Month: January 2007

Steven Gould, author of Jumper and Reflex gives away an MP3 short story

admin

Online Audio

Steven Gould, much lauded author of the recently KAMN’d novel Jumper has released his first ever sold story as two MP3 files. We like this writer, his only other audiobook release so far is Reflex, the sequel to Jumper. Read a review of that audiobook HERE.

Analog Science Fiction September 1980 issueThe Touch Of Their Eyes
By Steven Gould; Read by Steven Gould
2 MP3s – [UNABRIDGED]
|PART 1 of 2|PART 2 of 2|
Released: January 9th 2007
Originally published in Analog Science Fiction’s September 1980 issue. Read the surprising origins story surrounding this tale on Gould’s group blog: Eat Our Brains.

[Thanks to SFsignal for the tip-off]

posted by Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Challenge MET with an unabridged reading of Badge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey!

admin

SFFaudio Online Audio

Meta SFFaudio - SFFaudio Contest - Make audiobook win an audiobookPodiobooks.com has just posted the now completed audiobook of Badge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey. This means that this reading by Steven H. Wilson of Prometheus Radio Theatre is our 2nd place winner in our FIRST “Make and Audiobook, Win An Audiobook Challenge.” Steven will be contacted by email and asked which of the remaining two incentive prizes he’d liked delivered to him by mail.

In a related matter, looking over at the forums on LibriVox I note that The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper also appears to be aiming at a release in the very near future!

Steven has also informed me that Badge Of Infamy will also be uploaded to LibriVox sometime in the near future. And perhaps most exciting of all Steven writes:

“I also have some more good news on the public domain SF front: Four of my cast — Marty Gear, Cindy Woods, June Swords and Paul Balze — have all stated their intent to record an audio book for Prometheus to release in the coming year. You and I know that this is easier said than done, but I’m thrilled that there’s so much interest in my group alone, and we do have a record for finishing projects, albeit slowly sometimes. So I’m hoping to have a modest increase in freely available SF audio on the horizon.”

WOW! Let me be the first to say it then – Marty, Cindy, June, Paul, you folks ROCK!

Steven, congratulations and let me offer you a big thanks from everyone who will be enjoying Badge Of Infamy now and in perpetuity.

Badge Of Infamy
By Lester del Rey; Read by Steven H. Wilson
15 MP3s – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Podiobooks.com
Status: RELEASED (January 14th 2006)

Daniel Feldman was a doctor once. He made the mistake of saving a friend’s life in violation of Medical Lobby rules. Now, he’s a pariah, shunned by all, forbidden to touch another patient. But things are more loose on Mars. There, Doc Feldman is welcomed by the colonists, even as he’s hunted by the authorities. But, when he discovers a Martian plague may soon wipe out humanity on two planets, the authorities begin hunting him for a different reason altogether.

posted by Jesse Willis

CBC Radio One’s Writers & Company interviews P.D. James

admin

CBC Radio One Writers & CompanyCBC Radio One‘s excellent author focused show Writers & Company had a timely and in-depth interview with P.D. James on Sunday. Best known as a crime writer, James is getting some deserved attention for her novel The Children Of Men because of the current film version.

Writers & Company is hosted by the always insightful Eleanor Wachtel. I’m still dismayed that Writers & Company and Wachtel’s other progamme (The Arts Tonight) still aren’t podcast.

You can listen to this interview via RealAudio HERE (skip ahead to the 38 minute mark).

While I really appreciate that CBC is podcasting, I love it in fact, I am less than thrilled it isn’t podcasting enough. ABC Radio Australia, with a total of budget just short of $100 million, currently has more than 120 different podcasts. CBC has fewer than two dozen English language podcast programmes but has a $1.3 billion budget. Australia, with two-thirds the population of Canada, has 5 times as many podcast from their national public radio service. That’s a wonky disparity. CBC, streaming audio is passé – time for more podcasts!

posted by Jesse Willis

Hardware review of Plus Deck 2 from Axxen Co. Ltd

admin

SFFaudio Header Review

Hardware - Plus Deck 2 Audio Cassette Drive for PCsPlus Deck 2
5.25″ PC Audio Tape Cassette Drive
OS Environment: MS Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP
Manufacturer: Axxen Co. Ltd
Manufactured: 2004-2006
UPC: 8809080112120

“The PlusDeck 2 is a full-logic cassette deck for your PC. Use it to archive your old cassette tapes of 80s hair bands into digital media files for playback on your PC.”

That ain’t exactly what I planned on using it for. I originally bought the Plus Deck 2 for $192.60 CDN back in spring 2004. I had dreams of turning my old audio cassette audiobooks into CDs (now they’ll go straight into MP3s for use on my iPod). But those dreams turned into a nightmare about an hour after the thing arrived. This is due not to the hardware itself, the hardware is pretty simple to install, works very well and looks cool doing it. The problem was all with the software. The software is designed to let you control the device from an on screen interface, it does this but poorly the recording software itself is very, very buggy. Worse still, the error messages are all in Korean! Consulting the manual doesn’t help much either, the manual is in English but was translated from Korean by someone who didn’t know English very well. I thought that a lot of my problems stemmed from the fact that I had first installed it on my Win98 machine. It was supposed to work with Win98, but it didn’t, at least not on my setup. So it sat there, doing very little but looking pretty for more than 2 years. I was pissed off, $192.60 and the thing doesn’t do what it was designed for. And it isn’t like I didn’t try, I had been diligently updating with the latest software (currently at version 3.25) surfing around the web for other user’s fixes. But there was no love. I hypothesized that all the problems stemmed from some incompatibility with Win98, so I figured I do have an XP machine, but because the Plus Deck 2 will only fit into a standard 5.25″ bay I didn’t have any room for it until I swapped out my XP machine into a more capacious case. So I did it, got a new case installed everything and tried the software with WinXP. Nope, it still doesn’t work to any consistent standard of reliability. I’ve given up trying to get the Plus Deck 2 software working for recordings. Instead I’ve been using the hardware in combination with a third party’s software (Audacity 1.2.6) – this way I can get great recordings out of the hardware – but I have to be there to switch the recording off.

The Plus Deck 2 is designed to convert any audio cassette into either a digital audio MP3 or WAV. Using the third party’s software I can get great recordings out of the hardware. It can also just play cassettes, which it did on my Win98 machine as well – but it also has a neat feature not found easily elsewhere it can record any computer sound to cassette. Now I must offer a strong caveat to any person who might be interested in that last feature. I have the original Plus Deck 2. If you go out looking for a Plus Deck now you’ll want to make sure you know the difference between the Plus Deck 2 and the Plus Deck2c. The newer Plus Deck2c does everything the regular Plus Deck 2 does, except it doesn’t record sounds to cassette from the PC.

So why buy this thing at all? Well, it has a certain advantage over regular cassette to PC connections. If you can get the official software to work, I haven’t but maybe you can, the Plus Deck 2 can be set to record a file from one side or both sides of a cassette and do it virtually automatically. It will also monitor the recording for you and stop recording when the tape is done. This means you wouldn’t have to be there to watch it. In the end it also means you can turn your old fashioned audio cassette audiobooks into mp3s or CDs relatively hassle free.

posted by Jesse Willis

Shakespeare And Dragons Podcast has Worldbuilding 101

admin

Imaginary WorldsHere’s an interesting premise for a podcast: A course on the creation of Fantasy worlds. The Imaginary Worlds: Shakespeare and Dragons podcast is designed to foster, in its listeners, the techniques and methods for weaving a rich and immersive Fantasy world. The host is an English teacher who intends to use a literary approach to building a world filled with strong characterization, classic themes that will allow for functional plot structures. This is the English class you wish you had in school.

Worldbuilding Ep. 001: World of the Story |MP3|
Worldbuilding Ep. 002: Power of Tone and Emotional Effects on the Story World |MP3|
Worldbuilding Ep. 003: Economy of the World and the Needs of the Characters |MP3|
Worldbuilding Ep. 004: Objectives of Worldbuilding and an Introduction to the Designer’s Workshop |MP3|
Worldbuilding Ep. 005: Premise of Your Story World |MP3|

Want to audit the course? Subscribe to the feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ImaginaryWorldsPresents

posted by Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time Podcast tackles Life On Mars

Jesse Willis

BBC Radio 4 Podcast In Our TimeIn Our Time is a BBC Radio 4 podcast that covers the “big ideas” of our age. Each week the host, Melvyn Bragg, and three guests investigate the history of the ideas on a topic and debate their application to modern life. On offer this week is the history of Life on Mars |MP3| here’s the description

“For centuries there has been fierce debate about whether there is life on Mars and from the 19th century it was even thought there might be a system of canals on the planet. This insatiable curiosity has been fuelled by writers like H.G. Wells and C.S. Lewis and countless Sci-Fi films about little green men. So what do we know about Mars – its conditions, now and in the past? What is the evidence that there might be water and thus life on Mars? And when might we expect man to walk on its surface?”

Subscribe to the podcast:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/downloadtrial/radio4/inourtime/rss.xml

posted by Jesse Willis