If You’re Just Joining Us interviews Mary Robinette Kowal. |MP3|
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Posted by Charles Tan
Tag: Mary Robinette Kowal
Clarkesworld Features Mary Robinette Kowal’s “Clockwork Chikadee”
The latest issue of Clarkesworld Magazine has just been released and it now includes a podcast! For June 2008, not only are they publishing Mary Robinette Kowal’s short story “Clockwork Chikadee” but are also making it available for you to download and listen to. |MP3|
You can subscribe to the feed at http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/feed/rss/
Posted by Charles Tan
Mary Robinette Kowal: The SFWA Secretary
We are pleased to report that the big American election everyone was waiting for is over. And we won! Mary Robinette Kowal has won her position as Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Secretary!
It was a landslide win. HERE are the official results. We’re happy for Mary, and this bodes well for the SFWA’s future in general.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Mary Robinette Kowal is running for SFWA Secretary!
Mary Robinette Kowal is running for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Secretary!
Personally I don’t really care about the internal politics of the SFWA, and that’s why I support Mary. I’m a reader of SFF, not a writer of it. I just want my SFF, and I want it in my hands (and ears) with the authors of it compensated for their work. I don’t want bogus takedown notices, I don’t want committee members spreading false information. Mary is smart, tapped into the new technologies, she knows about audio rights and podcasts, and she has plans to reform the derailed SFWA committees. Mary’s is a voice found all over the net (including SFFaudio). She’s been getting Science Fiction into the ears of the consumers of it for at least a few years now, and she has related experience too. Check out her policies and plans on her blog post HERE. And if you’re a SFWA member seriously consider VOTING FOR MARY!
Posted by Jesse Willis
An Evening with Harry, Carrie, and Garp
John Joseph Adams (aka The Slush God) reports on An Evening with Harry, Carrie, and Garp, during which J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, and John Irving did some live reading at the Radio City Music Hall.
And, the multi-talented Mary Robinette Kowal, prompted by John Joseph Adams’ post, offers a primer on “Reading Aloud” on her blog, with more to come.
Review of Middle Woman by Orson Scott Card
Middle Woman
By Orson Scott Card; Read by Mary Robinette Kowal
1 MP3 File – 9 Minutes 57 Seconds [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show
Published: March 2006
Themes: / Fantasy / Fable / Dragons / 3 Wishes /Immortality /
This is the second “Audio Bonus” from Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show online magazine, the plan appears to be to offer one bonus MP3 story per issue. Cool!
Orson Scott Card’s short fiction is connected to people in ways that other speculative fiction often isn’t. Realistic character psychology always takes the lead over scenarios, but his scenarios always test his characters’ psychologies – it makes for a special completeness rarely found in Speculative Fiction. Combine this with a refinement of prose, where every word is perfectly placed, and you get a little piece of magic in every OSC story. In this case, “Middle Woman” is a fable style fiction, another variation of that old saw “the three wishes”. Originally published under OSC’s pseudonym “Byron Walley”, it takes the idea of moderation, something almost always absent from fables, and runs with it. It reminded me of a kinder, gentler version of Robert Bloch’s classic That Hellbound Train. Interestingly, it also offers a more restive solution to W.W. Jacobs’ The Monkey’s Paw. The setting is Eastern, and given the “middle” of the title I suspect it is working in the ‘middle kingdom’ style of storytelling. Whether I’m right about that or not you’ll have to check it out yourself to decide.
Quite short, only 9 minutes, this is ably read by Mary Robinette Kowal who manipulates her voice in all the right ways to lend classic fairy tale reading to this modern fable. In addition to being a terrific narrator, Kowal is a professional puppeteer who also moonlights as speculative fiction author. “Middle Woman” is the Audio Bonus found in Issue Two of the online magazine Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show.
DISCLAIMER: Mary Robinette Kowal, when not reading stories aloud is an SFFaudio reviewer.
Posted by Jesse Willis