Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

Short Science Fiction Collection 045.Science Fiction is speculative literature that generally explores the consequences of ideas which are roughly consistent with nature and scientific method, but are not facts of the author’s contemporary world. The stories often represent philosophical thought experiments presented in entertaining ways. Protagonists typically “think” rather than “shoot” their way out of problems, but the definition is flexible because there are no limits on an author’s imagination.Featured on Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Child of the Dawn by Arthur Christopher Benson.Ready to explore the depths of the human mind and soul? This book explores the themes of morality, spirituality, and the search for meaning in a chaotic world. Benson ponders the deeper questions of life and existence from his own experiences.Featured on Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Underground Man by Gabriel Tarde.This post-apocalyptic novella tells the story of the downfall of civilisation and mankind following a solar cataclysm in the late 20th century. To survive, the remnants of humanity had to build a new civilization underground in the complete absence of all species except mankind, choosing to base it only on love and beauty, the fine arts and intellectual pursuits. In view of the sun's current inactivity, this frighteningly prophetic tale might have been written today, saving that the cultural references and the fluid prose might be beyond, if one dares say so, many modern writers. Tarde was a French sociologist, criminologist and social psychologist. This novella was, as far as I know, his only venture into the writing of fiction, and is heavy with philosophical, sociological, scientific and even political concepts. It is an absorbing and thought-provoking work.Featured on Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Red One by Jack London.Famous American author Jack London brings us four more tales of adventure. "The Red One" is the story of an explorer who tangles with cannibals to discover a mysterious artifact of possible otherworldly origins, "The Hussy" and "Like Argus of Ancient Times" are both adventurous stories of quests for gold, and "The Princess" is a rousing tale of adventure on the high seas.Featured on Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Earth's Enigmas by Charles G. D. Roberts.Most of the stories in this collection attempt to present one or another of those problems of life or nature to which, as it appears to many of us, there is no adequate solution within sight. Others are the almost literal transcript of dreams which seemed to me to have a coherency, completeness, and symbolic significance sufficiently marked to justify me in setting them down. The rest are scenes from that simple life of Canadian backwoods and tide-country with which my earlier years made me familiar.Featured on Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad.A young untested ship captain finds a man named Leggatt clinging to the side of his ship. The Captain makes the unusual decision to hide Leggatt in his quarters. What is he thinking?Featured on Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Shadow-Line (Version 2) by Joseph Conrad.In this engaging and well-crafted novella, an older man recalls how a combination of obscure personal impulses and diabolical co-incidences marked his own difficult passage as a young ship's officer across that invisible "shadow line" that separates the last days of carefree youth from the taking up of full adult responsibilities.Featured on Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Mirror of the Sea (Version 2) by Joseph Conrad."Here speaks the man of masts and sails, to whom the sea is not a navigable element, but an intimate companion. The length of passages, the growing sense of solitude, the close dependence upon the very forces that, friendly to-day, without changing their nature, by the mere putting forth of their might, become dangerous to-morrow, make for that sense of fellowship which modern seamen, good men as they are, cannot hope to know." In this volume of essays, more than in any other single work, we get to see clearly just what Joseph Conrad's years working on sail-powered ships meant to him — and they certainly meant a great deal to him, for all Conrad's subsequent fretting that he might be typed as "only" a writer of the sea.Featured on Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad.Classic shortish story by Conrad that relates his self-thought alienation from British society, as a young foreign man survives a shipwreck off the coast of Kent, England only to be shunned by most of the townsfolk. The one exception is the loving, if dull-witted, Miss Foster.Featured on Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.

Tales of Unrest (version 2) by Joseph Conrad.A brave Malay chieftain suffers from a surprising vulnerability. After giving birth to a series of unfortunate children, a farmer's wife is determined to bear no more. A spoonful of sugar brings a neophyte ivory trader to a moment of Nietzschean self-realisation. A pompous ass discovers that his wife has run off with another man. Secluded in an eerie lagoon, a Malay carries a guilty secret in his heart. "Tales of Unrest" was the first volume of short fiction Joseph Conrad published in his own lifetime. While some of these tales evoke the settings of Conrad's earliest novels, others clearly anticipate elements of Conrad's subsequent masterworks "Heart of Darkness" and "The Secret Agent".Featured on Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.Public-domain recording courtesy of LibriVox (librivox.org).This episode includes AI-generated content.