Two nice pieces of news from The Teaching Company, which publishes excellent college courses on audio and video.
First, their title Science Fiction: The Literature of the Technological Imagination can be purchased on cassette for only $15.95. Our earlier SFFaudio review of that course can be found here, and the direct link to purchase it is here.
Second, many of their courses are now available as MP3 download. Sweet!
Rob Walsch, host of the uber-awesome Podcast411, had podcast pioneer Mur Laffery on the show again this week. While Rob and Mur gabbed about Mur’s Geek Fu Action Grip podcast and her new show the I Should Be Writing podcast, Mur let slip the juciest nugget of pure goodness Podcast 411 has ever received – in my opinion – Mur said, she and Steve Eley are working on a brand new companion magazine to SFFaudio’s favourite ever podcast Escape Pod! The new show will follow a very similar format to the Science Fiction Podcast Magazine, but will be soliciting Horror and presumably “dark fantasy” authors for their short stories instead of SF&F. The new show will be called “Psuedo Pod” or “Psuedopod.” The domain (http://pseudopod.org/) is still under construction at this time but we hope to have more details as launch approaches!
HERE‘s a direct link to the MP3 interview. Skip ahead to the 23:34 mark in the interview to hear the complete announcement.
UPDATE: Steve Eley informs me that PseudoPod will be edited by both Mur Lafferty and Ben Phillips (of the band Painful Reminder) and that the show will be a paying market ($20.00 for short stories) using volunteer narrators. As with Escape Pod it will be “donation-driven” and may start as a Bi-weekly podcast. The first instalment could air as early as July! More details forthcoming.
UPDATE 2: Woops in my excitement over PseudoPod I forgot to mention that Mur Lafferty also told Rob that she’s scored a special interview with Neil Gaiman! It will go live sometime soon on her I Should Be Writing podcast. Mur recorded it at the recent Balticon Science Fiction Convention where Gaiman was the Guest Of Honor. Cool!
We missed a great title in our recent New Releases post. Just in from Audio Renaissance is Orson Scott Card’s Children of the Mind, which completes the original 4-volume Ender series, all on unabridged audio! Preceding this book are Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide. Audio Renaissance has page dedicated to the Enderverse on audio – click here to see it.
The Goose Girl
By Shannon Hale; Performed by a Full Cast
10 CDs – 10 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Full Cast Audio
Published: 2005
ISBN: 1932076727
Themes : / Fantasy / Magic / Horses / Animals /
When I finished listening to Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl, I wanted to start the story again. I had read the fantasy novel in print form about two years before hearing it and Full Cast Audio brings the characters to life in spot-on performances which won’t disappoint fans of the novel.
The story of Ani, the Princess Anidora Kiladra, (Erica Lustig) is as intimate as if you were hearing the troubles of your best friend, while at the same time covering a sweeping political plot. Princess Ani is sent to a neighboring kingdom to marry a prince she has never met. On the way there, her handmaid conspires to have her killed and take over her identity as Princess. Ani narrowly escapes with her life and must struggle to regain her identity.
What makes this book really wonderful is that during this political struggle, Ani goes through a great deal of very real personal growth. You can see the insecure girl become a confidant young woman through the combined performance of Grace Gates (young Ani), Erica Lustig (Ani) and the compelling narrative. Even if you have already read The Goose Girl, pick up a copy of the audio; it is well-worth the listen.
Posted by Mary Robinette Kowal
Alex Wilson’s excellent Spoken Alexandria Project Podcast covers a multitude of genres and themes, this week though we were lucky enough to enjoy another Science Fiction short story release, a tale originally published in Jackhammer by the up and comer Tobias Buckell. It is narrated by SFFaudio’s own Mary Robinette Kowal…
Waiting For The Zephyr
By Tobias S Buckell; Read by Mary Robinette Kowal
1 MP3 Podcast – 13 Minutes 19 Seconds [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: The Spoken Alexandria Project Podcast
Podcast: May 2006
“When the fuel went, Mara’s town turned to windpower. They struggled on as the lights left, as the cities fell fallow, and plastic became a memory. Their only link to the outside world is the Zephyr, and now it too has not shown up.”
You can download the file directly HERE, or subscribe to the podcast by plugging this XML feed into your podcatcher:
http://www.spokenalex.org/index.xml
Rob Walsch, host of Podcast411, the premier podcast about podcasting, has just interviewed Ronald D. Moore, creator and head writer of the new Battlestar Galactica and host of The Official Sci-Fi Channel Battlestar Galactica Podcast. Quite a coup!
HERE‘s a direct link to the MP3.
If you havent already subscribed to the Battlestar Galactica Podcast itself here’s the XML feed:
http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/podcast.xml
iPod users can also now subscribe to the “enhanced” feed, which provides the same audio content with a few visual extras:
http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/podcast_enhanced.xml