BBC 7: Of Withered Apples by Philip K. Dick & Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

SFFaudio Online Audio

BBC Radio 7 - BBC7This weekend’s offerings on BBC Radio 7 include a Philip K. Dick short story that was first broadcast on BBC7 in September 2003. It was first printed in the July 1954 issue of Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. And, in the middle of next week the 7th Dimension begins broadcasting the second novel in C.S. Lewis’ “Cosmic Trilogy.” Perelandra was first published in 1943. It makes an allegorical argument in the form of interplanetary adventure. Listeners familiar with the Narnia books will find a familiar morality play at work in Perelandra.

BBC Radio 7 - Of Withered Apples by Philip K. DickOf Withered Apples
By Philip K. Dick; Read by William Hootkins
1 Part – Approx. 30 Minutes [ABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Sunday at 6.30pm and 12.30am
More horror than science-fiction – A young woman picks the last withered apple from an ancient tree. Although this ensures the tree’s survival, the cost is horrifically high.

BBC 7 Perelandra by C.S. LewisPerelandra
By C.S. Lewis; Read by Alex Jennings
18 Parts – Approx. 9 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Wednesday to Friday at 6.30pm and 12.30pm (continuing)
Perelandra continues the sometimes thrilling, sometimes mystical, but always sublimely evocative adventures of Dr.Ransom first explored in Out of the Silent Planet. In this second volume of C.S.Lewis’ acclaimed Cosmic Trilogy, Ransom is called to the beautiful paradise planet of Perelandra, or Venus, which is in grave peril from his old adversary Dr.Weston. Ransom encounters floating islands and bubble trees as well as an all-powerful female ruler, an Eve figure who undergoes temptation at the hands of a Satan figure in the form of Weston. Ransom must engage with Weston in a desperate struggle to save the purity of Perelandra.”

Each broadcast will be available via the “listen again” feature for a week after airing.

Posted by Jesse Willis

New World Army podcast audio drama

SFFaudio Online Audio

New World ArmyNew World Army is a new podcast audio drama by Jeff Roney. Its described as a “Sci-Fi, audio thriller” – it seems to be set in some post-apocalyptic future. Think The Terminator, a Skynet future and zondercommandos. Read the official description:

“New World Army, a futuristic, Sci-Fi, audio thriller. It involves the story of a band of rebels fighting for survival under the tyrannical regime of a powerful, droid army. Patterned after the storytelling models of Lost and the new Battlestar Galactica, this original story looks at a female hero who battles mechanical enemies, as well as her own flaws. NWArmy is a multi-episode, multi-season story that will take the listener on a sonic journey that will take them from the past, to the present, and future of our characters.”

Check out the promo |MP3|, listen to episode 1 “After” |MP3| or get it through the RSS feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/NewWorldArmy

Posted by Jesse Willis

Commentary: Why History, Noir and pretty much anything else I like are really just Science Fiction

SFFaudio Commentary

Meta SFFaudioI live and breathe Science Fiction, but like many, I have some trouble defining what that term actually means. Sometimes I use Damon Knight’s definition for it… “Science Fiction is what I point to when I say it.” Sometimes I classify a story as a Fantasy even though it appears to be SF (think Star Wars), often this is because of its flagrant disregard for science. But Fantasy isn’t just the wastebasket under Science Fiction – far from it. I see Fantasy as a branch of SF (though I know other people see SF as a branch of Fantasy). If you visit the site often you also may notice I tend to capitalize the “S” and the “F” – it is even in our website logo – I insisted on that point. We had some debate, Scott and I, about whether the site should just be called SFaudio.com, I argued for the extra F, to represent Fantasy. Poor old Horror, always the ugly sister, was left out of the site name entirely. Sometimes therefore I use the “SF” abbreviation, the logic being, “SF,” other than it being shorter, can also stand for “Speculative Fiction” – which includes Horror (and Fantasy too).

Now, before you say, “Jesse, WTF are you capitalizing all these abstract nouns?” I’ll explain that too… I capitalize the Science Fiction the way many folks capitalize the “H” in “Him” when referring to God. And other than this one I don’t think you’ll find a single post in which I’ve personally abbreviated Science Fiction as “sci-fi.” On that issue, I’m with Harlan Ellison:

“…the hideous neologism ‘sci-fi’–which sounds like crickets fucking–is at the core of this seeming malaise. What is called ‘sci-fi’ is _not_, repeat NOT, science fiction. It is special effects movie/television produced by and for imbeciles. Giant lizards, moronic space battles with spaceships acting as if they were Spads and Fokkers dogfighting in atmosphere, recycled fairy tales, and illiterate appeals to paranoia. They bear as much relation to science fiction of quality (whether film or tv or books or magazines) as Dachau did to a health spa.”

Gotta love Harlan, he doesn’t mince words – he sautés them. But back to the matter at hand… the funny thing, despite my attempt at inclusivity I’ve got standards when it comes to what qualifies as what. SF is what I say it is, but I can’t just point to anything. So, for instance, we don’t talk about mainstream literature here. It isn’t that a lot of it isn’t good – as that’s also true about SF, Fantasy and Horror. The reason mainstream literature doesn’t get the mentioned here is that mostly, even when it is well written, a lot of it still really, really sucks. I mean that quite literally. It sucks. It sucks your time, it sucks your money and it doesn’t give you anything to show for it. Sure you’ve got a kind of satisfaction, some internal catharsis perhaps, but it doesn’t give you anything to challenge your beliefs. This month’s Oprah bestseller is little better than next month’s paperweight, except that a paperweight made of paper is already rather redundant. There’s a reason you’ll find some of these books in the supermarket check-out isle, it is because they are, like candy, something you pick up quite casually. And the fiction I read, and the fiction we tell you about, better not be that god-damned casual!

This all came to mind as I was listening to a non-SF podcast recently…

Philosophy Bites podcastPhilosophy Bites, is a podcast that interviews “top philosophers” in “bite-sized” segments. The hosts are: David Edmonds, a philosopher and writer whose day job is making radio documentaries for the BBC, and Nigel Warburton, another philosopher/writer who teaches and blogs about philosophy. They take their podcasts seriously. A recent guest, Alain de Botton, famous for his decidedly not SF, bestselling book The Consolations Of Philosophy brought up this very topic, turning the everyday experience (for our purposes, mainstream fiction) into matters of deep philosophy |MP3| subscribe to the podcast via this feed:

http://www.philosophybites.libsyn.com/rss

One alternative to mainstream literature about everyday experience is mainstream historical fiction. Sometimes I read or listen to a historical fiction novel (or should that be Historical Fiction) that I want to talk about on SFFaudio, but can’t because it doesn’t tie into SF, F or H. In cases of extreme delight though I can usually somehow stretch the boundaries of what I normally would consider proper SF to suit my purposes. A post about Crazy Dog Audio Theatre’s Infidel, which is based on true history, for instance, was saved by calling it Horror. The reasoning being that the Horror genre, includes the idea of “moral horror”, horror that comes not from fear for one’s bodily integrity, but fear for one’s beliefs, fear one’s values – the kind of fear you get when you watch true Film Noir, like Chinatown say.

I deem these kinds of tales eminently philosophical. Which ties back into Science Fiction, as SF is, when you get up close and personal to it quite actually Philosophical Fiction.

But then again, one really ought to just has to stick to one’s guns and exclude a lot of stuff too. Stuff like the Hardcore History podcast….

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcastThe Hardcore History podcast, produced by Dan Carlin and his increasingly unlikely parter “Ben,” performs auditory miracles of storytelling using absolutely no fiction, or science at all. This is a pure History fan-boy show. There is no reasonable way that a blog about Science Fiction and Fantasy audio can mention this stunningly wonderful bi-monthly (or so) podcast with a straight face. At least not if it wants to pretend to be strictly topical blog. Subscribe via this feed:

http://www.dancarlin.com/dchh.xml

The only way one could post about Hardcore History and even pretend, with any honesty preserved, to be on-topic would be to compare it to an even less related program…

Entitled Opinions (about Life and Literature) podcastEntitled Opinions (which has just started it’s much anticipated fourth season) is a podcast radio program hosted by Professor Robert Harrison. Harrison teaches in the department of French and Italian and likely has never even read a Science Fiction novel in his life. Therefore I won’t ever mention his podcast here, except for one thing, EQ is a literary talk show that I like. Harrison interviews guests about issues that range from literature and philosophy to politics and sports. I have a feeling that one day, given infinite time, he might talk about SF.

To cap it all off, one feels absolutely flummoxed about a short story like….

To Build A Fire
By Jack London; Read by Betsie Bush
1 |MP3| – [UNABRIDGED]
A man and his husky, travel through the Klondike in seventy-five below zero weather (Fahrenheit).

This story came to mind after reading another website’s discussion of Tom Godwin’s The Cold Equations. The two tales are, essentially, the same ruthless story. That is, in terms of both tales’ focused intent to push naturalism upon the reader’s mind. Except that The Cold Equations is, by every conceivable imagining of the definition, at the very center of Science Fiction. The story has spaceships, planetary colonization, ballistic physics and is set in the future! That surely makes it SF. To Build A Fire has none of these things. It is set in the late 19th century Klondike, is contemporary to when it was written, and it doesn’t have any of the usual SF elements (tech, time travel, etc.). Without any fantastic elements at all can it be SF? Not SF then? Jack London isn’t often considered an SF writer. But, on the other hand it is fiction about science, and the consequences it truly has upon us. Fiction about science? Put another way, that must be SF!

Now, Naturalism as a literary movement, was just developing during the late nineteenth century (when London was writing). Its roots go back to ideas of scientific determinism and Darwin’s theory of evolution. Naturalism contended that human beings are determined by their heredity and the laws of nature and are thus controlled by their environment and their physical makeup rather than by than by appeals to spirituality or even to the power of human reason.

“Natural philosophy,” that’s what science used to be called back before it was called science.

It is my contention then, that “Science Fiction,” and all its relatives, Horror, Fantasy and Noir, (H, F, N) are quite literally philosophical fiction in disguise.

Of course, now it being as the case that I’ve shown in the above good reason as to why SF, and its related capitalized consonants, are all tied into philosophy we ought to forgive a little meta-post like this one, now and again eh?

Posted by Jesse Willis

UPDATE: Hey! Check out this audio interview with Thomas Hibbs (author of a new paperbook about Film Noir entitled Arts of Darkness: American Noir and the Quest for Redemption). In the interview Hibbs ties Noir and Horror together quite nicely.

Beam Me Up podcast: A World Is Born by Leigh Brackett

SFFaudio Online Audio

Podcast - Beam Me UpThe Beam Me Up podcast has a two part reading of Leigh Brackett’s A World Is Born. This short story was first published in the July 1941 issue of Comet magazine (that same issue that also featured The Street That Wasn’t There by Clifford D. Simak and Carl Jacobi as well as Vortex Blaster by E.E. Doc Smith)!


Beam Me Up - A World Is Born by Leigh BrackettA World Is Born
By Leigh Brackett; Read by Ron Huber
2 MP3s – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Beam Me Up
Podcast: February 2008
“The first ripples of blue fire touched Dio’s men. Bolts of it fastened on gun-butts, and knuckles. Men screamed and fell. Jill cried out as he tore silver ornaments from her dress.”

Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|

Posted by Jesse Willis

StarShip Sofa podcasts By The Falls by Harry Harrison

SFFaudio Online Audio

Star Ship SofaThe latest short story from the StarShip Sofa podcast is a tale first published in the January 1970 issue of “Worlds Of If” magazine. It garnered a nomination for a Nebula in its time and still holds power. Host Tony C. Smith sez we should be able to download all of these tales from the SSS wbsite on a sub-page he’s dubbing “Aural Delights.” Cool!

By The Falls by Harry HarrisonBy The Falls
By Harry Harrison; Read by Grant Stone
1 |MP3| – Approx. 21 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: StarShip Sofa
Podcast: February 2008
It was the rich damp grass, slippery as soap, covering the path, that caused .Carter to keep slipping and falling, not the steepness of the hill. The front of his raincoat was wet and his knees were muddy long before be reached the summit. And with each step forward and upward the continuous roar of sound grew louder. He was hot and tired by the time he reached the top of the ridge–yet he instantly forgot his discomfort as he looked out across the wide bay.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Science Ficition The Best Of The Year 2007 – 3 FREE AUDIO STORIES

SFFaudio Online Audio

Science Ficition The Best Of The Year 2007The 320 page Science Ficition The Best Of The Year 2007 Edition anthology has been out since last spring. It contains 12 works of short fiction (short stories, novellas, etc.) that were originally published in 2006. But unlike with the 2006 edition, the publisher, Wildside Books, and the editor, Rich Horton, haven’t managed to secure an audio edition. But that doesn’t mean we can’t listen to at least some of the stories.

Check these out:

Escape PodHesperia And Glory
By Ann Leckie; Read by Frank Key
1 |MP3| – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: November 2007
“…unassumingly written in Victorian style at the start, quickly evokes the glory days of pulp sf adventure in the spirit of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Here, we are told a secondhand, heroic account of a man named John Atkins, a self-professed prince of Mars. The deftness with which the author handles the usually off-putting plot device of wish fulfillment (and the correspondingly eye-rolling trope of imagined realities) is not only commendable; it’s entirely in keeping with the science-fantasy days of old. Well done.”review from John @ SFSignal.com

Inclination by William ShunnInclination
By William Shunn; Read by William Shunn
3 MP3s – Approx. 2 Hours 10 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Science Fic Shunn Podcast
Podcast: April 2007
Get all three parts:
|Part 1 MP3|Part 2 MP3|Part 3 MP3|
On a space station there are two clashing social classes. Jude, a young member of the underprivileged Machinists, gets a job with the Sculpted and comes to learn the way of the world.

Escape PodThe House Beyond Your Sky
By Benjamin Rosenbaum; Read by Paul Tevis
1 |MP3| – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: May 2007
“The simulations, while good, are not impenetrable even to their own inhabitants. Scientists teaching baboons to sort blocks may notice that all other baboons become instantly better at block-sorting, revealing a high-level caching mechanism.”

Posted by Jesse Willis