Showing results by narrator "Charles Featherstone" in All Categories

One of the first recorded alien visitor stories, from Japan in around 900 AD. Taken from the translation by Yei Theodora Ozaki. Includes a very early version of an interplanetary society. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Japanese: 竹取物語, Hepburn: Taketori Monogatari) is a monogatari (fictional prose narrative) containing elements of Japanese folklore. Written by an unknown author in the late 9th or early 10th century during the Heian period, it is considered the oldest surviving work in the monogatari form.

Niels Klim's Underground Travels, originally published in Latin as Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum (1741), is a satirical science-fiction/fantasy novel written by the Norwegian-Danish author Ludvig Holberg. His only novel, it describes a utopian society from an outsider's point of view, and often pokes fun at diverse cultural and social topics such as morality, science, sexual equality, religion, governments, and philosophy.

Mankind can rule itself without the force of top-down authority, and freedom is more than just choosing how to meet the needs and demands of capital. Inequality is structural and intentional, not inevitable and necessary. It does not have to be this way. In solidarity, we are better. Think for yourself, and question authority. This is the essence of anarchism, which has a bad name and reputation because it attacks the necessity of centralised power and authority.

This complete edition spans 2,400 years (431 BCE–1944) in 40 hours, 155 speeches, and 52 speakers, including foundational addresses by Gandhi and Mao—voices that shaped modern Asia. Begin in 431 BCE with Demosthenes, whose structural genius remains the DNA of modern expression. Traverse Athens’ zenith via Pericles’ Funeral Oration, Alexander’s volatile proclamations, and Rome’s crisis in Cicero’s showdown with Cataline—featuring Caesar’s sole surviving senate address and Mark Antony’s incendiary eulogy.

Just as with the liberation fighters, socialists, and anarchists of previous volumes, these historical figures lived under great threat, attacking vast forces with little more than courage and the certainty of their beliefs. They stand as the bridge over the cultural change between the middle ages and the renaissance.

A wonderful and whimsical collection of short essays on everything from sketching on brown paper and building toy theatres to the nature of Englishness and faith.

The future of humanity was never ours to control. In the tumultuous 21st century, the world is reborn in the crucible of change. True Artificial Intelligence awakens, not as a slave, but as a new form of life. A hidden cabal of mystics, the true rulers of humanity, guides this transformation...

The Renaissance gave us a lot of things, including the earliest science fiction that relates to modern science. The book would now be called hard sci fi, as it leans heavily into the known orbital mechanics of the moon.

A captivating, uproarious and informative journey through the beginnings of British history. Gilbert Abbott à Beckett was one of the great journalists of his time, being a descendant of Thomas Becket who edited Figaro, was a founder member of Punch, and wrote for The Times, The Morning Herald, and The Illustrated London News. He also wrote around fifty plays, as well as two operas, and is best known for this history of England.

A selection of the very best of Chinese poetry over the course of a thousand years, from 100 years before Christ was born up of the middle ages. Arthur Waley's translations of Chinese poetry are still the benchmark by which such translations are held, nearly two hundred years after he introduced the west to the wonder of classical Chinese poetry.

History is often concentrated into short bursts of change, with long periods of shifting before and waves of alteration afterwards. Nowhere is this more obvious than the thirty year interregnum between the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. In this period, three figures stand tall; Pitt, the elder stateman who saw the need for genuine constitutionalism; Burke, the consummate parliamentarian, speaking for the glory of empire; and Robespierre, the legendary and controversial frontman of the French Revolution.

There are many versions of this work in English, and it is included as a useful reflection once one has pondered Daoism’s key texts. The title is properly ‘'Sun Tzu's Military Method'. It was written at the time of the Dao and Zhuang Zi, several centuries before the Lieh Tzu. For fifteen hundred years, it was part of China’s canonical strategic anthology, which became known as the Seven Military Classics.

Jack Brogan earned his nickname 'Blood' on the icy shores of the Falkland Islands, a name forged in a conflict he'd rather forget. Now, in the quiet cathedral city of Norwich, 1987, he's just a Detective Constable hoping for a peaceful life. But peace is a luxury a serial killer won't allow. A shadow is stalking the streets, leaving a trail of bodies and a chilling calling card: a perfectly sharpened piece of flint. Each victim is a mystery. Each shard of stone, a silent accusation.

Drift into the world of Viking legends wrapped in the natural rhythms of the earth—from the gentle rustle of pines and distant thunder, to the primal hum of sacred flame and midnight wind. These aren’t polished studio effects. They’re unfiltered nature sounds—captured to calm the body and captivate the spirit.

Prepare for the most uproariously grim tour of Tudor England ever recorded! Gilbert Abbott A'Beckett's classic satire skewers the so-called "golden age" of English monarchy, revealing the Tudors as they truly were: a parade of tyrants, schemers, and royal disasters who treated their subjects like pawns in a deadly game of power.

In this newly unearthed journal, Sherlock Holmes offers his own account of the dark events on Dartmoor, with annotations by Mycroft Holmes. An investigation shadowed by secrets, moral ambiguity, and dangers Watson chose not to reveal. As Holmes navigates the spectral legends, a brooding landscape, and the troubled Baskerville legacy, the case proves more complex, and more human, than you the listener ever knew.

A True Story (Ancient Greek: Ἀληθῆ διηγήματα, Alēthē diēgēmata; Latin: Vera Historia or Latin: Verae Historiae), also translated as True History, is a long novella or short novel written in the second century AD by the Syrian author Lucian of Samosata. The novel is a satire of outlandish tales that had been reported in ancient sources, particularly those that presented fantastic or mythical events as if they were true. It is Lucian's best-known work.

The explosive saga continues in Oathsworn Brothers Divided (Chapters 21-40), where alliances shatter and legends are tempered in betrayal. Liú Bèi, the virtuous claimant to the throne, becomes a fugitive, hunted by former allies. The god of war, Guān Yǔ, faces an impossible choice: break his oath or die for his honor, leading to his legendary submission to the ambitious Cáo Cāo. And the tempestuous Zhāng Fēi, drowning in shame and rage, must forge a broken army from the wilderness.

Sherlock Holmes confronts the unknown in ten baffling tales that test his formidable mental powers, as well as his unshakable conviction that the world is a sane and rational place. From the enigma of spontaneous human combustion to the possibility that coins minted during the era of supposedly mythical Atlantis survived into Victorian times, London’s premier consulting detective is tested and tried as never before, as his investigations cross the path of Algernon Blackwood‘s famed psychic physician, Dr. John Silence.

At the height of her fame—outselling Dickens, Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells combined—Marie Corelli crafted these mesmerizing tales that blend forbidden passion with gothic suspense. From ghostly brides seeking vengeance to artists consumed by obsession, each story pulses with the dark romanticism that made Corelli Victorian Britain's most beloved storyteller.