Category: Online Audio

Streets Of Staccato: Interview with The Zombie Astronaut

Jesse Willis

Aural Noir: Online Audio

Streets Of StaccatoThe latest episode of Streets Of Staccato podcast, is a short interview with W. Ralph Walters (aka The Zombie Astronaut)!

The mastermind behind SOS is Victor Gates, he asks ZA about the original Zombie Astronaut blog (which was totally awesome by the way) and his inspiration for his terrific podcast spin-off, The Frequency Of Fear (and the FOF-lite). Apparently FOF was inspired by an offhand email by a certain genius named Jesse Willis. Score!

As for Streets Of Staccato podcast, it too is a spin-off, this time of the Frequency Of Fear. SOS features the titular mustachioed douche, Sergeant Staccato, and his crew of fellow cops. Really the show is much like an audio drama version of Sledge Hammer!, a total parody of those “cop on the edge” dramas that started with Dirty Harry. Staccato, though, is more like a cop off the edge, down on t.

The interview also gives us the straight poop about the voice acting phenom named Elie Hirschman, he who voices Sgt. Staccato. Have a listen.

|MP3|

Podcast feed:

http://streetsofstaccato.com/podcasts-only/rss2.aspx

Posted by Jesse Willis

Prometheus Radio Theatre: Night Train Through Maco

Steven

SFFaudio Online Audio

Prometheus Radio TheatreAfter months of single-voice readings, Prometheus Radio Theatre returns this week to what it does best: full-cast audio drama.  “Night Train Through Maco” is a post-Hallowe’en treat I based on a ghost story from my family’s home state, North Carolina.  For over a hundred years, travelers in the area of Maco Station reported seeing a light hovering over the railroad tracks near a swamp where a terrible crash had killed a conductor named Joe Baldwin.  In this short dramatization, we work in a little Southern history and a little turn-of-the-century (that’s the 20th Century!) melodrama, as a young couple on the run are pursued by her murderous suitor, and haunted by the conductor’s ghost.   Heather Scheeler and Ethan Wilson turned out some very lively and believable performances for this, and we really had an opportunity to let sound tell a story as we moved through runaway train cars, swamps, and dark and stormy nights.

|MP3|

Podcast Feed: http://prometheus.libsyn.com/rss

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Steven H. Wilson

The Moth: The Undertaker’s Daughter

elainewillis

SFFaudio Online Audio

The MothLike a little humour? A good speaker? A short podcast? A surprise ending? You HAVE TO LISTEN to this The Moth Podcast by Jeffery Rudell: The Undertaker’s Daughter from 2003. It is ostensibly about a youth losing his childhood because of “Mr. Stiffie” in Small Town, U.S.A. on Hallowe’en night. In its just under 18 minutes it is set in the mind of an adolescent and in a mortuary. For those of you unfamiliar with The Moth, stories are presented live and without notes. I was, and this will be of more interest after you listen, introduced to this podcast at a funeral by my cousin, Malcolm McColl. It is now at the top of my favourites – and not just because my attention span is shortening in my advancing years. Listen and enjoy!

|MP3|

Podcast feed:

http://feeds.themoth.org/themothpodcast

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Elaine Willis

SFBRP: Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast Episode #110, of the Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, is a review of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s Slaughterhouse 5. Not so long ago I encouraged the host, Luke Burrage, to listen to a few audiobooks as a supplement to his paper and ebook reading. Now, whether he knows it or not, he’s become addicted to the medium. Indeed, check out his gushing admiration for the Blackstone Audio edition of Slaughterhouse 5 |READ OUR REVIEW|. It’s fun to hear just how much fun Luke is having talking about this book.

Luke uses the 5 star rating system. I am not generally a fan of scoring reviews in such a fashion, but it can be illuminating, at least to some degree if you personally know the reviewer. I’ve listened to Luke’s podcast, and he’s reviewed more than 100 SF books. Only two out of more than 100 have garnered a “5 out of 5 stars” rating. One of them is Slaughterhouse 5. Have a listen |MP3|.

Here’s the SFBRP podcast feed: http://www.sfbrp.com/?feed=podcast

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Eric Brighteyes by H. Rider Haggard

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxBack in April my friend Brian Murphy wrote a wonderful essay generally extolling the virtues of Viking Age Fantasy, and particularly recommending H. Rider Haggard’s Eric Brighteyes as one of the best of the genre. Here’s a taste:

“…I would unhesitatingly declare it [Eric Brighteyes] among the finest works in the genre, better than [Bernard] Cornwell and at least as good as [Poul] Anderson’s best. It may not be as much a household name as Haggard’s more famous works King Solomon’s Mines and She, but it’s nevertheless rightly considered a classic in some quarters and one of Haggard’s best.”

The entire in-depth review can be read over on The Cimmerian. And if you’re looking for more of Lancelot Speed‘s wonderful illustrations (like the one I used for the art below), check out Archive.org’s scan of the 1891 edition HERE. It is wonderful!

LIBRIVOX - Eric Brighteyes by H. Rider HaggardEric Brighteyes
By H. Rider Haggard; Read by Brett W. Downey
33 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 10 Hours 17 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 2, 2010
Eric Brighteyes is the title of an epic viking novel by H. Rider Haggard, and concerns the adventures of its eponymous principal character in 10th century Iceland. Eric Thorgrimursson (nicknamed ‘Brighteyes’ for his most notable trait), strives to win the hand of his beloved, Gudruda the Fair. Her father Asmund, a priest of the old Norse gods, opposes the match, thinking Eric a man without prospects. But deadlier by far are the intrigues of Swanhild, Gudruda’s half-sister and a sorceress who desires Eric for herself. She persuades the chieftain Ospakar Blacktooth to woo Gudrida, making the two men enemies. Battles, intrigues, and treachery follow. First published in 1890.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4317

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to Theresa L. Downey and Diana Majlinger ]

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Hate Disease by Murray Leinster

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxHere’s a promising sounding novella from my buddy Gregg Margarite and LibriVox.org. It’s set in the same universe and features the same characters as one I just posted about. Murray Leinster’s interstellar medical hero Dr. Calhoun and his semi-sentient furry companion Murgatroyd are a fun pair and so while listening to the start of this one I was reminded of one of my favourite public domain audiobooks, Dr. Alan E. Nourse’s Star Sugeon |READ OUR REVIEW|. Thinking about that got me to thinking about the amount of medical Science Fiction out there. There’s probably a lot more than I know about. One other public domain audiobook I can think of off the top of my head is Lester del Rey’s Badge Of Infamy.

It’s a solid one!

And then, expanding beyond the public domain, I thought about Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain |READ OUR REVIEW|. Given how much I enjoy it I’m thinking medical Science Fiction should be a lot more prominent in my reading than it actually is. But I don’t see a lot of NEW medical SF out there. What gives? Is medical SF just too hard to write now? Or must one be, like Nourse and Crichton, both a physician and a writer to write consistently write convincing medical Science Fiction?

Until I figure it out I’ve got this one…

LIBRIVOX - The Hate Disease by Murray LeinsterThe Hate Disease
By Murray Leinster; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 M4B, 2 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 2 Hours 2 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 28, 2010
Dr. Calhoun and his pet tormal Murgatroyd work for the Interstellar Medical Service making routine public health inspections on far-flung colonial planets. When they reach Tallien Three they are greeted with a rocket attack by the Paras, a mutated form of human rapidly replacing the “normals”. The normals think it’s a pandemic of demonic possession but Calhoun has his doubts. If he can keep from turning into a Para, or being assassinated by them he just might figure this thing out. First published in Analog Science Fact & Fiction August 1963.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4839

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to Betty for prooflistening!]

Posted by Jesse Willis