A Message From Our Sponsor by Henry Slesar episode #125
Henry Slesar | October 19, 2023-
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A Message From Our Sponsor by Henry Slesar episode #125
Henry Slesar
A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
Episode #125 · Written by Henry Slesar · Narrated by Scott Miller
A Message From Our Sponsor opens with a familiar rhythm: music, advertising, routine voices filling the airwaves. Nothing seems out of place, and no one is warned. Yet almost immediately, something begins to slip. People hesitate where they once acted. Work feels irritating, unnecessary, even foolish. The shift is gradual enough to escape notice, but widespread enough to matter.
As humans lose interest in responsibility, Martian workers continue without interruption. They show up. They perform. They advance. Promotions and authority change hands not through conflict, but through indifference. The story builds tension not by asking who deserves power, but by showing how easily it is surrendered when effort no longer feels worthwhile.
Rather than focusing on rebellion or conquest, this story examines erosion. Motivation fades. Attention drifts. Decisions are postponed until they no longer belong to the people who once made them. The most unsettling question isn’t why the Martians rise—but why no one insists on staying in charge.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Henry Slesar published hundreds of short stories across science fiction, crime, and suspense, with frequent appearances in Galaxy Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. He was especially known for concise, high-concept premises that exposed social habits, media influence, and institutional blind spots.
A Message From Our Sponsor reflects Slesar’s recurring interest in systems that fail quietly. Rather than relying on catastrophe, he lets routine behavior do the damage. The story stands alongside other Slesar works that explore how modern life trains people to stop resisting—and how control often arrives disguised as convenience.
LISTEN TO THE STORY
Listen to A Message From Our Sponsor by Henry Slesar — a vintage science fiction story where routine broadcasts quietly reshape work, authority, and human will.
RELATED STORIES
Mars has always been the most familiar of alien worlds, close enough to imagine and distant enough to remain dangerous. Vintage science fiction turned the red planet into a testing ground for human ambition—an empty frontier, a dying world, or a civilization older and stranger than Earth itself.
These stories send explorers, settlers, soldiers, and scientists across the void to a place where survival is never guaranteed. Thin air, vast deserts, and abandoned cities create a landscape that is both harsh and haunting.
Whether the planet is home to ancient Martians, fragile colonies, or the last hope after Earth’s decline, Mars stories are about adaptation.
- Dwellers in Silence by Ray Bradbury
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- The Visitor by Ray Bradbury
- The One Who Waits by Ray Bradbury
- The Crystal Egg by H. G. Wells
- Never on Mars by John Wyndham
- Return of a Legend by Raymond Z. Gallun
- Message From Mars by Clifford D. Simak
- The Monsters Came By Night by Robert Silverberg
- The Martians and the Coys by Mack Reynolds
- A Zloor For Your Trouble by Mack Reynolds
- The Weapon by Isaac Asimov
- Arm of the Law by Harry Harrison
- Monster by William Morrison
- Fee of the Frontier by H. B. Fyfe
- A Message From Our Sponsor by Henry Slesar
- Two Weeks in August by Frank M. Robinson
- Duel on Syrtis by Poul Anderson
- We're Off to Mars by Joe Gibson
- Death Walks on Mars by Alan J. Ramm
- The Old Timer by Richard R. Smith
- Trainee for Mars by Harry Harrison
- The Hermit of Mars by Stephen Bartholomew
- Martian Homecoming by Frank Belknap Long
- Lake of Fire by Frank Belknap Long
- The Hated by Frederik Pohl
- The Old Martians by Rog Phillips
- The Martian Shore by Charles L. Fontenay
- Madmen of Mars by Erik Fennel
- Martians Never Die by Lucius Daniel
- What's He Doing in There? by Fritz Leiber
- Don't Look Now by Henry Kuttner
- Jonah of the Jove-Run by Ray Bradbury
- The Goggles of Dr Dragonet by Fritz Leiber
- The Foxholes of Mars by Fritz Leiber
- Alien Equivalent by Richard R. Smith
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