• X Minus One

  • Surface Tension (Dramatized)
  • By: James Blish
  • Length: 29 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (36 ratings)

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X Minus One  By  cover art

X Minus One

By: James Blish
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Publisher's summary

As the Earth is about to be destroyed by an exploding star, a scientist creates a microscopic civilization in a drop of water. Based on a story by James Blish, this episode of X Minus One originally aired on August 28, 1956.

X Minus One premiered in April 1955 on NBC and ran until January 1958. Like its predecessor series, Dimension X, X Minus One featured stories by the greatest names in modern science fiction: Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Robert Bloch, and many more.

Future past: hear more classic science-fiction dramatizations.
©2006 Radio Spirits Inc. (P)2006 Radio Spirits Inc.

Critic reviews

"[X Minus One] brought current SF to radio, providing adaptations of many excellent new stories and thus allowing the public to appreciate the best science fiction available at the time." (Michael Ashley, The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines)

What listeners say about X Minus One

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Not what I was expecting

I have read the novella this audio play is based upon several times and was disappointed that this version is severely abridged, probably to meet the limits of the radio show format it was originally produced for. Without the sections which were redacted the story loses most of its background information and is badly handicapped in its character development.

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