The SFFaudio Podcast #249 – Scanners Live In Vain by Cordwainer Smith, read by J.J. Campanella.
First published in Fantasy Book, #6 in 1950. Scanners Live In Vain has been anthologized in such collections as The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume I, Science Fiction 101 (aka Robert Silverberg’s Worlds Of Wonder), and The Great SF Stories 12 (1950).
This UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK runs (1 Hour 35 Minutes). We will discuss it in SFFaudio Podcast #250.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #120 – Scott, Jesse and Tamahome talk to Allan Kaster, the editor of the new audiobook collection The Year’s Top Ten Tales Of Science Fiction 3.
Talked about on today’s show:
Infinivox, post-singularity, Mars, talking animals, emperors, will the post-singularity fiction subgenre be over by 2040?, Charles Stross, Gardner Dozois, post singularity is the magic of Science Fiction, Robert Reed, Under The Moons Of Venus by Damien Broderick, talking dogs, “I didn’t like it in a Science Fiction way”, detective fiction, insanity and crazy people, The Emperor Of Mars by Allen M. Steele, a tribute to martian fiction, the Asimov’s reader’s Award, Emperor Norton of the United States, Asimov’s, Analog and F&SF are now available in the Kindle store, ebooks (and emags) with ads, Harlan Ellison, Gene Wolfe, Stephen King, Flowers For Algernon, Subterranean Online, Lightspeed magazine, Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain by Yoon Ha Lee, Clarkesworld, The Things by Peter Watts, Elegy For A Young Elk by Hannu Rajaniemi, the Science Fiction boom is here, Fantasy, a blossoming of novellas, PS Publishing, Subterranean Press, novellas make for an excellent idea delivery mechanism, Prime Books, The Year’s Best Science Fiction And Fantasy 2011, Ted Chiang’s The Lifecycle Of Software Objects, Stories Of Your Life and Other Stories by Ted Chiang, Infinivox will have a new collection of Science Fiction novellas in the fall: The Year’s Top Short SF Novels, The Things by Peter Watts (read by Kate Baker), The Emperor Of Mars was on Tony Smith’s StarShip Sofa (read by Quartershare author Nathan Lowell), John Carpenter’s The Thing movie vs. John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There?, Howard Hawks, re-working Science Fiction’s legacy fiction in new stories, the stinger comes from sympathizing with a horrible monster, communion, the Shirley Jackson award, Re-Crossing The Styx by Ian R. MacLeod, Scott likes Noir, Double Indemnity, zombies, “even though they’re dead they need entertainment”, The Love Boat, Tom Dheere, he always gets the Science Fiction vocab pronunciation right, Eight Miles by Sean McMullen, Australia, the best story in Analog last year (was Eight Miles), steampunk, is steampunk SF?, steampunk-ish, an Asian cover, Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain by Yoon Ha Lee is ornate and literary SF (and kind of Ted Chiang-like), there’s a logic going on, The Shipmaker by Alliette de Bodard, Nicola Barber, Larry Niven’s Star Trek episode (The Slaver Weapon), Kzinti are in the Star Trek universe, we need another good Science Fiction (TV) series, Theodore Sturgeon, Robert Bloch, Fredric Brown, Neil Gaiman, Doctor Who, Babylon 5 was our last best hope for SF on TV, A Letter From The Emperor by Steve Rasnic Tem, fun with mind-wiping, emotional stingers, Adrift by Scott D. Danielson, emotional vs. intellectual SF, bureaucracy doesn’t end, there are lots of lost packets between planets, it derives its power from the characters rather than from the intellectual points, intellectual stimulation vs. emotional stimulation, Elegy For A Young Elk by Hannu Rajaniemi, consciousness-uploading, it’s comic book like, a bit like Dan Simmons, Alone by Robert Reed, the prolific Robert Reed, God-Like Machines edited by Jonathan Strahan, Alastair Reynolds’s Troika is in there too, A History Of Terraforming by Robert Reed, Dead Man’s Run by Robert Reed, Marrow by Robert Reed, an old-fashioned Science Fiction story writer, SFBRP #008 Luke’s review of Marrow, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Starship Vectors edited by Allan Kaster, SFSignal’s review of Starship Vectors, The Shipmaker by Alliette de Bodard, The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey, mutant children are shipped off into the universe to fall in love with their crews, giving birth to a cyborg, Shipmaker reminded Tam of Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler, was dramatized on 2000X, how do you read/listen to anthologies?, is there any chance of doing a year’s top ten 1961? 1965?, how about the top ten of the 1960s?, Charles Stross, A Colder War by Charles Stross |READ OUR REVIEW|, Lobsters by Charles Stross |READ OUR REVIEW|, Accelerando by Charles Stross, “Please Alan, fulfill my hopes and dreams.”
Posted by Jesse Willis
Graphic Audio‘s podcast has a very interesting and informative interview with Elizabeth Moon. They talk about the Graphic Audio adaptations of Moon’s Vatta’s War and Serrano Legacy series of novels, cochlear implants, cyborgs, facial recognition, math, horses, embryonic livestock transport, selective breeding, genetic engineering, post-traumatic stress disorder, realistic villains, faster than light travel, and a whole lot more!
|MP3|
Podcast feed:
http://www.graphicaudio.net/t-rss.aspx
Posted by Jesse Willis
Wow! It’s hard to beat the combination of great writer and great narrator in a first person perspective tale. That’s exactly what More Than The Sum Of His Parts by Joe Haldeman is: Amazingly written SF delivered by an amazingly talented narrator.
Lightspeed Magazine has it, in its latest issue, and as a podcast. Playboy magazine heralded it as:
“a fictional saga of bionic experimentation.”
I call it a powerful and sympathetic story about a horribly injured steel-worker who gets rebuilt as a cyborg. If you give it a listen I think you’ll be just as riveted to your earphones as I was to mine. It’s comparable, in power, pattern and in quality, to Ted Chiang‘s transcendent masterpiece Understand. Now, if the question is whether it’s better than Understand – I think it’s not – but, that it’s up there, competing in the marketplace of ultra-interestingness isn’t in question! Judge for yourself, More Than The Sum Of His Parts is an absolutely unmissable podcast Science Fiction tale, read by a pro. Seriously now, how can you possibly not download this?
More Than The Sum Of His Parts
By Joe Haldeman; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
1 |MP3| – Approx. 49 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Lightspeed Magazine
Podcast: August 23, 2010
Set in 2058, Doctor Wilson Cheetham, was a quality control engineer in a high orbital aluminum smelter until he was horribly injured in a catastrophic vaporized aluminum accident. His face, throat, mouth, ears, sinuses, eyes, genitals, one arm and one leg have been totally and completely burned away. Amazingly, he’s survived and is being rebuilt by his employers. First published in the May 1985 issue of Playboy magazine.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #064 – Scott and Jesse talk with Julie Davis and Luke Burrage about The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester!
Talked about on today’s show:
Forgotten Classics, Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, Richard K. Morgan’s The Steel Remains, The Invisible Man, Robert Sheckley’s The Status Civilization, exploding volcanoes, Gulliver Foyle, jaunting as teleporting, BAMF, The Uncanny X-Men, Jumper by Steven Gould, Charles Fort Jaunte (is a reference to Charles Fort), Fortean Times, The Tyger by William Blake,Tā moko (Maori facial tattoo), religion, swearing, tabernac, future swearing, Louis Wu in Larry Niven’s Ringworld, the frivolity of the wealthy, satire, sailing as conspicuous consumption, telepathy, Paul Williams, The Stars My Destination as a “pyrotechnic novel”, the power of the narrative imagery, the audiobook (a Library of Congress Book for the Blind version), the heirs of Alfred Bester are fighting over the rights, transformation, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, “Most scientific!”, Alfred Bester’s years writing comics, WWII, the Wikipedia entry for The Stars My Destination, synesthesia, the long forgotten histories of synesthesia, Of Time, And Gully Foyle by Neil Gaiman, cyberpunk, a hard-boiled Philip K. Dick novel, passive schlubs, The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, Pyrenees, the induction scene in William Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew, a shotgun approach to transformation, The Stars My Destination as meta book, Peter F. Hamilton, the renaissance man, Classics Illustrated #3 The Count Of Monte Cristo, Fourmyle of Ceres, PyrE, (the inspiration for Pyr Books?), Napoleon Bonaparte, thought turning into action, our overcrowded future, Second Life, Surrogates, only in a cyberpunk future, retroactive foreshadowing, the 1991 BBC Radio Drama version of Alfred Bester’s Tiger Tiger, the old language, Hyperion by Dan Simmons, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, Pyrene, cyborgs, wired nerves, bullet time, you can’t spoil a book like this.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Yet another entry in the 7th Anniversary SFFaudio Story Review Marathon! (For the cure!)
Warhammer 40,000: Heart of Rage
By James Swallow; Performed by Toby Longsworth
1 CD – 75 minutes – [AUDIO ORIGINAL]
Publisher: The Black Library
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781844167968
Themes: / Science Fiction / War / Aliens / Cyborgs /
My not-so-vast knowledge of the Warhammer universe stems from two bits of information only; first, it started as a game I’ve seen played at cons with small figures on tabletop landscapes, and second, that it’s about war.
Add this third fact: The Black Library’s Warhammer productions bring mayhem to your ears like nothing else I’ve heard. It all starts with the superior dramatic reading of the narrator, who in this case is Toby Longworth. He performs all of the characters as distinct roles, bringing each one to life as if this were an audio drama. Next, sound is added that pays particular attention to what is being narrated. The sound is also not front and center – the story doesn’t pause so that an effect can be heard. It’s all mixed together in a perfect integration of narrator and sound into one organic production.
This technique does NOT work for everything – in fact, I normally dislike audio drama/audiobook hybrids, but this is done just right. I enjoyed the technique in Star Trek and Star Wars audiobooks, and this is even more skillful.
“Heart of Rage” is a Warhammer 40,000 story that last a bit over an hour. Big battle-ready fellows Nord and Kale come across a tyrannid (satisfactorily nasty baddies) hive ship, and fighting ensues. Fans of this universe should enjoy this production.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson