Liars' League

The Love Song of the Predator Drone, by Owen Booth

The Love Song of the Predator Drone MP3

Read by Henrietta Clemett

If there was one thing Mary had learned in three years in Afghanistan, it was as banal as this: Love and war are a terrible combination. Also: never get into a Chinook helicopter piloted by a drunk member of the royal family. But mainly the love thing.

Mary was as an official war artist, just like everyone else. Due to a British Council error in late 2009 hundreds of artists had been sent to the country to interpret the conflict. During the second Helmand offensive you couldn’t set up a mortar emplacement or sweep a road for mines without tripping over a mixed-media collagist or a site-specific sculptor.

What I am Without by Richard Smyth

 What I am Without MP3

Read by Adam Diggle

The dístance ín betwéen your nóse and móuth
Is gréater thán I thínk is áveráge.

I am trying to write a poem. It is difficult.

Linus comes in. He drinks coffee from a cup that has a drawing on it of a Moomintroll. He hasn’t brushed his hair. When you wake in the morning, what is the first thing you see? The face of the person you love. I see Linus’s face: crumpled, sleepily frowning. He’s often tired; he works hard. He has, I think, a brilliant mind, by the standards of his kind.

The Archive of Ivan Dragoyevich by Alan Graham

The Archive of Ivan Dragoyevich MP3

Read by Peter Noble

When I answered the phone all I heard was a succession of electronic noises:

VWUP - VWUP - KLANG!

I knew from the moment I heard those sounds that this was good news. “Callum, you genius! Tell me you’ve found something!”

I heard my friend laughing “Oh yes,” he enthused, “the entire archive. Even the lost tapes. I’m holding the original version of “Theme For The Ancient Ones” in my hand even as we speak.” There was silence down the line during which I just knew that the little bastard was triumphantly waving a reel of magnetic tape at his phone.

Duct Tape, Masking Tape, Whatever: Darren Lee

 Duct Tape, Masking Tape, Whatever MP3

 Read by Sabina Cameron

This is a story about a man who was missing something, and how he found it.

Jacob couldn’t find the remote. This was always happening to him. Although hardly a forgetful man, Jacob felt that he spent a disproportionate part of his life searching for lost things. He would absent-mindedly leave out half-finished cups of tea, to the point that in every room, including the shed, there was a beverage slowly festering.

Stories for MAN & MACHINE, Tue May 14!

The stories have been chosen for MAN & MACHINE on TUE MAY 14th!

Our five technological tales feature lovelorn laptops, winsome warheads, absent-minded pretend cyborgs, a road trip into the heart of darkness, and cthonic radiophonics. You'd have to be some sort of Luddite technophobe (or have something else really good planned) to miss it!

WINNING STORIES
What I am Without by Richard Smyth
Duct Tape, Masking Tape, Whatever by Darren Lee
The Love Song of the Predator Drone by Owen Booth
The Archive of Ivan Dragoyevich by Alan Graham
The Car Mover by Rosanna Boscawen *NEW AUTHOR*

Don't forget that the doors open at 7pm and the show starts at 7.30, that it's a fiver on the door, or that there's a brilliant literary quiz where you can win free books, plus 20% off bottles of wine all night, because that's how we roll ...

 

VENUE: Downstairs at The Phoenix
37 Cavendish Square
London W1G 0PP - nearest tube Oxford Circus
www.phoenixcavendishsquare.co.uk

Liars' League

Writers write. Actors read. Audience listens. Everybody wins.
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