The SFFaudio Podcast #072 – READALONG: Assam And Darjeeling by T.M. Camp

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #072 – Jesse and Scott talk with Julie Davis, of the Forgotten Classics podcast about Assam And Darjeeling by T.M. Camp |READ OUR REVIEW|.

Talked about on today’s show:
Assam & Darjeeling by T.M. Camp, Podiobooks.com, iTunes, serialized fiction, entertaining copyright notices, where do you do your podcast listening?, I’ve got my hands full of car, the volume on Assam And Darjeeling is way too low!, remastering Assam And Darjeeling for audiobook, listening to podcasts at double speed (only on iTouch and iPhone), the premise of Assam And Darjeeling, Hades, the underworld, Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle |READ OUR REVIEW|, Escape From Hell by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle , The Divine Comedy: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri, Virgil’s The Aeneid, Ovid, the Brothers Grimm, witches, Greek Mythology, Edgar, no one can be as cruel as a kid, Joss Whedon, in the hands of a skillful author, Matters Of Mortology by T.M. Camp, Kij Johnson‘s The Fox Woman, the Black Gate blog, foxes in mythology, Aesop’s Fable The Fox And The Grapes, Cernunnos, Herne the Hunter, making the switch from comedy to horror and horror to comedy, the Shaggy Man (in the Oz series), Tom Bombadil, he has psychic powers too?, page 18, masterly dialogue put into the mouths of young children, the PDF version of Assam And Darjeeling, What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson, life after death, Inception, Edgar Alan Poe should go into the underworld to get his wife Virginia, The Memory Palace episode about Edgar Allan Poe’s death (Episode 20 strong>This Ungainly Fowl), This American Life is really bleak, WNYC’s Radiolab isn’t, general fiction is generally bleak, A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O’Connor, Science Fiction vs. general fiction, Social Science Fiction, Science Fiction has a second layer, it’s not all style, The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin, Staggerford by Jon Hassler, there are ways to tell powerful stories, A Man In Full by Tom Wolfe, Bangsian Fantasy, Fantasy, re-reading The Lord Of The Rings, the more I think about it the more I think I don’t like Fantasy, SFSite.com, derivative Fantasy, romance novels, Jane Austen, John Thorne, The Long Walk by Stephen King (Richard Bachman), The Stand, It, Salem’s Lot, The Shining, Under The Dome, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, long vs. short, The Cell by Stephen King, 28 Days Later, Desperation by Stephen King, The Rapture, if you were a character in this book who would you be?, the rule that makes any book better: talk about food, Lawrence Block, the economy of the afterworld, lampshading, I’m done with sequels, Mike Resnick’s Starship series, Jim Butcher’s Dresden series, The Fall Of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, Make Room, Make Room by Harry Harrison, Soylent Green, Adventures by Mike Resnick, mammoths vs. mastodons, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, The Star Beast by Robert A. Heinlein, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #071 – TALK TO: George Zarr

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #071 – Jesse and Scott talk with audio dramatist George Zarr!

Talked about on today’s show:
George Zarr of Seeing Ear Theatre fame, SciFi.com (aka Syfy.com), Brian Smith, John Colluci, RealAudio, NPR, Satellite Radio, “doing your laundry by flushing it down a toilet”, seeing the power of a budget, what audio drama should be and how you should do it, Zippr, the most common error people make on their scripts, adapt first, the baby analogy, how Seeing Ear Theatre worked, Andrew Joffe, Tony Daniel, writing and casting, “I’ll do the Canadian accent eh?”, experimental, Too Late An Experiment In Sound, National Audio Theatre Festivals, Meet The Neighbor, silent pictures for radio, teaching audio drama Columbia College Chicago, a textbook for audio drama, the three building blocks for audio drama (voice, sound effects and music), the Swedish rule, Babylon Wisconsin, adapting short stories to audio drama, tips for writing with kids, the 10,000 bad drawings inside me, writing original stories vs. adapting existing ones (for audio drama), narration in audio drama, A Good Knight’s Work adapted from the story by Robert Bloch, Sherman Oaks, California, Tony Danza, Simon Jones, “Brooklyn vs. Eaton”, John Ritter, Henry Winkler, Sirius Satellite Radio, Three’s Company, Snow Glass Apples by Neil Gaiman, Murder Mysteries by Neil Gaiman, Two Plays For Voices |READ OUR REVIEW|, Dove Audio, Bebe Neuwirth, Brian Dennehy, The Omen IV, Voices In The Wind, Every Now And Then, School Spirit, recording live, David Farquhar, Jake Sampson: Monster Hunter, Tales Of The Gold Monkey, Indiana Jones and The Mummy, Splendid Your Honor, Vlad Tepes: Dracula by Tamora Pierce, The Adventures Of Sexton Blake |READ OUR REVIEW|, Sarah Montague, WNYC, Marcie Mancotti, Barbara Rosenblat, Small Town by Lawrence Block, The Moon Moth adapted from the story by Jack Vance, X-Minus One Project, LibriVox.org, copyright and public domain, adapting Science Fiction, Time In Advance by William Tenn, Child’s Play, Kindred, adapting longer materials (novels), making a sequel to a classic audio drama, Sorry Wrong Number, Jumping Niagara Falls, murder never smelled so good, Fred Greenhalgh and field recorded audio drama, zombies work well as audio drama, Tales From The Crypt |READ OUR REVIEW|, J. Michael Straczynski’s City Of Dreams, the campaign to get CBC to release The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al, EC Comics, By The Fright Of The Silvery Moon, Don Knotts, Don Knotts as a guest on Scooby Doo, Fare Tonight Followed By Increasing Clottiness, Keith David, Aasif Mandvi, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, vampires, van Helsing, Campbell Scott, Carrion Death, This Trick’ll Kill You (the never released on CD episode of Tales From The Crypt), H.G. Well’s The Time Machine adapted by Charles Potter, Humphrey Bogart, Lux Radio Theatre, The Death Of Captain Future based on the story by Allen Steele, Marina Sirtis.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #061 – READALONG: City Of Dragons by Kelli Stanley

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #061 – Scott and Jesse talk with Rick Jackson and Julie Davis about City Of Dragons by Kelli Stanley!

Talked about on today’s show:
Wonder Publishing, Brain Plucker, Science Fiction Oral History Association, Forgotten Classics, listening to audiobooks at double speed on the iPhone, Sansa Clip, Tantor Media‘s audiobook version of City Of Dragons by Kelli Stanley, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Catholics should get noir, the Kelli Stanley Wikipedia entry, noir, hard-boiled crime fiction, smoking, 1940, San Fransisco, murder mystery, private detective, Chinatown, Miranda Corbie (the hero of City Of Dragons), Julie’s Happy Catholic blog post about City Of Dragons, modern editing (or the egregious lack thereof), historical fiction, Luke Burrage’s review of A Game Of Thrones, Samuel Shellabarger, Captain From Castile, “Chesterfields really satisfy!”, chick lit, PTSD, page 201, Territory by Emma Bull, They Can Only Hang You Once by Dashiell Hammett, movies vs. novels, page 3, The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (our next readalong), using the font and the text on the page to help tell the story, racism, the Yellow Peril, is a female private investigation realistic for 1940?, backstory, the Pinkerton agency, b-girls and escorts, the Spanish Civil War, Donald E. Westlake, Travis McGee, John D. MacDonald, Ross Macdonald, Hostage For A Hood by Lionel White, Gold Medal paperback originals, Noir Masters: An Anthology, iPad, Wonder ebooks on iPad, Death Pulls A Doublecross by Lawrence Block, Blackstone Audio, Jim Thompson, Nothing More Than Murder, Forever After, Midnight Blue by Ross Macdonald, The Imaginary Blonde, you can’t have a noir series, The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson, Sam Spade, James M. Cain, Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mildred Peirce, Chinatown, worst ending ever, best ending ever, most depressing ending ever, Sunset Boulevard, Mickey Spillane, Perry Mason, Richard S. Prather, Shell Scott, Lew Archer, Harper (1966) starring Paul Newman.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Aural Noir review of No Score by Lawrence Block

Aural Noir: Review

CHIVERS - No Score by Lawrence BlockSFFaudio EssentialNo Score (book #1 in the Chip Harrison series)
By Lawrence Block; Read by Gregory Gorton
6 Cassettes – Approx. 5 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Chivers Audio
Published: 1999
ISBN: 0792722620
Themes: / Crime / Sex / Quest / Pornography / Chicago /

It is a mystery why a street-smart young man like Chip Harrison has to resort to elaborate plans to attract a young woman like Francine. But someone turns Chip’s dream into a nightmare of danger. Chip has to act fast and furiously in a sizzling and suspenseful adventure that only Edgar Award-winning Lawrence Block could have written. Chip Harrison rightfully takes his place beside Block’s best known characters.

Seventeen year old Chip Harrison is a virgin. Francine, the narcissistic sexpot sitting on his bed, is two years older than Chip. All that stands between Chip and Francine is a tight yellow sweater and a green plaid skirt. Chip’s been preparing for this situation for a while now. He’s read all the right books, practiced all his moves on other girls, and now it’s all actually going to happen! And then, just as the deed is about to be done, a man with a gun walks in and shoots poor Chip! That’s chapter one. In chapter two Chip fills in some details about what happened before that – he’s an orphan, the son of a pair of con-parents. With no funds in the bank and not enough game on the basketball court. Poor Chip was kicked out of his prep school just a couple of months shy of graduation! Now, with little more than the clothes on his back, Chip Harrison has to meet and lay the girl of his dreams – the question is, will he get to do it? Or will he die trying?

Yep, that’s it! The whole novel is basically one kid’s quest to make it with a beautiful girl, almost any beautiful girl will do. As such, No Score probably the slimmest connection to mystery and crime of any book I’ve ever reviewed for SFFaudio. Later novels in the Chip Harrison series actually are genuine mysteries (they are all parody/homages to Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries in fact). Though later books in the series are more properly mystery novels, like No Score they all share Chip’s enthusiasm and all the juvenile charm he brings to the telling. Lawrence Block is probably my favourite writer of first person perspective fiction. His sentences are chock full of wry humor and quick wit. When you pair his terrific writing with a capable narrator the results are explosively good. This is just such a novel and just such a pairing. While there’s not more than one or two actual jokes in No Score the laughs are all out loud and come every few minutes. I sure wish narrator Gregory Gorton was still recording audiobooks. He is a terrific performer with a wide range. In No Score he performs as Chip, a chipper and horny young man, Gregor, a fortyish immigrant from an unnamed Balkan country, and several sexy women in a terrific falsetto.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Lawrence Block in conversation with Charles Ardai

Aural Noir: News

Lawrence Block speaking, as the guest of honor at Bouchercon 2008, in conversation with Charles Ardai (editor of Hard Case Crime). Block spills the beans on all sorts of interesting tidbits including:

-some bits about Robert Silverberg

-the writing of Killing Castro |READ OUR REVIEW|
-writing standalone novels vs. writing series novels

-the novel that became a popular 1980s TV series

-the revivification of the Evan Tanner series

-the various movie versions of Block’s novels

-why you shouldn’t kill of your series characters

-and plenty more!

Jesse Willis