BBC7 / The 7th Dimension premiers 1st PODCAST!

SFFaudio Online Audio

BBC 7 and The 7th Dimension are premiering their very first podcast tomorrow! But it isn’t exactly what we were expecting…

BBC 7 HEROES The Official Radio ShowHEROES The Official Radio Show
20 Part Series in 15 minute episodes
Broadcaster/Podcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Saturday at 6.30pm and 12.30am (U.K. Time)
The NBC fantasy TV show Heroes just started airing on television channel BBC2 this week. The series is about ordinary people dealing with the discovery that they have extraordinary (superhuman) powers. This podcast (and broadcast) isn’t the actual series but instead it is what they are calling “the ultimate audio companion.” Features will include “in-depth discussions and analyses of the themes, characters and conundrums facing the characters.”

Subscribe to the podcast via this feed:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/bbc7/heroes/rss.xml

SFFaudio EXCLUSIVE: The New Escape Pod Fantasy Fiction Spinoff Named!

SFFaudio News

Podcast - PodCastle The Fantasy Fiction PodcastAn SFFaudio Exclusive!

We got the scoop! Before anybody else! Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!

From the people who brought you “Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine” and “Psuedopod: The World’s Premier Horror Fiction Podcast” now comes…

PodCastle: The Fantasy Fiction Podcast

PodCastle is the world’s first fantasy audio magazine. Each week we’ll bring you short stories across the spectrum of fantasy from leading authors and new discoveries. Like our sister podcasts, Escape Pod and Pseudopod, PodCastle is entirely free to listen and share.

The new podcast is still in development, but the main website for it can be found at PodCastle.org. On the site you’ll find a notation saying that the podcast will launch in August (though it may actually be in September).

Like Escape Pod and PseudoPod this will be a paying market for authors and a free podcast for listeners. Flash fiction (short short little stories) will net authors just $20. But $100.00 will be paid for full fledged short stories. If you, like us plan on subscribing to PodCastle, we urge you to send them a few bucks as a show of support. SFFaudio has dug deep into its coffers and made a donation of exactly $100.00 USD through PayPal – so we’re buying the whole world and you that first fantasy tale.

Oh and one last thing. Hey you Fantasy fiction authors, take note, the submission guidelines are already up on the site. So get submitting. The future is sounding FANTASTIC!

posted by Jesse Willis

Brilliant monologue by world’s driest humorist Jack Mangan

SFFaudio Online Audio

Online Audio - Jack Mangan's Deadpan PodcastThe below the radar variety show podcast Jack Mangan’s Deadpan has the most devoted audience in the known universe. Where else can you find a podcast with regular 1000+ comments per post? I think 99.9% of that credit should go to the man himself. Honestly, I tend to fast forward through a lot of the show’s regular segments, skipping over bits like “the contents of one’s fridge” and such – but there’s something about the timing, wit and genuine good nature of the guy with the deadpan delivery that keeps me coming back again and again and again. Jack’s latest show (#66) |MP3| is a short 26 minute “diary podcast” (AKA monologue) talking about Star Wars and community, and the impact those first three movies had on a certain generation’s psychological ethos. Jack once again proves that humor is a dish best served dry:

“Like for example if you’re in a rough place and somebody starts fucking with you – just kill them – hack off their arm with your lightsaber – shoot them first – whatever you got to do.”

Subscribe, DEADPAN is the way, with this feed:

http://www.jackmangan.com/podcast.xml

Stanisław Lem’s Solaris to air on BBC Radio 4

Online Audio

Online AudioBoth 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?

Mini J. Michael Straczynski interview on Amazon.com

SFFaudio Online Audio

Amazon.com Screening RoomAmazon.com‘s Screening Room has a 12 minute interview with J. Michael Straczynski, talking to him about the upcoming Babylon 5 Lost Tales DVD release and writing in general. The WMA file is available HERE. UPDATE: try clicking on THIS and following the textual links to the WMA file. Damn WMA! One attentive reader pointed out there is a direct link to the |WMA|. Thanks!

I’ve just read a review of the DVD by a lucky viewer who got a copy more than a week before the July 31st release date. That reviewer described the new direct to DVD show this way:

Wow! If anything felt like we were coming home, this did – Absofragginglutely! Joe promised he would knock this one out of the ballpark and he delivered. Direct to DVD is the way for the B5 universe to survive.

Really looking forward to this DVD. And, Apocalypse Al must be freed.

CBC has Steve The First and Steve The Second airing daily!

SFFaudio News

Canadia 2056Lots of CBC stories and news today, and though much of it is frustrating lots of it good too. First up the best news of all:

CBC Radio One has ordered an entire 2nd season of Canadia 2056! This announcement comes straight from Matt Watts himself. That’s right everybody, we’re gonna get 15 more episodes of pure Science Fiction Comedy Radio Drama gold! But that’s a long way away yet. First up is news that may effect your schedule for tomorrow morning ….

Steve The First

Steve The Second

CBC Radio One will be re-broadcasting Steve The First and Steve The Second radio dramas, these were the two shows penned by Canadia 2056 scribe Matt Watts. The fun begins tomorrow, Monday, July 23rd and ends August 1st. The shows will air for 30 minutes on weekdays, at 11:30 a.m. in all time zones (except Newfoundland where it will begin at Noon).

Here’s the official description:

From the ashes of a post-apocalyptic world rose a slacker named Steve The First He balanced the world and brought civility back to civilization. He blew up in the process. Twenty-Five years later, dark times have returned; a military organization named the Dark Alliance is hell-bent on Provincial domination. They are one city shy of their goal, Orontonto. The city is holding up, but it is time to bring out their secret weapon. The son of Steve: Steve The Second.

There’s also Wikipedia entries on both shows: Steve I and Steve II.

Listeners worldwide can listen to the re-broadcast via the streaming radio service of CBC Radio One – you can find that RIGHT HERE.

Lastly, in accordance with the precedent set by Roman statesman Cato The Elder and his policy of ending every speech in the senate with “ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.” [“…and of course Carthage must be destroyed.”] In that I’m making it my policy to end every CBC related post with:

“…and of course Apocalypse Al must be freed.”

So…. great guns everybody, lots of good listening begins tomorrow, and of course Apocalypse Al must be freed.