MechMuse is a new “audio magazine” publishing short stories, serialized novels, columns and interviews, all in the audio format. Each monthly issue is set to include between ten and fifteen hours of “fresh” Science Fiction and Fantasy content which will be downloadable onto an iPod or any other portable audio player. Short stories will be drawn from both new and established authors, novels will all come from “best-selling” authors. MechMuse’s debut issue (March 2006) issue is set to be released at MechMuse.com on Feb. 15th 2006. It will feature a short story After a Lean Winter and the audio novel On My Way to Paradise both by David Farland as well as feature works by Kevin J. Anderson. Other contributions include The Second Rat by David Barr Kirtley and more tales by the likes of Richard Raleigh and Edmund Schubert. Subscriptions cost $5 per month, or $25 for six months. There’s also a special coupon available that’ll give you a $1.00 discount off the first issue too!
Author: Jesse Willis
Good news brain craving fellows, Zombie Astrona…
Good news brain craving fellows, Zombie Astronaut, one of our favorite mp3 webzines, has done something we should have guessed it would, it came back to life, just after we thought it was dead for sure (we really should have known, every horror movie cliche is true after all). A brand new issue is up and full of tasty sweetmeats. Enjoy!
Two BRAND NEW specially commissioned programs …
Two BRAND NEW specially commissioned programs start airing on BBC 7‘s The 7th Dimension this weekend. First is Jefferson 37 an original radio drama series. Second, is I Am Legend, which looks like an UNABRIDGED reading of the fantabulous Richard Matheson novel. Of the latter, there are differening reports on its number of instalments either 9 or 10 half-hours. Super sweet either way! Here are the details of both:
Jefferson 37
By Jenny Stephens; Directed by Peter Leslie Wild
4 Part Serial – Approx 120 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC 7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Saturday Jan 21st 2006
Starring: David Birrell, Alison Carney, Oliver Hembrough and Dharmesh Patel
“A gripping thriller, set in the near future, and explores the idea of clones being created specifically to provide body parts to those who can afford it.”
I Am Legend
By Richard Matheson; Read by Angus McInnes
9 or 10 Part Reading – approx 5 Hours [UNABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC 7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Mon-Fri 6pm and 12 midnight Jan 23 – Feb 3 2006 (?)
“Taking place in New York, it’s a tale of vampires and a man immune to the plague that has decimated most of the population”.
Adapted by Scott Stainton Miller
Produced by Eilidh McCreadie
Commentary: Back in 1947
Back in 1947, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists first informed the world what time it was on the “Doomsday Clock“. Since then, the minute hand of that clock has moved forward and back to reflect the subjective level of nuclear danger and the state of global security. I suggest we SF & F fans institute another clock, one for which we can easily see the subjective coolness of the times in which we are living. When Sci Fiction closes it’s doors the “uncoolness clock” hand sweeps 5 minutes towards Midnight, when Charles Stross writes another awesome story it sweeps the clock’s hand back a minute. Everybody on board with the idea?
Good. Now I have a candidate for sweeping the hand back a minute. Here’s the argument:
We should sweep the hand of the “uncoolness clock” back for reason of Escape Pod. Escape Pod is our favorite Science Fiction Podcast Magazine. It’s been scoring coup after coup in the game of audio Science Fiction coolness at least once a week for more than six months and without fail. And it’s really starting to get popular. Just look at the evidence:
1. Escape Pod got mentioned in the February 2006 issue of the venerable Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine (along with SFFaudio and TellTaleWeekly). Very Cool!
2. E-Pod got a BoingBoing.net post a few months back – with BoingBoing being the single most popular blog on the internet – the furtive attention of which has crashed many a server due to the mass of click-throughs. Way Cool!
3. Just two weeks ago Escape Pod podcast a Scott Sigler short story entitled Hero. Significant in that Sigler is the only podcast novelist so far with two podiobooks available (EarthCore and Ancestor) both of which encroach on a five digit subscribership. Damn cool!
4. And finally, we come to today’s instalment of Escape Pod, a short story, by maverick Science Fiction author Cory Doctorow entitled Craphound. Keener cool!
That’s four cool reasons why Escape Pod is worthy of sweeping the “uncoolness clock” back a minute from midnight. But perhaps the best reason is E-Pod’s quality, there’s never been a bad story on Escape Pod, with more than 40 tales under the whimisical editorial hand of Steve Eley that’s really saying something. Oh ya and it’s 100% FREE!
So what I’m saying is nuclear annihilation may still loom over us all but I’m telling you thing’s are still really cool in the Science Fiction department. You cool with that?
They’d been talking about it on the Dragon Page …
They’d been talking about it on the Dragon Page Podcasts and now it’s here! The Babylon Podcast, a podcast dedicated to the Babylon 5 universe created by J. Michael Straczynski. It’s hosted by Tim Callender and Summer Brooks!
BBC Radio 4: Documentary on Philip K. Dick
BBC Radio 4 will be airing a half-hour documentary on the transcendant experience near the end of Philip K. Dick‘s life. It’s called “Confessions of a Crap Artist” but the documentary’s title probably isn’t specifically about the PKD novel of the same name.
Here’s the BBC Radio 4 blurb:
“Philip K. Dick is now world famous, thanks to films like Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report. But in the last years of his life he encountered something so strange and troubling he couldn’t stop writing about it. Writer Ken Hollings asks: Was it Phil’s fault God talked to him or was it God’s?”
It airs Monday 16th January 2006 bewtween 20:30-21:00 in the UK. You can use the PublicRadioFan.com website, mentioned below, to calculate when that will be for you. Another option may be is the “Listen Again” feature on the BBC4 website.
… UPDATE! …. HERE‘s a link to the listen again feature for the documentary.