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.
This brief telephone interview with Ed Brubaker, (of Captain America, Sleeper and Criminal fame), was conducted by the talented comedian Bill Hader. The audio is great, and works alone, but there’s another story, told with the still photography, that makes it worth watching.
Hader, incidentally, wrote the introduction to the Incognito trade paperback.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Cat Women Of The Moon
Presented by Sarah Hall
2 Part Broadcast – Approx. 1 Hour [DOCUMENTARY]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: August 30, 2011 and September 6, 2011 11.30am-12.00 UK Time
Cat Women Of The Moon was a Fifties film that followed a popular motif in science fiction; an all-women society surviving without men. In the first of these two programmes, Sarah Hall looks at how science fiction has been used to examine relationships between the sexes – and in some cases, more than two sexes. In many novels the exploration of sexuality is unconventional and experimental. Some societies have more than one sex; in others, people can change sex at will. In other science fiction worlds, people form relationships with aliens or they might have sex with artificial life forms. The programme includes contributions from leading science fiction writers including Iain Banks, China Mieville and Nicola Griffith. The programme is presented by the Sarah Hall, author of The Carhullan Army and The Electric Michelangelo, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Producer by Nicola Swords
I did a search and it appears that the complete 1954 film of Cat Women Of The Moon is in the public domain. Even better it is easily available for download from the Internet Archive |CAT WOMEN OF THE MOON| in a variety of formats (though there isn’t a 3D version as far as I could see). Here’s the |AVI|.
[Many thanks to Roy for the spot!]
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #122 – a complete and unabridged reading of Beyond The Door by Philip K. Dick, followed by a discussion of it with Scott, Jesse, Tamahome and Gregg Margarite (who narrated the story).
Talked about on today’s show:
Beyond The Door is a story about a very angry bird, is it a puff-piece or a potboiler?, Rod Serling, Twilight Zone, “My name is Talky Tina and I’m going to kill you.”, Living Doll, Telly Savalas, Clown Without Pity (from Treehouse of Horror III), Night Gallery, Chucky, were clowns always scary?, automaton, fantasy, is it a haunted cuckoo clock?, what does that mean?, why is that in there?, who is Pete?, Pete has to be her dead brother, did Pete die in the same way?, the Black Forest, what’s wrong with this woman?, “it was written in the fifties!”, she’s happy and she’s sad, Umberto Eco and the role of the reader, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Eric S. Rabkin, Warehouse 13, is the first line a moral lesson (or merely a magazine call out)?, Project Gutenberg’s etext edition of Beyond The Door, Fantastic Universe Science Fiction, this story is not about a cuckoo clock, it’s about the cuckoo bird and the cuckoo egg, and the egg’s name is Pete, Perky Pat, Gregg has read Philip K. Dick’s Exegesis, James Joyce, what am I thinking?, what am I feeling?, “keep thinking about that”, “it’s wholesale baby”, this is sex, Bob is her lover (in the 1950s sense), anthropomorphizing cuckoo clock’s bird is not that uncommon, “you’ll love it Bobby”, this is a really strange clock, it would keep you up all night, the cuckoo clock fad (they were ubiquitous), “like a new member of the family”, what is the symbol of?, the cuckoo is a brood parasite, the characteristics of cuckoo eggs and chicks, “some important special accounts” sounds like a story, “how nice you look today”, “Mrs. Peters across the street you know…”, “oh oh oh”, Pete was only her half brother, “it’s 3 o’clock in the morning and you need 5,000 words by ten a.m.”, Clans Of The Alphane Moon, Dick’s many marriages, Tessa Dick, structuralism vs. post structuralism, writer’s intent vs. the text standing alone, does the author’s intent matter?, a bastard child, “she’s seen this thing in action before”, the great depression -> WWII -> many impulsive marriages, Bob isn’t gay, “no guy is interested in buttons!”, “does he realize he is next in line?”, “monogamy is designed to makes sure the male gets a genetic heir”, the cuckoo is her champion, “I like a good deal”, “he’s rude, he doesn’t deserve to die”, there’s no magic, no science fiction, folklore, mythology, proto-story, Scott read Beyond The Door aloud to his daughter, James Thurber’s The Princess And The Tin Box, Anthony Boucher, three or four princes, reverse-dowry, “red charger” vs. plow horse, mica and hornblende, she’s not an idiot, anyone who thought she was going to…, this is an overturning of that, it’s a fractured fairy tale, a noir fairy tale, Frank R. Stockton, The Griffin and the Minor Canon, Snow White as a horror story, Rocky And Bullwinkle, June Foray, William Conrad, Jake And The Fatman, “finish before it burns”, the Marx Bros., the self-deprecating stuff we like today, Forever Peace, we got it sorted, anecdotal proof.
Posted by Jesse Willis
A recent episode of the normally ludicrous Coast To Coast AM features a fascinating and lengthy interview with Paul Bishop. Bishop is known to us from his excellent Bish’s Beat blog. In the interview Bish talks about his careers (crime writer, screenwriter and police interrogator). He also talks about his role on a bizarrely watchable new unscripted TV series called Take The Money And Run. Take The Money And Run is a kind of surreal reality game show that pits two American civilians against four American police detectives in a 48 hour competition to win $100,000. Here’s the Wikipedia description:
The contestants are given a car, cell phone, and one hour to hide the case. At the end of the hour, the contestants are taken into custody and questioned by interrogators in an attempt to locate the case. The detectives are given the GPS recordings of the route that the contestants took in the car, as well as phone records of who they called. If the detectives can locate the case within 48 hours, they are awarded the $100,000. If not, the contestants win the prize.
Bishop is one of only three recurring players on the show. His role is to interrogate the detained civilian contestants, find out what they are lying about and thus help the episodes’ guest detectives win.
I’ve seen the show, and I feel very strange after watching it. Bish’s interrogations are psychologically frightening. With so many people out of work in the U.S. it feels almost like a real life precursor to The Running Man!
Here’s the three part interview:
Promo for the TV series:
[via Bish’s Beat]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #1)
By Laurell K. Hamilton; Read by Kimberly Alexis
8 CDs – Approx. 10 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Audiobooks
Published: August 2009
ISBN: 9780143144014
Themes: / Fantasy / Vampires / Zombies /
Published almost 10 years ago, Guilty Pleasures marked the debut of a writer who was destined to grow from cult favorite to a major best-selling author. Now, for long-time Anita Blake aficionados and new-found fans, Guilty Pleasures makes its debut in downloadable audio. Listeners will learn how Anita Blake started raising the dead – and killing the undead. And how she met Jean Claude, the master vampire destined to become not only her biggest nemesis but her greatest lover.
Guilty Pleasures was probably one of the original ‘urban fantasy’ books, along with the first Dresden Files book. But I found it to be well done. Anita Blake is kind of a strong female ‘Kolchack: The Night Stalker‘ with a gun, although she can raise the dead herself. It seemed a weird mix that she both raises the dead and kills vampires. This is the original novel in the series, way before she got the ardeur (or a strong sexual addiction) later in the series. The audio production is above average, and frequently provides incidental music when a scene gains tension (if that doesn’t bother you). Though I found the vampire Nikolaos to be childlike, she was also very intimidating, partly due to Kimberly Alexis’s acting. And I found the ending to be unusually strong. If you don’t like romance, don’t worry, you won’t find much of it here. But be warned that there are some grisly scenes. It bothered me a little that the narrator would do a fake ‘yell’, but at low volume. Maybe there’s some technical way to really yell at a microphone, but be able to keep it from clipping (limiter?)? How do they do it in the movies? This novel has also been adapted to comics. I hear the first four books in the series are pretty tight. I’ll go along with Felicia Day’s Goodreads ratings on this one, but I’ve only read the first book, and some of the comics. I’ve also been reading Narcissus in Chains, #10 in the series, for months and months, on and off. It has some very sexy scenes, but is pretty long and meandering. I think the author Laurell K. Hamilton once said in a podcast, that these days Americans think her writing is too sexy, and Europeans think it’s too violent. Maybe I should move to Europe.
Posted by Tamahome
Our friend Luke Burrage, of the Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, has a new episode up (SFBRP #134) that features a discussion of other book reviewing podcasts. Writes Luke:
“This episode I invited Jesse and Tamahome from the SFFaudio Podcast to review other podcasts that review, or at least talk about, science fiction and fantasy novels and other literature. This was inspired by an overcrowded and shallow look at podcasts on a recent episode of the SF Signal podcast that Jesse took part in, and we all agreed we had more to say on the subject.”
Have a listen |MP3|
Podcast feed: http://www.sfbrp.com/?feed=podcast
Here’s what we talked about:
Luke’s been busy, reviewing podcasts about science fiction book reviews, Tamahome comes from Fushigi Yûgi, The SFFaudio Podcast, writing a blog is slower than talking on a podcast, SFFaudio readalongs are like a book club, talking with authors, TOPIC episodes, FOOD in Science Fiction, STUPIDITY AND INTELLIGENCE in SF, chatting about SFF literature, Luke is not much on comics, TV, or movies, Tamahome adds colour, “a three-body problem”, Robert J. Sawyer, rape, Hominids, “copious shownotes”, a movie is a footnote to the book, When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger, Children Of Men by P.D. James, I Am Legend, pretending there is no movie, Luke doesn’t totally agree with his own argument, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, “it’s The Matrix problem” (sequels), Blade Runner, destroying the sense of wonder, this is why religions eventually collapse too (drilling down), lot’s of hippies having a rave doesn’t interest Luke (or me), gnosticism shouldn’t or can’t be known, sequel-itis or sequel fatigue, it seems as if the only books on store shelves today are series, SFBRP reviews are about just one book per episode and only books, Luke get’s great feedback, Goodreads.com, Amazon.com, SFBRP community is self serving but with wonderful externalities, Luke’s Creative Podcast, A Good Story Is Hard To Find, Scott D. Danielson, Julie Davis, Eifelheim, Catholicism, spoilers, A Good Story Is Hard To Find may be the best podcast out there, SFBRP is irregular, Serenity, Stories Of Your Life by Ted Chiang, Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke, East Of Eden, The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey, historical fiction, Fantasy, mystery, Quiz Show, “the traces of one reality”, the Writing Excuses guys are three Mormons?, SFSignal Podcast #70 with Jesse, podcast lists with no discussion (and no women), The Geek’s Guide To The Galaxy podcast #42 (an interview with Eoin Colfer), [**Eoin should be pronounced “Oh-Ehn”**], the purpose of sequels is to milk the back catalogue, Isabel Allende, the Douglas Adams estate, The Dirk Gently TV series (trailer), John Joseph Adams, David Barr Kirtley is pretty damn good, philosophy, bring the interviewee into the discussion, sycophantic interviews, Jack Womack, Requires Only That You Hate, The Sword And Laser Podcast is a book club podcast, a casual book club, The Jane Austen Book Club, Rim and Scott, The Geek Nights Book Club, board games and computer games, comics and manga, World War Z, The Lies Of Loch Lamora, The Prince Of Nothing, the Geek Nights forum, “speller and gramming”, Rim and Scott (and Luke) are frequent guests on the Friday Night Party Line podcast, Beyond The Door, The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick, Fair Game by Philip K. Dick and The Garden Of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges, the Lightspeed podcast (has spoiler introductions), Jack McDevitt, “he doesn’t want you to worry”, Minding Tomorrow by Luke Burrage, time travel, Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds, The Things (Sffaudio post) by Peter Watts, Courtney Brown of Emory University, the Science Fiction And Politics podcast, Foundation by Isaac Asimov, “all I’m here to do is make you guys argue”, Janelle Monáe, Darwin’s Radio by Gregg Bear, Dan Simmons (Tam was thinking of Darwin’s Blade), Snow Crash, bringing a different spin, The Kick Ass-Mystic Ninjas, Harry Harrison, spoilers don’t necessarily really spoil anything, medieval Germany, when walking a tight-rope Luke strikes a balance, the Gweek podcast, Mark Frauenfelder has a genuine enthusiasm that’s infectious, Ready Player One, Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing format is broken for me, the Paul The Book Guy podcast, it’s a panel show with sound effects and jingles, the segments are way too brief, “books, audiobooks, audio drama”, “a series of commercials” it’s overproduced, The Skiffy And Fanty Show, John DeNardo, Geek Night’s competition for the worst podcast on the internet, War Of The Worlds 2, “Torture Cinema”, Shaun Duke and Jen Zink, “book mountain”, “this podcast is all about me and my slurpee”, picking crappy movies on purpose, “a little bit shallow”, having a barrier to entry, there aren’t as many podcasts about books as one would hope, SFBRP is highly placed on iTunes, The Dragon Page podcast, Arizona, Web Genie, Adventures In Scifi Publishing, podcasts about publishing don’t interest Jesse, stop sending Luke books to review, the many TWiT podcasts, claims of “we’re not shilling” = shilling, do you need to compromise your art for $50?, professional podcasters provide a service, Microsoft Security Essentials, Microsoft made a product that is free, great, and works?, Leo Laporte is has a genuine personality, Jeff Jarvis, Audible ad segments on TWiT have value (and should be compiled), Andy Ihnatko, Macbreak Weekly, the SFBRP:RP, (Tam forgot to mention Coode Street/Galactic Suburbia)
[**Thanks also to Kate O’Hanlon**]
Posted by Jesse Willis