Stanislaw Lem – Page 4

Prisoners of Gravity on Robots and Artificial Intelligence

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here’s another episode of Prisoners Of Gravity uploaded to YouTube (and audio’d by SFFaudio). The three videos below make up the bulk of one episode from the 2nd season of PoG. The episode is titled “Robots & Artificial Intelligence“. In the show, Commander Rick and guests talk to and about, Douglas Adams, Gregory Benford, Karel Čapek, Isaac Asimov, Nancy Kress, George Zabrowski, Stanislaw Lem, Robocop, Frank Miller, Robert J. Sawyer, Donald Kingsbury, Brian Fawcett, Pamela Sargent, Lewis Shiner, Roger Penrose, Judith Reeves-Stevens, Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Star Trek and Judith Merril and William Gibson, John Varley. This is a terrifc survey of the cross’d subjects of robots and AI. Check it out…

Prisoners Of Gravity – “Robots & Artificial Intelligence”
1 |MP3| – 25 Minutes [AUDIO FROM VIDEO]
Broadcaster: TV Ontario
Broadcast: Thursday, January 24th, 1991

“This week’s topic is Robots… unfortunately, NanCy, Commander Rick’s computer, changes the topic on him to Artificial Intelligence; Commander Rick manages to discuss a little of both with his guests. Including clips from Hardware and Robocop 2.”

Part 1 of 3:

Part 2 of 3:

Part 3 of 3:

Posted by Jesse Willis

Stanisław Lem’s Solaris to air on BBC Radio 4

Online Audio

Both our regular U.K. contributor Roy, and a friend of SFFaudio, Paul Jenkins (of The Rev Up Review Podcast and The Plitone Revisionist podiobook) have written in to say that the latest issue of the Radio Times gives some brief details on an exciting new BBC Radio 4 “Classic Serial” that is set to be aired as two one-hour episodes beginning on Sunday July 29th…

Solaris
By Stanisław Lem; Performed by a full cast
2 One Hour Broadcasts – 2 Hours [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 / Classic Serial
Broadcast: Sunday Jul 29th 2007 @ 3 pm (UK Time)
The radio debut of ‘s science-fiction classic. A psychologist is sent to a run-down space station to find out what has happened to its crew. When his long-dead wife turns up, he finds himself in deep trouble.

Cast:
Kris – Ron Cook
Rheya – Joanne Froggat
Snow – Tim McMullan
Sartorius – Stuart Richman
Woman – Maxine Burth
Crew:
Producer by Polly Thomas
Adpted by Hattie Naylor
Repeated on Saturday at 9 pm

No other details available yet, but the Classic Serial website is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/classic_serial.shtml

Both episodes should be available via the ‘listen again‘ service after broadcast.

Thanks Paul and Roy! At only two hours it looks like they aren’t going with the Tarkovsky script for this one eh?

posted by Jesse Willis

German language Radio Drama alive and well

SFFaudio Commentary

“Der Himmel ueber dem hafen hatte die farbe eines fernsehers, der auf einen toten kanal eingestellt ist.”

Neuromancer Radio Drama in GERMAN

If regular old Neuromancer is just too prosaic for your discerning tastes might I recommend the German language radio drama version?

Have a listen to a sample RealAudio track, its an urbane, laid-back delivery of William Gibson’s familiar story in audio dramatization form. The production is speckled with subtle musical cues and unexpected lines in English. It’s awesome. Thanks to Carsten Schmitt for the tip-off!

The entire drama is available on a 3-CD set through Der Audio Verlag (which translates into “The Audio Publishinghouse”). Also in the Der Audio Verlag catalogue are more German language radio dramatizations of the works of Isaac Asimov, Stanislaw Lem and many others. Especially cool sounding is the one titled Erinnerungsmechanismus by Philip K. Dick (which translates back into English as “Memory Mechanism”) There’s something comforting about the idea that radio drama is alive and well in Germany… aber es drückt mich nieder, daß mein Deutscher nicht bis zur Aufgabe ist.

posted by Jesse Willis

The StarShipSofa podcast, the U.K.’s answer to The Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas

SFFaudio Online Audio

Starship Sofa is a very cool podcast from the UK. The hosts, Tony and Ciaran, are into the literature side of Science Fiction and are determined to ramble, and very intelligently, about some of their favorite retro authors and movies. Their format is a little looser than the Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas podcast, which is very much a mirror to Starship Sofa, Ciaran and Tony are far more likely to stray off topic than are Summer, Joe and David. They often talk about who was born a particular year a novel came out, what films were playing that year and what was happening in the news at the time. Occasionally I find myself enjoying their rambling, (I dig Momento too guys) but mostly I find myself wanting to spin ahead to the topic on offer. Despite these reservations, I enjoy Starship Sofa immensely and think you all might too…

Shows so far:

Show # 1: Classic Author: Alfred Bester |MP3|
Show # 2: Classic Author: John Brunner |MP3|
Show # 3: Classic Author: Algis Budrys |MP3|
Show # 4: Classic Author: Cordwainer Smith |MP3|
Show # 5: Classic Author: Stanislaw Lem |MP3|
Show # 6: Classic Film: Dark Star |MP3|
Show # 7: Classic Author: Philip K. Dick (Part 1) |MP3|
Show # 8: Classic Author: Philip K. Dick (Part 2) |MP3|
Show # 9: Classic Author: Philip K. Dick (Part 3) |MP3|

To subscribe to the podcast plug this feed into your podcatcher:

http://starshipsofa.libsyn.com/rss

posted by Jesse Willis

ABC Radio National: The Philosopher’s Zone on Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris

Online Audio

ABC Radio National (Australia’s public radio broadcaster) has finally got into podcasting. This is a very good thing, especially for those outside of Australia – just think, no more calculating what time a show is on at what time tomorrow or yesterday! And now The Philosopher’s Zone, a show all about philosophy, has a cool program available for download…

“The great Polish science-fiction writer Stanislaw Lem—author of the novel, Solaris, on which two movies have been based—died last month. This week, The Philosopher’s Zone explores the philosophy underlying his visionary work.”

Check out the MP3 of it HERE.

Or subscribe to the feed:

http://abc.net.au/rn/podcast/feeds/pze.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

MP3 documentary on Stanislaw Lem

Online Audio

Benjamen Walker‘s Theory Of Everything, which we first mentioned back when Ben did a show on Philip K. Dick, has made a similar eclectic audio mini audio document about recently deceased SF author Stanislaw Lem. In the piece both Ben and his friend Bill Marx mourn the death of the influential author and reminisce, in part “about how if Lem didn’t get the Nobel prize for literature before he died [they] would have to go to Stockholm and fuck shit up”. You can download the MP3 about Lem HERE.

And by the way, the original PKD documentlet is available HERE too (it was the very first T.O.E. show).

posted by Jesse Willis