The SFFaudio Podcast #103 – TOPIC: Food in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #103 – Scott, Jesse, Eric S. Rabkin and Luke Burrage talk about FOOD in Science Fiction and Fantasy. It is rather unpleasantly like being drunk.

Talked about on today’s show:
Luke’s got a twelve hour hunger, fairy tales, Fantasy, food sharing is coming to know the alien, what food is served in a Canadian restaurant?, Kwakiutl vs. Kwakwaka’wakw, pemmican, voyageurs, THE YELLOW PERIL podcast (The SFFaudio Podcast #051), Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Frankenstein’s creation was a vegetarian, Paradise Lost, Genesis, Cain vs. Abel, Eifelheim by Michael Flynn, the three stages of eating: veggies -> meat -> people, aliens, crazy vs. odd, inedia (fasting), breatharianism, Scott Pilgrim, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, inspired by spirits, Neuromancer, communion, puns, Foods of the Gods: Eating And The Eaten In Fantasy And Science Fiction (Proceedings Of The J. Lloyd Eaton Conference On Science Fiction And Fantasy Lite) edited by Eric S. Rabkin, Gary Westfahl and George Edgar Slusser, more puns, The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem, consuming books, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, Michael Kandel, The War Of The Worlds by H.G. Wells, evolution and food, food in pill form, Tang, Firefly, Science Fiction: prediction of the future vs. sign of the future, jetpacks, capsulized food is symbolic, lembas is super-power bread, energy drinks, food as a representation of our relationships with our bodies, The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, yet more puns, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, food and pretty dresses, baking and bread have deep roots, Voyage To The Moon by Cyrano de Bergerac, no one ever sees a baker eating, food imagery, the centrality of bread in SFF only matches that of religion, the bread yes – the blood no, Osiris, Egypt, Greece, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams, The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, List of races and species in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the babel fish, “it’s not the babel worm”, fish as a symbol, Pythagoras, professor smackdown, Tower Of Babel, food and sexuality, urban romance, Eat Prey Love, “man does not live by bread alone” vs. “forbidden fruit”, bread as technology, breadfruit, the garden of Eden, the tree of knowledge vs. the tree of immortality vs. the rubber tree, Trantor, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, Coruscant, Star Wars, Sam Parkhill, The Off Season by Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles, the best hot dog stand on Mars, The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus, the national food of America is the hot dog, the hot dog is the symbol of America, Manhattan, “hot dog stands all the way down”, meat paste, man as food, To Serve Man by Damon Knight, Alien, The Logic Of Fantasy by John Huntington, cannibalism, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut, The Genocides by Thomas M. Disch, The Screwfly Solution by James Triptree Jr., Beyond Lies The Wub by Philip K. Dick, further punning, vat grown meat, breeding animals to be less intelligent, a very meaty topic, Caviar by Theodore Sturgeon, vegetarianism, Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton, Luke is on the wrong side of meat history, being as unnatural as possible is what makes us human, a continuing journey towards humanity (marching on our stomachs?), social animals, mothers make food for you – witches make food of you, choosing not to eat meat vs. choosing to be monogamous, dolphin eating habits (are they porpoiseful eaters?), eating dolphin is out of line (for Luke), exploring the possibilities of empathy, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, empathy vs. compassion, Technovelgy.com’s entry on food, an overly inclusive notion of what constitutes invention, CBC Spark, visiscreens and visiplates, Ralph 124C 41+ by Hugo Gernsback, Minding Tomorrow by Luke Burrage, Technovelgy needs more wiki, Wikipedia is endlessly useful, automated restaurant, The Food Of The Gods by H.G. Wells, food has functions beyond just sustaining our bodies, George Birdseye, Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, coffee, sharing meals via Skype.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Jake Sampson: Monster Hunter

SFFaudio Online Audio

1936, a Sunday in June. The tides of woe are sweeping in. Today is Robert E. Howard’s funeral.

Gloomy Sunday (1936) by Paul Whiteman with Johnny Hauser |MP3|

That must mean…

there’s a new Jake Sampson serial starting up.

Episode 1 of Jake Sampson: Monster Hunter: The Gods Of War |MP3| is out now!

BrokenSea Audio Productions: Jake Sampson: Monster HunterJake Sampson: Monster Hunter is my favourite original serial from BrokenSea. The show is set in 1930s and features a cast of characters that’s half Indiana Jones half Tales of the Gold Monkey. Throw in plots about Howard Carter, cursed Egyptian mummies, evil South American cults, vampires and the source of Robert E. Howard’s stories and you’ve got the fixins for one heck of a fun show.

Podcast feed: http://brokensea.com/jakesampson/feed/

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

[via BrokenSea Audio Productions and Archive.org]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Hypatia of Alexandria

SFFaudio News

If you’re anything like me you’re more than twice as happy to find a small gem to share with a friend than to revel in the worship and praise of something that is already well advertised. Agora is a recently completed movie in the marketplace of filmed ideas.

The posters to promote the film read: “FREEDOM” “PASSION” “POWER” “AMBITION”

Agora Posters

After seeing the movie I can see why the marketers have labeled the characters with the abstract nouns that they did. Freedom, Passion, Power, Ambition. All are probably better at getting more bums in theater seats that the words that I’d like to see on those posters: “HISTORY” “PHILOSOPHY” “SKEPTICISM” “SCIENCE” – I think these words would be more in keeping with the true intellectual spirit of the film – it is a movie about all four of those things.

The audiobook, on the other hand, has yet to have any art made for it because it isn’t completed yet. Underway at LibriVox.org, is an unabridged, multiple narrator reading of Hypatia by Charles Kingsley. This is a historical novel based on the very same life of scientist and philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria. And here’s where you come in. The project is still in need of narrators and proof listeners. To get involved head on over to the LibriVox Forum reader thread or the LibriVox Forum proof listener thread and help bring the story of Hypatia back to life.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox – LibriVox – History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 & 2

SFFaudio Online Audio

They don’t make books like the used to. Check out the first two volumes of this STUNNING twelve volume History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, first published in English between 1903 and 1906. The complete collection (either 12 or 13 books) contains more than 1,200 coloured plates, photographs, drawings and illustrations!


LibriVox - History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1
History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1
By G. Maspero; Edited by A.H. Sayce; Translated by M.L. McClure; Read by Professor Heather Mbaye
29 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 24, 2009
Source: Gutenberg.org
A masterwork by of one of the fathers of modern egyptology. This work, in twelve volumes, was translated from the French original, “Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient classique.” Maspero was a largely self-taught master of hieroglyphic translation. In November 1880, he was placed at the head of a French archeological mission, which developed later into the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/hist-of-egypt-vol-1-by-maspero.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

LibriVox - History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2
By G. Maspero; Edited by A.H. Sayce; Translated by M.L. McClure; Read by Professor Heather Mbaye
36 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 7 Hours 53 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: October 8, 2009
Source: Gutenberg.org
A masterwork by of one of the fathers of modern egyptology. This work, in twelve volumes, was translated from the French original, “Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient classique.” Maspero was a largely self-taught master of hieroglyphic translation. In November 1880, he was placed at the head of a French archeological mission, which developed later into the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/history-of-egypt-chaldea-etc-vol-2-by-maspero.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: The Beetle by Richard Marsh

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVoxa panel from The League Of Extraordinary GentlemenAttentive readers of Alan Moore’s The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen may have noted this panel…

…according to Jess Nevins, of The Fourth Rail, it depicts a “giant beetle in [a] vacuum tube.” and asserts that it

“is the Beetle, from Richard Marsh’s The Beetle (1897). In that novel, a shapechanging Egyptian princess, who can take the form of a giant, malign beetle, a beautiful androgyne, and an old woman or man, pursues a vendetta against a British M.P.”

Prior to the release of The Beetle as a LibriVox audiobook I hadn’t even heard of it. But a little online research indicates that The Beetle came out the same year as Bram Stoker’s Dracula and initially outsold it! How did I not hear of this book before?

LibriVox Horror Audiobook - The Beetle by Richard MarshThe Beetle
By Richard Marsh; Read by various readers
48 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 11 Hours 56 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 24, 2009
A story about a mysterious oriental figure who pursues a British politician to London, where he wreaks havoc with his powers of hypnosis and shape-shifting, Marsh’s novel is of a piece with other sensational turn-of-the-century fictions such as Stoker’s Dracula, George du Maurier’s Trilby, and Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels. Like Dracula and many of the sensation novels pioneered by Wilkie Collins and others in the 1860s, The Beetle is narrated from the perspectives of multiple characters, a technique used in many late nineteenth-century novels (those of Wilkie Collins and Stoker, for example) to create suspense.

Podcast feed:

http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/the-beetle-by-richard-marsh.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis