The Space Station: John Wyndham's Orbital Mystery Unveiled

Step into the void with us as we journey through John Wyndham's captivating science fiction tale, "The Space Station." We unravel this gem from his 1959 fix-up novel "The Outward Urge," published under the curious dual authorship of Wyndham himself and his alter ego, Lucas Parks.

The story whisks us away to a futuristic station orbiting Earth, where the darkness of space holds both mystery and menace. Like much of Wyndham's work, it beautifully explores themes of isolation, the pioneering spirit of exploration, and the remarkable resilience humans display when faced with the unknown. The story's cosmic setting becomes a perfect backdrop for examining our deepest fears and highest aspirations.

We dive into Wyndham's fascinating literary background, from his early days writing for American pulp magazines in the 1920s to his evolution as one of Britain's most influential science fiction voices. Did you know these pulp magazines got their name from the cheap wood pulp paper they were printed on? Or that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein from 1818 is widely considered the first true science fiction novel? These historical threads connect us to a rich tradition of using scientific concepts to explore profoundly human questions.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Melancholy Mentor

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to Melancholy Mentor, where classic literature meets the vibrant world of radio plays. I'm Fran and I'm joined by Evan from Mystery Mythos. Together, we're your guides on this creative journey. During each episode, we'll dive into stories featured on the Melancholy Mentor channel, allowing fresh ideas to flourish, inspiring you to dream big and unlock your creative potential. Get comfy, open your mind and embrace curiosity. Let's get started.

Speaker 2: 0:39

Hello, I'm Fran and I'm Evan, and today we're going to explore the Space Station by John Wyndham. Yes, so each week we bring you a highlight of episodes that we have on the Melancholy Mentor YouTube channel, and the channel is dedicated to radio dramas. And today's delve is the Space Station by John Wyndham. The story explores themes of isolation, exploration and the resilience of the human spirit, which seems to be quite a common theme with John Wyndham's work. In the story, john Wyndham takes us on a thrilling journey to a futuristic station orbiting the Earth. What mysteries lurk in the darkness of the cosmos? I know the space station is actually a story. It's actually a story.

Speaker 2: 1:46

So it's a short story from a book called the Outward Urge, which is a science fiction. It's kind of science fiction fix-up novel, so it's got different little bits in it. Yeah, it was originally published in 1959, and it was published as written by John Wyndham and Lucas Parks. Yeah, by john windham and lucas parks. Yeah, lucas parks is actually a pen name used by john windham, so by pen name I mean a different name that the that the writer uses instead of their real name. Um, probably like a pseudonym as well yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:23

Yeah. So a little bit about John. John, I'm going to have to say his name again, his full name so John Wyndham Parks. Lucas Benon Harris was an English science fiction writer. So if you've listened to previous podcasts that we've done from the Melancholy Mental channel, firstly, I've explored pronouncing his name before. Yeah, listening to these knows I struggle a little bit with pronunciation, and we've also delved a little bit into his life. A bit into his life. He was, um, just to reiterate, he was born in 1903 and he passed away aged 65, which is actually quite young. Yeah, yeah, in 1969. He begun his writing career in the mid-1920s. It seems like it's just such a long time ago, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, and we come up by writing short stories for an americ, for american pulp magazines. Okay, so pulp magazines were fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to around 1955. I got interested in this, so I sort of had a little look at it, and the word pulp comes from the wood pulp paper that the magazines were printed on.

Speaker 2: 3:46

Oh, wow that's interesting yes, a little little fact, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 3:51

so they were actually a cheap version of doing a magazine, as opposed to like a glossy magazine or something yeah and so the pulp magazines were like a cheaper paper and got've got a little fun science fiction fact for you Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, also known as the Modern Prometheus, which was written in 1818, is actually considered to be the first science fiction novel. Yeah, which is a Quite an astonishing feat, and I think it's due to the things that are mentioned in the story. We've also highlighted that we've got Frankenstein on the radio drama channel. So have you got any more about the recording that we've got of the space station?

Speaker 3: 4:50

it at all. Um, what kept cropping up was that it's read by somebody called dorgy swallow, um, but yeah, their name kept cropping up and anything I found, but I couldn't find like how, like where it was recorded or who'd recorded it, but just that their name just kept saying that they so hopefully they're actually the narrator of the story that's quite a name as well, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 5:09

yeah, dodgy swallow yeah, and the video itself was filmed by you in eastbourne in east sussex, uh, and it runs for like an hour and 12 minutes and we've got quite a lot of views actually 1061 views on this one oh nice, we'd like some more views as well.

Speaker 2: 5:29

Come and see it. Come, yes, come and see it. I'm sorry about listening to it, but this, this is. This also brings up the thing of the video. So the narrator of this particular story, the space station it sounds like a male voice, um, and other than possibly their name. We haven't got any more information about them.

Speaker 2: 5:49

So what evan and I actually do is get, get these radio dramas that are in the public domain and so they're audio only. So we take the audio and put a video to it and then that goes out onto YouTube. So it's mainly about the audio, but we provide a video as well, a bit like this podcast. So there's an audio version, but if you come and find us on YouTube, you'll actually see what we look like. Yeah, yeah, because we provide a video as well. So by filmed by me means that that's me going out with a mobile phone and my tripod, um, I'm based on the south coast in england, in the uk, so we'll go along the, the coastline or the or the woodlands and just leave the camera filming for a little while, like the mobile phone camera filming, and this particular one was a nice little seaside town of eastbourne and the camera was pointed towards the pier. So it's got the pier and the waves and you might see some of the murmurations from the birds as well.

Speaker 3: 6:58

Yeah, if you look closely you'll see it.

Speaker 2: 7:01

Lovely.

Speaker 3: 7:02

Amazing.

Speaker 2: 7:03

Right, so thank you for that bit of info, evan. We don't often have a lot about the radio dramas, so if anybody does have extra information, there's there's ways of contacting us, um, or if there's something that you'd like to see featured, we can do our best to find it for you yeah thank you for listening. Thank you, bye. Are you scratching your ear? No, bye.

Speaker 1: 7:36

Thank you for tuning in. Contact us, melancholymentorcom. Until next time, keep your minds open and stay curious.