Welcome to the twenty-fourth in The Mark Steyn Club's series of audio adventures, Tales for Our Time - and the second in our double-bill of science fiction by Rudyard Kipling. As Easy as ABC picks up two-thirds of a century after its predecessor:
Isn't it almost time that our Planet took some interest in the proceedings of the Aerial Board of Control? One knows that easy communications nowadays, and lack of privacy in the past, have killed all curiosity among mankind, but as the Board's Official Reporter I am bound to tell my tale.
Since its comparatively straightforward operations of the transatlantic night mail, the Aerial Board of Control has expanded its jurisdiction. In this first episode, it finds itself facing a disruption of service in Illinois:
At 9.30 A.M., August 26, A.D. 2065, the Board, sitting in London, was informed by De Forest that the District of Northern Illinois had riotously cut itself out of all systems and would remain disconnected till the Board should take over and administer it direct.
Every Northern Illinois freight and passenger tower was, he reported, out of action; all District main, local, and guiding lights had been extinguished; all General Communications were dumb, and through traffic had been diverted. No reason had been given, but he gathered unofficially from the Mayor of Chicago that the District complained of 'crowd-making and invasion of privacy.'
Kipling had created the Aerial Board of Control for With the Night Mail almost as an aside, an afterthought. But seven years later, in 1912, he realized it was too good to throw away. When he published this sequel in The London Magazine, he initially set it in 2150. But, when he came to preserve it in hard covers, he chose to dial it back a bit, to the 2060s - or, for us, the day after tomorrow.
Unlike the technological preoccupations of Night Mail, in this caper Kipling is focused on the socio-cultural implications of a 24/7 connected world. The sequel's title, As Easy as ABC, is a bit of word-play - a reminder that, if ever a planet-wide institution were to grow this powerful, it would indeed be very easy for it, and extremely difficult for anyone minded to stand against it. In that respect, we note the name of Google's parent company - Alphabet - which likewise seems to find the world's affairs as easy as ABC, and indeed, as the repository of all human knowledge, is also doing a pretty good job of "killing all curiosity among mankind",
To hear me read Part One of Rudyard Kipling's return visit to the Aerial Board of Control, prefaced by my own introduction to the story, please click here and log-in.
If you're not a Mark Steyn Club member (or you are but you've never partaken of this series) you can hear what you're missing in our first-birthday Tales for Our Times sampler, a 75-minute audio special hosted by me and including excerpts from some of our ripping yarns of the last year - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, H G Wells, John Buchan, Jack London, Scott Fitzgerald and Robert Louis Stevenson. And, if it whets your appetite, you can find the above authors and a dozen more collected here.
To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - and don't forget our special Gift Membership. As soon as you join, you'll get access not only to As Easy as ABC but to all the other audio adventures listed below.
One other benefit to membership is our Comment Club privileges. So, whether you like my reading of this twenty-fourth Tale for Our Time or are minded to rate the ABC as a big Zzzzzzzz, then feel free to comment away below. And do join us tomorrow for Part Two.
For previous Tales for Our Time, click below:
#1: The Tragedy of the Korosko
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#2: The Time Machine
by H G Wells
#3: The Secret Agent
by Joseph Conrad
#4: The Prisoner of Zenda
by Anthony Hope
#5: The Cat That Walked By Himself
by Rudyard Kipling
#6: The Diamond as Big as the Ritz
by F Scott Fitzgerald
#7: The Rubber Check
by F Scott Fitzgerald
#8: A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens
#9: Plum Duff
by Mark Steyn
#10: To Build a Fire
by Jack London
#11: The Overcoat
by Nikolai Gogol
#12: The Thirty-Nine Steps
by John Buchan
#13: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson
#14: The Man Who Would Be King
by Rudyard Kipling
#15: His Last Bow
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#16: Greenmantle
by John Buchan
#17: Metamorphosis
by Franz Kafka
#18: The Scarlet Pimpernel
by Baroness Orczy
#19: Little Women at Christmas
by Louisa May Alcott
#20: The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#21: The Gift of the Magi
by O Henry
#22: Anne of Green Gables: An Unfortunate Lily Maid
by L M Montgomery
#23: With the Night Mail: A Story of 2000 AD
by Rudyard Kipling
