Escape Pod unleashes Paradox & Greenblatt, Attorneys at Law by Kevin J. Anderson

SFFaudio Online Audio

Escape PodEscape Pod is turning up the high heat with another powerhouse author’s short story for the second week in a row! This week tale is Paradox & Greenblatt, Attorneys at Law by Kevin J. Anderson. It was originally published in the September 2005 issue of Analog Science Fiction magazine. I’m thinking Anderson is an audio fan, he was a judge for this years’s Parsec Awards and he writes his fiction with his voice, recording his stories aloud as he hikes and then has them transcribed by an employee later! More proof, he’s sold two other top shelf tales to another genre audio fiction magazine: Rough Draft and Identity Crisis (both preliminary Nebula Award nominees), both are available via MechMuse. We just reviewed one of his unabridged novels. Listen up writers, this is how to make SFFaudio happy! All anderson need do now is release those hiking first drafts to become the audio SF’s Kwisatz Haderach!

Kevin J. Anderson erviewing the Escape Pod contractDuring WorldCon 2006 I unexpectedly captured the moment of Paradox & Greenblatt, Attorneys at Law sale! Check out this shot of Anderson (center) reading the Escape Pod contract, that’s Steve Eley on his right (in the purple shirt) and Evo Terra of the Dragon Page on his left. See WorldCon is a business expense!

EP074: Paradox & Greenblatt, Attorneys at Law
By Kevin J. Anderson; Read by J.C. Hutchins
1 MP3 File – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: October 5th 2006

A familiar time-travel premise given a new twist. A man stands accused of attempted murder for traveling back in time to prevent a conception.

WorldCon Fallout: Steve Eley Can’t Dance

SFFaudio @ Worldcon 2006

Hector with his signed iPod During WorldCon 2006 I got to meet a boatload of people I knew only through the internet or from their writing. But I also met some people I didn’t know about beforehand. One such was Hector from TheCrowsDream.com. Hector is a fellow fan of Escape Pod and I met him during one of the suite parties. He’s posted a particularily passionate entry about what the event meant to him on his blog.

Hector writes:

“Steve’s calls his podcast Escape Pod, and it has consistently delivered awesome science fiction for quite a while now. Steve pays for the stories he uses. In the beginning he only paid $20, but he is up to $100 thanks to donations from his listeners. He has been able to expand his array of readers, and to do cool things, like publishing the five Hugo nominated short stories for 2006.

When I found out that Steve was going to be at World Con, I knew that I wanted to meet him, and to thank him for his work. Jokingly, I told my one of my friends that I was going to get him to sign my iPod. I went to one of his panels, and I did it. I had Steve sign the back of my iPod. He said it made his day, and I’m glad. The trouble started when I went to the podcast party suite in the convention hotel. Don’t take me wrong, I meet the coolest people ever, but, at one point, one of the new editors of escape pod–it has an actual editor now, cool guy– introduced me to the editor of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine as “Steve’s groupie.” I didn’t like that. In my mind groupies are bellow every other level of geekdom I’ve reached, and believe me, playing Dungeons and Dragons while reading Spider Man in not as low as you can go. I know. I’ve been there, but a groupie?

As time went by conversation made me forget the new low I had achieved. The Escape Pod team is great. The party suite was filled with incredible and intelligent people, like Steve’s wife, Anna, who briefly encouraged me to go on with my Sci -Fi podcast in Spanish. She is as cool as Steve, I was beginning to see why I’d want to be a groupie, or a hanger-on, or whatever.

I was uncomfortable with the groupie thing though, I was uncomfortable because, in a way, I confess, it was true. I wanted to walk up to Steve and thank him for what he is doing. I wanted to thank him for doing something for speculative fiction out of love, not profit. I wanted to thank him for keeping me company with his podcast when I had no friends in NJ, and for filling his introductions to the show with the kind of long-gone idealism and élan only people like Robert_A._Heinlein, and Ray Bradbury seem to have. I didn’t though. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to be the weird fan-boy who makes authors feel weird, so I barely spoke when he was around.

As the night wore on, and after I met more amazing people, I saw Steve dancing. He can’t dance, but he was doing it anyway. He was standing on one foot doing the twist. For a second, I thought that he was having convulsions. And just when a clear insight about the nature of the Universe and humanity was about burst in to my mind like an explosion of shinning stars, that stupid, stupid country song about dancing by Lee Ann Womack burst in to my consciousness, and it ruined the moment.

I was in a suite surrounded by strangers. I had asked Steve to sign my iPod, and I was embarrassed. I mean, everyone greeted me as the ‘iPod guy’. But Lee Ann wouldn’t give up on me. Her twangy melodies overcame my own mental processes, and I realized what being a groupie and a fan-boy is all about. It is about taking the time to listen to what the back-bone of science fiction has to say. It’s about learning to tell stories though short fiction, and about having the guts to hold on to the values that people like Heinlein displayed so valiantly. It’s about creating something out of love, not profit. It’s about sharing your passion. It’s about doing something for your community even when you don’t know if you can do it well or if it is going to make a difference. I didn’t have to be embarrassed by my fan-boyishness. The people in the suite paid $200 plus accommodations and travel to be there. They had bleed their hearts on the page by reading it or writing it. I realized that I wasn’t the only fan boy there. Everyone else was a fan, and Steve was one of the biggest ones. Scott, the editor who called me a “groupie” turned out to be one of the nicest and friendliest people in the whole party. (Plus, he got my jokes).

I think I was embarrassed because since I was little, people–the big meanies– made fun of me for liking, no not liking, LOVING imaginary worlds. Even when I finally quit trying to be cool, and embraced my geekiness, there still was an undercurrent of shame running though me. A speck of conciseness that still wanted to be some one else, but that night, it went away. That night I didn’t care that my favorite reality show is about super heroes, or that I carry a sci-fi or fantasy book everywhere I go. I was in good company, and that’s all that mattered. The funny thing is that I saw the parts of myself that are not geeky. I saw the teacher, and the Buddhist. I saw the future husband and father, and I saw how important my choice of literature has been in my life. I saw who I am, and was okay with that.”

I’m okay with it too. There’s a bit more to Hector’s post over on his blog. Steve Eley even posted a comment that about sums up my feelings as well. We won’t be strangers next time Hector!

Worldcon 2006’s Podcasting Suite

SFFaudio @ Worldcon 2006

The Podcast Party Suite Flyer From Worldcon 2006SFFaudio wishes to send a big thank you to the hosts and attendees of the Podcasting Suite at WorldCon 2006 Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights in the Hilton’s Suite 240 in Anaheim, California. These three nights were giant blast of goodness for us. Here’s a rundown of the folks who made it all possible:

Podcast ReadySponsoring the event was Podcast Ready, a cool company which provides software that will turn any internet connection into a podcast update source. Their software resides on your MP3 player and will search out all your latest subscirptions whenever it is plugged into any USB port (whether it is your personal computer or not).

PodrunnerProviding music was DJ Steveboy from the premier podcast providing workout tunes for your weekly workouts.

Thursday Night:
The Intern et Review Of Science FictionHosted in part by Bluejack from The Internet Review Of Science Ficiton (and the podcast :: overclocked ::)

Aeon Speculative FictionAnd by Marti McKenna from Aeon Speculative Fiction.

PodiobooksAnd by Evo Terra of Podiobooks.com

Friday Night:
Escape PodFriday it was Escape Pod’s turn. The hosts were Stephen Eley, his wife and fellow narrator Anna Eley, as well as E-Pod slush pile reader Scott Janssens.

Saturday Night:
Dragon Page Cover To CoverSlice Of Sci-FiMichael And Evo's Wingin' ItEvo once again hosted a night of debauched poetry slamming. A wonderful time was had by all.

Some of the podcasting attendees at the three nights were:

Deadpan PodcastSpherical TomiJack Mangan of Jack Mangan’s Deadpan Podcast and the podiobook Spherical Tomi.

Discovered Country; Or The Adventures Of Rosemary The LibrarianNora Fleischer of the podiobook Discovered Country; Or The Adventures Of Rosemary The Librarian.

Matthew Wayne Selznick of the Brave Men Run podiobook.

Nina Kimberly The MercilessChristiana Ellis of the podiobook Nina Kimberly The Merciless

Craphound: The Literary Works of Cory DoctorowCory Doctorow from the fiction podcast “Craphound: The Literary Works of Cory Doctorow” podcast and BoingBoing.net.

The Pocket And The PendantMark Jeffrey of The Pocket And The Pendant podcast novel.

The Balticon PodcastPaul Fischer from the Balticon Podcast

SingularityBill DeSmett of Singularity podiobook.

James Patrick Kelly's Free Reads PodcastBurn by James Patrick KellyJames Patrick Kelly from The Free Reads Podcast (which released JPK’s hugo nominated novella, Burn as well as Men Are Trouble and numerous short stories).

I took a camera to Worldcon and have posted a number of the pics from the podcasting suite’s three parties into my Flickr account. I also made a general Worldcon set, click on through to see them both.

Balticon Podcast’s Exclusive Scoop: From Worldcon, The Hugo Loser’s Party

SFFaudio @ Worldcon 2006

The Balticon PodcastPaul Fischer from the Balticon Podcast has posted an exclusive podcast recorded at the Hugo Loser’s Party (AKA The Hugo Nominees party) held at LACON IV (Worldcon 2006). Paul talked to some big names, David Brin, Robert Silverberg, Cory Doctorow, James Patrick Kelly, Peter S. Beagle and Ellen Datlow

Download the MP3 HERE or subscribe to the podcast via this feed:

http://www.balticonpodcast.org/bcpc.rss

Blackstone Audiobooks to release Variable Star by Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson

SFFaudio News

Audiobooks - Blacksone Audio During Worldcon, we met up with our Blackstone Audiobooks Aquisitions Manager Haila Williams in the Hilton’s Starbucks. We chatted about the upcoming Blackstone releases, Science Fiction and Fantasy in general, the Hugo awards, and a whole lot more. It was one of the highlights of the whole Worldcon event for me. One of the questions I put to her was with regard to the upcoming release of the novel Variable Star. This will be a “collaboration” between Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson. She confirmed my hope that Blackstone will be releasing an unabridged version of it and that it will be read by Spider Robinson! This is so cool! I expect this book to make a big splash in mid-September. There’s already a website up for it HERE.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Visit Worldcon via NPR’s Weekend America

SFFaudio @ Worldcon 2006

Podcast - Weekend AmericaIt seems Weekend America (NPR) correspondent Krissy Clark dropped in at Worldcon and we’ve got the link to audio story she broadcast on Saturday August 26th. Krissy talked to panelists Nick Sagan (SF author and son of Carl Sagan), the legendary James Gunn and Paolo Bacigalupi (who was nominated for a Hugo in the Novelette category), and a few other folks.

You can listen to the eight minute segment via Realaudio HERE or you can subscribe to the Weekend America podcast via this feed (the segment can be found near the begining of hour one):

http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/rss/podcast/podcast.xml