Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Tor Books begins podcasting for Worldcon 2007

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio - Worldcon 2007

Tor, perhaps the most popular publisher of deadtree SF and Fantasy books has decided to get into podcasting. They’ve got a couple of blurbs up on the new Tor podcast website and a 22 second MP3 file in the feed. Here are the blurbs:

“Subscribe to Tor Podcasts and listen to the latest from Tor Authors and Editors, delivered right to your MP3 player.”

and

“Tor kicks off the very first of their podcasts with coverage of the Nippon2007 WorldCon from Yokohama Japan. Join Tom Doherty and Patrick Nielsen Hayden for the exciting event.”

There’s also a press release that says this:

“Tor Books, an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC–the largest publisher of science fiction in the world–is pleased to announce its first ever podcast from the 65th World Science Fiction Convention in Yokohama, Japan this August 30th – September 4th, 2007.

Tor Publisher, Tom Doherty, and Senior Editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, will podcast directly from the Nippon2007 Worldcon, marking the first time that Worldcon has ever taken place in Japan. This international podcasting event will kick off Tor’s podcasting program, which will continue with regularly scheduled podcasts on September 12th.

The daily podcasts from the convention will cover the events there, as well as interviews with notable authors and editors and perhaps a few surprise guests. These podcasts will be available for download from iTunes, Yahoo and Google, through RSS–and individuals can also tune in to them directly from the Tor website at www.tor-forge.com/podcasts.

The tor.com podcast launch heralds the beginning of several exciting digital businesses that Tor will be launching in the coming months–designed to make Tor the leading online destination for the Science Fiction community.”

Could be very cool. Incidentally, they’ve got the title of their podcast modestly listed in iTunes as “The Very Best Of Science Fiction And Fantasy” – hopefully the podcast will live up to the title’s claim.

You can subscribe to the feed via this url:

http://www.tor-forge.com/GenerateRSS.ashx?type=itunes

posted by Jesse Willis

Record your Online Audio with Freecorder

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News

Speaking of Online Audio, and we do that a lot, I thought I’d mention a new tool for recording it. Frustrated Windows Vista users especially will want to give this software a shot. While there may be easier ways to record streaming audio using Vista, I sure haven’t found one as easy as Freecorder. This is a free Firefox (and Internet Explorer) browser plugin that lets you record any sounds coming through your web browser as either a WAV or MP3. The coolest part is that Freecorder doesn’t include any of the sounds made by your regular computer usage during recording (like the sound made by emptying a recycling bin, or those pesky error message dings). I recorded all three parts of ABC Radio National’s It Just Stopped this way. I sure wish I’d have had this back when The Seeing Ear Theater files were still around. Here’s a snippet from the press release:

“Applian Technologies has just released the Freecorder Toolbar Sound Recorder, a free audio capture program for Windows Vista which restores the audio recording functionality previously available in prior versions of Windows.

Using a new driverless recording process developed by Applian, the software allows customers to capture audio as MP3 files from virtually any application or internet stream. Freecorder Toolbar is free, and available today from www.freecorder.com.”

Prior to Vista, all PCs had relatively easy access to recording web audio. But Windows Vista has severely restricted our ability to record Online Audio. Apparently this is caused by new driver signing requirement of Windows Vista. Know of a better universal workaround? Let us know!

[via Download Squad via Pocket PC Louisville]

posted by Jesse Willis

ABC Radio National’s Airplay does the surreal with a new Audio Drama

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Hurry quick! Head on over to ABC Radio National, Australia’s Public Radio service and have a listen to the streaming RealAudio or WindowsMedia audio of its radio drama program Airplay. They have just finished broadcasting a new Australian play called It Just Stopped.

As with many avant-garde and literary themed plays these days, this one uses old tropes of Science Fiction to try to spice up old mainstream literature lessons. It Just Stopped uses a passive aggressive and (utterly surreal) apocalypse, that seems composed of what philosopher David Hume might call “an end to Uniformity” as a setting for its plot. Like many of the literary plays that adopt SF themes, the focus here is on the psychological, the existential, the urban, and as a result it (and they) has no “sense of wonder” – but in this case, in its place It Just Stopped delivers an experience like that of a Henrik Ibsen staging of The Road Warrior. Yikes! It sure doesn’t sound too appealing when I write it that way, but I really dug it. Check out this, one of many, choice lines of dialogue:

“Richard Pratt does not have cardboard boxes in his soul. But I do.”

For those who really dug the CBC’s Canadia: 2056, you might look at It Just Stopped as the Australian take on the same thing (American values exposed by American characters, as filtered through foreign, but not necessarily hostile eyes). I must have listened to part three of It Just Stopped about five times. It’ll blew my mind. It’ll blow your mind. But, don’t take my word, have a listen for yourself before it all disappears – which I’m guessing will happen in just a few days…

It Just Stopped
By Stephen Sewell; Performed by a full cast
3 Parts – Approx. 90 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: ABC Radio National / Airplay
Broadcast: August 2007

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

“If the world just stops one day, how will this change what we value? What would we do to to ensure our personal survival?”

Oh yes, and FREE APOCALYPSE AL!

posted by Jesse Willis