It’s time to kick-off a week of story-telling in voice, brought to our virtual lives by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s Second Life home at Bradley University, unless otherwise indicated.
Sunday, September 25th
13:30: Tea Time at Baker Street
Tea-time at Baker Street returns for the summer, featuring a new location – 221B Baker Street at the University of Washington iSchool in Second Life. Caledonia Skytower, John Morland and Kayden Oconnell invite you to join them as they return to what is quite possibly the most famous of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works, and present their fourth reading from The Hound of the Baskervilles.
The third full-length novel written about Sherlock Holmes, this is likely to be the one Holmesian story which – at least in outline – known to most, whether or not they have actually read any of Holmes’ adventures.
But how many of us know the story as it was originally written? Over the decades it has been adapted for film and television more than 20 times, starting as early as 1914/15 with the 4-part series, Der Hund von Baskerville, and continuing on through to Paul McGuigan’s The Hounds of Baskerville, featured in the BBC’s brilliant Sherlock series.
All of these adaptations have offered their own take on the tale. Some – such as McGuigan’s, have simply taken the title of the story and used it to weave a unique tale of their own; others have stayed true to the basics of the story whilst also adding their own twists and turns quite outside of Conan Doyle’s plot in order to keep their offering fresh and exciting to an audience.
So why not join Cale, John and Kayden as they read from the 1902 original, and discover just how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle unfolded this apparently supernatural tale of giant hounds and murder, and the pivotal role played by John Watson himself?
18:00: Magicland Storytime
It’s a Small World of Folktales at The Golden Horseshoe in Magicland Park with Caledonia Skytower.
Caledonia continues a journey around the globe, beginning with her feet wet from Pacific waters and heading west – surfing with the Sun through stories from different lands. THIS WEEK: The Americas!
Monday September 26th, 19:00: A Spectre is Haunting Texas
Gyro Muggins reads Fritz Leiber’s 1969 novel telling of a world in which Texas had secretly run the United States from 1845 through until the Third World War, after which the former state conquered the entire North American continent.
Of it was never given out to the general public in the states, who never had no brains or guts nohow & flustered easy, that this assumption of leadership was annexation–but it was always known to the Speaker of the House & the senators who counted in Washington that secretest treaty Texas was boss…With the coming of the 3rd World War & the atomization of Washington, New York, San Francisco & so forth, secrecy became unnecessary.
Now, Scully Christopher Crockett La Cruz an actor, fortune seeker and adventurer from the isolated orbital technocratic democracies of Circumluna & the Bubbles Congeries, has arrived in what he believes to be Canada. He’s come to reclaim family mining interests, but finds Canada is now N. Texas, ruled over by primitive, backslapping, bigger than life anti-intellectual “good ol’ boys” convinced of their own moral superiority.
Tuesday September 27th, 19:00: Selections from The Outlander
Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series started by accident when she decided to sit down and writer a novel “for practice” in the late 1980s, and to learn what is required to write a good book and whether she had the capacity to become a writer.
Published in 1991 as Cross Stitch in the UK and Outlander in North America, that first “practice” novel went on to spawn an entire set of novels – and a television series as well.
Caledonia Skytower reads selections from Outlander, which follows British Army Nurse Claire Randall who, after the end of World War Two goes on a second honeymoon to Scotland with her historian husband Frank.
Whilst visiting a set of standing stones, Claire hears a strange buzzing, faints, and awakes in the Scotland of the 1740s, where first she encounters Captain Jack Randall, an ancestor of her husband, and then a band of Scots which includes the dashing James Fraser, who presents Claire with an unexpected romantic attraction. Thus, whilst trying to find her way back to her own time, Claire in thrust into the turmoil of the Jacobite movement, find her self caught in Fraser’s love for her, and more besides.
Outlander will also be the subject of a Book Discussion at Community Virtual Library central, at 17:30 SLT on Wednesday, September 28th.
Wednesday September 28th, 19:00: TBA
Check the Seanchai Library blog for updates.
Thursday, September 29th, 19:00 From the Shadows – Tales that Haunt
With Shandon Loring in both Second Life and Kitely (check Seanchai Library’s Kitely event announcements for specific grid location details).
Please check with the Seanchai Library SL’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule.
The featured charity for September-October is Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF), a childhood cancer foundation dedicated to raising funds for research into new treatments and cures for all children battling cancer.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 