The SFFaudio Podcast #055

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #055 – Jesse and Scott talk to Jack J. Ward of The Sonic Society podcast about audio drama.

Talked about on today’s show:
Electric Vicuna, The Library Of Jack And Shannon, Sonic Gold, Shannon Hilchie, audio drama is the hardest kind of podcasting, Phil Morris: Celestial Lawyer, Robert E. Howard, Conan, The Muse Of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft, The Deadline, The Twilight Zone, Darker Musings, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Wavefront, Rod Serling, recording methods, BrokenSea Audio Productions, Decoder Ring Theatre, community theater, modern audio drama, amateur audio drama, Sonic Gold, paid subscription podcasts, Colonial Radio Theatre, Radio Repertory Company Of America, Jim French Productions, AM/FM Theatre, Powder River, Captain Blood, King Solomon’s Mines, adapting public domain stories to audio drama, CPI vs. BrokenSea, adapting modern novels, Voyage by Stephen Baxter, BBC, licensing Zorro, Erle Stanley Gardner, Perry Mason, imagine Ringworld as an audio drama, LibriVox, The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley, Rick Jackson, The Time Traveler Show podcast, Science Fiction Oral History Association, Spaceship Radio podcast, Dimension-X, X-Minus One, OTR Swag Cast, The Radio Memories Network, Sci Fi Friday podcast, Wander Radio interview with Jack Ward, J.C. Hutchins, Commentary: Amateur Audio Drama & What’s Wrong With It, generational differences, Sage RSS for Firefox, Sonic Society in the Summer, Gate, The First Nighter Program, Bill Hollweg, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, Howard Hawks, Bringing Up Baby, Audio Drama Review blog, James Snowe, Jerry Stearns, Sound Affects, KFAI, the Audio Drama Talk forums, carpeting the audio drama world, Jerry Robbins, Groucho Marx, audio drama or audio theater, subtract the narrator, Dirk Maggs, Superman: Doomsday and Beyond |READ OUR REVIEW|, The Adventures Of Superman |READ OUR REVIEW|, The Hunter, Kung-Fu Action Theatre, Star Trek and Star Wars audiobooks, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski, serial storytelling, Full Cast Audio, Graphic Audio, Elantris by Brandon Sanderson |READ OUR REVIEW|, Searcher & Stallion, audiobooks with sound effects SUCK, podiobooks.com, Tom Swiftians, J.K. Rowling, Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies For Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark, the Elmore Leonard school of writing, audio drama vs. audiobooks, Matt Watts, The Gemini Apes by Drik Maggs, Batman: Nightfall, Christopher Lee, An American Werewolf In London |READ OUR REVIEW|, BBC radio drama, The Lord Of The Rings, The Bradbury 13, A Sound Of Thunder by Ray Bradbury, Brigham Young University, A Gun For Dinosaur, CBC radio drama, Nightfall, Vanishing Point, Booster McCrane, P.M. by Paul Ledoux, Alan Maitland (aka Fireside Al, Frontporch Al, Graveside Al), The Shepherd by Frederick Forsyth, Paul Gross, H2O, Due South, strong>Psi Factor Chronicles Of The Paranormal, Matt Frewer, Intelligence, Da Vinci’s Inquest, Men With Brooms, The Trojan Horse, Johnny Chase Secret Agent Of Space, Jeffrey Adams, The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al, Cato the Elder.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxIf you follow SFFaudio at all closely you’ll know we’re going to be recording a podcast talking about Robert Sheckley’s The Status Civilization. And while we’re all making plans to read a book and record a podcast about it Gregg Margarite, one of LibriVox’s finest narrators, has actually recorded the book and made it available as a podcast! Now if you’re a fan of Gregg Margarite’s narration (and the audiobooks he records) you’ll probably appreciate what he has to say about his recording. Namely, he’d prefer you listen to the commercial release or, at the very least, consider purchasing another audiobook from the same company. Sez Gregg:

“My version of The Status Civilization is now available at LibriVox.org.

I do not wish it to compete with the commercial version, which I believe to be superior to my proletarian alternative. I am a fan of both Mark Douglas Nelson [the commercial release’s narrator] and Wonder Audio, and I want to see both prosper. So if you are going to listen to my version I request you to pledge the purchase of another title from Wonder. We need the professionals…”

LIBRIVOX - The Status Civilization by Robert SheckleyThe Status Civilization
By Robert Sheckley; Read by Gregg Margarite
6 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 4 Hours 55 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 2010
Will Barrent awakes without memories just before being deposited on Omega, a planet for criminals where the average life expectancy is 3 years. He’s listed as a murderer and released into the illicit society as a “peon” the lowest class imaginable. A mysterious girl gives him a weapon that starts him on his path to status, a path that requires constant brutality. But it must be borne if our hero is to discover the reason for his imprisonment; A reason that pits him against himself, and involves the sardonically similar but devoutly different creeds of Omega and Earth. – The Status Civilization was first published as “Omega!” in the August and September 1960 issues of Amazing Science Fiction Stories Magazine.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4220

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[Thanks also to Betty M. and Annise]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Recent Arrivals: Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Supernatural Romance Audiobook - Blue Moon by Laurell K. HamiltonBlue Moon (Anita Blake)
By Laurell K. Hamilton; Read by Kimberley Alexis
15 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: 2010

In her eighth adventure, Anita Blake can’t turn her back on a former lover during the full moon. Especially since he’s behind bars-and he’s a werewolf…
 
 
Supernatural Romance Audiobook - Obsidian Butterfly by Laurell K. HamiltonObsidian Butterfly (Anita Blake)
By Laurell K. Hamilton; Read by Kimberley Alexis
20 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: 2010

Called on by her bounty-hunting friend, Edward, vampire hunter Anita Blake faces one of the most enigmatic creatures she has ever come across. Now she must confront an unknown evil: something that skins, mutilates, and dismember its victims-then disappears.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

SFFaudio Readalong: The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley

SFFaudio News

The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley

SFFaudio MetaWe’ve got a plans!

Specifically, we’re doing a readalong. That is, we get a few podcasters and bloggers together reading the same book (or listening to the same audiobook) and then talk about it on the SFFaudio Podcast.

Our first official readalong will be:

The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley (read the |WIKIPEDIA| entry)

First published as Omega! in the August and September 1960 issues (a two-part serial) of Amazing Science Fiction Stories, The Status Civilization has been reprinted more than a dozen times.

If you’d like to have read the novel by the time of the podcast’s release, on April 26, you can either find a paper edition, get the ebook from |PROJECT GUTENBERG| and/or get the unabridged audiobook from Audible.com or iTunes:

The Status Civilization by Robert SheckleyThe Status Civilization
By Robert Sheckley; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
5.5 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Availiable at Audible and iTunes
Will Barrent has no memory of the murder for which he was convicted. He will now have to live his life sentence on the prison planet Omega. The few that survive there do it by committing crimes. And the more adept the planet inmates are at higher crime, the more they climb their bizarre anti-social ladder. They all must live in a society where drug addiction is mandatory, as is the worship of the Dark One. Barrent’s goal is to find why he was sent to this mad world and to clear his name and return to Earth. But first he must survive – for a life sentence on Omega is usually a short sentence indeed.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Recent Arrivals from Blackstone Audio

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Science Fiction Audiobook - Dark is the Sun by Philip Jose FarmerDark is the Sun
By Philip Jose Farmer; Read by Rebecca Rogers
14.2 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2010

Fifteen billion years from now, Earth is a dying planet, its skies darkened by the ashes of burned-out galaxies, its molten core long cooled. The sunless planet is nearing the day of final gravitational collapse in the surrounding galaxy. Mutations and evolution have led to a great disparity of life-forms, while civilization has resorted to the primitive.

Young Deyv of the Turtle Tribe knew nothing of his world’s history or its fate. He lived only to track down the wretched Yawtl who had stolen his precious Soul Egg. Joined by other victims of the same thief—the feisty Vana and the plant-man Sloosh—he sets off across a nightmare landscape of monster-haunted jungle and wetland. Their search leads them ultimately to the jeweled wasteland of the Shemibob, an ageless being from another star who knows Earth’s end is near and holds the only key to escape.
 
 
Science Fiction Audiobook - Empire Builders by Ben BovaEmpire Builders
By Ben Bova; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
11.7 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2010

Dan Randolph never plays by the rules. A hell-raising maverick with no patience for fools, he is admired by his friends, feared by his enemies, and desired by the world’s loveliest women. Acting as a twenty-first privateer, Randolph broke the political strangle-hold on space exploration, and became one of the world’s richest men in the bargain.

Now an ecological crisis threatens Earth—and the same politicians that Randolph outwitted the first time want to impose a world dictatorship to deal with it. Dan Randolph knows that the answer lies in more human freedom, not less—and in the boundless resources of space. But can he stay free long enough to give the world that chance?
 
 
Horror Audiobook - Vampire$ by John SteakleyVampire$
By John Steakley; Read by Tom Weiner
11.7 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2010

Suppose there really were vampires. Dark, stalking, destroying. They’d have to be killed, wouldn’t they? Of course they would. But what kind of fools would try to make a living at it?

In best-selling author John Steakley’s vampire classic, one tightly knit band of brothers devotes itself to hunting down the monsters that infest the modern world—for a price. An exciting blend of horror and western genres, Vampire$ is a twenty-first-century Ghostbusters with an edge.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Recent Arrivals: Stephen King

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Horror Audiobook - Firestarter by Stephen KingFirestarter
By Stephen King; Read by Dennis Boutsikaris
15 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: 2010

Charlie McGee inherited pyrokinetic powers from her parents, who had been given a low-grade hallucinogen called “Lot Six” while at college. Now the government is trying to capture young Charlie and harness her powerful firestarting skills as a weapon.
 
 
Horror Audiobook - Cujo by Stephen KingCujo
By Stephen King; Read by Lorna Raver
14 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: 2010

Left to fend for herself by her workaholic husband, Donna Trenton takes her ailing Pinto to Joe Cambers’s garage for repairs-only to be trapped with her son, Tad, in the sweltering car by the Cambers’s once-friendly Saint Bernard, Cujo, now a monstrous and rabid killer.
 
 
Horror Audiobook - Roadwork by Stephen KingRoadwork
By Stephen King; Read by G. Valmont Thomas
10 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: 2010

When a highway project puts Barton Dawes out of work and threatens to destroy his home, he has more than enough time on his hands to plot his revenge. Driving his wife and friends away with his obstinate refusal to give in, he pushes the powers that be to the limit, take a stand against what he sees as a criminal act in progress.
 
 
Horror Audiobook - The Long Walk by Stephen KingThe Long Walk
By Stephen King; Read by Kirby Heyborne
11 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: 2010

On the first day of May, 100 teenage boys meet for a race known as “The Long Walk”. If you break the rules, you get three warnings. If you exceed your limit, what happens is absolutely terrifying.
 
 

Horror Audiobook - The Running Man by Stephen KingThe Running Man
By Stephen King; Read by Kevin Kenerly
8 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: 2010

The year is 2025. The Running Man< is America's favorite television game show. Ben Richards is the programs latest contestant- and the Hunters' latest target in a rigged game of death...

Posted by Scott D. Danielson