Programming note: please join me tomorrow, Saturday, for another edition of my weekend music show Mark Steyn on the Town. It airs at 5pm UK/6pm Western Europe/12 noon North American Eastern. You can listen from almost anywhere on the planet by clicking the button at top right here.
~Ahead of that, welcome to the seventy-ninth audio entertainment in our series Tales for Our Time. We are in our ninth season, and we've built a spectacular archive that runs the gamut from A to Z ...well, not quite, but certainly A to W - Jane Austen to P G Wodehouse.
As I discuss in my introduction, Sax Rohmer was at one point one of the biggest-selling authors in the world - and then the arbiters of our culture decided to eighty-six his most famous creation, Dr Fu Manchu. There are, in fact, a couple of Fu Manchu yarns I've thought might be right for this series, but for our first foray in Rohmerland we're setting aside the author's Far East stereotypes for his Near East stereotypes. In tonight's opening episode an English ship at Port Said in Egypt finds its disembarkation for home a little livelier than usual:
"Someone been stabbed!"
"Where's the doctor?"
"Stand away there, if you please!"
That was a ship's officer; and the voice of authority served to quell the disturbance. Through a lane walled with craning heads they bore the insensible man. Ahmadeen was at my elbow.
"A Copt," he said softly. "Poor devil!" I turned to him. There was a queer expression on his lean, clean-shaven, bronze face.
"Good God!" I said. "His hand has been cut off!"
That was the fact of the matter. And no one knew who was responsible for the atrocity. And no one knew what had become of the severed hand!
To hear me introduce and read the opening installment of The Quest of the Sacred Slipper by Sax Rohmer, please click here and log-in.
~We're still getting comments, of all kinds, on our last Tale for Our Time. The City Without Jews turned out to be, along with The Lord of the World and The Riddle of the Sands, one of our more controversial serialisations. On the one hand, Israel Pickholtz, an Israeli Steyn Clubber:
(As a Jew) I found it too much of a caricature, bordering on cringe-worthy.
On the other hand, First Week Founding Member Laurence Jarvik:
Thank you for reading this book aloud. I found it a revelation. And unfortunately relevant. Truly grateful!
On the other other hand, Jamie Street, a Steyn Club member from the Carolinas:
I quickly gave up on this Tale for our Time after the 3rd episode. No idea as to why one would choose to read a supposedly satirical tale with no discernable satire. Oh well - maybe the book choice for the 79th Tale for our Time will be a much more entertaining one.
Oh, my. Well, on that last point, feel free to click here and let us know.
~We launched The Mark Steyn Club over eight-and-a-half years ago, and I'm immensely heartened by all those SteynOnline supporters across the globe - from Fargo to Fiji, Vancouver to Vanuatu, Surrey to the Solomon Islands - who've signed up to be a part of it. As I said at the time, membership isn't for everyone, but it is a way of ensuring that all our content remains available for everyone - all my columns, audio output, video content, every movie feature and Song of the Week.
That said, we have introduced a few bonuses for our members - not locking up our regular content, which will always be free, but admitting members to a few experimental features, such as this series of audio adventures. In Tales for Our Time I revisit some classic fiction I've mentioned in books and columns over the years - old stories that nevertheless speak to our own age. Our first serialisation was The Tragedy of the Korosko by the aforementioned Arthur Conan Doyle; next came The Time Machine by H G Wells; and then The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad, and The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope. Two of those I've since updated in contemporary iterations. I always liked reading stories, and I did do a little of it professionally a zillion years ago. So, if it works, we may release them as audio books on CD or Audible a ways down the road. But for the moment they're an exclusive bonus for Mark Steyn Club members.
If you'd like to hear this Tale, all you need to do is join the Club - either for a full year or, if you suspect we're some fly-by-night shifty Canuck scamsters and you want to see how it goes, a mere experimental quarter. And, aside from Tales for Our Time, The Mark Steyn Club does come with other benefits:
~Exclusive Steyn Store member pricing on over 40 books, mugs, T-shirts, and other products;
~The opportunity to engage in live Clubland Q&A sessions with yours truly, such as this coming Wednesday's;
~Transcript and audio versions of The Mark Steyn Show and our other video content;
~Our weekend features, such as my audio adaptation of America Alone and our Saturday music show;
~Advance booking for my live appearances such as our annual Mark Steyn Cruise;
~Customised email alerts for new content in your areas of interest;
~and the chance to support our print, audio and video ventures as they wing their way around the planet.
To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - and don't forget our gift membership. It makes a perfect birthday present for anyone who enjoys classic fiction.
One other benefit to membership is our Comment Club privileges. So, if you like or dislike this Tale for Our Time, or consider my reading of it a bust, then feel free to comment away below. I weigh in on the comment threads myself from time to time, but I regard it as principally your turf, to have at it as you so desire. And do join us tomorrow for Part Two of The Quest of the Sacred Slipper.
