UPDATE! Apologies for posting the wrong episode. Everything should be hunky-dory now.
Here we go with the latest installment of our brand new Tale for Our Time - my serialization of a brace of Rudyard Kipling sci-fi stories about the protean world government, the Aerial Board of Control. In tonight's episode of As Easy as ABC, the Board's bureaucrats witness from the skies their own awesome power:
The firmament, as far as eye could reach, stood on pillars of white fire. One fell on the glowing square at Chicago, and turned it black.
'Oh! Oh! Oh! Can men be allowed to do such things?' Dragomiroff cried, and fell across our knees... The lights switched off, and the darkness stunned like an avalanche. We could hear Dragomiroff's teeth on the glass edge...
'Pardon!' Dragomiroff moaned. 'I have never seen Death. I have never seen the Board take action. Shall we go down and burn them alive, or is that already done?'
'Oh, hush,' said Pirolo, and I think he rocked him in his arms.
'Do we repeat, sir?' Arnott asked De Forest.
'Give 'em a minute's break,' De Forest replied. 'They may need it.'
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear this latest episode of our tale simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here. Paul Cathey, a Colorado club member, writes:
Mark, would it be possible to append a note to the Tales about the accompanying music. You've obviously picked each tale's bumper music with care, and I'm probably not the only one who would like to know more about it.
Thanks, Paul. The music for both Aerial Board of Control stories is by Haydn Wood, an all but forgotten composer for whom I have a special affection. In 1905 - the same year Kipling published With the Night Mail - Wood wrote a Phantasy String Quartet, which he subsequently expanded for string orchestra into a "Fantasy Concerto". We used the lovely airborne uplift of the first movement for With the Night Mail, and the second movement for As Easy as ABC. Maybe some weekend we'll do a special featuring full-length versions of the music for our various tales.
If you've a friend who might be partial to our classic fiction outings, we have a special Mark Steyn Club Gift Membership. You'll find more details here.
See you on TV in an hour, and for both a live Clubland Q&A and the conclusion of As Easy as ABC tomorrow.