science fiction – Page 183

Canadia: 2056 now has an official website

SFFaudio News

CBC Radio engineer, producer and director (The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al, Afghanada) Greg DeClute tells me that Canadia: 2056 now has a full fledged website!

Amongst the info already found there are an Episode Guide, a Cast List, and a Photo Gallery. DeClute says that later in January we can expect to see a “Canadia: 2056 contest” and a “behind the scenes video of the making of the show”!

And here’s a link back to our listening guide for U.S. listeners.

Posted by Jesse Willis

P.S. Free The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al!

Final Episode of Blake’s 7 airs on BBC7

OnlineAudio

Blake’s 7 Liberator

The third and final one hour show of the new Blake’s 7 audio drama series has just aired on BBC7’s The 7th Dimension! “Liberator” wraps up the entire three cycle run of recorded Blake’s 7 re-imagination by B7 Media. You can hear it via the “listen again” feature for the next 6 days, after which, consider purchasing the Higher-Fi-er quality versions in the form of the CD sets HERE.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Radio Tales Of The Strange & Fantastic

SFFaudio Online Audio

Radio Tales Of The Strange & Fantastic is a website devoted to “bring[ing] you stories of the supernatural and the supernormal dramatizing the fantasies and the mysteries of the unknown.” The webmaster, Rich Carlson, has as his goal a “no frills (and no ads, no pop ups, no cookies) in a single page” of the best in OTR Speculative Fiction. And that’s just what it is! Newcomers to classic science fiction, fantasy, horror and adventure radio plays and long time fans of the medium can easily locate and download some of the best examples of the art form. RToTSF links to more than 50 hours of public domain favorites. With particular focus on the well-known novel and short story writers whose speculative works reached a wider audience via radio. Featured authors include the likes of:

Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Ambrose Bierce, Algernon Blackwood, Ray Bradbury, Fredric Brown, John Brunner, Arthur C. Clarke, L. Sprague de Camp, Guy de Maupassant, Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard, Robert A. Heinlein, Shirley Jackson, M. R. James, Fritz Leiber, Murray Leinster, H.P. Lovecraft, Archibald MacLeish, Edgar Allan Poe, Frederik Pohl, Robert Silverberg, Curt Siodmak, Carl Stephenson, Dalton Trumbo, H. Russell Wakefield, Stanley Weinbaum, H. G. Wells, Jack Vance and Roger Zelazny.

This is a site worthy of repeated visits.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Prisoners Of Gravity – Amnesia / Total Recall: watch or listen to the show

SFFaudio Online Audio

As nobody other than my good friend Rachelle Shelkey has been doing much boosterism for our favorite television show I thought I’d give it another boost… Prisoners Of Gravity was absolutely the best interview theme show I’ve ever seen. The three videos below make up the bulk of one episode from the 5th (and final) season of PoG. The episode is titled “Amnesia / Total Recall“.
In the show Commander Rick, the host, talks to David Cronenberg, Walter Jon Williams, C.J. Cherryh, Harry Harrison, Pat Cadigan, Nancy Kress, Kim Antieau, Samuel R. Delany, Ray Bradbury, Megan Lindholm and Terry Pratchett about the use of AMNESIA and TOTAL RECALL as themes in Science Fiction.

Prisoners Of Gravity – “Amnesia / Total Recall”
1 |MP3| – Approx. 27 Minutes [AUDIO FROM VIDEO]
Broadcaster: TV Ontario
Broadcast: Wednesday December 15, 1993

“This week Commander Rick continues to explore the theme of memory, taking an in-depth look at amnesia in discussions with guests: film director and screenwriter David Cronenberg – who was the original choice to write and direct the movie Total Recall; and speculative fiction authors Walter Jon Williams (Voice Of The Whirlwind), C.J. Cherryh (Heavy Time), Harry Harrison (The Turing Option), Pat Cadigan (Fools), Nancy Kress (Brain Rose), Kim Antieau (“Another Country”) and Samuel R. Delany (Dhalgren). Commander Rick also looks at the idea of eidetic or photographic memory in discussions with guests: Ray Bradbury (The Illustrated Man), Megan Lindholm (Alien Earth) and Terry Pratchett (Small Gods).”

Part 1 of 3:

Part 2 of 3:

Part 3 of 3:

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBC Radio One has Canadia: 2056 Season 1, Episode 1 Today!

SFFaudio Online Audio

CBC Radio One is re-broadcasting the first episode of the first season of its Science Fiction / Comedy radio drama series Canadia: 2056 today! Tune in Wednesday, January 2nd 2008 at 11:05PM (this episode will repeat on Friday January 4th at 11:30AM). Don’t know how to hear the show? If you’re in Canada, tune your radio to the appointed station at the appointed time. If you’re outside of Canada or just want to time shift a bit, click on over to the Streaming Radio Map for CBC Radio One.

If you didn’t hear Canadia: 2056‘s first season the first time around do please tune in, you’ll be glad you did. Still a bit skeptical? Check out the Wikipedia entry for the show. Or have a listen to the three promos HERE.

Here’s my intro to show #1:

Episode 1: Getting the replacement parts to leave Earth orbit is harder than getting episodes of the hot TV series Foxy Chalet (”the best Canadian show the Americans ever made”).

UPDATE: Someone asked how to “time-shift listen”, if we ignore Newfoundland (sorry Newfoundland) time zones are pretty easy to figure out across Canada. Just subtract 1 hour as you head West across Canada from the East coast. If you are in New York, NY you’re in the same Time Zone as Toronto, ONT (EST). If you’re in Los Angeles, CA, you’re in the same time zone as Vancouver, BC (PTZ). And of course you need to pick the city appropriate to your time-shifted choice on the Streaming Radio Map to hear it…

Listening Times And Places For The Eastern Time Zone (Ex. NEW YORK, NY):
12:05PM on the HALIFAX CBC RADIO ONE station (ATLANTIC TIME ZONE)
11:05PM on the Toronto CBC RADIO ONE station (EASTERN TIME ZONE)
10:05PM on the Winnipeg CBC Radio ONE station (CENTRAL TIME ZONE)
9:05PM on the Calgary CBC RADIO ONE station (MOUNTAIN TIME ZONE)
8:05PM on the Vancouver CBC RADIO ONE station (PACIFIC TIME ZONE)

Listening Times And Places For The Central Time Zone (Ex. MINNEAPOLIS, MN):
9:05PM on the HALIFAX CBC RADIO ONE station (ATLANTIC TIME ZONE)
10:05PM on the Toronto CBC RADIO ONE station (EASTERN TIME ZONE)
11:05PM on the Winnipeg CBC Radio ONE station (CENTRAL TIME ZONE)
12:05PM on the Calgary CBC RADIO ONE station (MOUNTAIN TIME ZONE)
1:05PM on the Vancouver CBC RADIO ONE station (PACIFIC TIME ZONE)

Listening Times And Places For The Mountain Time Zone (Ex. SALT LAKE CITY, UT):
8:05PM on the HALIFAX CBC RADIO ONE station (ATLANTIC TIME ZONE)
9:05PM on the Toronto CBC RADIO ONE station (EASTERN TIME ZONE)
10:05PM on the Winnipeg CBC Radio ONE station (CENTRAL TIME ZONE)
11:05PM on the Calgary CBC RADIO ONE station (MOUNTAIN TIME ZONE)
12:05PM on the Vancouver CBC RADIO ONE station (PACIFIC TIME ZONE)

Listening Times And Places For The Pacific Time Zone (Ex. LOS ANGELES, CA):
7:05PM on the HALIFAX CBC RADIO ONE station (ATLANTIC TIME ZONE)
8:05PM on the Toronto CBC RADIO ONE station (EASTERN TIME ZONE)
9:05PM on the Winnipeg CBC Radio ONE station (CENTRAL TIME ZONE)
10:05PM on the Calgary CBC RADIO ONE station (MOUNTAIN TIME ZONE)
11:05PM on the Vancouver CBC RADIO ONE station (PACIFIC TIME ZONE)

North American Time Zones

Posted by Jesse Willis

P.S. Free The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al!

Review of Master Of Space And Time by Rudy Rucker

SFFaudio Review

Master of Space and Time
By Rudy V. B. Rucker; Read by Scott Grunden
5 CDs – Approx. 6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9781433207709
Themes: / Science Fiction / Humor / Physics / Quantum Mechanics / Alternate Universe / Time Travel / Robots /

“Madcap inventor Harry Gerber is hopeless when it comes to surviving in the real world. So he uses his genius to twist the laws of science and create his own tailor-made universe.”

Joe Fletcher has a 9-to-precisely-5 job at Softtech, a crappy software company in New Jersey. He hates his job, so much so he’s programmed a piece of software to alert him to the precise nano-second of the completion of his requisite 40 hours a week. On one particular Friday in the futuristic 1990s Joe hoofs it out to the company parking lot for the commute home only to find his former partner, Harry Gerber, an “out-of-it” genius inventor waiting for him. Joe hadn’t seen Gerber, his former partner in their bankrupt engineering firm, in more than a year so he’s rather surprised to see a two-inch tall Harry sitting on the steering wheel of his 1956 Buick. In fact, after closer inspection there are a whole swarm of tiny Harrys in the Buick. Some are standing on the gearshift, others are running around on the dashboard, each is smaller than the next. The Harrys tell Joe about the machine that they will assemble on Saturday that will make them both masters of space and time by Sunday afternoon. Most important for Joe, Harry and his girlfriend, the improbably named Sondra Tupperware, they’ll need to get some red gluons – a kind of subatomic particle found only below the “Planck threshold.” The “blunzer” – the device in question, will grant them the ability to do absolutely anything by just mentally manipulating the very nature of reality – and they know it will work since it already has!

Rudy Rucker is playing with old Heinleinian tropes to good comic effect in Master Of Space And Time. On offer is an homage to The Puppet Masters and I Will Fear No Evil, the former being an alien invasion by brain slugs, the latter being about a man who gets the ultimate in transgendered wishes. There’s lots of original material here too, the writing is Hard SF-lite with lots of physics for undergraduates. It comes off as a comic version of the ultimate power fantasy, or as an SF take on the old “three wishes” tales. One other bit of fun, the chapter names are all either self-referential or jokey. On the net there seems to be quite a bit of controversy about the religious and sexual aspects of the book. I found it hard to understand why that would be – the accusations of ‘homophobia’ and a ‘high-handed, anti-christian’ attitude seem pretty insubstantial, at least based on the content of the novel I was listening to. The whole caper is fun, unpredictable and fast moving. It makes for a breezy listen – it won’t blow your mind, but it will entertain.

In Master Of Space And Time narrator Scott Grunden has some of the funniest lines ever read in an audiobook. At one point early in the novel he’s performing the sounds of a ginormous iguana-cum-Godzilla, (WHEEEENK-WHEEEENK- WHEEEENK! GUH-ROOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOO!) the scene goes on an on. Another treat, at the point at which Joe is switched bodily into his idea of the most sexy woman in the world Grunden changes his voice even when his cadence doesn’t. It pleases the heck out of me that Blackstone is venturing a little farther back in time for many of its new Science Fiction additions. Master Of Space And Time was first published in the 1984, I had no clue it even existed until this audiobook edition came out. Look for a film version of Master Of Space And Time sometime in 2009 with a screenplay by Daniel Clowes of Ghost World fame.

Posted by Jesse Willis