Tag: The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #020

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #020 – Today Jesse and Scott talk with James Powell, a terrific Mystery, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Crime writer. He was first published in April 1966 and has approximately 140 published short stories in such magazines as Playboy and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. But most of his tales, including his most famous have been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine! His tales are relentlessly logical, often hilarious, and swift. He is an absolute master of the short story. Powell is what’s known in the business as a “Pussycat writer” which means he doesn’t put sex and violence on the page, it all happens off-stage. Look for his latest tale, Clowntown Pajamas in the February 2009 issue of EQMM.

Talked about on today’s show:
A Cozy For The Jack-O-Lanterns, A Dirge For Clowntown, Clowntown Pajamas, Monaco, France, Crippen & Landru, The Friends Of Hector Jouvet |READ IT|, Peter Sellers, A Murder Coming, the review in which I first mention A Dirge For Clowntown rules for what Powell calls “Elf Economics”, The Theft Of The Valuable Bird, Midnight Pumpkins (Cinderella as Hard Fantasy), Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock style stories, Clowntown Pajamas, the hidden but clear rules of clown and mine behavior, Toronto, 1940s, QUESTION: Who does James Powell read? ANSWER: Charles Dickens, Jorge Luis Borges, J.R.R. Tolkien, and lately Michael Swanwick‘s The Edge Of The World, as wells as A Passage To India, E.M. Forster, Bouchercon, Frederic Dannay, Santa’s Way, The Tamerlane Crutch (a takeoff on the Maltese Falcon and A Christmas Carol), Lawrence Block, Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, The Quest For Creeping Charlie, 1950s, George Orwell, Winter Hiatus, Iced: The New Noir Anthology of Cold, Hard Fiction edited by Peter Sellers, The Dawn Of Captain Sunset (a superhero champion of the elderly), round robin style short stories, The Best Fantasy Stories Of The Year: 1989 edited by Orson Scott Card and Martin H. Greenberg (ISBN: 1556561431), the difficulty of writing a Science Fiction Mystery story, John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, of A Dirge For Clowntown Scott says: “[it is] one of the finest mysteries I’ve ever read set in a different world,” Dercum Audio, Durkin Hayes, The Book Of Lies, Brad Meltzer, A Murder Coming edited by Peter Sellers (ISBN: 0886466377), calling all publishers: COLLECT JAMES POWELL!

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #019

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #019 – Julie Davis (of the Forgotten Classics, StarShipSofa and Happy Catholic blog) joins us for a potassium filled show.

Talked about on today’s show:
Forgotten Classics, The Hidden Adversary, Agatha Christie, Temptation, David Brin, Recorded Books, Sundiver, Different Seasons, Stephen King, Frank Muller, Daemon, Daniel Suarez, Microsoft Zune’s 30gb brick = DRM, Librivox’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, Craftlit, Craftlit podcast, Another Beowulf & Grendel, Iceland, Greenland, The Fall, Encounters At The End Of The World, Antarctica, Chicago, Dreams With Sharp Teeth coming to DVD, Harlan Ellison, Voices From The Edge, City Of Darkness, Ben Bova, A Wizard Of Earthsea, Ursula K. LeGuin, The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury, A good book badly read: IBM And The Holocaust, Edwin Black (have a listen to a sample) |MP3|, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman, Tony Smith from StarShipSofa, the worst news of 2008/2009: Donald Westlake is dead. The Hunter, The Sour Lemon Score, Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr Burglar books, Richard Stark’s Parker novels, Spider Robinson, The Hook, The Ax, Humans, Samuel Holt, Grofield, Lemons Never Lie, Hard Case Crime, Somebody Owes Me Money, The Risk Profession, Tomorrow’s Crimes, Anarchaos, Theodore Bikel, Westlake’s “nephew novels”, Smoke, Ross Thomas, Dick Francis, an incomplete but wonderfully annotated bibliography of Westlake novels, My Own Worst Enemy, Money For Nothing, The Cutie, Lord Valentine’s Castle, Robert Silverberg,

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #018

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #018 – a podcast about audiobooks, audio drama, History and most of all mutiny! This is mutiny mister!

Talked about on today’s show:
One way to get around DRM (swapping iPods), Blackstone Audio arrivals, The Selected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Volume 1, The Selected Stories Of Philip K. Dick Volume 2, X-Minus One: Colony, The Days Of Perky Pat, Alpha, Catherine Asaro, Inferno, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, New Releases, Starship: Rebel, Mike Resnick, Allen Steele, Coyote, Wayne June, The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, audio drama of The Maltese Falcon, Yuri Rasovsky, The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch, The Sacred Book Of The Werewolf, Victor Pelevin, Canadia: 2056 – Season 2, Matt Watts, Steve The First, Steve The Second, sez Scott: ‘Matt Watt’s stuff is way better than Red Dwarf‘, Matt Watt’s blog entry on Canadia: 2056, Nova Swing, M. John Harrison, Tantor Media, The Steel Remains, Richard K. Morgan, Replay, Ken Grimwood, Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong: Reopening the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles, Pierre Bayard, Pandora’s Star, Peter F. Hamilton, The DIY Scholar Blog, Stephen Pott’s UCSD Literature Of The World course on Science Fiction, LibriVox’s release of Uller Uprising, H. Beam Piper, the Sepoy Mutiny, 1984, George Orwell, what’s wrong with writers today (their works are not inspired by History), Mike Resnick’s the exception to this rule.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #017

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #017 – Brian Murphy of The Silver Key blog joins the podcast and talks to us about his terrific blog, writing habits, and how vikings and rappers are alike.

Talked about on today’s show:
Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf, Michael D.C. Drout‘s Beowulf, Neil Gaiman‘s Beowulf, religion in fiction, god in fiction, Stephen King, Carrie, The Stand, Desperation, The Regulators, Kate Nelligan, Delores Claiborne, Cujo, The Tommyknockers, On Writing, Duma Key, The Dark Tower, George R.R. Martin, A Song Of Ice And Fire, Roy Dotrice, Pandora Star, Peter F. Hamilton, Audiofile magazine, how being a truck driver is worse than being in prison (without audiobooks), Mini-Masterpieces of Science Fiction edited by Allan Kaster, Fantasy, Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, The Wheel Of Time, Robert E. Howard, J.R.R. Tolkien, my fantasy fiction rant, “fantasy fiction works best when magic is talked about but rarely seen”, The Cimmerian blog, Mark Finn’s Blood And Thunder, Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, Gentlemen Of The Road, Henry Treece, The Viking Trilogy: Viking’s Dawn, The Road To Mikligaard, Viking’s Sunset, Bernard Cornwell, Saxon Stories: The Last Kingdom, Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels, William Gibson, Neuromancer, The Dark Worlds Of H.P. Lovecraft, Wayne June, horror movie: Session 9.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #016

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #016 – is really strange and very good – we talk about Dean Koontz, talking dogs, praise Robert J. Sawyer, his audiobooks and much more! Book covers, cover art, they matter!

Talked about on today’s show:
Audible.com, the new Audible Frontiers new releases, review of The Speed Of Dark, Mary Robinette Kowal, Blackstone Audio, The Selected Stories Of Philip K. Dick, Star Trek, Pandora’s Star, Judas Unchained, Peter F. Hamilton, Star Wars, Mike Resnick, The Last Colony, John Scalzi, Zoe’s Tale, William Dufris, Anathem, Robert J. Sawyer, Flashforward, Tantor Media, A Case Of Conscience, James Blish, 100% FREE Audiobook Black River by Dean Koontz (which is an SF suspense novella), Microsoft’s Zune now compatible with Audible.com, Dean Koontz, Dragon Tears, Jay O. Sanders, talking dogs, our new DEAN KOONTZ author page, Intensity, Seize The Night, Fear Nothing, Dean Koontz short stories that should be audiobooked: Nightmare Gang, Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein, RJS’ Flashforward as a TV series? = they’ll do it like the did The 4400, CERN, RJS predicted the current pope!, murder mystery Science Fiction, Illegal Alien, review of Calculating God, Golden Fleece, dinosaurs, Robert J. Sawyer’s weakest novel = End Of An Era (?), review of The Terminal Experiment, Wake, the WWW trilogy, available RJS audiobooks, Shed Skin, BBC Radio documentary on Wikipedia: The Wikipedia Story, Sarah Vowell, Assassination Vacation, The Wordy Shipmates, Vowelette, what “they” are doing wrong with audiobooks: no table of contents sux! No map sux!, Stefan Rudnicki‘s Skyboat Productions, Resonance, A.J. Scudiere, geology, magnetic polar reversal, review of Posing As People, Orson Scott Card, Mike Resnick’s Audible.com editorial, Stalking The Unicorn, Stalking The Vampire, cover art matters, Total Dick Head’s 2 hour celebration of Philip K. Dick’s 80th birthday.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #015

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #015 – On today’s podcast we take you on a merry chase ending with… “governments can do things right.”

Talked about on today’s show:
SFFvideo.com!, The January Dancer, Michael Flynn, Blackstone Audio, Eifelheim, big dumb object (also a website), Earthfall, Orson Scott Card and his interview, the Homecoming Series, the book of Mormon, The Book Of Lies, Brad Meltzer, Ender In Exile, Tor.com podcast, in what order should you read a sprawlling series? answer = publication order, First Meetings, Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, Scott’s story Adrift and my reviewlette of it, MrAudiobook.com/ReQuest Audiobooks, Eye For Eye, Run For The Stars, Harlan Ellison, Tony Smith’s StarShipSofa podcast (roundtable discussion #6), Anathem, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Quicksilver, William Dufris, Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson, Richard Ferrone, Blue Mars, Green Mars, Cryptonomicon a 1000-page novel, Scott Brick, A History Of English In 28 Minutes, The Hour Of The Dragon podcast, Robert E. Howard, Conan, Already Dead, Charlie Huston, Elantris, Recorded Books’s Sci-Fi Audio imprint, Audible’s RSS feeds, Love In The Time Of Fridges, Tim Scott, Forty Signs Of Rain, The Coming, Joe Haldeman, Elizabeth Bear, Moth Storm: The Horror From Beyond, Philip Reeve, DRM isn’t inherently evil, my solution to the problem = government (libraries), the future of digital distribution, video game models: Battlefield Heroes, Battlefield 2, Sudden Attack, Steam, what if Audible.com went out of business tomorrow?, Starship: Mercenary, Mike Resnick, iTunes, digital estates, abandonware, Steve Feldberg (director of content at Audible.com sez: Mike Resnick’s Starship book 4 is coming to Audible in mid-December! Huzzah!

Posted by Jesse Willis