Category: Events

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home at Holly Kai Park, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, May 26th, 13:30: Tea-Time at Baker Street

Tea-time at Baker Street returns and opens the covers of His Last Bow.

A 1917 anthology of previously published Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the volume originally comprised seven stories published by The Strand Magazine between 1908 and 1917. However, later editions of the book saw an eighth story included, The Adventure of the Cardboard Box, originally published in 1892. This week sees Holmes and Watson engaged upon The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans.

Despite his frequent appearances in various television series depicting the life and times of Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes only appears, or is mentioned, in just four of Conan Dyole’s tales, this being one of them – actually the one which marked his final appearance in the original canon.

The adventure starts when Mycroft visits Holmes about missing submarine plans and a dead man. The latter is Arthur Cadogan West, formerly a young clerk in a government office at the Woolwich Royal Arsenal, who was found dead next to the London Underground tracks near Aldgate tube station, his head apparently crushed by a passing train. The plans for the Bruce-Partington submarine were found on his body – with three pages missing. Mycroft’s concern is that they’ve been taken by enemies of the Crown.

Not only is there the mystery of the missing pages for the submarine plans, there is much about Arthur Cadogan West’s death which does not add-up; why, for example, was he carrying top-secret plans about his person while apparently due to visit the theatre with his fiancée? Why is there no Underground ticket about his body? Did he manage to travel the service without a ticket, or did someone take it? If the latter, why?

Holmes responds to his brother’s request for help on behalf of the British government – noting to Watson along the way that Mycroft actually is the British government – and thus the adventure begins.

With Da5id Abbot, Elrik Merlin, Kayden Oconnell, and Caledonia Skytower.

Monday, May 27th 19:00: Paper Mage

Gyro Muggins concludes Leah R. Cutter’s 2003 début novel.

Set in the Tang Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom (about the time of Charlemagne in Europe), the novel tells us of the adventures of Xiao Yen, a young woman training to become a paper mage, a sorcerer with the power to endow folded creations with the semblance of life.

Because her gifts are in demand for the protection they can offer, Xiao Yen must leave behind her beloved family and their village home and embark on a dangerous mission when she is hired to protect a caravan. Yet even as she departs, she has no idea that this looming adventure will shape the very woman she is to become.

The story follows two timelines, alternating chapters between the caravan journey, where one of her fellow travellers is a goddess who charges her with a dangerous quest, and the story of her childhood training, when she lay caught between her aunt’s plans and her mother’s plans to have her married off.

Tuesday, May 28th  19:00: Crenshaw

In her first novel after winning the Newbery Medal, Katherine Applegate delivers an unforgettable and magical story about family, friendship, and resilience.

Jackson’s parents are in serious financial trouble; their stressful circumstances are taking a toll on Jackson. Mum and dad remain cheerful and upbeat, putting on a happy face for their kids, but Jackson is not fooled. He knows times are bad and, whether he likes it or not, Crenshaw the giant cat is here to help him through the worst of it.

Crenshaw is not only very large, he’s both outspoken and imaginary. He has come back into Jackson’s life to help him. But is an imaginary feline enough to save Jackson and his family from losing everything?

Author Katherine Applegate proves in unexpected ways that friends matter, whether real or imaginary.

With Caledonia Skytower.

Wednesday, May 29th 19:00: 14 Years of 100-word Stories

Story writer, story-teller, commentator, raconteur – Crap Mariner is all of these, and more. On May 31st, 2005, after being inspired by both a friend and Woody Allen to write 100-word stories  – or “dabbles” – Crap created the 100-word Story podcast, promising to write a story a day until the day he dies.

Fourteen years on, Crap is still writing  – and still reading his stories in what is quite probably the longest-running daily podcast of original material in the world.

Seanchai Library is therefore delighted to host the 14th anniversary of the 100-word story podcast, with Crap reading more of his stories, which will cover a wide range of topics, just like his podcasts. There might even be a George the Pirate story or two 🙂 .

Thursday, May 30th

19:00: Thor The Mighty Adapted by Elizabeth Rudnick

Asgard’s greatest warrior, the mighty Thor, has vowed to protect the mortals of Earth with his legendary hammer Mjolnireven from his trickster brother, Loki!

With Shandon Loring. (Also in Kitely grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI).

21:00: Seanchai Late Night

Contemporary Sci-Fi Fantasy from such on-line ‘zines as Lightspeed, Escape Pod and Clakesworld. With Finn Zeddmore.

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home at Holly Kai Park, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, May 19th

13:30: The Lighter Side

“Spring is sprung, the grass is riz” as the old verse goes – and many of us even know where the birdies is (quite a few of them outside my bedroom wind joyfully getting into tune at 4:30am in preparation for greeting the sun when it makes rises over the horizon!). So, with this in mind, Seanchai Library is taking a break from mysteries and murders, and leaving the crowded noise streets around 221B Baker Street behind.

Instead, Da5id Abbot, Savannah Blindside, and Caledonia Skytower, it a dive into the works of Hector Hugh Munro (aka Saki), the 19th – early 20th century English satirist and playwright, best known for his witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories poked wry fun at Edwardian society and culture.

Initially working as a journalist, H.H. Munro started to write his historical study The Rise of the Russian Empire in the 1890s. However, work on that was slow-going, so he turned to short stories as a means of earning his keep and hit immediate success with Dogged (1899) and a couple of political pieces. This led him to a political satire partnership with illustrator Francis Carruthers Gould and his first use of the pseudonym Saki with The Westminster Alice. Taking its lead from Alice in Wonderland, this series of vignettes poked fun at leading political figures in the UK, and was well-received (and many of his descriptions of politicians still hold true today: “Have you ever seen an Ineptitude?” his Alice asks in describing Arthur Balfour, the then British Prime Minister – to which many of us today could probably say, “sadly yes, the House of Commons appears to be a shelter for Ineptitudes….”, but I digress!).

For this session the Seanchai Library team present a garden buffet of Saki’s tales, including:

• The Remoulding of Groby Lington.
• The Match-Maker.
• Hermann the Irascible – A Story of the Great Weep.
• Mrs. Packletide’s Tiger.
• The Stampeding of Lady Bastable.
• The Sex That Doesn’t Shop.

18:00 Magicland Storytime

Caledonia continues Ian Flemming’s classic children’s tale Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: the Magical Car from the Golden Horseshoe.

Monday, May 20th 19:00: Paper Mage

Gyro Muggins reads Leah R. Cutter’s 2003 début novel.

Set in the Tang Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom (about the time of Charlemagne in Europe), the novel tells us of the adventures of Xiao Yen, a young woman training to become a paper mage, a sorcerer with the power to endow folded creations with the semblance of life.

Because her gifts are in demand for the protection they can offer, Xiao Yen must leave behind her beloved family and their village home and embark on a dangerous mission when she is hired to protect a caravan. Yet even as she departs, she has no idea that this looming adventure will shape the very woman she is to become.

The story follows two timelines, alternating chapters between the caravan journey, where one of her fellow travellers is a goddess who charges her with a dangerous quest, and the story of her childhood training, when she lay caught between her aunt’s plans and her mother’s plans to have her married off.

Tuesday, May 21st  19:00: Kaleidoscope

When a brilliant young violinist dies in a horrific accident, Madame Karitska has only to hold the victim’s instrument in her hands to perceive the shocking truth. But when an insecure wife asks whether her husband will abandon her to join a sinister cult, Madame Karitska–as wise as she is lovely–chooses not to reveal all that she foresees. And when an attaché case is suddenly dropped into her lap by a man fleeing a crowded subway, she knows it’s time to consult her good friend Detective-Lieutenant Pruden.

A nine-year-old accused of murder, a man dying a slow death by witchcraft– for the hunted and the haunted, Madame Karitska’s shabby downtown apartment becomes a haven, where brilliant patterns of violence, greed, passion, and strange obsessions mix and disintegrate with stunning, kaleidoscopic beauty.

With Caledonia Skytower.

Wednesday, May 22nd 19:00: TBA

Check the Seanchai Library website for updates.

Thursday, May 23rd 19:00: Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Cave Girl

Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones was not overly courageous. He had been reared among surroundings of culture plus and ultra-intellectuality in the exclusive Back Bay home of his ancestors. He had been taught to look with contempt upon all that savoured of muscular superiority, such things were gross, brutal, primitive. It had been a giant intellect only that he had craved, he and a fond mother, and their wishes had been fulfilled. At twenty-one Waldo was an animated encyclopaedia, and about as muscular as a real one.

And so we are introduced to Mr. Smith-Jones, the unlikely hero of this novel, set within Burroughs’ Lost World series. Swept overboard during a during a South Seas voyage intended to ease his ill-health, Waldo finds himself carried ashore on a primitive jungle island, where all his book learning can’t help him survive, particularly in the face of the terrifying ape-like throwbacks to mankind’s early evolutionary history who live on the island, and from whom he continually flees.

And then he encounters – rescues, even, albeit mistakenly – Nadara, the titular cave girl. Regarding him a hero, she teaches him the arts of survival and her primitive language, taking him back to her tribe – who turn out to be Palaeolithic cave people. If he is to stay among them, Waldo must prove his worth by fighting the strongest. He opts to flee instead.

However, as he spend more time in the jungle, gaining in strength thanks to Nadara’s teachings, he finds himself unable to put her out of his mind. So much so that when a ship finds the island, he refuses passage aboard her. Instead, more sure of himself than at any point in his life, he sets out to find the cave girl who believes he saved her.

With Shandon Loring. (Also in Kitely grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI).