The Power of the Sentence (1971).

One of the cardinal goals of The Scriblerus Club is the ability to shine a light on the efforts and creative achievements of forgotten names.  These are the artists (writers, for the most part, though there have been a handful of filmmakers in this particular group) who have fallen through the cracks of history, and are often in danger of disappearing altogether if someone doesn't draw attention to their efforts.  That's very much the case with David M. Locke.  He's someone who I know more or less nothing about.  All I've been able to discover about him is what is revealed in his author bio, and that goes as follows.  "David M. Locke is primarily a science - not a science fiction - writer.  He earned a Ph.D. and spent a year as a Fulbright fellow and five years as a research chemist before taking up writing.  So far as I can determine, this is his first story.  Surprisingly, despite his background, this is not filled with heavy science.  The only evidence of a highly trained mind comes from the meticulous care with which this tale is developed (56)".  Those words were written all the way back in 1972 by Sci Fi author and editor Lester Del Rey, as part of his editorial notes.  They were part of an anthology that he was editing way back when.  It was called Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year.  Those words also count as just about all I've been able to discover about David M. Locke.

Del Rey doesn't seem to have kept any close contact with this particular artist.  He was one of the most prolific storytellers and anthologists back during the Silver and New Wave eras in the history of Science Fiction.  His role as an editor made it essential that he keep in close contact with a long list of who's who in the field of Speculative Writing.  For whatever reason, David Locke is the one name that no one ever seems to have bothered to keep track of.  It's possible to know more about guys like Del Rey than it is this one obscure byline on a title page.  Even the scant piece of information that Locke was once (still is?) a Fulbright scholar doesn't tell us much, as its an international program attached to numerous academic institutions.  So any information about where Locke came from, what schools he went to, where he graduated from, or whether he maintained or continues in these academic settings would be so much guess work I might as well be creating a fictional character.  The only true statement I can make about him is that he is a name that has all but vanished off the literary map.  All that's left is his story about a very peculiar classroom lecture, and so I thought it might be interesting to look into it.

Vanishing Point: Doctor of the Soul (1986).

Being a fan of old radio dramas can sometimes be filled with a lot of interesting perks.  At least that's the case if you're the kind of story enthusiast who whose devotion to the world of fiction can sometimes lead you into all sorts of interesting avenues that have remained unexplored by the vast majority of the audience.  It's in wandering down all these forgotten pathways that you begin to discover all fascinating broadcast history that has fallen through the cracks.  For instance, the history of the radio drama is filled with a lot of forgotten names.  This can sometimes be a shame, because every so often you run across a writer, actor, or showrunner who for one brief moment was able to make a genuine contribution to the medium, and yet history has an often-cruel way of not remembering their achievements.  I think something like this is what happened to those now out of the way programs such as Vanishing Point.  If the name sounds at all familiar, that's because I've given the show a few moments of column space here on the Club once before.  

The whole show was very much a textbook example of the successful follow-up from a parent program.  Much the same way as the character of Frasier Crane was able to take on a life of his own after Cheers.  In the case of the show under discussion today, Vanishing Point grew out of the success of a previous Canadian Broadcasting radio entry known as Nightfall.  That earlier series was a classic example of the late-night Horror anthology.  A version of Tales from the Crypt for the theater of the mind.  It became enough of a ratings hit that eventually the CBC was ready to try and build a sister project.  This one would share the same late night anthology format as Nightfall.  Even some of its episodes would echo the previous entry in terms of genre and situation.  However, it was made clear right away that this new project wouldn't just be imitating the same ideas.  Instead, the new series was to be free to explore as much of the terrain of the fantastic as its writers wanted or felt they could get away with under a radio budget.  In other words, it didn't always have to be straight-up Horror.  Sometimes it could be Sci-Fi, Urban Fantasy, and even the occasional narratives delving into nothing more than slices of life.  It was going to be less Tales from the Crypt and more Twilight Zone for radio, in other words.

The result is a series that really seemed determined to explore as much of the range of the theater of the mind as possible.  It's an entry from this forgotten bit of Canadian broadcasting that I'd like to take a look at today.  Tonight's play is written especially for radio by David Helwig and concerns one of the greatest conundrums that mankind continues to grapple with.  So if you'll join us for tonight's journey into the unknown, I believe we're do for a most unusual appointment in a psychiatrist's office.