Blake’s 7 on BBC 7

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Blake’s 7 on BBC7’s The 7th Dimension

The second one hour show of the new Blake’s 7 audio drama series has just aired!

Comments about Blake’s 7 audio drama…

“Its great that Blake’s Seven is back on the BBC. Hearing the stories as one hour blocks rather than 5 min bits is so much better!” -Kally_1978



“Very well done BBC7 for this purchase from sci-fi. And for broadcasting it in substantial one hour chunks. Thoroughly enjoyed the first episode. A very neat ‘reimagining’ (horrible word)of the origin tale. Looking forward to the next chapter.” -rosewizard



“I have to say, I was impressed. It’s played straight – none of the tongue-in-cheek nonsense that spoils so much science fiction. And I was delighted that there was some effort at scientific accuracy. The space travel element is well worked out, they don’t assume that all spaceships have artificial gravity…” -Blue_Biro



And these folks are dead-on, this show is super slick. The program shines in the 1 hour format. If you were a fan of the original tv series you’ll absolutely love this re-imagining. I hope these adventures continue past just these three shows.

Posted by Jesse Willis

ABC RN Book Show talks to Michael Chabon

Online Audio

ABC Radio NationalABC Radio National’s The Book Show had a fun interview with Michael Chabon back in early December, it’s no longer listed on the ABC site but the 38 minute file is still on the server. Host Ramona Koval talked with Chabon about his Mythopoeic Award winning novel Summerland, his new book, Gentlemen Of The Road – The Tale Of Adventure, his older “adult” novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and they even talk about his alternate history mystery The Yiddish Policeman’s Union. Get the |MP3|. Its a very rousing listen.

The Time Traveler Show – Harry Harrison’s The Velvet Glove

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Time Traveler Show PodcastHankering for vintage SF? The best way, travel back in time to the mid 1950s and pick through an overflowing newstand full of pulp goodness. Or, just let The Time Traveler Show do it for you. The latest show does just that with Michael Bekemeyer, from Scatterpod podcast, reading Harry Harrison’s The Velvet Glove – it first appeared in the November 1956 issue of Fantastic Universe!


The Time Traveler Show #22 - Harry Harrison’s The Velvet GloveThe Velvet Glove
By Harry Harrison; Read by Michael Bekemeyer
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: The Time Traveler Show
Podcast: December 28th 2007

Have a listen through the link above or give it a bit and get it through The Time Traveler Show podcast feed:

http://www.timetravelershow.com/shows/feed.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBC Radio One begins re-airing Canadia: 2056

SFFaudio News

Canadia 2056Matt Watts, long silent (hard at work), has posted some welcome news on his blog

Canadia: 2056

If you notice a complete lack of publicity surrounding a show – if you hear or read absolutely nothing at all about a particular program – the chances are that it’s premiering within a matter of days. It’s CBC Radio’s anti-publicity campaign, their ‘publicity-nouveau’ if you will. If you think about it, it really challenges the listener to ‘discover’ programming. It’s rather brilliant and progressive, actually.

“Our silence and lack of acknowledgment indicates that some thing is about to happen… Maybe.”

But, for the neophobes who can’t get on board with this whole “anti-publicity” fad, and for those who have duly noted that the CBC Program schedule says that Afghanada is still airing on the 2nd of January:

Canadia: 2056 starts airing on Wednesday. Yes, this Wednesday, January 2nd at 11:05PM, repeat on Friday January 4th at 11:30AM. The first season will run through until March, and then the second season (the episodes we’re currently writing/recording) will begin airing.

Also, for those of you enquiring about CD’s of the first season: I think it’s safe to assume at this point that they will not be available for Christmas. I’m assured that they will be available for pre-order by the time the show starts airing on Wednesday… But if you go by my convoluted logic regarding the publicity for the show – if you don’t order the CD’s at all, they will arrive on your doorstep sometime last week.

As for podcasting… Don’t even ask. It’s hopeless at this point. The idea of downloading any radio drama from the CBC website looks like it’ll probably happen around the time digital media is considered out-dated and archaic. Incidentally, I tried to get the phrase ‘now available on the compact disc format!’ on the cover of the CD’s, but they didn’t go for it.

We’re halfway through recording the new season, which I’m really enjoying writing. Although the focus is primarily the characters and their relationships, we’re pushing the SF story-lines as far as we can… For the record, if you think I’ve stolen something from either Douglas Adams or Grant Naylor, it’s an homage…

Not theft.

(Fine, I ‘borrowed’ some ideas… But at least I ADMIT IT!)”

Cool! I’ll be tuning in for the re-running of Season One. Listeners outside of Canada will have to make due with the online listening service provided through the CBC Radio One site. It really pisses me off that CBC can’t get their act together when it comes to podcasting their in-house radio drama. Its the ideal format for the stuff.

We’ll be talking more about Canadia: 2056 as Season Two approaches.

Posted by Jesse Willis

P.S. Free The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al!

Robert J. Sawyer @ audible.com

SFFaudio News

Audible.comSeven Robert J. Sawyer novels are going to be released exclusively through audible.com. Sawyer writes:

“I’ve been a very satisfied Audible.com customer since March 2001, and so I’m particularly delighted to report that Audible.com has jut bought audio-book rights to seven of my novels.”

The titles are: Calculating God, Hominids, Humans, Hybrids, Wake, Watch and Wonder. The last three there haven’t been released in print form yet.

No word on when they’ll all be released or who’ll be narrating them yet. The narrator definitely won’t be RJS though.

It’s kind of too bad they didn’t contract for his first novel (and my favorite RJS book) Golden Fleece, it’s a Hard-SF murder mystery set aboard an interstellar ship powered by a Bussard-ramjet.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Podiobooks.com’s TOP 20 for 2007

SFFaudio News

The Podiobooker Blog, the blog for Podiobooks.com, has posted the 20 most popular podiobooks of 2007. They are, in alphabetical order:


7th Son: Book 2 – Deceit
J.C. Hutchins

The Arwen
Timothy Callahan

Badge Of Infamy

Lester Del Rey


Billibub Baddings
Tee Morris

Crescent
Phil Rossi


Eastern Standard Tribe
Cory Doctorow


The Failed Cities Monologues
Matt Wallace


Forever Fifteen
Kimberly Steele


Full Share
Nathan Lowell

Half Share
Nathan Lowell

Heaven – Season 2: Hell
Mur Lafferty


Heaven – Season 3: Earth
Mur Lafferty

How to Disappear Completely
Myke Bartlett


The Immortals
Tracy Hickman

In The Service of Samurai
Gloria Oliver

Jack Wakes Up

Seth Harwood


Number One with a Bullet
Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff

Quarter Share
Nathan Lowell


Shadow Falls: Season One
Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff


The Silk Code
Paul Levinson

As you can see there’s quite a few podiobooks that still need our attention. Which of these have you enjoyed? Which have you loved? Which have you hated?

Personally, I’ve got my eye on those Nathan Lowell titles.

Posted by Jesse Willis