Robert J. Sawyer – Page 5

The SFFaudio Podcast #159 – NEW RELEASES/RECENT ARRIVALS

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #159 – Scott, Jesse, Tamahome, and Charles Tan talk about recently arrived audiobooks, new releases and more.

Talked about on today’s show:
Charles sent to World Fantasy, John Scalzi’s Fuzzy Nation is a reworking, Is WWW: Wonder by Robert J. Sawyer YA?, three from Angry Robot, Giant Thief by David Tallerman, Empire State by Adam Christopher is superhero noir, free comic book day, The Shadow comic by Garth Ennis, listening speeds, Dead Harvest by Chris F. Holm, Bolinda Audio from Australia, Dreamquake by Elizabeth Knox, YA is big, Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, “scare the crap out of little kids”, The Novice by Trudi Canavan, cozy fantasy, Dark Is The Moon by Ian Irvine, Hemlock Grove by Brian McGreevy, being developed for Netflix, polarizing, Angels Of Vengence by John Birmingham, futuristic Clancy?, White Horse by Alex Adams, Into The Black: Odyssey One by Evan Currie, ebook first, “I’m getting refreshed”, Jenny would like Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente, not Genevieve Valentine, Welcome To Bordertown edited by Ellen Kushner (Sfsignal interview) and Holly Black is all-new, “these stories are too wet”, A Handful Of Stars by Dana Stabenow is an older book, “Alaskans in space”, The Outcast Blade by John Courtenay has vampires, “well that’s disappointing”, how about steampunk?, the splitting of Warriors by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, Legends by Robert Silverberg, Scott thinks Far Horizons should be an audiobook, Agatha H. And The Clockwork Princess by Phil and Kaja Foglio, Girl Genius comics online, Dante Valentine series by Lilith Saintcrow, Clockwork Heart by Dru Pagliassotti, “clockpunk”, Nightfall by Stephen Leather, soul legalities, “God is the ultimate scammer”, Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Infamous, paper books, Comedia Della Morte by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, usefulness of blurbs, The Company Of The Dead by David J. Kowalski, end of Scott’s stack, I didn’t know 8 Million Ways To Die by Lawrence Block was a book, lots from Audible Frontiers, Gregory Benford’s Galactic Center series with multiple narrators, Planet Of The Apes by Pierre Boulle, think of the movie inverted, “take your damn dirty hands off me”, Terry Bisson’s They’re Made Out Of Meat, Charles is reading the Shirley Jackson award nominees (horror and dark fantasy) to prepare for interviews, Peter Staub’s Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff, “it scared the pants off me”, where’s the John Joseph Adams anthology audiobooks?, Kim Stanley Robinson audio short story at Lightspeed Magazine, 2312 stays in the solar system, Mars trilogy if you like science, tons of new Robert Silverberg on Audible, The World Inside will be an HBO series, Scott liked Book Of Skulls, a bunch of Connie Willis, what’s on the horizon?, Existence by David Brin, Red Mars was a marathon, A Short, Sharp Shock by Kim Stanley Robinson, what kind of fantasy does he write?, John Scalzi’s Redshirts, bye Charles

Posted by Tamahome

The SFFaudio Podcast #143 – NEW RELEASES/RECENT ARRIVALS

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #143 – Scott, Jesse, Tamahome, and Kristin (A.K.A Terpkristin) talk about recently arrived audiobooks, new releases and more.

Talked about on today’s show:
The origin of the name ‘Terpkristin’, Scott has a pile of audio, (see also the NewAudioBookIn twitter feed), Hominids and Humans from Robert J. Sawyer, evolved Neanderthals, Farseer (the dinosaur book), Flashforward, Kristin’s scientific evaluations, “needs more ego”, Pamela Sargent’s Earthseed (Seed, #1), Greg Bear’s Forge of God, memorable earth destruction, Peter F. Hamilton’s Void Trilogy (‘Hawking m-sink’ weapon), the Star Trek movie, Burning Chrome anthology by William Gibson includes Johnny Mnemonic, when will they list all the short stories on the audiobook package?, precursor to Neuromancer, William Gibson’s non-fiction Distrust That Particular Flavor is out from Tantor (Jesse will establish later), he’s a crossover, who will read Sisterhood Of Dune?, extending a series, Zelazny’s Amber series, Glasslands (Halo, #8) by Karen Traviss (she also did a lot of Star Wars books), “stuff happens fiction”, Eve Online, “gateway books”, James Blish Star Trek books, Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye, The Thirteen Hallows by Michael Scott and Colette Freedman, I Am Number Four, YA series, “contractual sweatshop”, Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter, a steampunk pioneer, “quick off the mark”, Little Big by John Crowley narrated by the author, Stephan Rudnicki was denied Aegypt (at 43 min), the legend of the Cottingley Fairies, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed it, “the Fairy Gap”, Larry Niven’s The Ringword Engineers and The Ringworld Throne, The Protector, the Security Now science fiction episode, “The Ringworld is unstable! The Ringworld is unstable!”, A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr., NPR dramatized it, good for Scott and Julie’s A Good Story Is Hard To Find podcast?, Working For The Devil (Dante Valentine, #1) by Lilith Saintcrow, Dante is a woman?, Neal Stephenson’s Currency (The Baroque Cycle, Book 3, Vol. 7), they broke it down, Kristin read the whole thing!, Tantor has drm-free downloads, A Fall Of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke, a Poseidon adventure on the moon, BBC Radio drama version, Timecaster by Joe Kimball, sounds like Minority Report, an idea for someone else to write, the Assassin’s Creed game, Brent Weeks’s Night Angel trilogy, hoodies are popular, the comic Chew‘s gruesome premise, Mur Lafferty likes it (5 stars on Goodreads!), Aces High (Wild Cards, #2) edited by George R.R. Martin, Jenny’s special message about A Wrinkle In Time, the 50th anniversary, a parallel world thing, the Pern series, The Greg Mandel trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton, my review of Mindstar Rising (Greg Mandel, #1), psychic powers, Lady And The Tramp, Scott’s box of audio has become infected with a zombie virus, Rise by Gareth Wood, “we’re not desolate or empty!”, entering New Releases territory, Blackstone, Raylan by Elmore Leonard, Justified tv show does a good Leonard, style, Out Of Sight movie and book, it was J-lo’s best, Sixth Column by Heinlein, Jesse can’t remember it, The Voice From The Edge series by Harlan Ellison, he’s got a passion, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream was dramatized on BBC radio too, Robert Sheckley’s Immortality, Inc. (our readalong should be out next week), Bronson Pinchot narrated, (I think this is where I lost my mic because I was trying to say “transplant!” from that audiobook), A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski, a classic feminist science fiction novel, no men needed, Brilliance audiobooks are cheap!, “Someone explain the point of Audible” (at least I can still text), “What’s the fascination with zombies?”, societal significance or commercial? (I’m starting to think they’re ignoring me), Twilight and their ilk, Night Of The Long Knives by Fritz Leiber, how these subgenres are grouped together, vs the U.K., Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey is fantasy or science fiction?, Star Wars gadgetry, Alan Moore’s Lovecraft salute comic Neonomicon, the Audible app, Tamahome is in the hole

Posted by Tamahome

Commentary: So what did yule all receive for Xmas?

SFFaudio Commentary

Did you get what you want for Xmas? I did. I always seem to. This year the theme seemed to be coffee. I got enough to last me until next July! Huzzah!

But the real gift, as always, was that I got to spend some time with my family. On Xmas eve we play a great game called “The Game” – the object of “The Game” is to steal specially wrapped Christmas presents from your relatives and other party attendees – it is especially fun to steal presents from children. There are a few rules, and lots of fake drama, and bogus strategy all designed for fun and it’s basically wall to wall laughter for about 75 minutes. The gifts are generally pretty junky, like dollar store toys or tools – one of them this year was a miniature bale of hay, another was a light in the shape of a fried egg. I love it.

At these parties I get to see lots of uncles and aunts, cousins and other relations all of pleasant disposition. Actually the whole thing is about as close to a Hobbit gathering as you’ve ever seen in real life (though most of us are taller and wear shoes). It’s more that there’s always plenty of food and thoughtful gifts – genuine merriment and respect. It’s rather lovely. But there are always surprises too. Like the one from last Christmas, or the year before. One of my distant relatives, down from northern British Columbia, told me he had happened upon my podcast through the Anne Is A Man blog and that he had been listening to it. That gave me a good laugh! It was one of the best gifts I received. I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising, most of my relatives seem to be readers.

This year the most relevant gift wasn’t actually for me, but it gave me another good laugh.

See one of my cousins, an avid reader, received a new paperback copy of WWW: Wake by Robert J. Sawyer. It was a Christmas present from her aunt and uncle (who happen to be my aunt and uncle too).

Penguin paperback of Wake by Robert J. Sawyer

I happened to be sitting beside her as the gifts were being dispersed and unwrapped. So, when I saw that she’d received it, and that the book was in the new tall paperback format I asked if I might have a look inside (I’d only heard the audiobook). I opened the front cover only to see this:

Seth Wilson blurb In Wake

That’s from Seth Wilson’s review!

That was a good laugh too!

So what did yule all receive for Xmas?

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #127 – READALONG: Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #127 – Jesse, Scott, Tamahome, and Prof. Eric S. Rabkin discuss Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End (no apostrophe).

Talked about on today’s show:
“Welcome to our belief circle”, pronouncing “Vinge”, why Eric picked the book, how to appreciate it, Jesse: “I’m not super impressed”, the Neuromancer connection, Robert Gu (the grouchy poet), The Rabbit, mind control, “affiliances”, this book is happy, “it’s a noir book (Neuromancer)”, the nature of Rabbit, the book is told in free indirect style (vs 3rd person limited vs 3rd person omniscient) (I guess “3rd person limited omniscient” is a contradiction), Sherlock Holmes, POV of Rabbit, a missing MacGuffin, we spoil both Neuromancer and Rainbows End, the book’s other inspirations, Alice In Wonderland, projected realities (belief circles), Vinge: “a very mellow extrapolation”, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (huh?), Mike the computer, the Jewish doxie of shim sung, Jesse: “I’m liking it more”, the original novella Fast Times At Fairmont High, Bob And Carol And Ted And Alice (sexy!), The Bear Came Over The Mountain by Alice Munro, nursing homes, “a proto-typical mainstream story”, no one likes Robert Gu, Rollback by Robert Sawyer, Vinge’s writing strengths, “big steaming mounds of infodump”, Faulkner’s Light In August, Away From Her (film of Munro story), let’s hear it for Canada, Dune, “The Doomsday Machine” (Star Trek), Saberhagen’s Berserkers, “destruction of the past for the future”, libraryoem = human genome, “tempest in a teapot”, the Geisel Library is named after Dr. Seuss, biological vs technical, “visceral”, The Space Merchants, Terry Pratchett, “DRM’d to the bone”, is it a dystopia?, reach out and touch someone, the word “apostrophe” in poetry, “that’s an extra cuteness”, the absent transitive like “do you ride?”, How do you write good science fiction?, Robert A. Heinlein, Virtual Light, Google Goggles app, Layers app, A Christmas Carol, The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain, “the snake of knowledge”, Eric takes notes when he reads, taking notes in an audio book (the Audible app can, Eric), ebook vs paper book, search skills, letmegooglethatforyou.com, Eric’s computer has all the answers, The Diamond Age, politics, Winston Blount, Miri, growth, Xiu Xiang, “Rainbows End is a pot of gold”, a heavenly minefield, rebirth, The City And The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke.

Posted by Tamahome

Sword and Laser interviews Robert J. Sawyer

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Sword and Laser podcast interviews Robert J. Sawyer, live in front of Dragoncon for a full hour. He even answered a question I posted for him in the Sword and Laser Goodreads group:

What does he think the purpose of science fiction is, and where does he think the line should be drawn between entertainment and instruction?

Also, when will the dinosaur books be back in print?

|MP3|

Posted by Tamahome

SFBRP #135 – Totall Recall by Gordon Bell

SFFaudio Online Audio

Luke Burrage’s Science Fiction Book Review Podcast has another episode out (#135) titled Total Recall by Gordon Bell. But it’s not a Science Fiction book and he doesn’t really review it as much as discuss it and the topic of futurism with Tamahome and me.

Have a listen |MP3|

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

Here’s what we talked about:
Science Fantastic with Michio Kaku podcast, Jesse doesn’t like Michio Kaku, “anybody who does futurism is a bullshit artist”, the future will be different from the past, Total Recall by Gordon Bell, “get your ass to Mars”, Triangulation podcast #17, Leo Laporte, “internet famous”, pioneers of the internet, oral history, My Life Bits (a Microsoft research project), life journal, OCR (optical character recognition), body heat, respect level going up for Microsoft, Luke keeps everything, “is he weighing his shit as well?”, your life in 100 terabytes, “don’t bother reading the book”, maybe that’s why I hate futurism, it should have been a biography, “if you want good futurism that isn’t going to be proved wrong in ten years…”, Science Fiction is about the human condition, futurism is technology in isolation, Luke just wants to have a conversation with Gordon Bell, the European Juggling convention, your sister’s wedding, proposing on Skype, a successful marriage of convenience, Skype text chat logs go way back, Skype crash!, saving every email that you receive, presumable AIs, “That was fast”, “you better be careful what you say to Luke”, “in ten years time…”, Luke lives publicly and openly on the internet, how many people have an hour long discussion of every book they’ve read this year?, the benefits of living life on the internet openly, extracting entertainment value, “this is terrible”, Robert J. Sawyer‘s Hominids was a Hugo award winning novel, Startide Rising (Jesse hates it), Connie Willis just won the Hugo, “this is a horrible novel”, Connie Willis is good at getting Hugos, she needs an editor, A Good Story Is Hard To Find podcast, Luke was expecting more than crass futurism, “where the fuck did you pull that number from? was it from your ass”, Fu Manchu, Sunshine is a piece of shit (and not Science Fiction), Moore’s Law, “in ten years time”, William Gibson’s “the future is here it just isn’t evenly distributed yet”, bunk, it’s not falsifiable, SFsignal.com, Tam’s expurgated comment, Real Time with Bill Maher, the guy knows less about nuclear physics than I do (based on what he said on the show), burn that whole nuclear site, Chernobyl, Bikini Atoll (actually it was Enewetak Atoll – specifically Runit Island), Google Maps, the hydrogen bomb, Neil deGrasse Tyson is a lot better, the Hayden Planetarium, “when he talks I get more facts (and he doesn’t do futurism)”, string theory, Jesse doesn’t like Michio Kaku, Luke doesn’t like podcasts that run more than an hour, “that’s a whole separate podcast”, a nerdy internet guy, pocket protectors (are awesome) (see?), a condom for you pocket (they are handy), Revenge Of The Nerds, geek vs. nerd, the Functional Nerds podcast, Patrick Hester, Geek Nights podcast, nerding vs, geeking, “I don’t have nerdgasms”, hot rodding your computer, history geeks, enthusiasts, professionals vs. nerds, Star Trek nerds, they misunderstood Scotty’s origin, red matter is nothing, Star Trek movie made Luke cry, i09, “the top 10 suicide missions in SF”, ramming speed, WWII, “submarmine”, ram the “submarmine”, the Titanic, in 38 years everyone will be ramming other ships, health and safety, 1919, “I can’t believe the way this conference is going…”, futurism works in a story, the internet vs. cyberspace, Snow Crash, the blogsphere (discussion boards) were predicted (?) by Orson Scott Card in Ender’s Game, The Huffington Post, Luke really has to go now.

Runit Island

Posted by Jesse Willis