The SFFaudio Podcast #123

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #123 – Scott, Jesse, Tamahome, Matthew Sanborn Smith (Hairy Mango), and Jenny (Reading Envy) talk about audiobooks, recent arrivals and new releases.

Talked about on today’s show:
Scott’s recent arrivals, The Magician King by Lev Grossman, a gritty Harry Potter?, Ghost Story by Jim Butcher has a new narrator John Glover (not Crispin Glover), Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs, the Crossroads film, We’re Alive — A Story Of Survival zombie audiodrama, originally a podcast, The Walking Dead comic, Terry Goodkind’s The Omen Machine, long sentences on the cover, Mango version?, The Keeper Of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen, The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo, the scandanavian thriller genre, Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbø, we make an exception for noir, straight science fiction, Poul Anderson’s Genesis, singularity?, the cover, several Joe Ledger stories (like Patient Zero) by Jonathan Maberry, it’s like evil corporations and terrorism, he adapted The Wolfman (2010) movie, Ghost Road Blues, something for October, Blackstone interview with Maberry and Gardner, two by Abaton Radio Theater, Cat Wife, Baby, radio scripter Arch Oboler, Tam could use a radiodrama, L. Ron Hubbard’s Greed, yellow peril, dramatized kind of like Graphicaudio, Dianetics, Kevin Hearne’s Hexed, they begin with ‘H’, Witchy Woman (song), an adult The Lightning Thief, Lost Voices by Sarah Porter, mermaids, where’s the older mermaids?, sirens, werewolves, Out Of The Waters by David Drake is not military science fiction, the periodic table series, Dead End In Norvelt by Jack Gantos, read by the author, it’s YA, (41:38) Matt tells us about Grant Morrison’s Supergods, it’s a autobiography/comic book history, All-Star Superman comic, narrator John Lee swears well, Grant experimented with everything, Voltaire, does the audio need pictures?, We3, artist Frank Quitely, New X-Men, Dan DiDio on the DC Comics relaunch, Jenny doesn’t read comics (but she reads graphic novels), superheroes don’t stay dead, Criminal comic, the George R.R. Martin effect, The Boys comic satirizes superheroes, (52:18) Jenny is listening to James Joyce’s Ulysses (wow), The Testament Of Jesse Lamb by Jane Rogers, kind of a prequel to Children Of Men, not on audio yet, the Man Booker prize longlist, Ulysses radiodrama, listening for 24 hours in a row, Beyond This Horizon by Robert Heinlein (our next readalong), The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi exclusively on Audible, (one of narrator Scott Brick’s favorites) glossary of terms in The Quantum Thief, made-up terms, The Dervish House by Ian McDonald, fictional thief character Arsène Lupin (oh yeah, Lupin III is an anime), differentiating the voices of characters, how to win a Hugo, Blackstone new releases, The Holloween Tree by Ray Bradbury, animated movie version, Bronson Pinchot is the narrator, Balky, Beverly Hills Cop, Robert Heinlein’s The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, reddish substance, Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams, it’s the old legit cyberpunk, Nancy Kress’s Beggars In Spain, Ghost In The Wires (non-fiction) by super hacker Kevin Mitnick, Mitnick on Triangulation, (1:09:00) Audible new releases,The Moon Maze Game: A Dream Park Novel by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, it’s about the 80’s, Return To 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Barlow and Skidmore, Jules Verne, John Brunner’s Stand On Zanzibar, it’s new-wave-y, paranormal romance filter, Downward To Earth by Robert Silverberg, sounds like John Scalzi’s Fuzzy Nation, T. C. McCarthy’s Germline, McCarthy’s Big Idea on Scalzi, The Mandel Files by Peter F. Hamilton (when’s the audiobook coming?), Noir by Richard Matheson, the upcoming film Real Steel, fighting robots, The Twilight Zone, it’s heart wrenching like the last Harry Potter movie, Wheat Belly (diet book), Jenny’s gluten-free brownies, self-help audiobooks, Eckhart Tolle books, the word “healthy”.


Posted by Tamahome

Forgotten Classics: The Green Girl by Jack Williamson

SFFaudio Online Audio

Forgotten ClassicsThis week’s episode of the Forgotten Classics podcast saw the explosive conclusion of Julie Davis’ reading of the “scientific classic” The Green Girl by Jack Williamson. This short novel was one of our SFFaudio Challenge #5 audiobooks and so now Julie has won a prize (as well as our enduring respect)!

When I added The Green Girl to the challenge Rick Jackson, of Wonder Publishing described it to me as “early sense of wonder SF.” I think that’s right. I guess I knew what that meant, vaguely anyway, but now that I’ve heard it I’d suggest the fantastic events, with their grandeur of scale, are magnificently preposterous. That said, The Green Girl is never quite cartoonish as there is a reverence, if not slavishly accurate reverence, for both science and the value of scientific knowledge. It’s this that distinguishes The Green Girl from many of its contemporary pulps.

WONDER EBOOKS - The Green Girl by Jack WilliamsonThe Green Girl
By Jack Williamson; Read by Julie Davis
5 MP3 Files (Podcast) – Approx. 4 Hours 27 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Forgotten Classics
Podcast: August 2011
|PDF|EPUB|
Melvin Dane has been seeing a vision of a green girl since he was a child. Images of her came over the ether. Is she just fantasy? Or a reality that managed to cross time and space? And now, with the Earth under threat of extinction, will Melvin ever meet that girl of his dreams? With an alien force trying to bring Earth back to the Ice Age, Melvin and his foster father, scientist Sam Walden, embarked on a heroic quest to save their world. Their adventures took them from their sleepy little cottage in the beaches of Florida to the unexplored and totally unexpected world beneath the ocean. First published in the March and April 1930 issues of Amazing Stories. Later collected in 1950 as Avon Fantasy Novel #2.

Chapters 1-8 |MP3|
Chapters 9-16 |MP3|
Chapters 17-24 |MP3|
Chapters 25-29 |MP3|
Chapters 30-32 |MP3|

Podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/forgottenclassics

I’d hoped to find a copy of Amazing Stories, March 1930, in which the first half of the novel was serialized, but haven’t found one so far. If you’ve got a copy I’d love to add them below (please email me)! In the meantime, here are three scans from the April 1930 issue:

Amazing Stories April 1930 - Page 60 - The Green Girl by Jack Williamson

Amazing Stories April 1930 - Page 61 - The Green Girl by Jack Williamson

Amazing Stories April 1930 - Page 77 - The Green Girl by Jack Williamson

[Thanks again also to Rick Jackson of Wonder Ebooks where you can find plenty more vintage SF and criminally under-published crime books]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Redneckula Saga (a redneck vampire drama)

SFFaudio Online Audio

RedneckulaI don’t think I know any rednecks and I suspect they may be completely mythical creatures, like fairies or elves. But maybe they’re real. This audio drama, The Redneckula Saga, doesn’t help me answer that question. It may be a bit of anthropological weirdness or it may be a factual history, either way it that makes me smile widely. It’s kind of rural fantasy comedy musical with beer (I think).

And the voice acting accent sounds like Hank Hill from King Of The Hill.

[Thanks to Rob Gunter for gettin er dun!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The First Edition – interview with Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl

SFFaudio Online Audio

TVOF - The Voices Of FandomForgive me, I’ve posted part of this before, but it’s good enough to post twice. Frederik Pohl and Isaac Asimov were interviewed for a 1972 show called The First Edition. Apparently the show never aired, and was never edited.

THE FIRST EDITION – FIRST SHOW – 1972 – Raw interview material for unfinished show”

Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|

I repost the interview, in part because of how damn cool it is, and also in part because it is just the excuse I need to post what might very well be Frederik Pohl and Isaac Asimov first appearance together in print (in the letters column of the June 1939 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories). Be sure to listen, it’s a terrific interview! In it Asimov responds to the “New Wave” and attacks neo-Luddites, and Pohl protests the takeover of Science Fiction by the “English lit majors” (Pohl didn’t finish high school).

Be sure to read the letters below in which the two Brooklyn boys, Fred and Isaac, grumble about SF. Pohl has some sharp words for the art of Frank R. Paul and Asimov swears he will eat Uranus!

Frederik Pohl and Isaac Asimov in the letters column of Thrilling Wonder Stories - June 1939

[via The Voices Of Fandom and with props to “Burbank396”]

Posted by Jesse Willis

KCUR interview with Noël Sturgeon, James Gunn and Elspeth Healey about Theodore Sturgeon

SFFaudio Online Audio

KCURKCUR, Kansas City’s NPR station, recorded an interview with Noël Sturgeon, James Gunn and Elspeth Healey talking about “the life, works and literary papers of Theodore Sturgeon.” Here’s the file |MP3|

[via aboutsf.com]

Posted by Jesse Willis

BSAP: OTR Swag Cast: John Steele, Adventurer

SFFaudio Online Audio

BrokenSea Audio Presents: OTR Swag CastOf the many podcasts I’m subscribed to the one that I take the most for granted, and mention the least, is BrokenSea Audio’s OTR Swag Cast. OTR, of course, stands for Old Time Radio. But there are at least a dozen old time radio podcasts and I don’t really like any of them except for the OTR Swag Cast. One of the reasons I love it so much is that the host, Bill Hollweg, has a passion for audio drama that’s truly infectious. Moreover, he picks interesting, obscure and excellent OTR. The latest show, which isn’t actually hosted by Hollweg, features the first episode of a 1949 Mutual Network series called “John Steele, Adventurer.” It’s a really terrific episode! Titled “Cargo Unknown”, it introduces the John Steele, a former WWII fighter pilot who runs a one man airline that carries cargo to all points around the world. And in this episode it puts him into a dangerous situation straight away. The cargo he carries is of course both deadly and beautiful and the show makes for really terrific listening. The only sadness here is some sort of digital compression artifacting that can drown out some of the quieter scenes. The OTR Swag Cast typically runs over an hour, and so after that first half hour of excellence there’s their regular welcome backup feature, The Avengers!

If you haven’t heard the OTR Swag Cast before, pick it up with this episode, you’ll love it! |MP3|

Podcast feed: http://brokensea.com/otr/?feed=podcast

Posted by Jesse Willis