The SFFaudio Podcast #106

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #106 – Jesse and Tamahome talk about audiobooks, books, comic books, movies and technology.

Talked about on today’s show:
Scott is away, Warrior Race by Robert Sheckley, the guilt tactic, Robert Sheckley’s The Victim From Space, M. Night Shamylan, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Star Trek: The Next Generation, the limits of sympathy and empathy, Lethal Weapon, civil disobedience, Ghandi, Ahisma, Gregg Margarite, Lauren Bacall, the future of self-published ebooks and curation, SFsignal’s anthology reviews, novels vs short stories, LibriVox, rating systems, Gil T. Wilson, SFSite, Avatar, Coraline, The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman’s narration, William Gibson, Where is the Neuromancer audiobook?, The Matrix, What is noir in film or books?, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Memento, a podcast about noir films (Noircast.net), Limitless aka (The Dark Fields) movie vs book, director Neil Berger, The Illusionist, The Prestige, Christopher Priest, Existenz, WWW: Wake, WWW: Wonder, Robert J. Sawyer, many spoilers in this podcast, Sawyer’s next novel is Triggers, research then write, the Webmind, Jesse doesn’t like series (usually), the ‘talking Dinosaur’ series (the Quintaglio Ascension series), is the WWW series YA?, Cory Doctorow, characters, Golden Fleece is a murder mystery in space, more dino, would anyone make the dinosaur series into a 3D animated film?, Robert J. Sawyer’s Rollback was on CBC Radio One’s Between The Covers podcast, Galileo’s Dream, Red Mars, Michio Kaku, futurism, climate change, Pacific Edge by Kim Stanley Robinson, can a domestic story be thrilling?, Austin Powers, “one million dollars!”, the trap of inflating the stakes, Tim Pratt on Dragon Page podcast (7½ minutes in), the ‘speech thriller’, what’s in the suitcase?, Kiss Me Deadly, “make each sentence do two things”, Midnight Riot (aka Rivers Of London), British lingo, “snog”, series and trends at bookstores, Peter Watts‘s openness, Flashforward TV show, The Gong Show, bring back the hook, Crysis 2: Legion the novel and the game, the economics of hard covers vs ebooks, Kindle openness, the VLC app was removed from the iTunes App store, the Android OS, Embedded, ROM person, the Comics Code Authority repealed!, Mark Millar, Nemesis, The Ultimates, Ex Machina, Chronicles Of Wormwood, Garth Ennis, Howard The Duck, death of superheroes, Superman left America (Action Comics #900), “truth, justice, and the American way”, Superman: Red Son, Battlefields, The Boys, The Punisher with the guy from Hung (Thomas Jane), Warren Ellis wrote a novel (Crooked Little Vein), can we make Peter Watts audiobooks?, synthesized voices on archive.org, Linux for all e-readers, Philip K. Dick, The Electric Ant comic, Tom Merritt, Sword and Laser, TWIT, Munchcast.

far seer

Archie Comics with and without the Comics Code Authority

Posted by Tamahome

Clarkesworld: The Things by Peter Watts

SFFaudio Online Audio

Kate Baker, who does podcasty things for StarShipSofa, is also in charge of Clarkesworld Magazine‘s podcast. She’s all excited about one of the stories in the latest issues. Sez Baker:

So I can’t really contain my excitement on this one. Peter Watts is one of the nicest people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. I got to briefly chat with him after a reading he did of “The Things” at Worldcon. He had only read part of the fantastic story but it was too late. I was hooked. I wanted more.

As I say in the few minutes before the story gets going on the podcast, you can imagine my utter delight and many squees when Neil [Clarke] told me we were putting up the story for January. What a way to start 2010!

Without sounding like a total fangirl here, this story is awesome on so many levels. With anything in the written or spoken word, your imagination has to do all the work. Once the writer and/or narrator start laying the canvas, it’s ultimately how you arrange the paint in your head. The artists give you the broad strokes. This story is almost an Alfred Hitchcock approach to imagery, by dancing around the grotesque, your mind is left to make up the difference. Wholly more terrifying in parts if you ask me. Words cue mental pictures and depending on your life experiences, there are moments within “The Things” which send shivers up your delicate spine and invite introspection. Peter has the gift of making me question what it really means to be human.

I hope you’ll go read or listen to this month’s Clarkesworld Magazine. You won’t be disappointed. As always — please let comments on both stories and podcasts.

Clarkesworld Magazine #40The Things
By Peter Watts; Read by Kate Baker
1 |MP3| – Approx. 54 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Clarkesworld Magazine (issue #40)
Podcast: January 2010

Podcast feed: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/?feed=podcast

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis

BSAP: OTR Swag Cast

SFFaudio Online Audio

BrokenSea Audio Presents: OTR Swag CastEver since the most famous radio drama broadcast in U.S. history (The War Of The Worlds, October 30, 1938) the month of October has been an important one for audio drama. Indeed, the most recent few podcasts of BrokenSea Audio’s OTR Swag Cast illustrate my point nicely. Bill Hollweg, the host, is a connoisseur of OTR. And this is his podcast devoted to it. The idea behind the “Swag Cast” is to “digitally restore shows from the golden age of radio.” And so, with each episode, he picks, cleans-up and podcasts some old time radio shows (along with assorted interviews). The most recent few programs feature some rather rare Alfred Hitchcock and Vincent Price interviews and dramatizations. Give it a listen! You’ll find a “jack the ripper” style drama, with an ending that should never be replicated, a drama about Vincent Price starring Vincent Price and interviews in which you’ll learn about both men and their love of audio!

Podcast feed:

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

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #020

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #020 – Today Jesse and Scott talk with James Powell, a terrific Mystery, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Crime writer. He was first published in April 1966 and has approximately 140 published short stories in such magazines as Playboy and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. But most of his tales, including his most famous have been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine! His tales are relentlessly logical, often hilarious, and swift. He is an absolute master of the short story. Powell is what’s known in the business as a “Pussycat writer” which means he doesn’t put sex and violence on the page, it all happens off-stage. Look for his latest tale, Clowntown Pajamas in the February 2009 issue of EQMM.

Talked about on today’s show:
A Cozy For The Jack-O-Lanterns, A Dirge For Clowntown, Clowntown Pajamas, Monaco, France, Crippen & Landru, The Friends Of Hector Jouvet |READ IT|, Peter Sellers, A Murder Coming, the review in which I first mention A Dirge For Clowntown rules for what Powell calls “Elf Economics”, The Theft Of The Valuable Bird, Midnight Pumpkins (Cinderella as Hard Fantasy), Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock style stories, Clowntown Pajamas, the hidden but clear rules of clown and mine behavior, Toronto, 1940s, QUESTION: Who does James Powell read? ANSWER: Charles Dickens, Jorge Luis Borges, J.R.R. Tolkien, and lately Michael Swanwick‘s The Edge Of The World, as wells as A Passage To India, E.M. Forster, Bouchercon, Frederic Dannay, Santa’s Way, The Tamerlane Crutch (a takeoff on the Maltese Falcon and A Christmas Carol), Lawrence Block, Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, The Quest For Creeping Charlie, 1950s, George Orwell, Winter Hiatus, Iced: The New Noir Anthology of Cold, Hard Fiction edited by Peter Sellers, The Dawn Of Captain Sunset (a superhero champion of the elderly), round robin style short stories, The Best Fantasy Stories Of The Year: 1989 edited by Orson Scott Card and Martin H. Greenberg (ISBN: 1556561431), the difficulty of writing a Science Fiction Mystery story, John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, of A Dirge For Clowntown Scott says: “[it is] one of the finest mysteries I’ve ever read set in a different world,” Dercum Audio, Durkin Hayes, The Book Of Lies, Brad Meltzer, A Murder Coming edited by Peter Sellers (ISBN: 0886466377), calling all publishers: COLLECT JAMES POWELL!

Posted by Jesse Willis