Most people think making a radio show (or podcast) is hard. They’re wrong! Nora Young and the crew at CBC Radio’s Spark have made a quick tutorial – they make it look so easy…
Posted by Jesse Willis
P.S. Free Apocalypse Al!
Jeffrey R. DeRego at Escape Pod
Stephen Eley reads Union Dues — All We Leave Behind by Jeffrey R. DeRego over at Escape Pod. Here is the |MP3|.
Subscribe to the podcast via this feed:
http://escapepod.org/podcast.xml
Posted by Charles Tan
New Releases – John Scalzi, Murray Leinster, Robert Sheckley, H. Beam Piper
Audible has just posted a new title from WonderAudio.com (WOOHOO!)… And it’s a two for one – two classic tales from the Dean of Science Fiction – Murray Leinster.
“Sam, This Is You” and “The Other Now”
By Murray Leinster; Read by Mac Kelly
Audible Download – 65 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio / Audible
Published: March 2008
“Sam, This Is You” is a humorous look at Sam, a telephone lineman and inventor. Sam’s invented a device to talk to himself back in time. Unfortunately, Sam’s main interest is courting Rosie, and his love life is being sabotaged by his worst enemy – his future self. “The Other Now” is a poignant love story. When Jimmy Patterson loses his beloved wife, Jane, in a car accident, he believes he begins to get messages from her. Can their love be enough to reunite them?
The next release, a three story collection, includes a terrific tale by Robert Sheckley. I’ve even used The Monsters in the classroom, it showcases one of the very deeply central ideas of Science Fiction in a incisive and funny POV shift – the other two, I look forward to as well as they offer the same, tales told from the alien perspective…
A is For Alien
By Robert Sheckley, Miriam Allen DeFord & Evelyn E. Smith; Read by Pat Bottino, Sam Mowry & Candace Platt
Audible Download – 67 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio / Audible
Published: March 2008
In these three tales, you’ll experience stories from an alien perspective:
In “The Apotheosis of Ki“, by Miriam Allen DeFord, Ki, a primitive savage, encounters a spaceman. Can the two cultures communicate? In “Captain’s Mate“, by Evelyn E. Smith, we hear the tribulations of a crustacean-like alien who is captain of an all-human crew. The trouble begins as the ship drops out of hyperspace. They’re stranded a million miles from anywhere and the captain is acting strangely, even by her own standards. What passes for a moral is turned upside down in “Monsters“, by Robert Sheckley. Different rules of morality create havoc when a spaceship full of humans lands.
Equally as exciting is the follow up to John Scalzi’s SFFaudio essentially designated Old Man’s War…
The Ghost Brigades
By John Scalzi; Read by William Dufris
Audible Download – 10 Hours 28 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio / Audible.com
Published: March 2008
The Ghost Brigades are the Special Forces of the Colonial Defense Forces, elite troops created from the DNA of the dead and turned into the perfect soldiers for the CDF’s toughest operations. They’re young, they’re fast and strong, and they’re totally without normal human qualms. For the universe is a dangerous place for humanity – and it’s about to become far more dangerous. Three races that humans have clashed with before have allied to halt our expansion into space. Their linchpin: the turncoat military scientist Charles Boutin, who knows the CDF’s biggest military secrets. To prevail, the CDF most find out why Boutin did what he did.
From the pages of Astounding Science Fiction (February and March 1955 issues), Podiobooks.com and Nathan Lowell comes the latest title in The Second Annual SFFaudio Challenge…
Time Crime
By H. Beam Piper; Read by Nathan Lowell
Podiobook – Approx. 2 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Podiobooks.com
Published: March 2008
“The Paratime Police had a real headache this time! Tracing one man in a population of millions is easy—compared to finding one gang hiding out on one of billions of probability lines! This story from 1955 has rocket ships, time travel, slaves, post-hypnotic suggestions, drugged citizens, and a complete disregard for human rights. And those are the good guys. As a look back in time at “classic” science fiction, it’s an interesting snapshot of a time when tobacco was common, sexism was unconscious, and female characters were a long way from Lara Croft.”
Posted by Jesse Willis
Scott D. Danielson wins Idaho state recognition
The only thing missing from this terrific article about my friend Scott Danielson winning a “Spirit of Idaho” award, is that he’s also a founder of SFFaudio.com, and a returning reviews editor! Welcome back Scott! This recognition is well deserved, you’re helping Idahoans with your public service, and you’re helping the citizens of the world get more SFF into their ears!
(the article was written by Bonnie Bott for The Idaho Enterprise)
Posted by Jesse Willis
Philip K. Dick’s We Can Remember It For You Wholesale on BBC7
Dick. You know you want it. Indeed, a life without Philip K. Dick is hardly worth imagining! Thankfully the folks at BBC7 and The 7th Dimension agree and so they are re-running what I consider to be one of the best short stories ever written. We Can Remember It For You Wholesale posits a future world of memory implants and false vacations. Doug Quail, the shmendrik-hero of the tale, wants to visit the planet Mars. Unfortunately his shrewish wife vetos the idea whenever he mentions it. That all changes though when, after a mishap at a virtual travel agency, he discovers that he’s already been there! What’s real? What’s not? Dick explores these Cartesian questions better than any other writer (including Descartes himself) have a listen, you won’t be sorry…
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale
By Philip K. Dick; Read by William Hootkins
2 Parts 2 Broadcasts – [UNABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Sunday March 16 & 23 @ 6.30pm & 12.30am (UK time)
This novelette was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction‘s in April 1966 issue and first broadcast on BBC 7 in September 2003. The reader is William Hootkins (aka “Red Six” from the original Star Wars).
Listeners unable to tune in can use the “Listen Again” service for a week after each broadcast.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Cory Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum podcasting their novella True Names
Cory Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum are podcasting a new novella that they co-wrote. It will appear in print in the forthcoming anthology, Fast Forward 2. It’s an homage to Vernor Vinge’s famous story of the same name… Rosenbaum sez:
“This story came out of a conversation at the Hugo Loser’s party at Worldcon 2002 — the part about ‘the second law of thermodynamics as the ultimate party-spoiler in a transhuman utopia of self-spawning consciousness’; it acquired shades of Jane Austen, Voltaire, megamillion year ideological warfare, gender theory, coming-of-age story, and musical theater along the way.
We’ve pretty much been working on it for the past six years. It’s been a delight to work on, and it’s surprisingly exciting to have it done and ready for readers — or first, in this case, listeners.
See, Cory, inexhaustible font of energy that he is (for those who don’t know Cory and who think of me as energetic, talkative, and full of enthusiasm for various projects — Cory is me cubed; he makes me look like a laconic hermit), has declared that we are podcasting it.
And so we are! I just have to hunt down a decent microphone so I can record the next installment….”
True Names
By Cory Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum; Read by Cory Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum
Podcast – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Cory Doctorow’s Craphound
Podcast: March 2008 –
“Involves the galactic wars between vast, post-Singularity intelligences that are competing to corner the universe’s supply of computation before the heat-death of the universe.”
Subscribe to the podcast feed here:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast
Posted by Jesse Willis