Showing results by narrator "B.J. Harrison" in All Categories

When an aged watchmaker pits his two protégés against each other, the result is magnificent imperfection. The Rival Mechanicians has been lauded as one of the finest science fiction tales from the first half of the nineteenth century. The Western Literary Messenger declared it to be “above praise” when it was first published in 1847.

America is fat and prosperous. We’ve warred with the world and come out on top. We’ve gotten rid of the riff-raff. A new era is arising, change is in the air, and to top it all off, the first Government Lethal Chamber is now open and ready for its first occupant. The future looks bright in 1895.

An assassin is sent back in time to prevent the ravings of a religious zealot which, if left unchecked, will lead to absolute catastrophe. A master of the “Silver Age” of science fiction, Philip K. Dick won the Hugo Award in 1963, and the John W. Campbell Memorial award in 1975. Though he lived most of his life in near poverty, he is behind some of the most recognizable science fiction stories to date, penning the stories behind the films Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck, and The Adjustment Bureau.

Tom Sawyer is an orphaned boy who lives together with his kindhearted aunt Polly. Although his poor aunt takes good care of him, Tom grows up to be rebellious who comes up with a new plan for troublemaking every day. He steals snacks, comes home late, lies to his friends, tricks them into giving him various things and each time he manages to get away with it. But when he falls in love with a girl and tries to win her heart, he gets into even bigger trouble.

Allan Quatermain is a hunter who lives in South Africa. One day, after he returns home from an unsuccessful elephant hunt, he meets Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good. The two men are looking for Curtis’ brother, who disappeared whilst trying to find King Solomon’s Mines. Quatermain owns a map that show the way to the mines, so he decides to help Curtis and Good. Allan organizes an expedition that will take them to the edge of the desert.

A meteorite crashes in an area around Arkham, Massachusetts and normally life is interrupted. The earth is poisoned, the animals are driven mad, the products that grow there become tasteless. One man decides to find out what has really happened but the townspeople are not willing to give more details about what they have gone through. The explorer however meets a man named Ammi Pierce. He looks a bit crazy but he is willing to share what he has experienced.

Anodos is a young boy who finds a large and mystical castle with a big and impressive library. The library hides the secret story of the poor Cosmo who was a student at the university of Prague. Cosmo’s life changed forever because of a mirror. But it was no usual mirror; it was an enchanted and a beautiful girl’s soul was kept inside of it. Cosmo was determined to free the girl but was he able to? Read this short story and find out. B. J. Harrison started his Classic Tales Podcast back in 2007, wanting to breathe new life into classic stories.

Jabez Wilson, a London pawnbroker with ginger hair, pays a visit to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. He tells them about his young assistant, Vincent Spaulding, who has advised Wilson to respond to an urgent job advertisement in the local newspaper. The very next morning the pawnbroker is interviewed and hired. Everything goes well, until one morning he sees an announcement which says that "The red-headed league is dissolved". Wilson is extremely dissatisfied and goes to meet the landlord but does not receive any help.

"The Yellow Sign" is considered to be Robert Chambers’ horror masterpiece. He introduces us to Mr. Scott, an artist living in New York City. One day, Scott sees an overweight young man, who looks like a lawn grub to him. The artist’s is working on a painting of a girl named Tessie. When the girl falls ill, Scott tries to cure her, so he can finish his work as fast as possible. However, Tessie’s condition gets worse and she starts having very strange dreams.

"I will not suffer thee, ungrateful girl, to rule my people according to thine own capricious will!" The king of Denmark is extremely frustrated with his daughter. Not only does she reject every suitor who asks for her hand - she does it so rudely that her reputation has become horrible in the neighboring countries. When the King orders her to marry one of her cousins, she does so only begrudgingly, and instantly starts planning her father's murder with her new husband.

Miles Standish and Priscilla Mullins immigrate to America, where they meet a scholar and poet named John Alden. The two men become good friends, but they also both fall in love with Priscilla and a love triangle develops between the three of them. Miles Standish is a soldier, athletic and muscular, whilst John Alden is his complete opposite. Alden struggles, wondering whether he should listen to his heart and chose love over friendship. On the other hand, Standish has lost his wife and looks forward to proposing to Priscilla Mullins.

"The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" is Sir Conan Doyle’s second collection about the great detective. In this collection we meet the same two protagonists, namely Holmes and Watson, but the cases and mysteries that must be solved are completely new. The disappearance of a champion horse, a dead coachman and stolen naval treaty are only a small portion of all the mysteries the two men will have to deal with.

The Baron d’Etraille witnesses a disturbing scene at a party between his own wife and another young man. D’Etraille decides that they have to separate, so he leaves the baroness and heads out on a long journey. He spends almost six years wandering around from one place to another, not knowing what is happening with his wife. Eventually, he returns to Paris but a month later he catches such a bad cough that he is sent to Nice for the rest of the winter.

"What would you have done? Rubbed your eyes and thought you were dreaming? Well, if you had, nothing more would have happened. Nothing ever does when you behave like that." In 'The Aunt and Amabel' a young girl damages a special flower-bed without meaning to, and as a punishment her aunt sends her to the bedroom with the large wardrobe. When Amabel finds a railway timetable naming a station called 'Bigwardrobeinspareroom' in there she is intrigued. And in opening the wardrobe, she finds something very unexpected on the inside. C.S.

Ali Baba and Cassim are two Persian brothers. Ali Baba barely manages to put food on the table for his family, while his brother lives an easy life thanks to his rich wife. One day, while chopping wood in the forest, Ali Baba sees a band of thieves laden with treasures approaching. They stop in front of a rock and the captain shouts "Open Sesame!". What happens next is pure magic. The giant rock moves to the sides and opens a portal which the thieves enter.

Hilton Cubitt visits Sherlock Holmes to show him a sheet of paper with a weird sequence of drawn figures. When these odd messages began to arrive at Cubitt’s house, fear and panic overwhelmed his wife Elsie. She is afraid her past is catching up with her, but she refuses to reveal anything about it. Holmes is tasked with decipher the messages and find out who is sending them.

Nicholas Nickleby is a young boy left without a father. Nicholas has to take care of his mother and sister and is forced by his uncle to work as an assistant to the schoolmaster Wackford Squeers. Squeers’ intentions are however not good and his only goal is to make Nicholas’ life miserable. At the same time Squeers’ wife convinces herself that Nicholas loves her and this gets the young boy in even greater trouble. Nicholas’ uncle is colluding with the schoolmaster and it seems like everybody is against him.

B.J. Harrison reads "The Purloined Letter" by Edgar Allan Poe, which is a story of an unusual mystery that needs to be solved. A sensitive letter has been stolen from the queen's boudoir, and the famous amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin has been called to the rescue. The guilty one is the lover himself, Minister D-. What ensues is a match between the detective and the thief, two equally brilliant minds.

"The Thing in the Weeds" is a short story by William Hope Hodgson from his "Sargasso Sea Stories" in which he portrays a monster lurking in the darkest recesses of the unfathomable depths of the sea. An example of Lovecraft’s major principle of "fear of the unknown", the terror in this Hodgson story is a mysterious one, despite the fact that it haunts and kills the characters.

In "MS. Found in a Bottle", one harrowing event seems to take place after another. Our narrator is a man who has become alienated from others and his country. He steps aboard a cargo ship from Batavia, which crashes into stormy conditions that send most passengers into the water. Surprisingly, the narrator stays on board, only to find himself face to face with a new disaster. During his struggles, he logs his experiences into a journal, which he casts off to sea.