NPR has brief segment on Paolo Bacigalupi.
[via Electric Velocipede]
Posted by Charles Tan
Time Traveler reads for Scatterpod: Dark
Michael Bekemeyer of Scatterpod has started a new themed series for the show called Scatterpod: Dark. As you can imagine these tales concentrate on the darker side of human nature. Some of the shows are non-fantasy horror stories, but they often have a fantasy element.
The third and most recent installation features a Science Fiction story called Ice Planet written by Michael. The story is read by none other than myself, The Time Traveler. Although I host my own show, but with the exception of one short flash fiction, this is my first tour of duty as a narrator. When Michael sent me the story, I couldn’t refuse. It was reminiscent of the kind of stories that appeared in the pulp magazines like Planet Stories (with some added expletives).
You can download the episode here.
You can subscribe to the Scatterpod by pasting this line in your favorite podcatching device:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/scatterpod
or 
YakiToMe – a text to speech service with a podcast option
Just the other day I was reading a rather long blog post from TheFix-Online.com (a review of Subterranean Online’s Spring 2008 issue) when I suddenly got tired of looking at my monitor. I really wanted to finish reading the review, but I had a few pressing household tasks I needed to do, and I knew if I didn’t finish reading the review right then, I’d never get to it again. So, I wondered, is there a way to get this into my ears instead?
47 seconds later…
There was!
I found this…
YakiToMe is a web-based text to speech service that will turn any block of eText into a computer voiced MP3. Even better, it can podcast that article, book or story right to your MP3 player!
Check out the two samples I made for public consumption (both are just a couple excerpted paragraphs so as not to ruffle any copyright feathers). And FYI, you can make much longer files!
Sample 1: From TheFix-Online.com a review of Subterranean Online’s Spring 2008 issue
Here’s the original eText review.
Here’s the unique YakiToMe link for it:
|FAIR USE TheFix-Online.com’s review of Subterranean Online’s Spring 2008 magazine|
Direct download |MP3|
Podcast feed:
http://www.yakitome.com/cgi-bin/rss.py?uID=7206633907&sID=16083&aID=16688
Sample 2: From The Sacramento Bee‘s website, an article about Robert Silverberg
Here’s the original eText article.
Here’s the unique YakiToMe link for it:
Direct download |MP3|
Podcast feed:
http://www.yakitome.com/cgi-bin/rss.py?uID=7206633907&sID=16085&aID=16690
Subsequent fiddling with the service show that you can get better voices too. Cool huh?
Posted by Jesse Willis
Review of Enna Burning by Shannon Hale
Enna Burning
By Shannon Hale; Read by Cynthia Bishop and the Full Cast Family
8 CDs – 8.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Full Cast Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9781934180198
Themes: / Fantasy / YA / Magic / Fairy Tale /
First, I have to say that I LOVE Full Cast Audio. They always do family-friendly books and they are always unabridged. They do an excellent job.
Enna Burning is the sequel to Goose Girl, Shannon Hale’s novelization of the classic fairy tale (also on audiobook by Full Cast Audio). However, you do not need to read/listen to Goose Girl to enjoy Enna Burning”. Hale does an excellent job of giving just enough background to ensure that the reader knows what is going on.
The story is well paced and full of action. The cast of actors does a great job of keeping the feel of the book and keeping the listener’s attention.
Izzy, the “goose girl”, is now princess and her friend, Enna, has gone home to the forest to take care of her dying mother. Enna’s mother dies before the book starts, but she is still in the forest, taking care of her older brother, Leifer. Leifer finds a long-hidden piece of vellum that teaches him to magically work fire. He struggles to control this power as it slowly consumes him. Finally, he uses his power to save their country of Bayern from the invading country to the South, but the fire destroys him.
Enna’s curiosity gets the better of her, and she, too, reads the vellum, telling herself she won’t ever follow the path her brother chose. But her need to help Izzy and save Bayern from being destroyed soon cause her to take a path not of her choosing.
The story is well paced and entertaining. It is written for the Middle Grade/Young Adult market, but is a great story for all ages. I highly recommend both the book and the audiobook.
Posted by Charlene C. Harmon
LibriVox: Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Virtually forgotten for 64 years since it was first serialized, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland is a utopian novel with a feminist bent. It’s extremely readable and plays out as a cross between Thomas More’s Utopia and The Man Who Would Be King. Three male chauvinists, adventurers all, but scientifically bent, hear rumor of a mysterious semi-tropical land composed entirely of women. And off they go. As they approach by airship, guns at the ready, they speculate as to what they’ll find and do when they get there. But, what they discover isn’t at all what they expected. Have a listen to just one chapter and you’ll stay for at least another two.
Herland
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Read by various readers
12 Zipped MP3s or podcast – Approx. 5.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 2008
Herland is a utopian novel from 1915, written by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society comprised entirely of Aryan women who reproduce via parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction). The result is an ideal social order, free of war, conflict and domination. It first appeared as a serial in Perkin’s monthly magazine Forerunner.
Subscribe to podcast via this feed:
http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/herland-by-charlotte-perkins-gilman.xml
Posted by Jesse Willis
The I, Libertine Hoax and how demand creates supply
“‘Gadzooks,’ quoth I, ‘but here’s a saucy post!'”
Today BoingBoing points to a vintage 1968 WFMU radio interview |MP3| with Jean Shepherd who, in the 1950s, promulgated a seemingly unstoppable hoax designed to lampoon the spurious bestseller book lists and their adherents. Shepherd asked his late night audience to visit their local bookstore and ask for a copy of I, Libertine, a book that didn’t exist.
The I, Libertine hoax is like something out of Gravy Planet (AKA The Space Merchants)! Shepherd had equipped his listeners with a plan, a plot summary, and an author with a whole fake biography. The furor created by the phony demands for the seemingly very scarce book led to reviews (both positive and negative) by regular folks and the book critics who claimed to have read it, or to have even had lunch with the imaginary author.
Then, Ballantine Books, sensing a pre-sold market, commissioned none other than Theodore Sturgeon (!) to write the novel everyone was clamoring for. Sturgeon nearly banged it all out in one “marathon” typing session before collapsing onto Betty Ballantine’s couch. She responded by finishing the novel herself.
One thing not in the BoingBoing.net story, there’s a FREE AUDIOBOOK version of the book available! Seriously!
Check it out out here…
I, Libertine
By Frederick Ewing; Read by Jim Campanella
13 MP3 Files – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Uvula Audio
Podcast: 2006
Amd there’s podcast feed for it:
Posted by Jesse Willis