Category: Commentary

Rocket Science 1966 – 1967

SFFaudio News

The Fix - Short Fiction ReviewRecently posted over at The Fix: Short Fiction Review is my latest Rocket Science column, covering Hugo-winning short fiction from 1966 and 1967.

From 1966: “”Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman” by Harlan Ellison. Ellison reads this himself in the Voice from the Edge: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream audio collection. |SFFaudio Review|

From 1967: Novelette: “The Last Castle” by Jack Vance. I don’t know of an audio version of this one. The only Jack Vance audiobook I know of is from Wonder Audio – “The Devil on Salvation Bluff”. I’d certainly welcome a Vance audio collection – he’s great.

Also from 1967: Short Story: “Neutron Star” by Larry Niven. The only audio version of this one that I’m aware of is from an old Books on Tape version of Niven’s Beowulf Schaeffer collection called Crashlander. Long out of print, and I can’t think of any other versions.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Commentary: HuffDuffer.com – podcasting MP3 files from around the web

SFFaudio Commentary

HuffDuffer.comPersistent subscribers will have noticed me talking up a service called HuffDuffer.com. For those unaware, and before you get all concerned that it’s a site for kitten harmers don’t worry no kittens are harmed by huff-duffing. See the verb “to huff-duff” derives from the technique called H.igh F.requency D.irection F.inding. typically “known by its acronym HF/DF, pronounced Huff-Duff. This has become the common name for this type of radio direction finder, and was coined during World War II.”

Here’s the way Jeremy Keith, the guy behind HuffDuffer.com, describes his site:

  • You find an MP3 that you’d like to share with the world.
  • Use the handy “huffduff it” button directly on the site.
  • That file is now added to your podcast.

    • Tag it

    When you are huffduffing an audio file, you can “tag” it with key words or phrases. Separate tags with spaces or commas; whichever you prefer. Tagging files like this makes it easier to find related files that other people have huffduffed.

    A separate podcast is created for every tag you use.

    Discover it

    Tags are also a useful way of finding interesting stuff that other people have huffduffed.

    Jeremy has built some features into HuffDuffer to give it the potential as a new social networking site – but you needn’t be a social networker to use the service.

    I got Scott Danielson and Julie Davis HuffDuffing. So why aren’t you?

    Posted by Jesse Willis

    CBC cancels its most popular podcast

    SFFaudio News

    CBC Radio - Search EngineCBC Radio has canceled its most popular podcast. CBC had previously, in an unprecedented move, exiled Search Engine from the actual radio broadcasts and had the staff reduced to just the host (Jesse Brown). Despite these hurdles the show was still breaking important news and doing terrific interviews on a nearly weekly basis. In fact Search Engine was CBC’s:

    “…most downloaded audio podcast. It’s won an international radio award and has been on iTunes’ .Best Podcasts of The Year List’ for each year that it’s been around.

    It also happened to be the CBC podcast I most looked forward to each week.

    CBC still produces some amazing programs. But the new trend seems to be produce retarded decisions…

    Cancel Intelligence. Cancel radio drama. Cancel Search Engine.

    What the fuck CBC?

    The folks making these decisions have got to be boneheaded techno-fogies who don’t read their own stats.

    TV0 - Search EngineThe good news is there appear to be some smarter managers over on TVO (TVOntario) who’ve decided to pick up Search Engine. CBC doesn’t want listeners?

    TVO here we all come. For more on this story read what TVO’s Search Engine has planned for Summer 2009.

    Here’s the new podcast feed:

    http://feeds.tvo.org/tvo/searchengine

    By the way this is Heritage Minister James Moore‘s portfolio (Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam). I would hope he is very shamefaced by this CBC gaff under his ministry. He comes from radio. Prior to being a politician he was a broadcaster on CKST.

    Posted by Jesse Willis

    P.S. Another boneheaded decision by CBC. It still hasn’t released the J. Michael Straczynski radio drama The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al!

    Commentary: “Best of” and “Book of” books

    SFFaudio Commentary

    SFSignal.com recently asked me to participate in another of their “Mind Melds.” The topic:

    Q: What are the “Forgotten Books” of science fiction/fantasy/horror?

    Here was my answer:

    Best Of/Book Of/Many Worlds Of books (spines)

    I spend most of my time worrying about which lost gems deserve audiobook editions. But, there are quite a paperbooks I’d like to be able to lay my grubby mitts on too. Just lately I’d been thinking about the “Best Of AUTHOR NAME” and “Book of AUTHOR NAME” books that I’ve collected and cherished over the last twenty years or so. There was a big wave of them in the 1970s but most have been out of print forever. These are seriously in need of reprints. I’m a sucker for a carefully edited short story and novella collections with introduction by another SF author (and often an afterward by the author himself). Maybe it is a conservative streak in me. I don’t love these books because they’re old, though that doesn’t hurt. I love them because they’ve collected stories by authors who’ve had a chance to stand the test of time. It’s hard to judge the recent crop of SF authors and say exactly who’ll be the next grandmaster of SF, a grand old man of the genre – someone worth reading a “best of” collection without even having read a page of their work before. Innovation, style, a few solid hits is great, but to stand the burning acid of just a few years of history is by far a greater test. A good new book only wins you a second chance with me but a “best of” or “book of” book is the proof that you’ve stuck around long enough that you’ve been shown to be the genuine article – an author whose work is to be remembered.

    If some publisher does pick up the idea of printing “best of/book of” collections again they can always throw in a “Best of Charlie Stross” and a “Book of Ted Chiang” into the mix too. In fact I’d love to read The Book Of Ted Chiang with an introduction by Charlie Stross and a Best Of Charlie Stross with an introduction by Ted Chiang.

    To read everyone else’s check out the ORIGINAL POST.

    And here are more images of these notable paperbooks:

    The Best Of C.L. MooreThe Best Of C.M. KornbluthThe Best Of Edmond HamiltonThe Best Of Eric Frank RussellThe Best Of Frederik PohlThe Best Of Fritz LeiberThe Best Of Hal ClementThe Best Of Henry KuttnerThe Best Of John W. CampbellThe Best Of Leigh BrackettThe Best Of Lester Del ReyThe Best Of L. Sprague De CampThe Best Of Murray LeinsterThe Best Of Cordwainer SmithThe Best Of Raymond Z. Gallun






















    Posted by Jesse Willis

    Commentary: Where are all the Charles Stross audiobooks?

    SFFaudio Commentary

    Charles StrossHere’s a question nobody’s been asking (but should have). Where are all the Charles Stross audiobooks?

    Seriously, the guy is super talented. There have only been three commercially released Charlie Stross audiobooks (all from Infinivox). The were terrific, but they’re not enough.

    If Saturn’s Children and Halting State were available as audiobooks they’d shoot up to the top of my listening stack.

    Forget individual testimony for a minute, let’s just look at the awards…

    Stross’ novella The Concrete Jungle won the Hugo award for its category in 2005. Accelerando won the 2006 Locus Award for best science fiction novel.Glasshouse won the 2007 Prometheus Award. The novella Missile Gap won the 2007 Locus Award for best novella. His novels Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise garnered back to back Hugo Award nominations in 2004 and 2005. Am I missing something here? Is Stross not due for some more professionally made audiobooks?

    In anticipation of a big flood of Strossian goodness over the next couple of years I’ve just now made a CHARLES STROSS author’s page, where I’ll put up details of all the Strossian audio we know about.

    Posted by Jesse Willis