Here’s a look at a the first two issues of Fatale by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips. Each issue of which includes a wonderful essay by Jess Nevins!
One is on H.P. Lovecraft and the other is on Edgar Allan Poe.
I also talk about the Deluxe hardcover edition of Criminal, also by Brubaker and Philips, and why you should pick up the floppies (single issues) as opposed to the trade paperback collections.
Posted by Jesse Willis
William Gibson talks about his childhood (reading H.P. Lovecraft) and life in Canada.
Posted by Jesse Willis
William H. Patterson, Jr., author of Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century a new biography of Robert A. Heinlein, is the speaker in this Cato Institute video from 2010. Here’s the official description:
Robert A. Heinlein is regarded by many as the greatest science fiction writer of the 20th century. He is the author of more than 30 novels, including Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, and the libertarian classic The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. According to biographer William H. Patterson Jr., Heinlein’s writings “galvanized not one, but four social movements of his century: science fiction and its stepchild, the policy think tank; the counterculture; the libertarian movement; and the commercial space movement.” This authorized biography, reviewed enthusiastically by Michael Dirda in the Washington Post, is the first of two volumes, covering Heinlein’s early ambition to become an admiral, his left-wing politics, and his first novels. Heinlein later became strongly libertarian.
The speech itself is short, and isn’t particularity exciting, but Patterson gives some very detailed and interesting answers to audience questions. Some are about the connections between Ayn Rand and Robert A. Heinlein, the philosophy of Heinlein, socialism in the U.S.A., and Heinlein’s mysticism.
But one question asked, about how to rebuff arguments that Heinlein’s ‘Starship Troopers is fascist’, has Patterson point to the compulsory military service in Switzerland. He equates it with being a part of Swiss citizenship. However, military service is only compulsory for Swiss men. In South Korea, where the threat of war is much more pressing, compulsory military service works the same way – only men are compelled. In fact compulsory military service works, and has worked, that way just about everywhere – including in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. A much better example of equating military service with citizenship would be Israel, where compulsory military service includes both men and women – and there aren’t very many exemptions. Problem is, this isn’t what the book, or the movie, has. Heinlein has voting rights for veterans – soldiers can’t vote and anybody who doesn’t join the military can’t vote. That’s not fascism. I don’t know what it’s called but it is not fascism.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Resonance FM, a community based radio station in London, U.K., broadcasts perhaps the smartest comics podcast on the web, Panel Borders. Recently host Alex Fitch has been running a series exploring the influence of H.P. Lovecraft on comics. The first of this series I’ve heard popped up this morning when I went looking for a podcast about Neonomicon, an Alan Moore/Jacen Burrows graphic novel that I picked up late last year and am reading now. HERE‘s the episode.
I’d actually been going off Alan Moore, having been depressed at his continuing with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – but this title, Neonomicon, with a Lovecraftian theme, and the wonderful art of Jacen Burrows made me pick it up. And boy am I ever glad I did!
I’m only about 1/3 of the way through Neonomicon – and so far it is delivering exactly what I wanted, a creepily magnificent story with wonderful Jacen Burrows story art. Moore promises, in the interview, that the story delivers an ‘unflinching’ and ‘evasive-less’ quasi-sequel to H.P. Lovecraft’s The Horror At Red Hook.
I’m savoring every panel.
Here’s the official podcast description:
“Continuing our month of shows about H.P. Lovecraft, Alex Fitch talks to Alan Moore about his final graphic novel that isn’t part of the continuing League of Extraordinary Gentlemen narrative – Neonomicon – which has just been published, along with its prequel The Courtyard, as a graphic novel by Avatar Press. Both comics follow on from Lovecraft’s tale ‘The Horror at Red Hook’ and Alan discusses why he chose that story in particular to explore further, plus the origins of The Courtyard in an abandoned short story collection called ‘Yuggoth Cultures’, and examples of Lovecraftian imagery in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen saga.”
|MP3|
Posted by Jesse Willis
THE CHALLENGE:
This is our 6th Annual SFFaudio Challenge. Every November 11th, for the last six years, we’ve offered the following challenge to SFFaudio readers:
“We’ll give you an audiobook if you make one for everyone else.”
That deal still holds. We’ll get you an audiobook if you make make an audiobook out of one of the public domain etexts we suggest. All you’ll need to do is claim a title (by email), record the audiobook, using your own human voice (sorry no robots), and follow the rules (see the first comment of this post for the rules). Some titles will not be public domain in all countries, but this is a global challenge. We’ve also added, for the very first time, a French language title!
Still feeling a little unclear on how it all works? Then have a look at our past SFFaudio CHALLENGES:
|OUR FIRST CHALLENGE|
|OUR SECOND CHALLENGE|
|OUR THIRD CHALLENGE|
|OUR FOURTH CHALLENGE|
|OUR FIFTH CHALLENGE|
PRIZES:
This year we’re doing something a bit different with prizes, something better. Instead of offering those unwieldy physical copies we’ve got DRM-FREE MP3 downloads for you! This not only saves us on postage it also allows for a much greater selection of audiobooks! For each audiobook you complete, you can choose one of more than 1,300 titles available! All prizes this year come courtesy of Tantor Media.
CHALLENGE TITLES:
The Friendly Demon (aka The Devil Frolics With A Butler) by Daniel Defoe |HORRORMASTERS|PDF| (short story)
Seventh Victim by Robert Sheckley |PDF| (short story)*
CLAIMED BY CAINE DORR NOVEMBER 12, 2011
Untouched By Human Hands (aka One Man’s Poison) by Robert Sheckley |PDF| (short story)*
Writing Class by Robert Sheckley |RTF| (short story)*
CLAIMED AND COMPLETED BY WILLIAM COON (of Elquoent Voice) ON NOVEMBER 13, 2011
The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel |GUTENBERG| (novel)
City At World’s End by Edmond Hamilton |ARCHIVE.ORG| (novel)
The Common Man by Mack Reynolds |GUTENBERG| (short story)
The Ship Of Ishtar by A. Merritt |GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA| (novel)
Supernatural Horror In Literature by H.P. Lovecraft |WIKISOURCE|GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA| (essay)
Almuric by Robert E. Howard |WIKILIVRES|GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA| (novel)
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell |GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA| (novel)
Animal Farm by George Orwell |GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA| (novel)
Empire by Clifford D. Simak |GUTENBERG| (novel)**
CLAIMED BY BILL KIRBY ON JANUARY 3, 2012
The Great Potlatch Riots by Allen Kim Lang |GUTENEBERG| (short story)
The Dominion In 1983 by Ralph Centennius |GUTENBERG| (30 pages)
Ten From Infinity by Paul W. Fairman |GUTENBERG| (novel)
CLAIMED BY KAREN SAVAGE ON NOVEMBER 11, 2011
No Great Magic by Fritz Leiber |GUTENBERG| (short story)
CLAIMED BY DANIEL GURZYNSKI ON NOVEMBER 21, 2011
The Syndic by C.M. Kornbluth |RTF| (novel)*
CLAIMED BY MARK NELSON ON NOVEMBER 13, 2011
Our first French audiobook:
La Vie Électrique by Albert Robida |GUTENBERG| (novel)
So, who wants to sign up?
[*With special thanks to Rick Jackson of Wonder Publishing for selection advice **This etext was part of SFFaudio Challenge #2, but wasn’t completed]
Posted by Jesse Willis
I was curious about which of our podcasts was popular. Since it’s relatively easy, and I’m always interested in other podcaster’s podcasts statistics, I thought I’d reveal ours. Maybe this post will prompt some others to post theirs too.
Here is a list of SFFaudio’s single most popular podcast per month (by download) from January 2011 to October 2011.
Jan. (1216 Downloads) – #089 – Jesse talks to Professor James Campanella |MP3|
Feb. (3088 Downloads) – #094 READALONG: Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift |MP3|
Mar. (2700 Downloads) – #097 READALONG: The Garden Of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges and Fair Game by Philip K. Dick |MP3|
Apr. (1267 Downloads) – #102 Scott Jesse and Tamahome talk about new releases |MP3|
May (1258 Downloads) – #109 AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick |MP3|
Jun. (1390 Downloads) – #112 AUDIOBOOK: The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth |MP3|
Jul. (2190 Downloads) – #116 READALONG: The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth |MP3|
Aug. (3740 Downloads) – #105 – AUDIOBOOK: The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell |MP3|
Sep. (7417 Downloads) – #105 – AUDIOBOOK: The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell |MP3|
Oct. (7480 Downloads) – #105 – AUDIOBOOK: The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell |MP3|
As you can see, for the last three months our single most popular download has been the exact same show. It is a complete and unabridged reading of Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game. This show, which came out on April 25, 2011, has been downloaded about 22,000 times so far. That makes it one of our most popular (if not the most popular shows’s we’ve ever done). It is however a bit of an anomaly. This is due to the fact that The Most Dangerous Game is commonly assigned in schools. Almost all of the rest of the credit should go to the most excellent narrator, William Coon, who recorded it – go check out his site he has many other excellent audiobooks too.
If we exclude that episode from the last three months we get the following results:
Aug. (1939 Downloads) – #120 Scott, Jesse and Tamahome talk to Infinivox editor Allan Kaster |MP3|
Sep. (2006 Downloads) – #126 AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Statement Of Randolph Carter by H.P. Lovecraft |MP3|
Oct. (1892 Downloads) – #128 Scott, Jesse, Tamahome and Luke Burrage talk about new releases and recent arrivals |MP3|
Looking at just the most popular downloads I’m pleased to see that nearly all of our kinds of shows are represented. READALONG, AUDIOBOOK, and even regular discussion podcasts are all popular. Our listeners all have great and eclectic tastes it would seem.
For a complete listing of all our past shows go HERE.
And for other podcasters (and anyone else who cares) here is the raw data on our top ten downloads for each month (January 2011 to October 2011):
Posted by Jesse Willis