News – Page 105

SciFiDimensions article on Science Fiction podcasts

Thursday, October 5, 2006Saturday, March 27, 2010 Jesse Willis

SciFiDimensions is a substantive internet review and interview magazine that’s been publishing monthly since 2000.The site’s editor, John C. Snider, has just compiled a short article that talks about Science Fiction and Fantasy related podcasts. Our very own Time Traveler and his The Time Traveler Show get mention, as do Escape Pod, Pseudopod, Starship Sofa, Atlanta Radio Theater Company‘s new podcast and 7th Son Conspicuously present is the often included, but never SF, Skepticality. I love Skepticality, I truly do, but it doesn’t belong on a list of SF & F shows. If you add one really good show that isn’t SF to the list you violate your list policy. Regardless, the article is a good place to start if you don’t yet know where to start listening. Once you read it, come back here, we’ll give you the advanced course.

posted by Jesse Willis

WorldCon Fallout: Steve Eley Can’t Dance

Saturday, September 30, 2006Tuesday, March 30, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio @ Worldcon 2006

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!

posted by Jesse Willis

CBC Radio producer Joe Mahoney in an Analog Science Fiction Story

Friday, September 29, 2006Saturday, March 27, 2010 Jesse Willis

News

Joe Mahoney, CBC Radio Producer, Science Fiction writer and blogger appears as a character in Robert J. Sawyer‘s latest novel, Rollback which is being serialized in Analog Science Fiction Magazine. Joe writes:

“Rob mentions my name on pg 107 as the sound engineer in charge of Sounds Like Canada… Don Halifax stands behind me at the controls as his wife is being interviewed. Now that’s really cool. I should point out that the current, real life engineer of Sounds Like Canada is Natasha Aziz. But the interview in Rob’s novel takes place in 2009, so it’s not completely inconceivable that I could engineer the show sometime in 2009. (I used to engineer Sounds Like Canada’s predecessor Morningside from time to time.) Rob also mentions the show Faster Than Light that we attempted to develop a while back for CBC Radio.”

Cool!

posted by Jesse

The Time Machine – H.G. Wells Stories on Audible

Monday, September 25, 2006Tuesday, December 13, 2011 admin

SFFaudio News

The Commuter’s Library unabridged H.G. Wells Collected Science Fiction: The Time Machine & Stories of the Unusual is Audible.com’s Selection of the Day! That means you can get this classic title for $9.95 today.

H.G. Wells Collected Science Fiction: The Time Machine & Stories of the Unusual
By H. G. Wells, Read by Ralph Cosham
7 hours and 28 min [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Commuter’s Library
Published: 2004
Themes: / Science fiction / Time Travel / Evolution / Future /

In addition to the unabridged reading of The Time Machine this audiobook features 9 stories from Stories of the Unusual:

“The Country of the Blind” takes place in a hidden valley where it would seem that a man with sight would be king.
“The Diamond Maker” tells of a fortune that might have been.
“The Man Who Worked Miracles” recounts the problems of defying nature.
In “Aepyornis Island”, a man has a special relationship with a prehistoric bird.
“The Strange Orchid” tells of the macabre appetite of an exotic plant.
“The Cone” is a shocking story of revenge.
“The Purple Pileus” deals with a life-altering fungus.
“The Truth About Pyecraft” is a classic that explains why an overbearing fat man wears lead underwear.
“The Door in the Wall” captures the pathos of lost youth

The Commuter’s Library audio productions of the works of H.G. Wells were singled out for mention by Allan Kaster in this sffaudio interview. Cosham’s reading of The Time Machine also gets a thumbs up in a collection of reviews of various audiobook editions of The Time Machine at The Time Machine site.

The Commuter’s Library is now known as In Audio and the contents of this download are available for purchase as cassette tapes or CDs as two separate listings: The Time Machine and Strange Fiction: Stories by H.G. Wells

Posted by Moriond

Author Focus: Cory Doctorow

Monday, September 25, 2006Friday, June 18, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News

Here’s our latest Author Focus and it is on Cory Doctorow. I got to meet Cory Doctorow at WorldCon 2006 but I’ve been listening to his work for years! He’s a dynamo in real life too by the way. Cory’s an audiobook fan, so it is very appropriate for him to have as much of his fiction available in audio as he does. Being that he is also a proponent of the free culture movement it is thus doubly appropriate that all his audio fiction is available for free!

The largest collection of audio fiction comes from his podcast Craphound: The Literary Works of Cory Doctorow you can subscribe to it by using this feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

Here is a complete listing of the short works he’s podcast so far:

After The Siege
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
9 MP3s – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: September – October 2005
Mp3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|Part 6|Part 7|Part 8|Part 9|
“[After the Siege is]a novelette I’m writing on long-haul flight segments, in 2-5,000 word chunks, for an anthology of optimisitic sf stories. It’s inspired by my grandmother’s stories of living throug the Siege of Leningrad, which she told during a family reunion in St Petersburg, Russia, last summer.”

When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
9 MP3s – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: October – November 2005
Mp3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|Part 6|
“When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth [is] a new story about an apocalypse that arrives on the heels of a catastrophic Internet worm. When the trump sounds, the world’s systems administrators are all in their sealed data-centers, and so they survive the carnage.”

Anda’s Game
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Alice Taylor
3 Mp3s – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: January 2006
Mp3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part3|
“…a reading of Anda’s Game, my Nebula-Award-shortlisted story about in-game sweatshops.”

Human Readable
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
7 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: January – February 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|Part 6|Part 7|
“…the tale of a world that’s been upended by hyper-efficient planning algorithms based on ant-colony optimizations, so that Los Angeles has the best traffic in the world. However, when these networks crash, they really crash — cars, surfboards, and many other common conveyances end up catastrophically failing, with concomitant loss of life.”

I, Robot
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
5 Mp3s – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: February 2006
Mp3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|
“It’s [a novelette, that is] a riff on Asimov’s robots stories, in which only one kind of robot is allowed — I tried to use this to show how such a world would be one of universal, totalitarian Broadcast Flags, technology mandates that restrict innovation and liberty.”

Return To Pleasure Island
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
4 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: February – March 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|
“…a dark and mean fantasy story that was originally published in Realms of Fantasy…”

Nimby And The D-Hoppers
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
3 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: March – April 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|
“…the story of a deep-green alternate future that is being invaded by gun-totin’ yahoos from alternate planes of reality…”

Shadow Of The Mothaship
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
3 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: April – May 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|
“A strange, stylised Scientology/Alien-Invasion/Oedipus story.”

Home Again, Home Again
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
3 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: May 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|
“…a sequel (of sorts) to Shadow of the Mothaship … This one is the autobiography of a child raised in an alien-imposed mental institution, and the mentorship he received from The Guy Who Thought He Was Nikola Tesla.”

Super-Man And The Bugout
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
3 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: May 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|
“…a superhero story that asks what would have happened if Kal-el had landed in suburban Toronto and been raised by an old Jewish couple. It’s the conclusion of the triad of stories comprised by Shadow of the Mothaship and Home Again, Home Again, about the Canadian response to the invasion of benevolent Scientologist aliens.”

Visit The Sins
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
2 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: June 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|
“This story deals with attention deficit disorder, the effect that cognitive problems have on families, and how your mental state and your technology are intimately related.”

I, Row-Boat
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
4 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: June – July 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|
“…a story about a theological dispute between an artifically intelligent Asimov three-laws cultist and an uplifted coral reef.”

Truncat
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
3 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: August 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|
“…an indirect sequel to my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom… a parable about warez groups and Napster, about generation war and the trouble with power-laws.”

0wnz0red
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
4 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: September 2006
MP3 Files: |Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|
A Nebula award nominated short story. “a story about trusted computing, geek culture, and getting root on your body.”

Cory has also sold one story to Escape Pod:

Craphound
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Jesse Thorn
1 Mp3 File – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast:
Mp3 File: HERE
“Aliens have once again decided to visit Earth in this lighthearted romp. Rather than having conquest on their minds, they merely wish to visit, and explore. Jerry is a junk dealer, a collector, a pack rat of crap and antiques and memorabilia, depending on your point of view.”

Even before podcasting existed Cory took time to record one of his stories and post it on his website:

To Market, To Market: The Branding of Billy Bailey©
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD – 23 Minutes 37 Seconds [UNABRIDGED]
LINK: http://www.craphound.com/audio/Doctorow_-_Billy.mp3
Publisher: www.craphound.com
Published: 2001
Themes: / Science Fiction / Dystopia / Humor / Satire /

Billy Bailey was the finest heel the sixth grade had ever seen — a true artisan who kept his brand pure and unsullied, picking and managing his strategic alliances with the utmost care and acumen. He’d dumped BanginBumpin Fireworks (a division of The Shanghai Novelty Company, Ltd.) in the _fourth_ grade, fer chrissakes. Their ladyfingers were too small to bother with; their M-80s were so big that you’d have to be a lunatic to go near them.

Mark Forman’s Podcast:

Doctorow’s first novel, a Locus Award winner and a Nebula nominee. “It concerns the machinations of technologically immortals who have occupied Walt Disney World’s Haunted Mansion and who aim to preserve it from the depredations of modernizers who would renovate it.”

Voices In The Dark:

Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Sean Puckett
11 MP3 Files – Approx. 7 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
SOURCE: Voices In The Dark

A near-future science fiction tale. In a society where death has been cured, how do you deal with boredom?

posted by Jesse Willis

7th Son: Deceit Podcast Novel Launch Crashes SECOND LIFE

Sunday, September 24, 2006Saturday, March 27, 2010 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio News

According to J.C. Hutchins’ Skype message, yesterday’s Second Life launch party for his new podcast novel 7th Son – Book Two – Deceit crashed the server it was held on! Doubtless the giant clone army of listeners teleporting in that was the cause! Or maybe it was that pesky Kilroy 2.0? Congrats Hutch! I look forward to hearing the new novel when it officially syndicates on September 26th.