The StarShipSofa podcast metamorphs into a Podcast Magazine

SFFaudio Online Audio

Star Ship Sofa Podcast Science Fiction MagazineThe StarShipSofa podcast is metamorphosing into the StarShipSofa – The Audio Science Fiction Magazine, following in the great tradition of magazines like Analog, Asimovs and Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Each week the StarShipSofa will deliver a full package of SF related audio material all free including audio fiction, fact audio essays, flash fiction and poetry, all by leading names in the SF field.

Many many writers have agreed to let StarShipSofa narrate their works including Ben Bova, Joe Haldeman, Alistair Reynolds and M. John Harrison to name a few.

There will be two shows per week, the Wednesday show, also know as “Aural Delights” will contain narrated audio fiction, fact and poetry and the weekend show will be an in depth look into an author’s life and work.

This week saw the first of the metamorphosing with the StarShipSofa’s Aural Delights show. Fiction was provided by Kage Baker’s fantastic story The Likely Lad, there were two poems by Bruce Boston and Laurel Winter, both winners of the Rhysling Award for SF Poetry. Flash fiction came from a very short but very powerful story called Repeating The Past by Peter Watts, author of the SF novel Blindsight.

In the weeks to come Peter Watts will also be delivering a monthly narrated fact article; this part of the show will be called “Reality, Remastered.”

As for the weekend shows, StarShipSofa has her sights upon writers such as John Scalzi, Robert Charles Wilson and Ken Macleod.

It is a great time for SF at the moment and with the many advantages the Internet can bring, StarShipSofa wants to be one of the very first to deliver the full package in audio science fiction.

Subscribe to the podcast via this feed:http://www.starshipsofa.com/rss

Posted by Tony C. Smith

Recent Arrivals – Joe Haldeman and Robert J. Sawyer

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Hot out of the microphones and into SFFaudio’s Audible Accounts, two Science Fiction titles from Audible Frontiers…

First up, a Joe Haldeman story that I first heard about on Prisoners Of Gravity, which is always a source for good Science Fiction!

The Hemingway Hoax by Joe HaldemanThe Hemingway Hoax
By Joe Haldeman; Read by Eric Michael Summerer
Audible Download – 4 Hours 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: April 2008
The hoax proposed to John Baird by a two-bit con man in a seedy Key West bar was shady but potentially profitable. With little left to lose, the struggling, middle-aged Hemingway scholar agreed to forge a manuscript and pass it off as Papa’s lost masterpiece. But Baird never realized his actions would shatter the history of his own Earth – and others. And now the unsuspecting academic is trapped out of time – propelled through a series of grim parallel worlds and pursued by an interdimensional hitman with a literary license to kill.

Intelligent design and creationism versus the fossil record, it should be a slam-dunk, until the alien arrives…

Calculating God by Robert J. SawyerCalculating God
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Jonathan Davis
Audible Download – 12 Hours and 4 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2008
An alien walks into a museum and asks if he can see a paleontologist. But the arachnid ET hasn’t come aboard a rowboat with the Pope and Stephen Hawking (although His Holiness does request an audience later). Landing at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the spacefarer, Hollus, asks to compare notes on mass extinctions with resident dino-scientist Thomas Jericho. A shocked Jericho finds that not only does life exist on other planets, but that every civilization in the galaxy has experienced extinction events at precisely the same time. Armed with that disconcerting information (and a little help from a grand unifying theory), the alien informs Jericho, almost dismissively, that the primary goal of modern science is to discover why God has behaved as he has and to determine his methods. BONUS AUDIO: Author Robert J. Sawyer explains how the creationism vs. evolution debate informed the writing of Calculating God.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Joe Haldeman short story Graves on StarShipSofa

SFFaudio Online Audio

Star Ship SofaThere are some stories and then there are some stories. Graves by Joe Haldeman is one of those stories!

If you want to listen to a great short story that won the Nebula in 1993 and the World Fantasy Award in 1993 then pop over to the StarShipSofa and treat yourself to one fine story.
Subscribe to the podcast via this feed:http://www.starshipsofa.com/rss

Posted by Tony C. Smith

New Releases – Science Fiction from Recorded Books on Audible.com

SFFaudio News

Audible.comAudible.com has just added “a slew of Hugo/Nebula winning and otherwise classic sci-fi titles from Recorded Books.” None of these has been available previously in digital audio – and most have been difficult to find in physical CD (as Recorded Books has been a staunch supporter of the cassette format). Available now from Audible are..

The Terminal Experiment
By Robert J. Sawyer [READ OUR REVIEW]

To Say Nothing of the Dog
By Connie Willis [READ OUR REVIEW]

Blue Mars
By Kim Stanley Robinson

Green Mars
By Kim Stanley Robinson

Doomsday Book
By Connie Willis [READ OUR REVIEW]

Sundiver: The Uplift Saga, Book 1
By David Brin

Startide Rising: The Uplift Saga, Book 2
By David Brin [READ OUR REVIEW]

The Uplift War: The Uplift Saga, Book 3
By David Brin

The Forever War
By Joe Haldeman [READ OUR REVIEW]

Forever Peace
By Joe Haldeman

Timescape
By Gregory Benford [READ OUR REVIEW]

To Your Scattered Bodies Go: Riverworld Saga, Book 1
By Philip Jose Farmer

And, Audible also sez that Red Mars [READ OUR REVIEW] (notably absent from the list above) is “coming – soon, we hope….!”

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Audiobook Imprint Available for Public Libraries

SFFaudio News

Recorded BooksEditor, anthologist and blogger John Joseph Adams points us to this February 15th 2008 press release…

Recorded Books, LLC, the world’s premier publisher of unabridged audiobooks since 1979, announces the release of a new imprint of audiobooks that will be available for immediate release to public libraries—Science Fiction. With the growing popularity of the science fiction and fantasy genres, fans are demanding more sci-fi literature on audiobook. The Sci-Fi imprint from Recorded Books features many award-winning authors, including Piers Anthony, Terry Brooks and Ursula K. Le Guin. Among the current releases are Now and Forever by Ray Bradbury, The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman, and Blindsight by Peter Watts. Recorded Books, which operates a New York City recording studio, employs award-winning Broadway and Off-Broadway actors to record some of the world’s most popular and critically acclaimed titles.

Thanks JJA!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Lecture: Joe Haldeman on "The Craft of Science Fiction"

SFFaudio Online Audio

iTunes U iTunes U, is a new section in the iTunes store offering the content of higher education institutions. Lectures and seminars dominate, some video, some audio. A few of the cooler ones that have caught our eyes are up already. The last set is a collection from Seattle Pacific University (a “Christian university of the liberal arts, sciences and professions”) as such these are lectures that look at their subject decidedly Christian POV. For those of you who don’t use iTunes we’ve also tracked down the original sources when we could find them. Either way, listen online or pop into the iTunes store and get U some education!
Massachusetts Institute of Technology “The Craft of Science Fiction”
By Joe Haldeman
iTunes U download or 1 RealAudio file – 1 Hour 47 Minutes – [LECTURE]
University: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Released: Nov. 2006
A lecture by MIT professor (and Science Fiction legend) Joe Haldeman.
Arizona State University “Nano-Ethics through the writing of Science Fiction”
By Rosalyn W. Berne PhD.
iTunes U download or 1 MP3 – 54 Minutes – [LECTURE]
University: Arizona State University
Released: May 2007
Berne is Associate Professor at the University of Virginia.
Seattle Pacific University 4 Tolkien Lectures
By John G. West, Janet Blumberg, Peter Kreeft & Joseph Pearce
iTunes U downloads & 1 Mp3 – Approx. 3 Hours 16 Minutes [LECTURES]
University: Seattle Pacific University
Released: 2001
Lectures included:
Tolkien 1 of 4: “The Lord Of The Rings as a Defense of Western Civilization” by John G. West
Tolkien 2 of 4: “Literary Background of The Lord Of The Rings” by Janet Blumberg
Tolkien 3 of 4: “Wartime Wisdom: Ten Uncommon Insights from The Lord Of The Rings about Evil” by Peter Kreeft |MP3|
Tolkien 4 of 4: “Tolkein, Man and Myth”* by Joseph Pearce

* Please note, Tolkien’s name is spelled wrong in the 4th lecture’s title, be sure to enter the title as it appear above in the iTunes search.