science fiction – Page 185

Blake’s 7 on BBC 7

OnlineAudio

The second one hour show of the new Blake’s 7 audio drama series has just aired!

Comments about Blake’s 7 audio drama…

“Its great that Blake’s Seven is back on the BBC. Hearing the stories as one hour blocks rather than 5 min bits is so much better!” -Kally_1978

“Very well done BBC7 for this purchase from sci-fi. And for broadcasting it in substantial one hour chunks. Thoroughly enjoyed the first episode. A very neat ‘reimagining’ (horrible word)of the origin tale. Looking forward to the next chapter.” -rosewizard

“I have to say, I was impressed. It’s played straight – none of the tongue-in-cheek nonsense that spoils so much science fiction. And I was delighted that there was some effort at scientific accuracy. The space travel element is well worked out, they don’t assume that all spaceships have artificial gravity…” -Blue_Biro

And these folks are dead-on, this show is super slick. The program shines in the 1 hour format. If you were a fan of the original tv series you’ll absolutely love this re-imagining. I hope these adventures continue past just these three shows.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Time Traveler Show – Harry Harrison’s The Velvet Glove

SFFaudio Online Audio

Hankering for vintage SF? The best way, travel back in time to the mid 1950s and pick through an overflowing newstand full of pulp goodness. Or, just let The Time Traveler Show do it for you. The latest show does just that with Michael Bekemeyer, from Scatterpod podcast, reading Harry Harrison’s The Velvet Glove – it first appeared in the November 1956 issue of Fantastic Universe!

The Velvet Glove
By Harry Harrison; Read by Michael Bekemeyer
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: The Time Traveler Show
Podcast: December 28th 2007

Have a listen through the link above or give it a bit and get it through The Time Traveler Show podcast feed:

http://www.timetravelershow.com/shows/feed.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBC Radio One begins re-airing Canadia: 2056

SFFaudio News

Matt Watts, long silent (hard at work), has posted some welcome news on his blog…

“Canadia: 2056…

If you notice a complete lack of publicity surrounding a show – if you hear or read absolutely nothing at all about a particular program – the chances are that it’s premiering within a matter of days. It’s CBC Radio’s anti-publicity campaign, their ‘publicity-nouveau’ if you will. If you think about it, it really challenges the listener to ‘discover’ programming. It’s rather brilliant and progressive, actually.

“Our silence and lack of acknowledgment indicates that some thing is about to happen… Maybe.”

But, for the neophobes who can’t get on board with this whole “anti-publicity” fad, and for those who have duly noted that the CBC Program schedule says that Afghanada is still airing on the 2nd of January:

Canadia: 2056 starts airing on Wednesday. Yes, this Wednesday, January 2nd at 11:05PM, repeat on Friday January 4th at 11:30AM. The first season will run through until March, and then the second season (the episodes we’re currently writing/recording) will begin airing.

Also, for those of you enquiring about CD’s of the first season: I think it’s safe to assume at this point that they will not be available for Christmas. I’m assured that they will be available for pre-order by the time the show starts airing on Wednesday… But if you go by my convoluted logic regarding the publicity for the show – if you don’t order the CD’s at all, they will arrive on your doorstep sometime last week.

As for podcasting… Don’t even ask. It’s hopeless at this point. The idea of downloading any radio drama from the CBC website looks like it’ll probably happen around the time digital media is considered out-dated and archaic. Incidentally, I tried to get the phrase ‘now available on the compact disc format!’ on the cover of the CD’s, but they didn’t go for it.

We’re halfway through recording the new season, which I’m really enjoying writing. Although the focus is primarily the characters and their relationships, we’re pushing the SF story-lines as far as we can… For the record, if you think I’ve stolen something from either Douglas Adams or Grant Naylor, it’s an homage…

Not theft.

(Fine, I ‘borrowed’ some ideas… But at least I ADMIT IT!)”

Cool! I’ll be tuning in for the re-running of Season One. Listeners outside of Canada will have to make due with the online listening service provided through the CBC Radio One site. It really pisses me off that CBC can’t get their act together when it comes to podcasting their in-house radio drama. Its the ideal format for the stuff.

We’ll be talking more about Canadia: 2056 as Season Two approaches.

Posted by Jesse Willis

P.S. Free The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al!

BBC 7 has Blake’s 7

SFFaudio Online Audio

Wait! wait! Don’t miss it! BBC7 is broadcasting the Sci-Fi Channel UK’s audio drama series of Blake’s 7! This was the show we told you about back in May, written by Doctor Who writer Ben Aaronovitch this series is morally complex, deeply noir, and sounding slicker than ever in its now feature length format (it previously aired in 5 minute segments). Go right now and get the first part of the first series before its gone from the site, starting with…

Blake's 7 Blake’s 7: Rebel
Episode 1 of 3 – Approx. 1 Hour [AUDIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: December 26th 2007

Get it now, via the “listen again” feature.

Exiled to the notorious prison planet of Cygnus Alpha, the Federation thinks it has seen the last of Roj Blake.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Escape Pod for Xmas: In The Late December by Greg van Eekhout

OnlineAudio

Escape Pod has a Nebula award-nominated story about Santa Claus and the end of the universe.

Escape Pod - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine In The Late December
By Greg van Eekhout; Read by Stephen Eley
1 |MP3| – Approx. 27 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: December 25th 2007

They come to a cloud of silver mist, and there Santa finds a little boy made of molten silver with liquid silver eyes and sweeping silver delta wings. His wrists are ringed with missile launchers, and a rounded cone emerges from a cavity in his chest. Once there were many silver boys, fleets of them, protecting the outermost parts of inhabited space against things that came from outside inhabited space. But now, there is only the silver boy.

“You, sir,” the silver boy says, “are a tiresome consciousness cluster. Your binary value system remains as laughable as it is irrelevant. How you manage to remain cohesive is beyond me.”

“My value system is hardly binary,” Santa says. “In between naughty and nice I’ve made room for you: grumpy but fundamentally sound. Do you want a toy or not?”

And be sure to stick around for the closing rendition of Chiron Beta Prime.

Subscribe to the podcast feed via this url:

http://escapepod.org/podcast.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBC Canada Reads and Nalo Hopkinson

OnlineAudio

Canada Reads is relatively new tradition in Canada. An annual ‘battle of the books’ competition, it is organized and broadcast by CBC Radio One. During the week of February 25-29, 2008, for the first time, CBC’ll be podcasting the shows and you’ll be able to subscribe here. In the 2008 batch there’s one Science Fiction title. Brown Girl In The Ring by Nalo Hopkinson.

Listen to Canada Reads producer Ann Jansen talking to Nalo Hopkinson about it |WMV|.

Listen to Nalo reading a two minute excerpt from her novel |WMV|.

Keep track of the battle on the official site.

Also, I wrote a review of the audiobook back in 2004. Check it out HERE.

Posted by Jesse Willis

P.S. Free Apocalypse Al!