X Minus One: Stars Are the Styx (July 24, 1956)

By: Theodore Sturgeon - adaptation, Ray Bradbury

Narrated by: Fred Collins

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, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Robert Bloch, and many more.

Public Domain (P)2012 BN Publishing

Fun but nowhere near as good as Theodore Sturgeon’s original

It’s fun to hear the radio drama, but it’s far shorter than Theodore Sturgeon’s novella. It leaves out much, and in shortening the original work, it dumbs it down and cheapens it. Definitely still enjoyable for the nostalgia of 1950s sci fi.

Space western love triangle

The story starts promisingly with an intriguing setting, a way-station to the stars. But the setting is never explored or developed, just wasted on a silly love triangle story, with a "Western frontier" vibe. The ending takes a sudden melodramatic and needlessly violent twist to provide the action. Theodore Sturgeon usually does much better stories, so I was disappointed. This was probably a decent story before it got chopped up for radio.