The 64-Square Madhouse by Fritz Leiber ~ Full Audiobook [scifi]

Classic Audiobook Collection

01/11/23

•

103m

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The 64-Square Madhouse by Fritz Leiber audiobook.

Genre: scifi

At an international Grand Master chess tournament, a newcomer arrives that does not eat, sleep, or feel nerves: a humming, ozone-scented machine built to play chess at the highest level. Reporter Sandra Lea Grayling has come to cover the event, expecting colorful egos and quiet battles across the board. Instead, she finds herself at the center of a contest that feels like a preview of the future. As the machine is paired against celebrated human masters, Sandra learns the brutal etiquette of tournament play, the private superstitions and rivalries of the competitors, and the subtle psychological warfare that can matter as much as any opening book. The machine calculates with relentless speed, yet it is not invincible, and each game raises unsettling questions: What, exactly, is genius - inspiration, experience, intuition, or raw computation? And what happens when a thinking tool begins to change under pressure, adapting to the tricks and feints of the people who want to prove it can never truly understand? Fritz Leiber turns the 64 squares into a tense arena where pride, obsession, and technology collide.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:21:21) Chapter 02

(00:38:48) Chapter 03

(01:01:51) Chapter 04

(01:20:15) Chapter 05

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Previous Episode

No Great Magic by Fritz Leiber ~ Full Audiobook [scifi]

January 11, 2023

•

118m

No Great Magic by Fritz Leiber audiobook.

Genre: scifi

Greta has nowhere to go and no past she can remember. Agoraphobic, amnesiac, and living like a backstage orphan, she has been taken in by a scrappy Shakespeare repertory troupe that performs in Central Park. From the safety of the dressing room and its wonderland of costumes and props, she stitches hems, fetches wigs, and watches strong personalities collide - especially Sid Lessingham, a grandstanding actor-manager with a taste for theatrical experiments, and Iris Nefer, a chillingly intense leading lady who can become Elizabeth I in a heartbeat. But on a night when Macbeth is scheduled and Queen Elizabeth appears anyway, Greta begins to suspect that the companies anachronisms are not just artistic liberties. The costumery seems to reach across centuries, the curtain itself feels less like cloth and more like a boundary, and the troupe's strange mix of accents, habits, and secrets hints at a larger game. As reality and performance blur, Greta is drawn toward a hidden conflict in which art can sway crowds - and the right scene, played at the right moment, might tilt history itself.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 1

(00:23:32) Chapter 2

(00:42:56) Chapter 3

(00:59:59) Chapter 4

(01:11:29) Chapter 5

(01:21:51) Chapter 6

(01:32:05) Chapter 7

(01:40:24) Chapter 8

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Next Episode

The Creature from Cleveland Depths by Fritz Leiber ~ Full Audiobook [scifi]

January 11, 2023

•

134m

The Creature from Cleveland Depths by Fritz Leiber audiobook.

Genre: scifi

In a near-future America where the Cold War has turned catastrophically hot, most citizens have retreated underground into vast, self-contained cities beneath places like Cleveland. Up on the scarred surface live the holdouts: independent-minded eccentrics who refuse the safety-and-control bargain of the depths. Gusterson, a sharp-tongued writer who stays topside with his wife Fay, is one of the last people the underground 'moles' still consult for raw imagination. When an underground research outfit asks for new consumer-tech concepts to keep their buried society efficient and compliant, Gusterson's brainstorm becomes reality: the Tickler, a wearable personal prodding device that does not just remind you of appointments, but nudges your moods, your habits, and your willpower. What begins as a clever productivity tool starts spreading through the subterranean world, linking user to user and quietly rewriting the boundary between helper and master. As humor curdles into dread, Gusterson and Fay find themselves caught between an insulated, gadget-hungry civilization and a creation that seems to be developing its own agenda. Leiber's novella blends satire, paranoia, and prophetic tech anxiety into a compact story about creativity, conformity, and the price of letting machines manage the human mind.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:13:21) Chapter 02

(00:29:17) Chapter 03

(00:45:14) Chapter 04

(01:06:48) Chapter 05

(01:28:54) Chapter 06

(01:35:41) Chapter 07

(01:59:40) Chapter 08

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