Online Audio – Page 143

BBC4 & RA.cc: Stephen Fry – In The Beginning Was The Nerd

Monday, October 19, 2009Monday, October 19, 2009 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

I’ve been enjoying quite a lot of Stephen Fry on television lately. He’s been following in the footsteps of Douglas Adams in the recent series Last Chance To See, doing an autobiographical examination of a fascinating disorder in Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive and criss-crossing the USA in Stephen Fry in America. But the programme that I’ll draw your attention to is a very nice hour long documentary that aired on BBC Radio 4 a couple weeks back. I picked it up through RadioArchive.cc, and I recommend you do the same.

Fry brings quite a bit to the show, delving back into computer history, talking about Alan Turing (and how that connects to where the Apple company’s logo came from), sliding tangentially into Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Karel Čapek’s Rossum’s Universal Robots, E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops and plenty more besides. The “Y2K disaster” seems more and more relevant these days, not because of the disaster itsel (which didn’t happen) but rather because the fixity of poorly informed media opinion is more and more likely despite our increasing ability to digitally record and rehash our poor predictions. We just don’t do it – except with programmes like this!

Stephen Fry – In The Beginning Was The Nerd
By Stephen Fry
1 Broadcast – Approx. 56 Minutes [DOCUMENTARY]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: October 5, 2009
The Western world, with a few notable exceptions, poured billions of dollars into electronic pesticides to defeat the Y2K bug. Only to find that for the most part it could have been defeated by turning the systems off then on again. So, why the silence when the bug didn’t bite? The answer’s in the programme. Politicians, experts and businessmen all profited in status or cash from the threat. In the media – to paraphrase the crime reporters – it bled so it led. In the USA, government brazenly claimed victory for its defeat. In reality, the enemy was almost totally imaginary. But it’s useless blaming the great and the good. It was inevitable. We’d been told repeatedly that this brilliant new technology would change the world. Then we were told it could all stop on the stroke of one spookily special midnight. We were the newly addicted, suddenly faced with the prospect that our supply was fatally endangered. There was only one thing we could do. Panic. Then spend millions fixing it. Sorry, that’s two things.

Here’s a 15 minute selection from the doc:

You can pick up the rest, via torrent, from RadioArchive.cc.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Marvellous Hairy – a podcast novel

Sunday, October 18, 2009 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

With the number of university professors talked about on SFFaudio I think we’ve got staff enough to fill almost every department in a virtual university! I’m adding one more to the roster. From the faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario comes Mark A. Rayner and his second novel. This is simultaneous release with the print publication. Here’s the blurb:

So hair is sprouting in unspeakable places and you can no longer carry a tune, but if you’re a surrealistic artiste with an addiction to Freudian mythology and guilt-free sex, turning into a monkey has its upsides.

Nick Motbot may be evolving as a novelist, but his friends aren’t too sure about his DNA — at least, not since Gargantuan Enterprises started experimenting with it. And once they figure out what’s happening to him, they decide to set things right. MARVELLOUS HAIRY is a satirical novel about a group of friends sticking it to the man the only way they know how, with equal parts grain alcohol and applied Chaos Theory.

Part literary fun-ride, part fabulist satire, and part slapstick comedy, MARVELLOUS HAIRY is about the power of friendship and love, the evils of power, and the dangers of letting corrupt CEOs run our world.

And here’s the podcast feed:

http://markarayner.com/feed/podcast/

Posted by Jesse Willis

Comic News Insider: interview with Garth Ennis

Friday, October 16, 2009Friday, October 16, 2009 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

The folks at Comic News Insider podcast have the one and only podcast interview with Garth Ennis on the internet (as far as I could find). This is a shame. I can find more information about more contemporary authors online than I could ever want. The exception is Garth Ennis.

For my money there’s nowhere near enough Garth Ennis info on the internet. Ideally what I’d like is an official author’s blog, telling me which new Garth Ennis comics are out now in trade paperback. I loves me my Ennis.

Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|

Podcast feed:

http://cni.libsyn.com/rss

Posted by Jesse Willis

Escape Pod: Come All Ye Faithful by Robert J. Sawyer

Friday, October 16, 2009 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

This story came out yesterday. It’s about atheists hanging out in churches. I too was hanging out a church yesterday. We spent a while upstairs listening to some moving eulogies and some denuded (or maybe modest) theological claims. Then we went downstairs and ate deviled eggs. It smelled musty down there but otherwise the atmosphere wasn’t that bad. There, my uncles reminisced about the church. Other than for a wedding, maybe 20 years back, they hadn’t been there for 40 years or so. They had spent many a Sunday there. While listening to the sermon, they said, they’d look up to the high ceiling and wonder about the small hatch sitting directly above the altar.

Was that where Jesus was going to descend from?

Since they didn’t mention getting an answer I guess the best answer would be: “not yet kids”

EP220: Come All Ye Faithful
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Mike Boris
1 |MP3| – Approx. 34 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: October 15, 2009
Father Bailey is the one and only priest on Mars, with hardly any congregation to speak of. But his life suddenly gets interesting when the Vatican calls upon him to investigate an apparent miracle on the desolate plains of Cydonia…

Posted by Jesse Willis

Five Free Favourites: Halloween Edition

Friday, October 16, 2009Saturday, October 24, 2009 finalrune

SFFaudio Online Audio

Fred here, and I think Jesse called it: October is audio drama month.

Here’s where people who think The Shadow is just something that shows up at 5 o’clock start paying attention to this art form that’s been kicked back to life by modern recording technology like some Frankenstein zapped with 50 million volts.

I’m featuring horror audio all month long on Radio Drama Revival but I’ve run into the same dilemma I run into every year – how to share ALL of the great horror audio that I can’t fit into my ‘pod?

Well, here’s a list of five entries, all gruesomely awesome, which I hope will help whet your bloodthirsty appetite this Halloween season.
Five Free Favorite Horror Radio Drama

1 – We’re Alive: A Story of Survival

Zombies!!! Take Resident Evil and mix it with the marines from Aliens and you wind up with something like the outcome of this zombie podcast.

A group of foul-mouthed marines ends up locked up in an apartment building with a scattered batch of survivors after a zombie holocaust breaks loose with little notice (or explanation).

This one is well-produced, action-packed, and is as much about an odd group of people trying to survive together as it is about the roving droves of hungry undead. Not to be missed.

Wormwood Audio Podcast 2 – Wormwood

Wormwood made it into my previous Five Free Favourites and it makes it again. Though not strictly “horror,” this brilliantly twisted thriller serial has ample spooks to make it a priority on any horror fan’s iPod.

If you haven’t been following, you have two full seasons to catch up on, tons of bonus content, and a third season coming up which is sure to send you to an early grave.

3 – The Grist Mill

Okay, the Grist Mill isn’t free but two episodes of their work are available for free download on Radio Drama Revival, so that sort of counts.

The one you should under no circumstances miss is God of the Razor. AM/FM Theater rightfully won the Ogle Award for this fine adaptation of Joe Lansdale’s classic horror short. There’s a reason you should stay out of basements in the South…

Also, Jeff Adams’ The Estates is an extremely awesome innovation to the spooky story meme – Stepford Wives meets The Shining. Thank you, Jeff.

4 – The Buoy (Part 1 and Part 2)
The Cape Cod Radio Mystery Theater has been at it for a while, and “The Buoy” is perhaps the crowning gem of their productions.

This is a good classic New England ghost story, which packs an even stronger punch because of its eerie parallels to the classic Poe tale, “The Pit and the Pendulum.” A man “from away” winds up tied to a buoy as the tide comes in, and recounts his terrifying tale.

As the water gets higher, and no escape is in site, the real terror sets in…

5 – Halloween in July

The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine aired this back in March, but it is much better fitting for Halloween. Breaking the trend from the rest on the list, this is not strictly audio drama, but hosts Rish Outfield and Big Anklevich did a splendid job bringing the text to live. Writer Kevin Anderson also has a script in the mix for my upcoming Halloween Live Radio Drama.

Posted by Fred Greenhalgh

LibriVox: Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 020

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Some terrific new listening, and some re-recorded tales, are found in this collection of LibriVox’s short Science Fiction:

Harry Harrison’s Arm Of The Law is fun, and well written with a sympathetic portrayal of a factory fresh robot turned Martian lawman. Police coruption gets a right royal cleaning when a seemingly Asimovian-lawed robot shows up on Mars. Greg Margarite reads the robot’s few lines extremely well. This is yet more proof he’s a narrator with terrific instincts for characterization.

Philip K. Dick’s The Gun is predictable but still very readable/listenable. Fredric Brown’s Keep Out is, like so many Brown tales, short, sweet and funny!

George O. Smith’s History Repeats features mercenary aliens and talking dogs. Cool! Other than a few almost unnoticeable pauses this is an excellent reading by Bellona Times.

And that’s just a few of these stories! Why not have a listen yourself? Then, please pop your thoughts on each in as a comment. All the cool kids are doing it!

Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 020
By various; Read by various
10 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 3 Hours 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1, 2009
Science Fiction is speculative literature that generally explores the consequences of ideas which are roughly consistent with nature and scientific method, but are not facts of the author’s contemporary world. The stories often represent philosophical thought experiments presented in entertaining ways. Protagonists typically “think” rather than “shoot” their way out of problems, but the definition is flexible because there are no limits on an author’s imagination. The reader-selected stories presented here were written prior to 1962 and became US public domain texts when their copyrights expired.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/short-science-fiction-collection-20.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

2BR02B
By Kurt Vonnegut, Jr; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 19 minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1, 2009
In the not so distant future an over-populated planet requires that every birth be balanced by a death. When Edward K. Whelig, Jr.’s wife births triplets he needs to find three people willing to enter a local suicide booth and give him the receipt… From Worlds of If, January 1962.

And All The Earth A Grave
By C.C. MacApp; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| -Approx. 19 minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1, 2009
There’s nothing wrong with dying—it just hasn’t ever had the proper sales pitch! From Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1963.

Arm Of The Law
By Harry Harrison; Read by Greg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 34 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1, 2009
How could a robot—a machine, after all—be involved in something like law application and violence? Harry Harrison, who will be remembered for his THE VELVET GLOVE (Nov. 1956) and his more recent TRAINEE FOR MARS (June 1958) tells what happens when a police robot hits an outpost on Mars. From the August 1958 issue of Fantastic Universe.

The Bell Tone
By Edmund H. Leftwich; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1, 2009
It is no use. It’s too late. The earth—I must dig—alone. From the July 1941 issue of Comet.

The Gun
By Philip K. Dick; Read by Greg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1, 2009
Nothing moved or stirred. Everything was silent, dead. Only the gun showed signs of life … and the trespassers had wrecked that for all time. The return journey to pick up the treasure would be a cinch … they smiled.

History Repeats
By George O. Smith; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1, 2009
There are—and very probably will always be—some Terrestrials who can’t, and for that matter don’t want, to call their souls their own… From Astounding Science Fiction May 1959.

Keep Out
By Fredric Brown; Read by Greg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 8 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1, 2009
With no more room left on Earth, and with Mars hanging up there empty of life, somebody hit on the plan of starting a colony on the Red Planet. It meant changing the habits and physical structure of the immigrants, but that worked out fine. In fact, every possible factor was covered—except one of the flaws of human nature… From Amazing Stories March 1954.

My Father, the Cat
By Henry Slesar; Read by Patricia Oakley
1 |MP3| – Approx. 24 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1, 2009
“Henry Slesar, as we have said before, is a young advertising executive who has rapidly become one of the better known writers in the field. Here is an off-trail story that is guaranteed to make some of you take a very searching second look at some of the young men you know.” From Fantastic Universe December 1957.

Of Time And Texas
By William F. Nolan; Read by Joe Pilsbury
1 |MP3| – Approx. 5 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1, 2009
“Twenty-eight-year-old William Nolan, another newcomer to the field, introduces us to the capricious Time Door of Professor C. Cydwick Ohms, guaranteed to solve the accumulated problems of the world of the year 2057.” From Fantastic Universe November 1956.

LibriVox - Operation Lorelie by William P. Salton Operation Lorelie
By William P. Salton; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 12 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1, 2009
It was a new time and a vast new war of complete and awful annihilation. Yet, some things never change, and, as in ancient times, Ulysses walked again—brave and unconquerable—and again, the sirens wove their deadly spell with a smile and a song. From Amazing Stories March 1954.

[additional thanks to “julicarter” and Lucy Burgoyne]

Posted by Jesse Willis