the Audie and has garnered six AudioFile Earphones Awards. Her “velvet touch” as an actor’s director has earned her a special place in the audiobook world as the foremost producer for bestselling authors and celebrities.
Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) wrote and edited more than 120 books and more than 1,700 stories, essays, and articles, as well as dozens of screenplays and teleplays. He won the Hugo Award nine times, the Nebula Award four times, the Bram Stoker Award six times (including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996), the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America twice, the Georges Méliès Fantasy Film Award twice, and was awarded the Silver Pen for Journalism by PEN, the international writer’s union. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2006.
Alex Hyde-White is an actor and a producer of two films and hundreds of audiobooks thru his label Punch Audio.
Arthur Morey has won three AudioFile Magazine “Best Of” Awards, and his work has garnered numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and placed him as a finalist for two Audie Awards. He has acted in a number of productions, both off Broadway in New York and off Loop in Chicago. He graduated from Harvard and did graduate work at the University of Chicago. He has won awards for his fiction and drama, worked as an editor with several book publishers, and taught literature and writing at Northwestern University. His plays and songs have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Milan, where he has also performed.
John Rubinstein is an actor, composer, and director who won a Tony Award for his starring role in Broadway’s Children of a Lesser God. He has narrated dozens of audiobooks, earning several AudioFile Earphones Awards and being named a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2013.
Stefan Rudnicki first became involved with audiobooks in 1994. Now a Grammy-winning audiobook producer, he has worked on more than five thousand audiobooks as a narrator, writer, producer, or director. He has narrated more than nine hundred audiobooks. A recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, he was presented the coveted Audie Award for solo narration in 2005, 2007, and 2014, and was named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices in 2012.