Perchance to Dream, Charles Beaumont
Perchance to Dream, Charles Beaumont
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

Perchance to Dream
Selected Stories

Author: Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury

Narrator: Paul Boehmer, Gabrielle de Cuir, Harlan Ellison, Alex Hyde-White, Arthur Morey, John Rubinstein, Stefan Rudnicki, various narrators

Unabridged: 12 hr 20 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/02/2016


Synopsis

The profoundly original and wildly entertaining short stories of a legendary Twilight Zone writerIt 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.

About Charles Beaumont

Charles Beaumont worked undercover as an MI6 operative in war zones, on diplomatic missions and in international business. His work spanned two decades and four continents. A Spy Alone is his first novel.

About Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury, who died in 2012 at the age of ninety-one, inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

About William Shatner

William Shatner played Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise on Star Trek from 1966 to 1969 and in seven Star Trek movies. He also played Police Sergeant T.J Hooker, from 1982 to 1986, and has worked as a musician, producer, director, and celebrity pitchman, recently for Priceline.com. He has won two Emmys and a Golden Globe for his role as attorney Denny Crane on the TV drama Boston Legal.

About Paul Boehmer

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.

About Gabrielle de Cuir

Gabrielle de Cuir is a Grammy-nominated and Audie Award-winning producer whose narration credits include the voice of Valentine in Orson Scott Card’s Ender novels, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan, and Natalie Angier’s Woman, for which she was awarded AudioFile magazine’s Golden Earphones Award.  She lives in Los Angeles where she also directs theatre and presently has several projects in various stages of development for film.

About Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison has won the Edgar, Hugo, and Nebula awards for his speculative fiction. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

About Alex Hyde-White

Alex Hyde-White is an actor and a producer of two films and hundreds of audiobooks thru his label Punch Audio.

About Arthur Morey

Arthur Morey has recorded countless audiobooks, including titles by such authors as M. Scott Peck, John Updike, Richard Russo, Anne Tyler, and John Irving. He attended Harvard and the University of Chicago and has taught performance and writing at Fordham, Northwestern, and the Art Institute of Chicago.  Arthur has appeared in a host of off-Broadway and off-Loop productions.  He has won three AudioFile Magazine 'Best Of' Awards: in 2011 for BIOGRAPHY & HISTORY, in for History & Historical Fiction, and in 2009 for Nonfiction & Culture.  His work has also garnered multiple AudioFile Earphones awards, and he has been nominated for an Audie Award.

About John Rubinstein

Kevin Baker is the author of one previous novel, Sometimes You See It Coming, and served as chief historical researcher for the recently published The American Century by Harold Evans. He is married and lives in New York City.John Rubenstein won a Theater World Award, a Tony, and a Drama Desk Award for his performances in Pippin and Children of a Lesser God.

About Stefan Rudnicki

Stefan Rudnicki is a Grammy-winning audiobook producer and an award-winning narrator who has won several Audie Awards and been named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices. Stefan’s early singing career included choral and solo concerts at Carnegie Hall, Judson Hall, and Lincoln Center.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Eloy

Tal vez soñar(relato) - Charles Beaumont "Dicen que los sueños solo duran un par de segundos —dijo—. No sé si eso es cierto o no. No importa. Parecen durar más. A veces he soñado toda una vida. A veces han pasado generaciones. De vez en cuando, el tiempo se detiene por completo. Un instante helado, q......more

Goodreads review by Tristan

Known primarily for his work on Rod Serling’s ‘The Twilight Zone’, Charles Beaumont’s life and writing career was cut short at the age of 38 by a then mysterious illness, which now is deemed highly plausible to have been early onset Alzheimer’s. At time of death, it has been reported that he looked......more

Goodreads review by Sandy

If the name "Charles Beaumont" strikes a familiar chord with you, it is likely because you have seen that name in the opening or end credits of any number of popular entertainments. Beaumont was the screenwriter for the 1958 sci-fi shlock classic "Queen of Outer Space," "The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao," and......more

Goodreads review by Sam

Charles Beaumont was a writer on the original Twilight Zone TV show who also wrote weird/fantastic short stories which are collected in Perchance To Dream. It’s easy to see why Beaumont isn’t nearly as famous as Richard Matheson, another Twilight Zone writer, because his stories are TERRIBLE. The co......more


Quotes

“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 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

“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