The SFFaudio Podcast #161 – READALONG: Among Others by Jo Walton

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #161 – Jesse, Scott, Tamahome, and Jenny (of Reading Envy) talk about the Nebula-winning novel Among Others by Jo Walton.

Talked about on today’s show:
What does ‘Among Others’ mean?, “the most meta book ever”, Jo on Coode Street, what’s your favorite book?, Interlibrary Loan, the Welsh accent of the audiobook, is there a plot?, “it’s post-fantasy”, list of sf books referenced, how many have you read?, books in The Canon, Jo’s Tor blog, no cyberpunk, The Litany of Fear from Dune, learning about Judaism, Roger Zelazny, Luke’s review of Lord Of Light (not Amber), 1960’s – 1980’s only, getting book recommendations, no internet!, Harlan Ellison in The Comics Journal, used bookstores, “I’d rather have a Heinlein than a headmistress!”, non-fiction too, Plato (The Socratic Method), the fairy world, Virgil, acupuncture, were the fairies ‘real’?, Among Others on The Writer And The Critic with Cat Valente, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, The Tempest, grief, did Mor steal her sister’s identity?, The Wizard Of Earthsea, do the book choices reflect themes?, we want an index, karass (see Cat’s Cradle), I, Claudius, Chi, other Nebula nominees, God’s War has bugs, Embassytown, Jo Walton on series, Jo on the Hugos, we’re waiting for the hugo novella blog series, The Paper Menagerie (online audio), how well read do you have to be to appreciate Among Others?, Hyperion, “it’s a book-love book”, which books from the list will you read next?, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters is the best, old Delany, Sturgeon’s A Touch Of Strange, what’s that Sturgeon novel with three brains in a jello mold on Mars internet??, James Tiptree Jr., The Dispossessed (Luke’s review), Stand On Zanzibar is on audio, length of books, Jo’s Small Change series is on audio, Tor is drm-free, don’t forget Baen and Angry Robot and Nightshade, the kindle hit Wool is optioned for a movie, “umm…no”

I happened to have this old paperback:

James Tiptree Jr. - Out Of The Everywhere (cover)

Posted by Tamahome

The SFFaudio Podcast #160 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Red Nails by Robert E. Howard

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #160 – Jesse, Tamahome, and Brian Murphy (of The Silver Key and Black Gate) talk about Red Nails by Robert E. Howard (read by Gregg Margarite for LibriVox). The audiobook runs 3 Hours 21 minutes and the discussion begins after that.

Talked about on today’s show:
Comics, the comic adaptation of Red Nails, Conan Saga, Savage Tales, Barry Windsor-Smith, John Buscema, Storyteller, Wolverine, the REH Comics Yahoo! Group, Beyond The Black River, Tower Of The Elephant, Karl Edward Wagner, Queen Of The Black Coast, grimness, pirates, torture, lesbianism, happy endings, “so much for that decades old gang war”, it’s Red Nails is like a Tom Baker Doctor Who serial, haunted city, a feud culture, Tolkemec’s laser, “if it bleeds we can kill it”, Conan the chauvinist, Valeria kicks ass, is the story told from Valeria’s POV?, it begins like a mystery, the “dragon” is a dinosaur (sort of), Techotl, writer shorthand, Star Trek (Let That Be Your Last Battlefield), Techotl is Gollum-like, Red Nails as a gang war, why didn’t they all get rickets and starve, Howard was the original locavore, a roofed city vs. a domed city, Hatfields vs. McCoys, the black pillar of vengeance, ConanRedNails.com, HBO can do no wrong, copyright vs. trademark, Dark Horse’s Chronicles Of Conan #4, colour and colouring, Howard as a stylist, Book X of The Odyssey, The Land of the Lotus Eaters, The Dark Man: The Journal Of Robert E. Howard Studies, using digital copies to research (control-f), Aztec, Toltecs, cannibalism, Jack London, Harold Lamb, William Morris, J.R.R. Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, sword and sorcery, horror, The Black Stone, Worms Of The Earth by Robert E. Howard, Tantor Media’s tantalizing collection Bran Mak Morn: The Last King, condemn Howard’s racism praise his writing, Orson Scott Card, Al Harron of The Blog That Time Forgot, Apparition In The Prize Ring by Robert E. Howard, Ace Jessel, Solomon Kane, what will we do after?, just an average weekend with laser beams, the gonzo ending of Red Nails, BrokenSea’s The Queen Of The Black Coast audio drama, Bill Hollweg, legal trouble, Sherlock Holmes, Disney’s John Carter vs. Dynamite Entertainment‘s Warlord Of Mars.

Red Nails - interior fold out art by Ken Kelly

Red Nails - Ending - art by Barry Windsor-Smith

Red Nails by Robert E. Howard

Red Nails illustration by Margaret Brundage from Weird Tales, July 1936

Red Nails illustration by Harold S. De Lay from Weird Tales, July 1936

Red Nails illustration by Harold S. De Lay from Weird Tales, August September 1936

Red Nails illustration by Harold S. De Lay from Weird Tales, October 1936

Red Nails by Robert E. Howard - illustration by George Barr

Red Nails - illustration by George Barr

George Barr ILLUSTRATION for Red Nails

Valeria by Geoffrey Isherwood (in the style of Barry Windsor Smith)

Red Nails - illustrated by Gregory Manchess

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #159 – NEW RELEASES/RECENT ARRIVALS

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #159 – Scott, Jesse, Tamahome, and Charles Tan talk about recently arrived audiobooks, new releases and more.

Talked about on today’s show:
Charles sent to World Fantasy, John Scalzi’s Fuzzy Nation is a reworking, Is WWW: Wonder by Robert J. Sawyer YA?, three from Angry Robot, Giant Thief by David Tallerman, Empire State by Adam Christopher is superhero noir, free comic book day, The Shadow comic by Garth Ennis, listening speeds, Dead Harvest by Chris F. Holm, Bolinda Audio from Australia, Dreamquake by Elizabeth Knox, YA is big, Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, “scare the crap out of little kids”, The Novice by Trudi Canavan, cozy fantasy, Dark Is The Moon by Ian Irvine, Hemlock Grove by Brian McGreevy, being developed for Netflix, polarizing, Angels Of Vengence by John Birmingham, futuristic Clancy?, White Horse by Alex Adams, Into The Black: Odyssey One by Evan Currie, ebook first, “I’m getting refreshed”, Jenny would like Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente, not Genevieve Valentine, Welcome To Bordertown edited by Ellen Kushner (Sfsignal interview) and Holly Black is all-new, “these stories are too wet”, A Handful Of Stars by Dana Stabenow is an older book, “Alaskans in space”, The Outcast Blade by John Courtenay has vampires, “well that’s disappointing”, how about steampunk?, the splitting of Warriors by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, Legends by Robert Silverberg, Scott thinks Far Horizons should be an audiobook, Agatha H. And The Clockwork Princess by Phil and Kaja Foglio, Girl Genius comics online, Dante Valentine series by Lilith Saintcrow, Clockwork Heart by Dru Pagliassotti, “clockpunk”, Nightfall by Stephen Leather, soul legalities, “God is the ultimate scammer”, Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Infamous, paper books, Comedia Della Morte by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, usefulness of blurbs, The Company Of The Dead by David J. Kowalski, end of Scott’s stack, I didn’t know 8 Million Ways To Die by Lawrence Block was a book, lots from Audible Frontiers, Gregory Benford’s Galactic Center series with multiple narrators, Planet Of The Apes by Pierre Boulle, think of the movie inverted, “take your damn dirty hands off me”, Terry Bisson’s They’re Made Out Of Meat, Charles is reading the Shirley Jackson award nominees (horror and dark fantasy) to prepare for interviews, Peter Staub’s Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff, “it scared the pants off me”, where’s the John Joseph Adams anthology audiobooks?, Kim Stanley Robinson audio short story at Lightspeed Magazine, 2312 stays in the solar system, Mars trilogy if you like science, tons of new Robert Silverberg on Audible, The World Inside will be an HBO series, Scott liked Book Of Skulls, a bunch of Connie Willis, what’s on the horizon?, Existence by David Brin, Red Mars was a marathon, A Short, Sharp Shock by Kim Stanley Robinson, what kind of fantasy does he write?, John Scalzi’s Redshirts, bye Charles

The Shadow cover

Posted by Tamahome

The SFFaudio Podcast #158 – READALONG: The Syndic by C.M. Kornbluth

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #158 – Last week’s podcast was an unabridged reading of The Syndic by C.M. Kornbluth. This week Jesse discusses it with the narrator, Mark Douglas Nelson!

Talked about on today’s show:
SciPodBooks.com, the SciPodCast, The Syndic by C.M. Kornbluth, The City At World’s End by Edmond Hamilton, the virtues of democracy, Oath Of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, H. Beam Piper, Space Viking, a wealth of ideas, Frederik Pohl, the story as a straw man, Robert A. Heinlein, telepathy, witches, dystopia, utopia, polo played with jeeps (mounted with 50 caliber machine guns), the syndicate vs. the mob, Ireland, Iceland, libertarianism, the Prometheus Unbound review of The Syndic, polyandry, an economy run on alcohol, sex, and gambling, laissez faire capitalism, monopolies, robber barons, taxes vs. shakedowns, “a real mess of a book”, should a society compromise its ideals to save itself?, is the joke on us?, a velvet gloved invisible hand, The High Crusade by Poul Anderson, the children’s crusade, WWII, rule by mob vs. rule by mobsters, Ron Paul, the sustainability of a war based economy need not much concern the arms manufacturer, Isaac Asimov, The City At World’s End has a real plot, disaster stories, new ideas trump big flaws, “writing by the seat of your pants”, space opera, E.E. “Doc” Smith, respect for science and scientists, Farnham’s Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein, The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer, LibriVox.org, Riverworld series, rolling ships, Hyperion by Dan Simmons, the problem of endless series, StarShipSofa, The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman, A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Voyage To Arcturus by David Lindsay, “philosophy, philosophy, philosophy”, it starts with a séance, C.S. Lewis, Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves And Wooster, Leave It To Jeeves, LibriVox’s new funding (from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), Orson Scott Card, Harlan Ellison, Airborn by Kenneth Oppel, Gregg Margarite, Lone Star Planet by H. Beam Piper, Kevin J. Anderson, Principles Of Economics, iambik audio, Wonder Audio, All Or Nothing by Preston L. Allen, The Tattoo Murder Case by Akimitsu Takagi, Toshiro Mifune, Akira Kurosawa, High And Low, Netflix, Sweet And Lowdown, One O’Clock Jump by Lise McClendon, A Is For Alibi by Sue Grafton, Talents Incorporated by Murray Leinster, goofy, the William Woodsworth Microphone Showdown, do expensive mics make great narrators?

Posted by Jesse Willis

READ: The New Mother by Lucy Clifford (it’s your homework for an upcoming SFFaudio Podcast)

SFFaudio Online Audio

The SFFaudio PodcastWe’re going to be recording a discussion for the SFFaudio Podcast this weekend. It’ll be centered around a wonderful, horrible, 19th century short story by Lucy Clifford. It’s called The New Mother.

Our narrator, Heather Ordover from the wonderful Craftlit podcast, has just sent me the file!

Happily it will be included in the podcast, along with our discussion of it, but I thought it might be interesting to share the audiobook with everyone early.

If you do download the audiobook |MP3| (which I’ll keep in my DropBox folder for the next week or so) and have a comment about the story, post it below. If it’s interesting we may refer to it in our discussion. And, for extra credit, we participants are planning on talking about The New Mother‘s relationship to Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and Philip K. Dick’s The Father Thing.

I’ve also put together a |PDF| from the original scans of The Anyhow Stories, Moral and Otherwise (1882) over on Archive.org.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #157 – AUDIOBOOK: The Syndic by C.M. Kornbluth

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #157 – The Syndic by C.M. Kornbluth, read by Mark Nelson.

This UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK (6 Hours 20 Minutes) comes to us courtesy of SciPodBooks.com and WonderEbooks. The Syndic was first published in Science Fiction Adventures, December 1953 and March 1954.

Come back for our next episode (SFFaudio Podcast #158) to hear our discussion of it.

Here’s the etext |RTF| (Rich Text format).

The Syndic by C.M. Kornbluth - illustrated by Sussman
The Syndic by C.M. Kornbluth - illustrated by Sussman
The Syndic by C.M. Kornbluth - illustrated by Sussman

Posted by Jesse Willis