The Sci Phi Show podcast, back from a short hiatus, has an interview with SF author Kim Stanley Robinson! Cool huh? Jason, the show’s host also tells me we can expect to see interviews with Cory Doctorow and Orson Scott Card soon too! Download the show direct |MP3| or subscribe to the show via the podcast feed:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheSciPhiShow
The Zombie Astronaut has again posted up two adaptations of the same script, this time its Fritz Leiber‘s classic short story A Pail Of Air.
Alfred and Effie live on an Earth that has been knocked off it’s orbit and is drifting without the warmth and light of the Sun. The last radio station went off the air a year before their son, Bud was born. They survive in an apartment building, slowly burning what coal they can find to keep warm and keep the air from freezing. Then one day when Bud went out to get a pail of frozen air, he saw a light moving through the building across the way…
WNBC X-Minus One |MP3|
WMUK Special Projects Future Tense |MP3|
Posted by Jesse Willis
Mark Nelson, that fevered SF fan from San Jose, California has just committed another narration! This time it is Voodoo Planet by Andre Norton, that’s the sequel to his already narrated Plague Ship! This guy’s amazing. Three Cheers for Mark Nelson…
Hip Hip Huzzah! Hip Hip Huzzah! Hip Hip Huzzah!
Voodoo Planet
By Andre Norton; Read by Mark Nelson
8 Zipped MP3s – 2 Hours 46 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 2007
The sequel to Plague Ship, Voodoo Planet finds the Solar Queen banned from trade and starting her supposed quiet two-year stint as an interstellar mail carrier. But instead her crew accepts a visit to the safari planet of Khatka, where they find themselves caught in a battle between the forces of reason and the powers of Khatka’s mind-controlling wizard.
The Time Traveler will be materializing on April 21st 2007 at PenguiCon in Troy, MI where he will be recording an interview with SF author Tobias Buckell. Buckell will also be reading a story for the show! Can’t wait? Hop in the time machine! Or, pass the time by listening to the latest TTS, which contains an early Kurt Vonnegut story: 2BR02B.
To read the complete show notes for podcast #16 click HERE or download the show in the MP3 format directly by clicking HERE.
2BR02B
By Kurt Vonnegut; Read by William Coelius
1 MP3 – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: The Time Traveler Show
Podcast: April 14th 2007
In the not so distant future an over-populated planet requires that every birth be balanced by a death. When Edward K. Whelig, Jr.’s wife births triplets he needs to find three people willing to enter a local suicide booth and give him the receipt…
To keep the shows automatically downloading, subscribe to The Time Traveler Show podcast feed:
http://www.timetravelershow.com/shows/feed.xml
Escape Pod issue #101 features another excellent Mike Resnick story, with this one being a Hugo winner you can’t go wrong. To make it even more impressive the tale is performed by Steven Burley and Gregg Taylor of Decoder Ring Theatre fame – you won’t want to miss it! The story, The 43 Antarean Dynasties was first published in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine’s December 1997 issue.
EP101: The 43 Antarean Dynasties
By Mike Resnick; Read by Steven Burley and Gregg Taylor
1 MP3 File – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: April 12th 2006
A proud tourist guide, shows the ancient sights of his alien world to a family from Earth.
Also of note is the recent announcement that Escape Pod will spinoff yet another weekly fiction podcast this summer! This as yet unnamed show will feature all FANTASY stories, allowing Escape Pod to specialize in all Science Fiction! There’s a thread on the Escape Pod discussion forums that details all the contest rules and regs but here’s the main stuff briefly:
The Rules:
* E-mail your name ideas to [email protected].
* An eligible name must have the .org domain available.
* Maximum one entry per person per day.
* The contest ends at midnight PST on April 15, 2007 (hey that’s tomorrow!!!!)
The Prize:
A new 2 GB iPod Nano with every Escape Pod episode preloaded on it! COOL!
The Invisible Man
By H. G. Wells; Read by Alex Foster
13 MP3 or OGG Files – 4 Hours 54 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: 2006
Themes: /Science Fiction / Invisibility /
The narrator, Alex Foster, has a great voice for this tale. It’s a radio voice. There are few, if any, errors. And very importantly, it isn’t an American accent. The story takes place, if I understand my geography correctly, near London, so having an accent from that area is a plus. And yet, the text is very clear, with no misunderstanding, even by an American such as myself.
Interestingly, the description for how invisibility works is strikingly believable. In high school chemistry class, they had you put a certain amount of water in a beaker, put in a Pyrex rod, add a certain amount of a clear liquid, mix it, and boom (well, it was a surprise, anyway), the Pyrex rod that’s in the liquid vanishes. The index of refraction of the water was altered to match that of Pyrex. The Invisible man is invisible because he’s not only transparent, but in index of refraction matches that of air. Yet, Wells doesn’t go so far as to tell you the details on how the thing works, exactly. Just enough to get you going. Masterfully done.
Now, the story has been done again and again in literature. Typically, the rip offs change the man’s character greatly. Sometimes they come up with solutions to his various problems. Problems? Sure, well, he’s only really invisible when he’s naked. That’s a decided disadvantage when it’s winter. And in summer, the bug bites must be terrible. The solution was actually presented in the book, though the author chooses not to have the character use it.
Wells clearly wanted to have the book stand on it’s own. Not a serial like Tarzan. So, the Invisible Man is smart enough to be dangerous, but not smart enough to live forever. Many of the rip off’s, including a TV series, have the Invisible Man with a support network, and enough smarts to do interesting things as a serial.
The original book stands the test of time. Speaking of time. The Librivoxrecording of The Invisible Man is only about five hours long. Keep in mind that reading the text yourself is typically about three times faster. So this is a fairly short piece of entertainment. It’s broken up into fairly short readings. Sometimes three chapters in a single file, but always under about 35 minutes. The chapters must be very short. In any case, it means one can get through a whole scene, and have a convenient break point.
Now, I mostly listen to these things while doing something else. This summer, I’ve listened to several books while gardening. I bought a non-motorized lawn mower so that i can listen while doing that task. Most of my listening time, however, happens during my commute to work. In a break with tradition, I actually found myself speeding up a little during the most exciting parts. (This doesn’t get me to speeding, exactly, as I drive slower than the limit as a fuel conservation measure – which saves me more than an estimated $100 per year). It’s an hour each way, so it’s roughly ten hours a week. Against ten hours a week, a five hour book is pretty easy. The Tarzan books were about eight hours each. And when I listened to those, it was about one per week. Imagine reading fifty books a year.