SciFiFest 2010: Olympia Timberland Library, October 23

SFFaudio News

Timberland Regional LibraryLibrarian Kelsey Smith sez:

“SciFi fans, please join us for our second annual SciFiFest! Hugo & Nebula award winning authors Ted Chiang and Nancy Kress will read their work, answer questions, and challenge you to a SciFi trivia throwdown. Spiritual Successor (featuring the infamous Zach Mandeville) will lull you with tunes about suicidal superheroes, terminally ill space babies, and moon janitors. Local heroes Mutoid Men will close out the evening with their special brand of ‘particle-accelerated, Moog synthesized, scientific rock’n’roll.’ Come in costume and win a prize! The library is normally closed at this time and is only open for the program. This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Olympia Timberland Library.”

This event is FREE and open to the public.

SciFiFest 2010
Date: Saturday, October 23, 7:30pm
Location:
Olympia Timberland Library
313 8th Ave SE
Olympia, WA
Phone: 360-352-0595

As a special SFFaudio bonus, the first five attendees to send me (by email) a photograph (or suitable hand drawn facsimile) of themselves and Ted Chiang together at the October 23rd event will receive, by mail, his or her choice of one of the following unabridged audiobooks:

Carnival by Elizabeth Bear (Recorded Books, 11 CDs)
On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers (Blackstone Audio, 10 CDs)
The Caves Of Steel by Isaac Asimov (Tantor Media, 6 CDs)
The Speed Of Dark by Elizabeth Moon (Brilliance Audio, 12 CDs)
Zero History by William Gibson (Penguin Audio, 11 CDs)

To be eligible the emailed images must be received no later than 11:59 pm on October 31, 2010. Prizes shall be awarded in order of their receipt by email. The suitability of any hand drawn entries shall be determined by me. Please title your emailed entries “SciFiFest 2010”.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #074

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #074 – Jesse and Scott talk about the recently arrived audiobooks with assistance and commentary by Luke Burrage

Talked about on today’s show:
New York, “your whole life is a holiday”, The Way Of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, The Wheel Of Time series, “the entire world is imagined from the ground up”, Blackstone Audio, The Shadow Hunter by Pat Murphy, neanderthals, cave bear, “a little cave dude”, The Ugly Little Boy by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Robert J. Sawyer’s Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, shamanic or shamanistic, The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, Urban Fantasy Alert, City Of Ghosts by Stacia Kane, the Chess Putnam series, First Drop Of Crimson by Jeaniene Frost (Book 1 in the The Night Huntress World series), paranormal romance vs. urban fantasy, spade vs. Spade, vampires, by , southern Gothic, Flannery O’Connor with zombies, the full zombie vs. the half zombie vampire, The Reapers Are The Angels by Alden Bell, The Walking Dead by , Being Human (tv show), Dark Shadows, Hawaii 50, V, Half Blood Of Brooklyn by Charlie Huston, Stephen King, noir urban fantasy?, On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, Subterranean Press, Bronson Pinchot, pirates, magic, voodoo, Brilliance Audio, Bearers Of The Black Staff by Terry Brooks, Caviar by Theodore Sturgeon, Shannara, Audiofile Magazine, Connecting the Robots and Empire (Foundation) series, demon war, war dudes and siege engines, The Speed Of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, autism, Mary Robinette Kowal’s review of the Books On Tape edition of The Speed Of Dark |READ OUR REVIEW|, Luke’s idea for a paranormal romance set in the stone age, “urban cave fantasy”, Quicksilver by Neal Stephanson, audiobooks are being shaped to the length of an Audible credit, The Baroque Cycle, The Lies Of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch |READ OUR REVIEW|, “it ends in Gibraltar”, Penguin Audio, Zorgamazoo by Robert Paul Weston, Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl, science fiction, Zero History by William Gibson, Max Headroom, Elmore Leonard, great writing is not enough, Michael May’s Adventure Blog article on back of the book copywriting, taking the risk of writing only the keywords, Starship: Mutiny by Mike Resnick |READ OUR REVIEW|, Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick |READ OUR REVIEW|, Finch by Jeff Vandermeer, StarShipSofa, weird fantasy vs. new weird, the George Zarr talk (The SFFaudio Podcast #071), Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot a BBC radio drama, “if you’re 14 years old and you’re listening to this…”, fantasy women, Ranger’s Apprentice by John Flanagan, Young Adult fiction, the The Ruins of Gorlan series, I Am Number Four, Battlestar Galactica, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, This Immortal by Roger Zelazny, Dune by Frank Herbert, Children Of Dune, Bad Blood by John Sanford, James Lee Burke, Santa Fe Edge by Stuart Woods, by Michael Kramer, the Richard Stark Parker books (Books On Tape), Ed Eagle vs. Eddie The Eagle, New Mexico, puzzling murder, false identity, lush and exclusive resorts, family, vegetarian, car, crash, human, not human, zombie, mystery, maggot infested corpse, brink of death, flesh off her bones, Dust by Joan Frances Turner, should be able to know it, OVERLORDS!, Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, The Caves Of Steel by Isaac Asimov, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein, futuristic gadgetry, Snow Crash, Virtual Light by William Gibson, “the first really good augmented reality book”, The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Seeing Ear Theatre – Readings: William Gibson and Pat Cadigan

SFFaudio Online Audio

Another helpful fellow, with plenty of love for the late lamented Seeing Ear Theatre, has begun uploading missing and missed audio to Archive.org. Here are the first pair, two excerpts from 1999, author readings that that briefly appeared on the Seeing Ear Theatre’s website.

Seeing Ear Theatre - ReadingsPat Cadigan Reads From Tea From An Empty Cup
1 |MP3| – Approx. 14 Minutes [EXCERPT]
Publisher: Seeing Ear Theatre
Published: 1999
Provider: Archive.org


Seeing Ear Theatre - ReadingsWilliam Gibson Reads From All Tomorrow’s Parties
1 |MP3| – Approx. 13 Minutes [EXCERPT]
Publisher: Seeing Ear Theatre
Published: 1999
Provider: Archive.org


[Thanks Roy!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #062 – TALK TO: Kelli Stanley

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #062 – Scott and Jesse talk to author Kelli Stanley about her novel City Of Dragons!

Talked about on today’s show:
Paul Bishop (of the Bish’s Beat blog), TinEye.com reverse image search, the San Francisco Public Library, eBay, Evernote, scrivner, Zotero (a firefox add-on), ABEbooks.com, comics, Treasure Island (California), Chesterfield cigarettes, hardboiled vs. noir, Roman noir, Raymond Chandler, Nox Dormienda by Kelli Stanley, Mystery Readers Journal, “the protagonist is fucked on page one”, James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, Oedipus is noir, Blood On The Moon, noir western, Robert Wise, Deadly Pleasures Magazine, reviewed to death, cozy fiction, why the A-Team is a terrible scourge (it’s anti-noir), torture-porn, Paul Verhoeven, Reefer Madness, apologists for Robert E. Howard, Ashoka (emperor of India), Plutarch, 1940s, Hays office, Baby Face (1933), the history of fuck, HBO’s The Pacific, the wikipedia entry for “Fuck”, 17th century, enlightenment/restoration era sex toys, “the only words that are truly vile are the ones that are used to hurt and ridicule others”, femme fatale, editing, Minotaur books, the City Of Dragons paperbook, point of view as a camera, William Gibson, Tantor Media, the audiobook version of City Of Dragons, historical female private detectives, the perverse incentive of the California divorce laws, Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch, 1939 World’s Fair, High-Octane Stories From The Hottest Thriller Authors edited by Lee Child, WWII, a fan of the Spanish Civil War, Irish fascists vs. the IRA, Father Charles Coughlin and the Christian Front movement, communism, cynicism, Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Sacramento Street in San Francisco, Sino-Japanese War, the Rape of Nanking, Quiet, Please, marketing a book is up to the author, Decoder Ring Theatre’s Black Jack Justice, KelliStanley.com.

38 appropriate uses of the English language’s most iconic curse:

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #059

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #059 – Jesse and Scott talk with Science Fiction author David J. Williams about his recently completed Autumn Rain trilogy.

Talked about on today’s show:
Mirrored Heavens (book 1 in the Autumn Rain trilogy), The Burning Skies (book 2 in the Autumn Rain trilogy), The Machinery Of Light (book 3 in the Autumn Rain trilogy), writing in the present tense, memory, espionage, using past tense is “privileging the narrative”, cold war, cyberspace, cyberpunk, space as the ultimate high ground, militarizing space, satellites, “rods from god“, the straylight run scene from William Gibson’s Neuromancer, war, Future Of War by David J. Williams |PDF|, WarGames (1983), The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein, lagrange points, space elevators, skyhooks, space stations, The Fountains Of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke, terrorism, Philip K. Dick, the Vietnam War vs. the Korean War, Kahlil Gibran, China, 2008 South Ossetia War, Clarion Workshops, Richard K. Morgan, all good series should end.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Guardian Books Podcast: Looking ahead in Science Fiction

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Guardian Books PodcastSays The Guardian…

“Science fiction is the marmite of literature – people tend to love it or hate it. Yet no one could deny that it has produced many of the great myths of our age, from Frankenstein’s monster to William Gibson’s cyber-reality.

SF blogger Damien Walter joins our panellists to discuss where it is now, and why we should all tune in to a genre that can be satirical, prophetic, political and plain good fun, often all at the same time. He also outlines some of the titles to look out for in 2010.

We also look at John Wyndham’s previously unpublished novel, Plan For Chaos, and interview China Miéville, rising star of the ‘new weird’.”

Sez Damien G. Walter:

“I have the pleasure of being a guest on this week’s Guardian Books Podcast. This was my second time on the show, but this time around the whole episode is dedicated to speculative fiction. Hurrah! We discuss the new John Wyndham novel (yes, you heard that right) and the reasons why there are so many sub-genres in SF. Michelle Pauli interviews China Mieville, and I give my SF picks for 2010.”

That old/new John Wyndham novel, Plan For Chaos, sounds very interesting, apparently its a kind of hybrid Science Fiction/Hard Boiled Crime novel. The rest of the podcast is also well worth listening to.

Have a listen |MP3|

Or get it via The Guardian’s podcast feed:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/books/podcast.xml

[via Clampants on HuffDuffer]

Posted by Jesse Willis