News, Reviews, and Commentary on all forms of science fiction, fantasy, and horror audio. Audiobooks, audio drama, podcasts; we discuss all of it here. Mystery, crime, and noir audio are also fair game.
KCRW’s The Treatmentinterviewed comics author Mark Waid about Irredeemable back in August. Elvis Mitchell, the host, does a solid interview. With him Mark Waid makes a compelling case for comics and Irredeemable in particular.
I sought out the interview after reading the first trade paperback (Irredeemable Vol. 1). I’d heard some good things about Mark Waid’s Irredeemable and I picked up the first trade paperback (Irredeemable Vol. 1) despite my not caring much for superhero comics. Other than the stunning work in Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III’s Batwoman the closest I normally get to supe comics is seeing them get their asses kicked in Garth Ennis’ The Boys.
Irredeemable is a kind of anti-superhero book – the premise being a Superman-like superhero, named The Plutonian, goes crazy and begins murdering his former allies, destroying whole cities and drowning millions of people. The Plutonian is on an unstoppable rampage. The supervillains, his former enemies, want to court him, those who knew him before he turned want to stop him, but both are potential targets of The Plutonian’s unstoppable and god-like superpowers.
I must admit Boom! Studios first collection, issues 1-4, delivers a pretty great story. And though we only get some hints about the solution to the mystery of why such a humanitarian hero would stop, reverse course, and then kill instead of save – is not answered. I’ll probably have to pick up the next volume – though from the sounds of it it’d be good one to pick up at a library as there’s a price jump from Volume 1 to Volume 2 of $7.
In 1966 Rogue published one of the classics of 20th century SF, a short story named Day Million. It is a story that feels both incredibly old and stunningly fresh at the same time. The oldness is caused by its addressing itself to its contemporary audience, a very specific group, the heterosexual men who read men’s magazines. Apparently this group drove red sports cars, drank fine spirits, didn’t care much for “queers”, and most importantly liked looking at sexy women in the pages of something called “magazines.” The plot of the story itself is a romance, set in a world not entirely unlike our own, but also one of the most astonishingly futuristic I’ve ever read. Despite the audience having caught up, at least in these parts, to the liberal mindset Pohl seems to have had in 1966, the story is probably less accessible now because of its need to address its heterosexual 1960s male audience.
In Robert Silverberg’s Worlds Of Wonder (aka Science Fiction 101) Silverberg wrote of Day Million: “Each paragraph of the story – each sentence, in fact – demonstrates that Pohl has devoted most of his life to attaining the broadest and deepest possible understanding of the universe as we comprehend it today.”
Day Million is a five page story that shows the power of Science Fiction.
The podcast below features Frederik Pohl’s own narration, made specifically for AboutSF AUDIO.
Day Million
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Frederik Pohl
1 |MP3| – Approx. 19 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: About SF
Podcast: June 6, 2011
First published in the February-March 1966 issue of Rogue.
Here’s a convention panel from Readercon 2011 entitled “Capturing the Hidden History of Science Fiction.” It was recorded back in July 2011 and the panelists include Fred Lerner, Barry N. Malzberg, Jamie Todd Rubin, Darrell Schweitzer and Eileen Gunn. Apparently one of the panelists objected to it’s existence on YouTube, but it’s up and online again.
Good news everyone! Exhibit Piece, a Philip K. Dick short story first published in the August 1954 issue of Worlds Of Science Fiction, is PUBLIC DOMAIN! The etext is HERE.
Exhibit Piece was protected by copyright at one time. It was not renewed.
This was not known previously as there was a was a fraudulent attempt to renew the copyright. This fact is evidenced by THIS scan of the associated U.S. copyright office renewal form. Here are the highlighted details:
Here is a scan of the table of contents in the TRUE original publication (the August 1954 issue of If: Worlds Of Science Fiction):
The renewal period had already lapsed by the time the bogus renewal attempt.
Here is the table of contents from the December 1955 issue of If: Worlds Of Science Fiction, note the absence of a story by Philip K. Dick in this issue:
Prominent Author by Philip K. Dick is a PUBLIC DOMAIN short story.
Back in 1983 an application was made to renew the copyright for Prominent Author, a short story by Philip K. Dick. The story’s copyright, however was not renewed in the time allotted. Instead the applicant, Paul Williams, mis-stated the original publication date giving Prominent Author the deceptive appearance of being within the renewal period. This is demonstrably false.
Here is the highlighted detail from the copyright renewal form:
Here is the complete page of the copyright renewal form for RE190631:
Here is the table of contents from the May 1954 issue of IF: Worlds Of Science Fiction (note that it includes Prominent Author by Philip K. Dick):
Here is the table of contents from IF: Worlds Of Science Fiction, June 1955 (note the absence of a story by Philip K. Dick):
Prominent Author by Philip K. Dick is a PUBLIC DOMAIN short story.
The SFFaudio Podcast #142 – Accessory Before The Fact by Algernon Blackwood, read by Gregg Margarite. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the short story (16 Minutes) followed by a discussion of it (by Jesse, Tamahome, and Gregg Margarite).
Talked about on today’s show: Accessory Before The Fact was published in 1911, Jesse doesn’t understand this story, Wilkie Collins, ethereal planes are the hook (rather than the detail), Gilligan and The Skipper vs. Laurel and Hardu vs. Harold and Kumar, “this is not a time-slip story”, “this is a precognative story”, paranoia, “spirtitualized”, Germanophobia, WWI, bigotry on display, L. Frank Baum’s racism, Teutonic invasion, how many characters are in this story (4 or 3)?, peeling away the layers, déjà vu, see/feel the future, quantum theory, is time a superimposition onto real reality?, slipstream, fantasy, should we dismiss this story?, Ten Minute Short Stories, adventure, Accessory Before The Fact is at the genesis of all this, an accountant on vacation, “what do you do when you have one of these events and you can’t prove it”?, The Moment Of Decision by Stanley Ellin, 13 More Stories They Wouldn’t Let Me Do On TV edited by Alfred Hitchcock, An Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce, time is an illusion, “time is a serious problem…”
KCRW’s The Treatment interviewed comics author Mark Waid about Irredeemable back in August. Elvis Mitchell, the host, does a solid interview. With him Mark Waid makes a compelling case for comics and Irredeemable in particular.
