SiFi Friday: X Minus One - Star Bright (April 10, 1956)

<p>"Star Bright"</p> <p>Mark Clifton's other most popular short story is "Star Bright," the first of three appearances in Horace Gold's Galaxy (July 1952), about a super-intelligent toddler with psychic powers. From Clifton's correspondence we know that Gold "editorially savaged" the story, which appeared in severely truncated or altered form. The story has been compared favorably to Kuttner and Moore's "Mimsy Were the Borogoves," which was published in Astounding magazine nine years earlier.</p> <p>X Minus One is an American half-hour science fiction radio drama series that broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various time slots on NBC. Known for high production values in adapting stories from the leading American authors of the era, X Minus One has been described as one of the finest offerings of American radio drama and one of the best science fiction series in any medium. &nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;Overview: Initially a revival of NBC's Dimension X (1950–51), the first 15 episodes of X Minus One were new versions of Dimension X episodes, but the remainder were adaptations by NBC staff writers, including Ernest Kinoy and George Lefferts, of newly published science fiction stories by leading writers in the field, including Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein, Frederik Pohl and Theodore Sturgeon, along with some original scripts by Kinoy and Lefferts. Included in the series were adaptations of Robert Sheckley's "Skulking Permit," Bradbury's "Mars Is Heaven", Heinlein's "Universe" and "The Green Hills of Earth'', " Pohl’s "The Tunnel under the World", J. T. McIntosh’s "Hallucination Orbit", Fritz Leiber’s "A Pail of Air '', and George Lefferts' "The Parade". The program opened with announcer Fred Collins delivering the countdown, leading into the following introduction (although later shows beginning with Episode 37 were partnered with Galaxy Science Fiction rather than Astounding Science Fiction): &nbsp;Countdown for blastoff... X minus five, four, three, two, X minus one... Fi