The SFFaudio Podcast #043

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #043 – Jesse and Scott talk about all the Recent Arrivals and New Releases that have been piling up while Scott’s been away fiddling on a roof.

Talked about on today’s show:
Fiddler On The Roof, Salt Lake City, Pride And Prejudice, Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, zombies, SuperFreakonomics, Freakonomics as psychohistory, Foundation by Isaac Asimov, altruism, Luke Burrage’s SFBRP #072.5, Isaac Asimov’s writing style, Hari Seldon is not much of a character, The Caves Of Steel by Isaac Asimov, |READ OUR REVIEW|, Black Destroyer by A.E. van Vogt, the “fix-up” novel, The Voyage Of The Space Beagle, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, Books On Tape, a movie version of Foundation, FlashForward, TV is cops and doctors so SF on TV is cops and doctors SF, I, Robot (the movie), New Releases, Audible Frontiers, Stanislaw Lem, Memoirs Found In A Bathtub by Stanislaw Lem, Foundation Ziggurat Productions, Solaris (2002), Solaris (1972), Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, Andrei Tarkovsky, His Masters Voice by Stanislaw Lem, Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem, Diving Into The Wreck by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Badge Of Infamy by Lester del Rey (audible.com version), Badge Of Infamy by Lester del Rey (podiobooks and LibriVox), Jimcin Recordings, Armor by John Steakley, Vampire$ by John Steakley, John Carpenter’s Vampires, The Blue Tower by Evelyn E. Smith (audible), The Blue Tower by Evelyn E. Smith (LibriVox), Recent Arrivals, Fall With Honor by E.E. Knight, Winter Duty by E.E. Knight, E.E. Knight, The Shadow Of Saganami by David Weber, the Honorverse, Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, Rendevous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Fallout 3, the onion spoofs Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, V (the remake), The Prisoner (the remake), Edgar Allan Poe audiobooks, PoeAudio / Acoustic Learning, the exploration of North America, daguerreotype, Poe as a non-fiction author, The Cask Of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe, A Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder by James De Mille, the 4th Annual SFFaudio Challenge, Swoon by Nina Malkin, ghosts, Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, The “Erec Rex” series by Nina Malkin, Simon Jones (actor narrator extraordinaire), Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, the beautiful illustrations in Leviathan, steampunk, airships!, my Zeppelins post, The Hindenburg (1975), movie director Robert Wise, Jesse professes his love of airships, Airborn by Kenneth Oppel |READ OUR REVIEW|, Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel, Science Fiction vs. alternate history vs. Fantasy, blue gas, the Alcatraz series by Brandon Sanderson, the Chronicles Of The Imaginarium Geographica series by James A. Owen, dragons, Charles Williams, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, The Inklings by Humphrey Carpenter, Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick, Simon & Schuster Audio, The House Of The Scorpion by Nancy Farmer, cloning, The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare, Stephanie Meyer, Dark Adventure Radio Theatre, At The Mountains Of Madness, The Complete Ripley Radio Mysteries based on the novels of Patricia Highsmith, BBC Audio, Catwings by Ursula K. Le Guin, Recorded Books, Under The Dome by Stephen King, The Simpsons Movie, Born Standing Up by Steve Martin (autobiography), Roxanne, Programmable Logic Control, Picasso at the Lapin Agile (a play), Cruel Shoes by Steve Martin, Shopgirl, The Pleasure Of My Company, Cult Holmes, The Further Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes RADIO DRAMA, John Joseph Adams, The Improbable Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Mary Robinette Kowal, watches are only for affectation now.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #041

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #041 – Jesse and Scott are joined by SF author Robert J. Sawyer to talk about his audiobooks, writing Science Fiction novels, and the TV show based on his novel FlashForward.

Talked about on today’s show:
FlashForward (the TV series), FlashForward by Robert J. Sawyer, Blackstone Audio, David S. Goyer, Marc Guggenheim, Jessika Borsiczky, Brannon Braga, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, does the TV show of FlashForward have a plan?, idea based SF, time travel, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells |READ OUR REVIEW|, differences between the television show and the novel versions of FlashForward, WWW: Wake by Robert J. Sawyer |READ OUR REVIEW|, Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven, philosophy in Science Fiction, Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer |READ OUR REVIEW|, Jonathan Davis, Audible Frontiers, atheism and religion in SF, scientific institutions in Science Fiction, The Royal Ontario Museum, CERN, The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, science, Robin Cook, Michael Crichton, Launchpad Astronomy Workshop, Edward M. Lerner, Joe Haldeman, science literacy amongst Science Fiction authors, Karl Schroeder, Charles Stross, post-singularity SF, Clarke’s Third Law, NASA Ames Research Center, TRIUMF, Human Genome Project, Neanderthal Genome Project, military SF, S.M. Stirling, Harry Turtledove, alternate history, consciousness, aliens, spaceship, time travel, the WWW trilogy, Audible.com, Starplex by Robert J. Sawyer, Star Trek, alien aliens, Larry Niven, Niven’s aliens, Golden Fleece by Robert J. Sawyer, how did fantasy and Science Fiction get lumped together? Donald A. Wollheim, dinosaurs, artificial intelligence, genetics, time travel, the Internet, quantum physics, CBC Radio’s version of Rollback, Alessandro Juliani.

Jessika Borsiczky on adapting the novel of FlashForward to television:

Trailer for Sawyer’s WWW trilogy:

Posted by Jesse Willis

Podiobooks.com: Some Other Scotland by Mick Bordet

SFFaudio Online Audio

Some Other ScotlandIt’s been a while since we talked about a Podiobooks.com podiobook, so here’s one that popped into my email just today. Mick describes his podcast like this:

…you might be interested in my podcast fiction story Some Other Scotland, which includes many SciFi elements whilst being set in the present day.

Some Other Scotland is a weekly podcast story of ancient advanced civilisations, clan wars & conspiracy in an alternative modern Scotland.

Every week listeners can vote for changes to the latest news which will affect the ongoing plot, making for a compelling and ever-changing story.

Gravestones across Scotland are being defaced. An ancient advanced civilisation is discovered under the remains of Skara Brae. Bonnie Prince Charlie returns to Scotland, two hundred years after his death. Edinburgh police unearth a mysterious surveillance operation on the Queen’s residence and the Scottish Parliament. All these events take place in a Scotland which is both familiar and yet slightly twisted.

Detective Jim Sykes’ investigation into hidden cameras and a long-dead pretender to the throne uncovers a sinister plot that dates back centuries before the term ‘terrorism’ was coined. Archaeologist Erica Wallis digs up more than she bargained for when she encounters an underground civilisation that has existed since before the pyramids of Egypt were built. When one of their misplaced, but deadly artifacts falls into the hands of young street-poet ‘Razer’, he is launched into the middle of a clan war that has been waged across the World for millenia.

Events triggered thousands of years ago are about to reach a climax that not only threatens Scotland, but could finally hand the modern World the tools of its own destruction.

The story has been running for 13 weeks to date and this week has been added to Podiobooks.com.

The feed at the main website includes spin-offs, news items and feedback episodes. That’s here:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/SomeOtherScotland

The Podiobooks.com feed, which includes just the story itself, is here:

http://www.podiobooks.com/title/some-other-scotland/feed/

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases – Wonder Audio; Fredric Brown & Keith Laumer

Aural Noir: New Releases

One mystery classic and one SF Alternate History classic. That’s like two classics, huh?

Fabulous Clipjoint

The Fabulous Clipjoint
By Fredric Brown; Read by William Coon
Audible Download – 5 Hours 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2009

Available at Audible & iTunes

Winner of the Edgar Award

You’ll hear the soft, lazy voice of a dame who’s been around, and you’ll meet up with a beautiful heller. You’ll learn the lurid secrets of a man’s locked past, and you’ll prowl dark alleys with two men–two men turned hunters. And you’ll wonder–why Ed and his Uncle Am didn’t level with the cops; what business a gang would have with Ed’s dead father; and where the killer thought the hunters would go wrong. Here are your answers, in this fast-spinning, two-fisted mystery about thugs, molls, and carnival folks.

And now the SF Alternate History classic by

Worlds of the ImperiumWorlds of the Imperium
By Keith Laumer; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
Audible Download – 5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2009

Available at Audible & iTunes

When Brion Bayard was kidnapped and brought to the alternate world where Earth’s history took a different turn, it was not a pleasant experience. It was, however, a startling experience. Here was a world that was just like the Earth he was taken from–with just a few subtle changes. On top of all this, Brion was given a puzzling assignment by his captors. He was to secretly enter a palace, and kill a dangerous and tyrannical dictator. There was one, small catch–the hated dictator in this world was the mirror image of Brion Bayard. For on an Alternate Earth, Brion’s is his own worst enemy!

Posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

Free online steampunk audio: The Shattered Teacup

SFFaudio Online Audio

Cover of The Shattered TeacupThe Shattered Teacup

Anyone up for a belated brass goggled Christmas pressy? UK indie publisher Snowbooks.com have commissioned an original Newbury and Hobbes story – The Shattered Teacup – set in the alternative London of George Mann’s The Affinity Bridge.  Tor Books editor Lou Anders has lots of praise for this Steampunk series:

The book follows the adventures of Maurice Newbury, detective for the Crown, and his assistant, Ms. Veronica Hobbes, a team who sit somewhere between a classic Sherlock Holmes and Watson pairing and that of Doctor Who’s Doctor and one of his more capable companions. They inhabit a wonderfully-realized steampunk London, replete with clockwork butlers, airships in the skies, and zombies in Whitechapel. The book is a must for steampunk fans, as well as anybody who liked The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (graphic novel, not film, natch). [via Tor.com]

The Shattered Teacup serves as a bridge between books one and two of the series and as an introduction into the world of Maurice Newbury and Veronica Hobbes. It is available as a PDF download or as an mp3 audio version, and best of all it’s free! At first glance both production quality and quality of the narration seem to be quite good, so steampunkers should give it a try.

Download is available from the snowbooks.com homepage. Streaming does not work so you need to use ‘save file as’…

Posted by Carsten Schmitt

Fatherland

SFFaudio Online Audio

BBC Radio 7 - BBC7 Fatherland
Full cast audio drama in five parts
Based on the novel by Robert Harris
Adapted by John Dryden
Monday, Dec. 15  through Friday, Dec. 19
9:30AM, 8:30PM & 1:30AM GMT

The year is 1964, and it’s a week before Hitler’s 75th birthday. Nazi Germany won the Second World War, Churchill is living in exile in Canada, Joseph Kennedy is President of the United States, and King Edward and Queen Wallis are puppet monarchs of the United Kingdom. In this dimension, history took a very different turn in 1942 to the one we are familiar with.

If you enjoy alternate histories be sure to check out this audio drama adaptation of Robert Harris‘s novel set in an imaginary post-war Germany. In the story, Berlin cop Xavier March begins to uncover a terrible secret at the heart of the totalitarian state. See, nazis…they really needed to lighten up a bit, but they didn’t and they certainly don’t in this chilling story. Fatherland stars Anton Lesser, Peter Ellis and Andrew Sachs, is very well produced and gets a solid recommendation from yours truly.

Remember that all BBC7 programs stay online for six days so if you miss one just check the schedule.

Posted by RC of Radio Tales of the Strange & Fantastic