The SFFaudio Podcast #069 – Jesse and Scott are joined Allan Kaster, the editor of Infinivox’s new audiobook anthology: The Year’s Top Ten Tales Of Science Fiction 2.
Talked about on today’s show:
Infinivox, Summer, the first time we had Allan Kaster on the podcast, The Year’s Top Ten Tales Of Science Fiction, Great Science Fiction Stories, Audible.com, Cibola by Connie Willis is going out of print, modern audiobook contracts, Kindle eBooks, The Year’s Top Ten Tales Of Science Fiction 2, the influence of Audible.com’s credit system, the influence of podcasts, the FREE On The Human Plan by Jay Lake MP3, Ted Chiang, transformation, The Island Of Doctor Moreau, Clarkesworld, Subterranean Online, Lightspeed Magazine, Jim Baen’s Universe, Tor.com, what makes Infinivox a different audiobook company, Aliens Rule edited by Allan Kaster, We Robots edited by Allan Kaster, Microcosmic God by Theodore Sturgeon, Thunder And Roses by Theodore Sturgeon, The Fluted Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi, Pump Six by Paulo Bacigalupi, investing in authors, A Colder War by Charles Stross, Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, the “inspired by Lovecraft” sub-genre, A Walk In The Sun by Geoffrey Landis, Rammer by Larry Niven, the possibility of a Ted Chiang short story collection, BoingBoing’s interview with Ted Chiang, Infinivox is all Science Fiction all the time, Fantasy, A Song Of Ice And Fire, George R.R. Martin, Scattered Suns by Kevin J. Anderson, Saga Of The Seven Suns, the pronunciation of saga, Vanessa Hart, a cross between Homicide: Life On The Street and Frederick Pohl’s Heechee, the proper pronunciation of “Lagrange“, ZZ-Top, “feral”, Erosion by Ian Creasey, Ian Creasey, Mongoose by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, Boojum Universe, upcoming from Infinivox: Starship Vectors edited by Allan Kaster, Boojum, Nancy Kress, Charles Coleman Finlay, Stephen Baxter, what “Boojum” means (it comes from Lewis Carroll), H.P. Lovecraft, plush Cthulhu, remixing Lovecraft, A Story With Beans by Steven Gould, As Women Fight by Sara Genge, feminist Science Fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin, post-singularity stories, body switching stories, Mindswap by Robert Sheckley, Passengers by Robert Silverberg, Peter Watts, “the Earth is dying”, dying earth, Shine: An Anthology Of Optimistic Science Fiction edited by Jetse de Vries, dystopia, the Jackaroo sequence, The City Of The Dead, the return of the fix-up novel, Jack Vance, Ian McDonald, River Of Gods by Ian McDonald, Cyberabad Days, ebooks, “I like Audible much more than I want to”, Amazon’s announcement about Kindle sales exceeding hardcover sales, Fictionwise.com, getting used to the digital universe, from scrolls to books, clay tablets to scrolls, “download it to your brainstem.”
Posted by Jesse Willis
At 110 years old The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz (aka The Wizard Of Oz), is one of the few children’s classic novels, that children read, and that WAS a children’s novel from the very beginning. Today a tour through the kids literature section of your local big box bookstore will probably turn up a dozen or so “classic novels” that purport to be ‘kid lit’ of some sort. For publishers what makes them ‘children’s classics’ is that they are public domain and they have recognizable titles. Few were written with actual children in mind, and due to the age many can use an English language that’s so archaic as to be hard for many adults to read. Not so with The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz. Sure it’s public domain too, but unlike most it was actually written with children wholly and completely in mind, unlike say, The Call Of The Wild, Frankenstein or Dracula. 
