science fiction – Page 177

Review of Canadia: 2056 – Season One

SFFaudio Review

Canadia: 2056: Season 1
By Matt Watts; Perfomed by a full cast
5 CDs – Approx. 5 Hours [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: CBC Audio
Published: January 21, 2008
Product ID: ERART00217
Themes: / Science Fiction / Humor / Canada / War / Toilets / Audio Drama / CBC /

This entertaining sci-fi comedy series is written by one of Canada’s best-loved comedy writers, Matt Watts. The United States has launched an armada to destroy an alien threat. Canada sends the nation’s only publicly-funded spacecraft, The Canadia – a ship with a single purpose – to plunge the Americans’ toilets.

There are lots of audio dramas out here on the internet, but if you want to hear a professional piece of work that will make you laugh out loud, you should give Canadia 2056 300 minutes of your time. Matt Watts and the entire cast and crew of Canadia 2056 have created something special. The show is an absolute gem.

The Canadia of the series is a Canadian spaceship that has been sent to war with a United States fleet, which in turn has been sent to perform a pre-emptive strike on a planet called Ipampilash. Midshipman Max Anderson is the only American member of the crew, and his relations with all of the Canadians is central to the comedy of the show. I’m not a Canadian, so I’m certain that I’m missing the deeper meaning of some of the jokes, but the scripts are crafted and performed in such a way that I really didn’t feel I was missing out.

An example of this occurs in the very first episode. The captain of the Canadia (hilariously performed by Paul O’Sullivan) is choosing a voice for the computer. He goes through a few, then settles on a gravelly female voice. I found the scene funny without knowing what I was told later – the voice selected was Shauna MacDonald, who is known as the Promo Girl in Canada. Apparently, her voice was heard all the time on CBC, and the debate between the folks that wanted her off the air and the folks who wanted her to stay made her famous. (I’d have wanted her to stay, by the way. I adore her voice.)

Max Anderson (played by series writer Matt Watts) makes an interesting representative of the United States. He’s cowardly, geeky, selfish, and his mother is an admiral in the US fleet. He feels his way around the crew, and finds his place among them eventually. Holly Lewis was captivating as Amanda Lewis, the engineer that Max spends the most time with. There’s a lot of tension between the two, and it’s wonderfully played.

I could sit here and start listing my favorite moments, but it’s suffice to say that I loved these shows enough that I listened more than once. There’s a short list of audio drama that’s really excellent, and even a shorter list of comedic audio drama that’s really excellent. Canadia 2056: Season One is one of those, and I urge you to give it a listen. It’s cruckin’ fanatastic!

Season Two of Canadia: 2056 starts next week on CBC Radio! It looks like the first airing will be at 11:00pm, Wednesday, March 19th. Click here to keep your eye on the CBC Radio schedule.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

StarShipSofa and the BSFA

SFFaudio Online Audio

StarShipSofa and the BSFA are now hitting the home stretch with Day Four. Today the Sofa brings you Ted Chiang’s story The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate. This was first published in September’s F&SF 2007.

O MIGHTY CALIPH AND Commander of the Faithful, I am humbled to be in the splendor of your presence; a man can hope for no greater blessing as long as he lives. The story I have to tell is truly a strange one, and were the entirety to be tattooed at the corner of one’s eye, the marvel of its presentation would not exceed that of the events recounted, for it is a warning to those who would be warned and a lesson to those who would learn.

So that leaves only one story to go. Be sure not to miss it tomorrow, then pop over to StarShipSofa Forums and cast your vote on which one you think will win the BSFA Best Short Story 2007.

Join the StarShipSofa today and subscribe free via iTunes or direct from the StarShipSofa website and collect all five short stories that are up for the award.

Subscribe to the podcast via this feed:www.starshipsofa.com/rss

Posted by Tony C. Smith

Broken Sea does music: Electric Grasshopper – Soundtrack to an Alien Invasion

SFFaudio Online Audio

Electric Grasshopper – Soundtrack to an Alien Invasion is an unusual project from the ever inventive folks at Broken Sea Audio Productions. Basically, it’s a “3 track Sci-Fi based music EP, that combines music with audio drama.” Producer Stevie K. Farnaby sez of it “I basically give the listener the seed of an idea, and they use their imagination to fill in the blanks.” The whole program can be downloaded at Broken Sea’s Electric Grasshopper subsite. Here’s the official description:

A unique and innovative form of story-telling, that combines elements of music and drama, to create an unnerving, disturbing tale of alien invasion, giant man-eating bugs, and hopelessness. Pure unadulterated atmospheric mayhem ensues…

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 004

SFFaudio Online Audio

Short Science Fiction Collections from LibriVox are coming in faster than we can listen to them. That’s cool! But seriously, how many different versions of Harry Harrison’s The Repairman do we really need? This collection includes the fourth unabridged reading that’s available online.

Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 004
By various; Read by various
10 Zipped MP3s or Podcast – Approx. 5.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 2008
“Science fiction (abbreviated SF or sci-fi with varying punctuation and case) is a broad genre of fiction that often involves sociological and technical speculations based on current or future science or technology. This is a reader-selected collection of short stories, originally published between 1931 and 1962, that entered the US public domain when their copyright was not renewed.”

Beyond Pandora
By Robert J. Martin; Read by Jerome Lawsen
1 |MP3| – Approx. 5 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

The Infra-Medians
By Sewell Peaslee Wright; Read by John Larmour
1 |MP3| – Approx. 42 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

The Misplaced Battleship
By Harry Harrison; Read by Barny Shergold
1 |MP3| – Approx. 59 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 2008
It might seem a little careless to lose track of something as big as a battleship … but interstellar space is on a different scale of magnitude. But a misplaced battleship—in the wrong hands!—can be most dangerous. First published in the April 1960 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine.

Missing Link
By Frank Herbert; Read by Kim Cutler
1 |MP3| – Approx. 43 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 2008
The Romantics used to say that the eyes were the windows of the Soul. A good Alien Xenologist might not put it quite so poetically … but he can, if he’s sharp, read a lot in the look of an eye!

The Quantum Jump
By Robert Wicks; Read by Jerome Lawsen
1 |MP3| – Approx. 23 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 2008
Captain Brandon was a pioneer. He explored the far reaches of space and reported back on how things were out there. So it was pretty disquieting to find out that the “far reaches of space” knew more about what went on at home than he did.

The Repairman
By Harry Harrison; Read by Rowdy Delaney
1 |MP3| – Approx. 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas
By R.A. Lafferty; Read by lucylou40
1 |MP3| – Approx. 19 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 2008
The place called Sodom was bad enough. But right down the road was the other town—and that was even worse!
First published in Galaxy magazine’s, December 1962 issue.

Stairway To The Stars
By Larry Shaw; Read by R. J. Davis
1 |MP3| – Approx. 43 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

Traders Risk
By Roger Dee; Read by Susan Umpleby
1 |MP3| – Approx. 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]

Wizard
By Larry M. Harris; Read by Alex C. Telander
1 |MP3| – Approx. 38 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: March 2008
Although the Masquerade itself, as a necessary protection against non-telepaths, was not fully formulated until the late years of the Seventeenth Century, groups of telepaths-in-hiding existed long before that date. Whether such groups were the results of natural mutations, or whether they came into being due to some other cause, has not yet been fully determined, but that a group did exist in the district of Offenburg, in what is now Prussia, we are quite sure.

Podcast feed:

COMING SOON

Posted by Jesse Willis

Space Casey – Q&A podcast & the Audio Drama goes Radio Drama!

SFFaudio Online Audio

I missed it! I missed my chance to throw a few questions at Christiana Ellis during her Q&A session for Space Casey. [sigh] The good news, the whole event was recorded and you can still listen to it |MP3|. OR get it through the podcast feed:

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

Online Audio - Radio Show - Sound Affects A Radio Playground More Casey news! Sound Affects: A Radio Playground will be airing ON THE RADIO beginning March 16th 2008. The host, Jerry Stearns sez, “We have new high quality versions for the air. One a week through April and May.” Is this the first podcast audio drama to be broadcast on radio? I think it could be! Sound Affects can be heard via live streaming on Sundays and is also broadcast on the radio in the Minneapolis/St. Paul. region – 90.3 FM Minneapolis, 106.7 FM St. Paul. Not in the Twin Cities region? Check out the show via the archives on the KFAI website for two weeks after each broadcast.

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC7 airs: The Cool Green Hills Of Earth by Robert A. Heinlein

SFFaudio Online Audio

Following up from last Sunday’s Ordeal In Space, BBC Radio 7 and The 7th Dimension are airing their recording of The Green Hills Of Earth. This is another of BBC7’s The Seventh Dimension‘s specially commisioned tales made to celebrate the centenary of Heinlein’s birth. It originally aired last March.

A couple bits of trivia about The Green Hills Of Earth:

-Robert Heinlein credits the title to a line from C. L. Moore‘s influential short story Shambleau.

-A line from The Green Hills Of Earth was heard on another heavenly body. The Lunar Excursion Module crew of Apollo 15 – who went on to name a crater after the main character – heard Joseph P. Allen (one of the mission scientists in Houston) quote from the story. Have a listen |MOV|. Transcript:

Allen: “As the space poet Rhysling would say, we’re ready for you to ‘come back again to the homes of men on the cool green hills of Earth.'”

You’ll be able to hear the BBC version of The Green Hills Of Earth on Sunday during the broadcast, and for the following 6 days, via the Listen Again service.

The Green Hills Of Earth
By Robert A. Heinlein; Read by Adam Sims
1 Broadcast – Approx. 30 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
BROADCASTER: BBC7’s The 7th Dimension
BROADCAST: Sunday March 9th 2008 @ 6.30pm & 12.30am (UK TIME)
This is the poignant story of Rhysling, the blind space-going songwriter whose poetic skills rival Rudyard Kipling’s. This yarn is about a radiation-blinded spaceship engineer crisscrossing the solar system writing and singing some of the best lyrics in science fiction. In a fine display of writing skill, the spaceship and crew feel as real to the reader as a contemporary tramp steamer.

Posted by Jesse Willis