Isaac Asimov – Page 23

SFBRP: Luke Burrage in conversation with Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

My friend Luke Burrage, of the Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, has placed a candid conversation that we had into his podcast feed! I’m shocked. Shocked!

How dare he do such a thing?!?

Admittedly, he did ask my permission (and did receive it) but still … the effrontery is absolutely unbelievable.

Have a listen for yourself: SFBRP #072.5 – Luke and Jesse in Conversation |MP3|

Here’s what we talked about:

R. Scott Bakker, audiobooks, Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson, Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, Blindsight by Peter Watts, Moving Mars by Greg Bear, Courtney Brown, Science Fiction and Politics Podcast, feminism, utopias, Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, cloning, remote viewing, nature vs. nurture, nurture as a subset of nature, epistemology, The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, The Incredible Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson |READ OUR REVIEW|, Fantastic Voyage and Fantastic Voyage II by Isaac Asimov, the strange life of a photon, combat, Aristotelian values, Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear, Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds, The SFFaudio Podcast #041, FlashForward by Robert J. Sawyer, FlashForward the TV show, Michael Crichton, podcast production, savvy marketing, good women writers, Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, prolific authors, Out Of Sight by Elmore Leonard, Lobsters by Charles Stross |READ OUR REVIEW|, Halting State by Charles Stross, End of an Era by Robert J. Sawyer, science as a basis of fiction, Luke’s second novel (tentatively titled either Monster Story or Teeth and Claws).

Here’s SFBRP‘s podcast feed:

http://www.sfbrp.com/?feed=podcast

Posted by Jesse Willis

Hour 25 interview with Jack Vance (from 1976)

SFFaudio Online Audio

This 1976 interview was recorded for HOUR 25, a long running Science Fiction radio show broadcast out of KPFK, a Los Angeles radio station. I couldn’t find an MP3 version online, but someone has done up a multi-segmented youtube version. One of the issues discussed is author remuneration. Vance speaks frankly about how even though he is ‘quite an established writer’ in the field of Science Fiction and Mystery, he doesn’t have enough income from either genre. Other reports, also mentioned in the interview, point out that those SF authors (like Isaac Asimov and Lin Carter) who have made a decent living via their writing, made most of that money writing non-fiction articles or selling the movie rights to their fiction. Perhaps even more interesting, near the end of the interview a caller asks if Vance has read A Quest for Simbilis by Michael Shea (a sequel to one of Vance’s own books, it stars a Vance character). In response Vance says that he hadn’t read it but that he’d still given Shea the go-ahead to try to get it published when Shea had asked. Then he invites the caller to write his own sequel! Interesting eh?

Here’s the first vid:

A search of youtube will turn up the rest.

Posted by Jesse Willis

TVOF: Interviews with Hal Clement, Poul Anderson, A.E. van Vogt, Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Voices Of Fandom, is a website I’ve just discovered. It has interviews, radio shows, testimonials and a lot more (like the fan made Ray Bradbury audio drama). Here is just a fraction of the cool recordings found over on TheVoicesOfFandom.com:

1982 Interview with Hal Clement – |MP3|
Raw unedited original interview recorded for the Science Fiction Radio Show (KOCV).

1982 Interview with Poul Anderson – |MP3|
Raw unedited original interview recorded for the Science Fiction Radio Show (KOCV).

1982 Interview with A.E. van Vogt – |MP3|
From The Science Fiction Radio Show (KOCV).

1972 Interview with Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl – Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|
Raw interview material for an unfinished show.

T The Voices Of Fandom is a great resource for Science Fiction fans and scholars alike. Check it out.

[via Blue Tyson @ HuffDuffer.com]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #029

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #029 – Jesse and Scott are joined by Julie D. of the Forgotten Classic podcast. Listen in as Julie gushes over the new audiobook of Ken Scholes’ novel Lamentation! We also talk Space Opera, libraries, and how to read a paperbook: “Breaking the spine of a book is like breaking the spine of the family dog.” Ya, it’s a Buck Roger-ish show.

Talked about on today’s show:
Hyperion by Dan Simmons, David Weber, “The Honor Harrington” series, On Basilisk Station, military SF, Audible Frontiers, John Ringo, March Upcountry, Off Armageddon Reef, Theodore Sturgeon, More Than Human, Venus Plus X, To Marry Medusa, Nancy Kress, Beggars In Spain, Infinivox, Blackstone Audio, Beggars And Choosers, Beggars Ride, Children Of Men by P.D. James |READ OUR REVIEW|, BBC Audiobooks America, Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer, Doctor Who, Audible’s new format 4, radio drama, audio drama, 2000X: Tales of the Next Millennia |READ OUR REVIEW|, Spoken Books Publishing, Dr. Wasserman’s Time Chamber: Preventing Armageddon by Lee Geiger, Lamentation by Ken Scholes, Fantasy, Foundation by Isaac Asimov, George R.R. Martin, Dune by Frank Herbert, Macmillan Audio, Simon Vance, The Prestige by Christopher Priest, The January Dancer, SciPodBooks, LibriVox, The Green Odyssey, Space Vulture, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Grim Space by Ann Aguirre, the “Gap” series by Stephen R. Donaldson, ScottBrickPresents.com, The Phoenix Legacy, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Tony Smith, StarShipSofa, Trophy Wives, Twitter, Neil Gaiman, OTRcat.com, Worldcat.org, the Amber series by Roger Zelazny, Maria Lectrix, giving up blogs for lent.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #028

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #028 – Jesse and Scott are joined by Luke Burrage of The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast. First up we talk about Luke’s show and reviewing Science Fiction. Later we ask the question for our time: Are the British taking over Science Fiction?

Talked about on today’s show:
Luke Burrage: International Juggler and Entertainer, Juggling Podcasts, Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas, Gateway by Frederik Pohl, Perdido Street Station by China Miéville, NaNoWriMo, the “Void Trilogy” by Peter F. Hamilton, Richard K. Morgan, Black Man (aka Thirteen) |READ OUR REVIEW|, Altered Carbon |READ OUR REVIEW|, StarShipSofa’s Richard K. Morgan interview, Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer, Dune by Frank Herbert |READ OUR REVIEW|, Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, Use Of Weapons by Iain M. Banks, The Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham, Alien 3, Blade, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells |READ OUR REVIEW|, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson |READ OUR REVIEW|, Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle |READ OUR REVIEW|, rating systems vs. rankings, The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein, the PC Gamer Podcast, Singularity Sky by Charles Stross, ebooks, Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick |READ OUR REVIEW|, Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan |READ OUR REVIEW|, Time Station Berlin by David Evans.

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases – Reynolds, Child, Asimov, Willis

New Releases

Here’s a few new releases that have caught my eyes. There’s also a promise of a title to come that I just have to mention: Tantor Media has Scott Lynch’s The Lies Of Locke Lamora in the pipeline for a spring release! Somebody over in Tantor’s acquisitions department must be listening to our podcast!

Redemption Ark
By Alastair Reynolds; Read by John Lee
24 CDs or 3 MP3-CDs – 29 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: February 2009
ISBN: 9781400109579 (CD), 9781400159574 (MP3-CD)
The sequel to Revelation Space

Terminal Freeze
By Lincoln Child; Read by Scott Brick
9 CDs – 10 Hours 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: 2/24/2009
ISBN: 9780739382028

Four hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle lies Alaska’s Federal Wilderness Zone, one of the most remote places on Earth. But for paleoecologist Evan Marshall and a small group of fellow scientists, an expedition to the Zone represents the opportunity of a lifetime to study the effects of global warming. The expedition changes suddenly, however, with an astonishing find. On a routine exploration of a glacial ice cave, the group discovers an enormous ancient animal encased in solid ice. The media conglomerate sponsoring their research immediately intervenes and arranges the ultimate spectacle—the animal will be cut from the ice, thawed, and revealed live on television. Despite dire warnings of a local Native American village, and the scientific concerns of Marshall and his team, the “docudrama” plows ahead—until the scientists make one more horrifying discovery. The beast is no regular specimen…it may be an ancient killing machine. And they may be wrong in presuming it dead.

Pebble in the Sky
By Isaac Asimov; Read by Robert Fass
Audible Download, 7 CDs, 1 MP3-CD – 8 Hours 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Published: January 28, 2009
ISBN: 9780792760504 (cd), 9780792761860 (mp3-cd)
One moment Joseph Schwartz is a happily retired tailor in Chicago, 1949. The next he’s a helpless stranger on Earth during the heyday of the first Galactic Empire. Earth, as he soon learns, is a backwater, just a pebble in the sky, despised by all the other 200 million planets of the Empire because its people dare to claim it’s the original home of man. And Earth is poor, with great areas of radioactivity ruining much of its soil – so poor that everyone is sentenced to death at the age of 60. Joseph Schwartz is 62.

The Stars, Like Dust
By Isaac Asimov; Read by Stephen R. Thorne
6 CDs or 1 MP3-CD – 7 Hours 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Published: 2009?
ISBN: 9780792757863 (cd), 9780792758297 (mp3-cd)
Biron Farrell was young and naïve, but he was growing up fast. A radiation bomb planted in his dorm room changed him from an innocent student at the University of Earth to a marked man, fleeing desperately from an unknown assassin. He soon discovers that, many light-years away, his father has been murdered. Stunned, grief-stricken, and outraged, Biron is determined to uncover the reasons behind his father’s death, and becomes entangled in an intricate saga of rebellion, political intrigue, and espionage. The mystery takes him deep into space where he finds himself in a relentless struggle with the power-mad despots of Tyrann.

Bellwether
By Connie Willis; Read by Kate Reading
5 Cassettes, 1 MP3-CD, 5 CDs – Approx. 5.6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: February 2009
ISBN: 9781433246234 (cassette), 9781433246265 (mp3-cd), 9781433246241 (cd)
Sandra Foster studies fads and their meanings for the HiTek corporation. Bennett O’Reilly works with monkey-group behavior and chaos theory for the same company. When the two are thrust together due to a misdelivered package and a run of seemingly bad luck, they find a joint project in a flock of sheep. But a series of setbacks and disappointments arise before they are able to find answers to their questions—with the unintended help of the errant, forgetful, and careless office assistant Flip.

Posted by Jesse Willis