Escape Pod X – a new podcast audio drama series

SFFaudio Online Audio

Escape Pod XEscape Pod X is a new podcast audio drama series. Despite the title, the website indicates no affiliation with the long running Science Fiction podcast magazine “Escape Pod.” It therefore seems likely that Escape Pod X is merely using EP‘s cachet in order to ride some prestigious coat-tails in google and iTunes searches. Clever, but perhaps not clever enough. Escape Pod uses creative commons licensing, Escape Pod X is “© 2009 by Stefan Claypool. All rights reserved.”

Says Stefan Claypool:

“I am the founder and president of a performing arts ensemble called the Interstellar Broadcasting Corporation. We are a group of young adults with a shared passion for classic radio theater and contemporary audio drama. We have performed together for years under the moniker of the Middlebury Radio Theater, which remains active at Middlebury College. Since we have graduated, however, we decided to embark upon a new endeavor in the hope that we might have something else to offer the world of audio drama.”

Their first podcast episode, The Man Who Stole a Planet, is a re-working of an episode of the Mutual Broadcasting show Quiet Please. The OTR Plot spot calls this episode “One of the best of the series. ” I agree, the script is solid. This production however is not perfect. While the acting is descent, the sound effects are virtually non-existent. Music runs throughout, some of it too familiar, the mic balance is also very poor. This is near ruinous, I can’t hear one of the two actors in the piece.

Have a visit to the site, listen |MP3| to the first episode or subscribe to the podcast feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/EscapePodX

Posted by Jesse Willis

METAtropolis Now on CD from Brilliance Audio

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Science Fiction Audiobook - METAtropolisMETAtropolis
By Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, and Karl Schroeder
Read by Michael Hogan, Scott Brick, Kandyse McClure, Alessandro Juliani, Stefan Rudnicki, and John Scalzi
9 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2009

METAtropolis is an audio shared-world anthology that recently was available only on Audible, where it was produced. But it was too big to be contained only in the digisphere – Brilliance Audio now has this on Audio CD and MP3-CD, and Subterranean Press is publishing a limited hardcover.

|READ OUR REVIEW| of this excellent anthology.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Robert E. Howard’s Queen Of The Black Coast and Red Nails available again

SFFaudio Online Audio

The first ever audio dramatization of Robert E. Howard’s Queen Of The Black Coast is available again!

Conan: The Uncopyrighted - Robert E. Howard fiction in the PUBLIC DOMAIN

Broken Sea Audio Productions’ fan produced programs were non-commercial, released for free, and 100% legal (being derived from public domain stories) had been unavailable for several months due to the “false copyright notice and we turn-off your internet” provisions of New Zealand’s copyright legislation. This is the same anti-judicial oversight provisions that anti-circumvention DRM lobbyists in Canada are asking for in the current Canadian Copyright Consultations.

But now two of the three Howard-dervied stories are available other than on Broken Sea’s website. Some fan seems to have uploaded two of the three BSAP Howard productions to the Archive.org servers. And a PirateBay.org search turns up a torrent version of the audio drama. It seems to me that given Archive.org’s size it will be better able to fight off any false claims of copyright ownership over the original stories than was BSAP, but I’m not 100% sure. The torrented audio drama is probably even more bulletproof. But I’d recommend that if you haven’t already you get them both earlier rather than later.

Broken Sea Audio Productions AUDIO DRAMA - Queen Of The Black Coast based on the story by Robert E. Howard (original art by John Bucema and Ernie Chan)Queen Of The Black Coast
Based on the story by Robert E Howard; Performed by a full cast
7 MP3s – Approx. 3 Hours 30 Mintues [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Broken Sea Audio Productions
Podcast: June 2008 to December 2008
Provider: Archive.org
|READ OUR REVIEW|

Audiobook - Red Nails by Robert E. HowardRed Nails – A Tale Of Conan
By Robert E. Howard; Read by Mark Kalita
7 MP3s – Approx. 3.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Broken Sea Audio Productions
Published: December 2007 – January 2008
Provider: Archive.org
“Red Nails, a tale featuring the legendary Conan the Barbarian, was written by Robert E. Howard and began its written serialization in the July 1936 issue of Weird Tales. This thrilling audio novella begins with pirate-adventuress Valeria of the Red Brotherhood on the run after slaying a notable brigand. She is followed by Conan and the two soon fight their way to a great, walled city inhabited by two warring peoples. The adventure seekers soon find themselves embroiled in the feud and mayhem ensues as the city’s rulers make unholy plans for the mighty Cimmerian and his feisty female companion. Listen now as an ancient evil returns from oblivion and a wicked sorceress seeks to gain immortality at the cost of our Hyborian heroes!”

[Thanks internet!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Recent Arrival from Penguin Audio

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Fantasy Audiobook - The Magicians by Lev GrossmanThe Magicians
By Lev Grossman; Read by Mark Bramhall
17 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: 2009

Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.

He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.

At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

A Canadian Copyright Consultations podcast feed

SFFaudio Online Audio

Tony Clement (Minister Of Industry) and James Moore (Minister of Heritage) announcing copyright consultation

The Canadian Copyright Consultations are being made available in MP3. But there hasn’t been an official podcast feed for them announced. So, I’ve made one using HuffDuffer. Let’s hope any new legislation to come out of these consultations doesn’t make such an unofficial podcast feed a copyright crime.

Podcast feed:
http://huffduffer.com/tags/canadian_copyright_consultations/rss

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis

Audible.com to sell 2 DRM-FREE titles

SFFaudio News

Eldritch Hobbit BlogMore news out of Montreal and Worldcon 2009! Amy H. Sturgis, a frequent columnist on StarShipSofa’s Aural Delights is reporting that Audible.com “has agreed to sell” Cory Doctorow’s next two audiobooks without DRM!

Here’s the relevant passage from her blog:

“One particularly interesting (and, to my mind, heartening) tidbit was Cory Doctorow’s news about his forthcoming audiobooks. As you may know, Doctorow disagrees with the way in which Audible, for example, imposes its digital rights management [DRM] system on those who purchase its wares. When Little Brother came out, he attempted to negotiate with Audible so that the company would offer a download without DRM, but Audible refused, and so Doctorow’s Little Brother is not available through its site, which is the largest seller of audiobooks in the world. But due to the success of Little Brother, Audible now has agreed to sell his next two audiobooks without DRM, which will be the very first time Audible has ever sold any such files.”

[via Audiobook DJ]

Posted by Jesse Willis