The SFFaudio Podcast #099

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #099 – Jesse talked with Evo Terra, Steve Eley, Bill Desmedt, Steen Hansen, and Matthew Wayne Selznick in a kaffeeklatsch recorded on Friday August 24, 2006 at LA . .

Talked about on today’s show:
recording for posterity, Evo is not his real name, Milford, Pennsylvania, Damon Knight, James Blish, Larry Niven, Harlan Ellison, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, Johnstown, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Johnstown Flood, podcasting, giant squid?, iRiver MP3 players, Dragon Page: Cover To Cover, “it’s a good pain”, Podiobooks.com, Audible.com, Libsyn, Slice Of Sci-Fi, Farpoint Media, Mech Muse, Escape Pod‘s Steve Eley has (had) a grudge against Mech Muse, what Mech Muse did wrong, Steve doesn’t (didn’t) like a lot of people’s attitudes, Podshow, Adam Curry, what is the advantage of serializing an audiobook (podiobook), Tee Morris, Morevi: The Chronicles Of Rafe And Askana, Scott Sigler, Feedburner, “the magazine model” – serialization, audiobooks vs. podiobooks, William Dufris, how to sound good after dinner: eat an apple, drink lemon juice, or gargle with the juice of hot peppers, LibriVox.org, Anne Of Green Gables, Hugh McGuire, Escape Pod was once the biggest despository of individual stories on audio on the internet.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #098 – NEW RELEASES/RECENT ARRIVALS

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #098 – Scott and Jesse talk with Luke Burrage about the new audiobook releases. And we also play Philip K. Dick’s “Preserving Machine” game in which you pick a piece of music and transform it into an animal.

Talked about on today’s show:
New releases, The Adjustment Bureau by Philip K. Dick, Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review, Roger Ebert, “Meet Cute”, Phil Gigante, The Stainless Steel Rat, Gregg Margarite, Russian Ark, Hermitage, The SFBRP Podcast, Your Movie Sucks, Dune, “This movie is a real mess, an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time.”, Korean movies mix humor, horror, drama, “the tone is off” in Shakespeare too, Unknown (a special edition of Out Of My Head), Berlin, Bronson Pinchot, Richard Matheson, On Stranger Tides, Bronson Pinchot has “a whole crew full of pirates in his mouth”, Audible.com, Beverly Hills Cop, Gideon’s Sword by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Arthur C. Clarke’s Richter 10 by Mike McQuay, a Gene Wolfe writing exercise, The Unincorporated Man by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin |READ OUR REVIEW|, “trickster, prodigy, master thief”, techno-thriller-ish, Planet Of The Damned by Harry Harrison, West Of Eden, Bill The Galactic Hero, Long After Midnight by Ray Bradbury, Tantor Media, Michael Prichard, Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds, The Odyssey of Homer, “he’s in a boat, Poseidon hates him, then he’s home”, the origins of Necromancy are in The Odyssey, Philip K. Dick was directly inspired by The Odyssey, An Improvised Life: A Memoir by Alan Arkin, James Randi, The Black Widowers, The Trapdoor Spiders, Isaac Asimov, the Amazing Larry, Luke jumps on giant balloons |VIDEO|, Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Physics Of The Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny And Our Daily Lives By The Year 2100 by Michio Kaku, Art Bell and Coast To Coast AM, Jesse thinks string theory is bullshit, 2012, Higgs boson, Tachyons, what’s wrong with futurism, Popular Mechanics/Popular Science and the flying car, filtering metastases, The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell, Cynical-C, Kenneth Branagh as Wallander, the relationship between Science Fiction and detective fiction is that both allow the reader to participate in them, who-dun-it? vs. what happened?, Sherlock Holmes vs. Columbo, Agatha Christie vs. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself, The Writing Excuses Podcast, The Orbit Books Podcast #1, Jack Womack, Tamahome, sycophantic interviews are bad, Robert J. Sawyer, “the best stuff happens after the interview”, Richard K. Morgan’s article on Tolkien, The Space Dog Podcast, Ballentine Books, The Fountains Of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke, Lester del Rey, Utopia by Sir Thomas More, Simon Prebble, Gulliver’s Travels, dystopia, A Truly Golden Little Book, No Less Beneficial Than Entertaining, of the Best State of a Republic, and of the New Island Utopia, Steen Hansen, “immersed in Americanism”, The United States vs. Canada, American utopianism vs. Canadian muddling through, British North America Act, the long gun registry, Winston Churchill, did Winston Churchill write SF?, Newt Gingrich as an alternate history novel, Plato’s The Republic, Mein Kampf, Dianetics, Meatball Fulton (aka Tom Lopez), Ruby, Lady Windermere’s Brass Fantabulous, Part 2, “purposefully ridiculous”, new Audible.com releases, Audible Frontiers, When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger, Jonathan Davis, The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds, “grimy and grungy and punky”, Pushing Ice, mining the Oort cloud, Century Rain, Journey To The Center To The Earth, Gulliver’s Travels, Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Kenneth Brannagh, Jorge Luis Borges, Stromboli, The Wise Man’s Fear (Kingkiller Chronicles, Day 2) by Patrick Rothfuss, Random House Audio, The Vampire Archives: The Most Complete Volume of Vampire Tales Ever Published edited by Otto Penzler, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, undeadliest, Dreamsongs by George R.R. Martin, Heart Of Darkness, Alas Babylon by Pat Frank, Heavy Time by C.J. Cherryh, Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny, Sri Lanka, Death Cloud by Andrew Lane, Venus by Ben Bova, The Children Of Dune by Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert, “talented readers” is a compliment?, “horribly unreadable” “throwthemacrosstheroomable”, family curse, Christopher Tolkien and Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson, Saga Of Seven Suns, Hellhole, sickmyduck, The Preserving Machine by Philip K. Dick |ETEXT|, Doc Labyrinth, Mozart bird, Beethoven beetle, Wagner animal, this is Dick talking about music, “Hey Jesse you must be the coolest teacher out there”, what would The Beatles be, put Lady Gaga in out comes Lady Gaga?, Vampire Weekend into meercats, what gender is this website?, Band Of Horses would yield themselves, “Weird Al” Yankovic?, “I wonder what will happen next?”, A Scanner Darkly, Radiohead would be an owl, if the term “sellout” applies to anyone in the universe it applies to Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert, planetary romance vs. space opera, Greenland vs. Iceland, Berlin means bogtown, are Malad residents are Malodorous?

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #094 – READALONG: Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #094 – Jesse talks with Julie Davis and Gregg Margarite about Audible.com’s audiobook of Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (as narrated by David Hyde Pierce)

Talked about on today’s show:
MindSwap by Robert Sheckley (SFFaudio Podcast #076), Laputa, Lilliput, acting like a Fox News commentator, the new movie version of Gulliver’s Travels, scatological humor, Spark Notes on Gulliver’s Travels, the history of censoring Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver’s Travels illustrations, essays about farts, high-heels and the low heels (are Tories and Whigs) vs. the big endians and the small endians (are protestants and Catholics), the definition of satire is that the story is so clever you don’t recognize it, comparing Mark Twain to Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain’s new/old autobiography, Grover Gardner, is there a biography of Jonathan Swift?, Jonathan Swift was a cleric?, too many atheist ministers in the Anglican church, The United Kingdom is a theocracy, A Modest Proposal, Swiftian sermons, Ireland, Queen Anne, Audible.com’s edition of Gulliver’s Travels, Jorge Luis Borges, he lies in all possible directions at once, difficulties with pronunciation, how long until the release of The Zombies Of Blefuscu?, Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), Brobdingnag (land of the giants), Gulliver in Lilliput is every little boy’s fantasy (Gulliver is like Godzilla), is there a uniting theme to each section?, “your massive manliness”, an inventory of contents of Gulliver’s pockets, Gulliver’s pocket-watch is his god, the most immediate way to go to prison is to act as if the time is not what the consensual hallucination that is Standard Time isn’t, time, the humor doesn’t translate well to video, the Ted Danson Gulliver’s Travels miniseries, The Scarlet Letter, Ten Things I Hate About You, The Taming Of The Shrew, Easy A, a visual/literary double entendre, a well shot bon mot, John Cassavetes, The Tempest, Hellen Mirren as Prospero, Ian McKellen’s Richard III, Forbidden Planet, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brick, Westerns, Firefly, remix culture = culture, Dante’s Inferno, Sergio Leone, virtuous pagans, Laputa (is Ireland), floating islands (and flying islands), Isaac Asimov’s annotated Gulliver’s Travels, science, the vaccine-autism link debacle, the proper procedures for science (ask questions don’t), marble pillows, “people are people are people”, Balnibarbi, Bangsian Fantasy, Luggnagg, Pushing Daisies, Torchwood, John Irving’s The World According To Garp (and the Robin Williams movie version), the unfortunately immortal Struldbrugs, the Struldbruggian mark reminds us of Logan’s Run, The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs, Houyhnhnms, Edo Japan, Fumi-e, making fun of the travelogue, Stockholm syndrome, wearing yahoo skins, Gulliver is a cipher, existentialism, the waiter lives in bad faith, “don’t put down SparkNotes”, the romantics, who are the yahoos really?, “what you’re actually supposed to do in life”, “our faculties are fit like a horse’s are for running…”, “since we’re talking about finding the meaning of life…”, “and now the religious fanatic part starts to come out…”, pushing atheism on other people by denying their gods (like Zeus), Jehovah’s Witnesses, evangelical atheism is an oxymoron, ‘you can’t reason somebody out of something they weren’t reasoned into’, a misogynist’s club, the problem with polytheism, “people reading the astrology section of the newspaper are going to get us all killed”, rating the classics, dissecting a snowflake with a sledgehammer, books that teach you how to be seditious are extremely valuable, Dante Alhegeri’s Inferno, cognitive dissonance, why South Park is so important (it’s seditious), The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, The Simpsons, “critical thinking” means it is really important that you think, Craftlit, The Turn Of The Screw, Earth Abides, The Reapers Are The Angels by Alden Bell |READ OUR REVIEW|, the Epic Of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh The King by Robert Silverberg, Julie is appreciative of the Socratic SFFaudio style, A Good Story Is Hard To Find podcast, Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke, the meaning of catholic is universal, orthodox Catholic vs. unorthodox Catholic (cafeteria Catholic vs. conservative Catholic), an open source view of God (via mgfarrelly in a Boing Boing comment), Taylor Kent’s “if you don’t know Jesus you’re screwed” outro, Scientology, was the virgin Mary a surrogate mother?, Gregg expects to be in purgatory, The Book Of Eli, The Road, Mad Max, “the thing that is not” (lies), utopia, “words are the root of all problems as in we don’t match them to reality very well”, The Invention Of Lying, Ricky Gervais, Earth Abides, In Brouge, “that was the most moral extreme violence I’ve ever seen”, Belgium.

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

P.A. Staynes' illustration of Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels

The Servants Drive A Herd Of Yahoos Into The Field

The Illustrated London News - Gulliver's Travels - Christmas 1929

A Voyage To Lilliput

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #091 – READALONG: Oath Of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #091 – Scott and Jesse talk about the new Audible Frontiers audiobook Oath Of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

Talked about on today’s show:
Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, The War Of The Worlds by H.G. Wells, Robert A. Heinlein, The Godwhale by T.J. Bass, Half Past Human by T.J. Bass, overpopulation, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, FROMATES (“Friends of Man and the Earth” – an anti-technology group of eco-terrorists), arcology, Todos Santos, Los Angeles, California, are arcologies a stepping stone to generation starships?, SimCity 2000, Sid Meier’s Civilization, architecture + ecology = arcology, Coruscant (the city planet), Tantor (the elephant), Trantor (the city planet), Tantor Media, Mega City One (Judge Dredd), being a free accountant for the government, bylaws vs. customs and culture, engineering, “we can’t write a story that is just setting”, Luke Burrage (of SFBRP), is a cruise ship an arcology?, the reality of reality vs. the dreams of utopia, “Crisis in utopia…”, existing means interacting, the hermit kingdoms, transportation, Zipcar, cultural vs. technological developments, living differently in an urban environment, arcology as shopping mall, security conscious vs. security theater, safety as a selling point, TSA, terrorism, a Heinleinian uncomfortablenesses, THINK OF IT AS EVOLUTION IN ACTION, “humanity is more than just one type of person”, what’s wrong with Oath Of Fealty, not unrealistic vs. realistic, eco-terrorism, resentment and the response to resentment is yucky in Oath Of Fealty, what are the references to blacks and lesbians doing in this book?, Job: A Comedy Of Justice, “the Disney connection”, Disney World, Walt Disney, Epcot, gated communities, Celebration (Florida), brain drain, Canadian immigration policy (is draining the third world of its best educated), colonizing Mars, Jerry O’Neill’s space colonies, “not anything like reality”, overpopulation, community tool libraries, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Stephen Hawking, NASA spinoffs, spiritual reasons for space travel, Beijing olympics opening ceremony, cut the defense budget to actual defense, “we need an alien threat”, China’s moon program, McMurdo Station (Antarctica), Herzog’s Encounters At The Of The End Of The World, the Canadian (Sir George Reedy) is the most unrealistic thing in Oath Of Fealty, there are no knights for Canada, the Order Of Canada, the case of Conrad Black, House Of Tones blog (interview with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle), the role of GOOD editors, Robert A. Heinlein did the editing on The Mote In God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (!), series aren’t a new thing, Anne Of Green Gables, The Great Brain, Tarzan, the Barsoom series, The Wizard Of Oz, expecting the series and not demanding the series is the cart leading the horse, John Joseph Adams (should be a guest on the SFFaudio Podcast), Orson Scott Card as an editor, Technovelgy.com’s Oath Of Fealty entry, the audiobook version of Oath Of Fealty, GLADOS, Portal, artificial intelligence, the speech recognition on the Google App is amazing (!), Google Goggles, cyborg, “BrainPal”, Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, telling Oath Of Fealty from a different POV, check out the DRAMATIS PERSONAE for Oath Of Fealty below, this book needs more average folks, Cory Doctorow, “a lot more agitation and a lot less Heinlein”, do it as a YA novel, UCLA, the Weather Underground, drink coffee while you waldo on the moon, slidewalk, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, The Caves Of Steel by Isaac Asimov |READ OUR REVIEW|, Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Pournelle.

The Todos Santos Arcology from the cover of the 1986 Pocket Books paperback

Dramatis Personae
Joe Dunhill — Probationary Officer, Todos Santos Security
Isaac Blake — Lieutenant, Todos Santos Security
Preston Sanders — Deputy General Manager, Todos Santos Independency
Tony Rand — Chief Engineer, Todos Santos
Arthur Bonner — General Manager, Todos Santos
Frank Mead — Comptroller, Todos Santos
Delores Martine — Executive Assistant to the General Manager, Todos Santos
Barbara Churchward — Director of Economic Development,Todos Santos
MacLean Stevens — Executive Assistant to the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles
Sir George Reedy — Deputy Minister of Internal Development, Canada
Genevieve Rand — Tony Rand’s former wife .
Alice Marie Strahler — Executive Assistant to Tony Rand
Allan Thompson — Student
Sandra Wyatt — Assistant General Manager, Todos Santos
James Planchet — City Councilman, Los Angeles
Mrs. Eunice Planchet — James Planchet’s wife
George Harris — Businessman and convicted tax evader
Thomas Lunan — Newsman
Amos Cross — Chief, Todos Santos Security
John Shapiro. LLD. — Counsel, Todos Santos
Samuel Finder, M.D. — Medical Resident, Todos Santos
Hal Donovan — Lieutenant, Robbery/Homicide, Los Angeles Police Department
Cheryl Drinkwater — Todos Santos resident
Armand Drinkwater — Waldo Operator
Glenda Porter — Tattoo Artist
Sidney Blackman — District Attorney, County of Los Angeles
Penelope Norton — Judge, Superior Court, State of California
Phil Lowry — Newsman
Mark Levoy — Publican; former Yippie
Ronald Wolfe — General, American Ecology Army
Arnold Renn, Ph.D. — Professor of Sociology, UCLA
Rachael Lief — Bulldozer operator
Mrs. Carol Donovan — Lt. Donovan’s wife
Vito Hamilton — Captain, Todos Santos Security
Vincent Thompson — Subway mugger

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #090 – TALK TO: Charles Ardai

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #090 – Jesse talks to Hard Case Crime author and editor Charles Ardai.

Talked about on today’s show:
Hard Case Crime, Gabriel Hunt (Hunt For Adventure), BBC Audiobooks America, iambik audio, Little Girl Lost by Richard Aleas (aka Charles Ardai), Audible.com, Songs Of Innocence by Richard Aleas (aka Charles Ardai), the best kept secret in the audiobook world, L.J. Ganser, The Confession by Dominic Stansberry, Money Shot by Christa Faust, Noircon, The Bobbsey Twins, Edward Stratermeyer, Titan Books, Choke Hold by Christa Faust, Porn + Mixed Martial Arts, “book reviews aren’t generally found in the adult film industry magazines”, the porn industry vs. newspaper publishing vs. podcasting, the Quarry series, Max Allan Collins, Road To Perdition, Dorchester Publishing, Random House, HCC is a NEW Lawrence Block novel, The Girl With A Long Green Heart, Killing Castro by Lawrence Block |READ OUR REVIEW|, Grifter’s Game |READ OUR REVIEW|, re-numbering the HCC series, “this is a book that demands a naked woman on the cover”, “this the nakedest cover we’ve ever done”, Getting Off by Lawrence Block (writing as Jill Emerson), paperback book, the Gold Medal books, Max Phillips, Dell Mapbacks, Ace Doubles, Robert Bloch, Nightstand Books, Robert McGinnis, Glenn Orbik, an upcoming HCC book (HCC-102) is a collaboration between two major writers one deceased one alive, Memory by Donald Westlake, SFFaudio Podcast #082, there is a ANOTHER NEW unpublished Westlake novel coming to HCC in 2012, The King Of Comedy, Honey In His Mouth by Lester Dent, hard core aficionados, The Dead Man’s Brother by Roger Zelazny, Will Murray, Ken Bruen, Jason Starr, Fake ID, Bust, Slide, Max, finding HCC in bookstores will be nearly impossible until January 25th 2011, The Valley Of Fear by A.C. Doyle is a well known public domain novel cleverly disguised (for fun), Gabriel Hunt: Through The Cradle Of Fear by Gabriel Hunt (aka Charles Ardai) |READ OUR REVIEW|, the tradition of dressing up old books with new art – conning the reader into reading classic literature, Edgar Allan Poe, Sherlock Holmes, the most hard-boiled of the Sherlock Holmes novels, the Lion Books edition of Frankenstein, the pulp tradition, being playful with the book-buyer, the first hardcover HCC, Fifty To One by Charles Ardai is a book for bookcovers, Subterranean Press, Otto Penzler, a hardcover edition of Memory by Donald E. Westlake, the new paperbacks (with Titan Books) will be trader-paperbacks, the mass market paperback business is difficult if you’re not named Dan Brown, paperback book collecting is crazy, who is modeling Naomi Novick, the Quentin Tarantino Roast, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, Fade To Blonde, Witness To Myself, woman on the cover sells, The Great Gatsby, Cornell Woolrich, Quarry’s Ex, the new sexiness on the covers is because HCC won’t be sold in the mass market format, Jim Thompson, Fright by Cornell Woolrich, Stanley Kubrick commissioned Jim Thompson film script, Richard Stark, Somebody Owes Me Money by Donald E. Westlake |READ OUR REVIEW|, a sequel to Somebody Owes Me Money?, the nephew books, Max Allan Collins, the problem with James M. Cain, Jealous Woman, Sinful Woman, Black Lizard books, The Cocktail Waitress (an unpublished James M. Cain book), John D. MacDonald, knocking my socks half-way off, send Charles Ardai your suggestions and submissions, The Colorado Kid will soon be very hard to find (it is out of print), The Valley Of Fear (the HCC edition is out of print), where are the HCC posters?, HCC t-shirts, Hunt For Adventure will be coming in trade-paperback, Hunt Through Napoleon’s Web, Hunt Among The Killers Of Men, where is the adventure fiction section of bookstores?, “the coffin of Atilla the Hun”, Nor Idolatry Blind The Eye by Charles Ardai, Indiana Jones, Best American Noir of the Century, Otto Penzler’s upcoming adventure anthology, why are there no adventure magazines?, Five Graves To Cairo, The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, Argosy, a Gabriel Hunt adventure magazine?, adventure comics?, Prince Of Persia, the Gabriel Hunt bible, Gabriel Hunt fan-fiction is a-ok with Charles Ardai.

The Great Gatsby and Grifter's Game

Frankenstein and The Valley Of Fear (a Sherlock Holmes novel)

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases: One more SECRET Hard Case Crime audiobook – The Confession by Domenic Stansberry

Aural Noir: New Releases

I have a confession to make. I missed mentioning one audiobook – see I’m putting next week’s podcast together now and I’ve re-discovered it. Here’s another of those hard to find and/or hidden Hard Case Crime audiobooks! An EDGAR AWARD winner (Best Paperback Original)…

Hard Case Crime - The Confession by Domenic Stansberry

HCC-006:

AUDIBLE - The Confession by Domenic StansberryThe Confession
By Domenic Stansberry; Read by L.J. Ganser
Audible Download – Approx. 7 Hours 3 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible, Inc.
Published: June 2010
Jake Danser has it all: a beautiful wife, a house in the California hills, a high-profile job as a forensic psychologist. But he’s also got a mistress. And when Jake’s mistress is found strangled to death with his necktie, it’s up to him to prove he didn’t do it. But how can he, when all the evidence says he did?

Posted by Jesse Willis