The SFFaudio Podcast #084 – Jesse talks recent arrivals and new releases with Paul W. Campbell, Luke Burrage, Rick Jackson and Gregg Margarite
WATCH OUT FOR THE FALSE ENDINGS (mostly attributable to Luke)
Talked about on today’s show:
Role playing game names, “Tom And His Friends” Dungeons And Dragons comedy (aka Farador), SFFaudio Challenge #2, Rebels Of The Red Planet by Charles L. Fontenay, Mars, martian rebels, Podiobooks.com, Cossmass Productions, Mark Douglas Nelson, Dan Simmons’ Hyperion, the least interesting vs. the least fitting, I’m Dreaming Of A Black Christmas by Lewis Black, Christmas = Fantasy?, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Suck It, Wonder Woman |READ OUR REVIEW|, Star Wars, what makes Star Wars Science Fiction is a sense-of-wonder?, Star Trek, METAtropolis: Cascadia, Star Trek The Next Generation narrators vs. Battlestar Galactica narrators, Wil Wheaton as a narrator, Dove Audio, Levar Burton as a narrator, liking Star Trek for all the wrong reasons, Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, assimilation is a neat idea, “who the hell are the Borg?”, The Unincorporated Man by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin |READ OUR REVIEW|, The Unincorporated War, “is there true Science Fiction to be found in sequels?”, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Peter F. Hamilton’s The Void Trilogy, Blackout by Connie Willis, The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis |READ OUR REVIEW|, Firewatch, dragging the story out, Whiteout by Connie Willis, World War II, Katherine Kellgren as a narrator, Jenny Sterlin as a narrator, Recorded Books, Brilliance Audio, Audible.com, Amazon.com, Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, Deep Six by Jack McDevitt, introductions to audiobooks, the introduction as an apology for the book, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |READ OUR REVIEW|, The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison, The Time Traders by Andre Norton, H.G. Wells, The First Men In The Moon, Around The Moon, Jules Verne, continuing characters rather than continuing series, Sherlock Holmes, Khyber Pass vs. Reichenbach Falls, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Valley Of Fear, The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan series, does reading a series defeat the hope of being surprised? Priest Kings Of Gor by John Norman, A Game Of Thrones by George R.R. Martin |READ OUR REVIEW|, fun vs. funny, crime and adventure vs. ideas, A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Bill The Galactic Hero, Slippery Jim DiGriz, The Stainless Steel Rat’s Revenge, This Immortal by Roger Zelazny, The Speed Of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, Books On Tape, Grover Gardner, Gregg has a grumbly voice, The Space Dog Podcast, The Science Fiction Oral History Association, Gordon Dickson, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Cordwainer Smith, Scott Westerfeld, Ben Bova, Luke’s next podcast project, NaNoWriMo, what podcast schedule should you have?, Robert Silverberg AUDIOBOOKS are coming from Wonder Audio, the old stuff vs. the new stuff, Jay Snyder as a narrator, a Science Fiction story that has little SF content, autism, Charly, Understand by Ted Chiang, Flowers For Algernon, interacting with the world, I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells, psychopathy, an unreliable first person narrator, young Dexter, Asperger syndrome, The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time by Mark Haddon, a detached (but reliable) narrator, the two audiobook versions of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson, the Baroque Cycle, Anathem, John Allen Nelson as a narrator, Phat Fiction, The Way Of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, The Towers Of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, walking around central park as a retired person as my new career, who listens to audiobooks?, working the unworked niche, they really like Gregg’s voice!, no RSS-feed = soooo sad, Sam This Is You by Murray Leinster, Black Amazon Of Mars by Leigh Brackett, The World That Couldn’t Be Clifford D. Simak, The Idiot by John Kendrick Bangs, The Hate Disease, Asteroid Of Fear, Industrial Revolution by Poul Anderson, A Horse’s Tale by Mark Twain, anthropomorphic fiction, A Dog’s Tale by Mark Twain, Gregg has bugles lying around, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Thought You Were Dead by Terry Griggs, Iambik Audio‘s upcoming Science Fiction audiobooks, LibriVox, working with small press publishers, Extract From Captain Stormfield’s Visit To Heaven, Blackstone Audio, The Many Colored Land by Julian May, Bernadette Dunne as a narrator, time travel, The Pliocene Epoch, sequel and prequel fatigue, flooding the Mediterranean, Blake’s 7: Zen : Escape Veloctiy is a Science Fictiony audio drama series, Firesign Theatre? (he means Seeing Ear Theatre), The Moon Moth based on the story by Jack Vance, Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers, Mistborn, Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds, Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny, Finch by Jeff Vandermere, Flood by Stephen Baxter, thematic exploration vs. bad writing, GoodReads.com, Eifelheim by Michael Flynn |READ OUR REVIEW|, Luke’s books should be audiobooks, The Fifth Annual SFFaudio Challenge, all the cool Science Fiction ideas in Luke’s books, Gregg Margarite is a secret author with a secret pseudonym, Eric Arthur Blair, the publishing industry headache is intolerable to many, good writers + savvy marketers = sales success?, Redbelt, David Mamet, drowning in an ocean full of crap, the Jesse Willis bump?, catering to the listeners (or readers) desires vs. publishers desires, Pogoplug, Out Of The Dark by David Weber, artificial robots vs. natural robots, What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly, art and techne, does evolution have goals?, the Cool Tools blog, eyes vs. I, natural selection, zero-point energy, the Cat in Red Dwarf was pulled to the fish dispensing vending machine, if you won’t give me eyes at least give me bilateral symmetry, goals vs. patterns or positions, starfish vs. Inuit, technology is a function of evolution, Luke re-writes The War Of The Worlds in under 20 minutes, red weed and green mist, stomach-less martians, “the final final part” and the musical version, flipping over the narrative is fun, Ender’s Game vs. Ender’s Shadow, what do the martians have against doors?, keeping the martian cannon canon, The Dragon With The Girl Tattoo by Adam Roberts.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Where’s Scott??
Good question. Some suggest I killed him.
Others contend he is really on an hiatal sabbatical.
Incidentally Tam, this episode’s MP3 (at 4am) is still uploading – so don’t download it for at least another 45 minutes.
The good news, if you think longer is better, #084 is a long episode, lasting more than 2 hours!
Oh, no wonder it cut off after the 1st hour!
1. Jesse, you (and I believe Luke) listed Lord of Light as on your list(s) to “read”. Did you mean read or listen to? Lord of Light is no longer available on Audible, and it disappeared before I could buy it. It’s available on Amazon in a $70 Playaway edition. Do you have an actual disk? Maybe you could get the “real skinny” from Steve Feldberg at Audible as to what happened to this title.
2. This raises the interesting question of how often do audiobooks on Audible “go out of print”. Again, maybe you could get an answer from Steve. If, as I suspect, it occurs regularly, perhaps Audible could start a “buy it now before it disappears” list.
3. Regarding the section on “Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan series, does reading a series defeat the hope of being surprised?” and especially Luke’s comments (I believe it was Luke). From my point of view it depends on whether the continuing characters are “static”. In the case of the Miles books, one gets to watch (or hear) the continuing evolution (I didn’t say maturation since I’m sure many Miles fans wouldn’t apply that term to him) of one of SF’s most complex characters (IMHO). A single volume example would be Heinlein’s Double Star which is as perfect an example of “character evolution or maturation” as I have ever read or listened to. On the other hand, I don’t remember Slippery Jim DiGriz as being other than a static character (I read the books years and years ago and remember them as funny but not much else).
4. Elizabeth Moon’s The Speed of Dark is indeed excellent (I listened to the BoT edition — why did it need a new narrator?), and it draws from her experiences with her autistic son Michael.
5. Regarding “phat fiction”. I prefer long multi-volume series, and it doesn’t take me too long to get through them. My daily commute is at least one hour each way (on a good day). Three nights a week I work out in the office’s fitness center for at least 3 hours. That’s 19 hours of audiobook listening before I even get to the weekend! I am quite sure my situation is not uncommon, especially for fellow commuters in the Washington, D.C. area.
Neil.
1. It is odd that LORD OF LIGHT has gone dark on Audible.com. If you didn’t buy it on audible already there is still one hardcopy available in the playaway format through Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Light-Headphones-Playaway-Adult-Fiction/dp/1615878068
I suspect this is a problem with the Zelazny estates’ contracts as Zelazny audiobooks never seem to last very long in print.
2. At least some older audiobooks on Audible, that have disappeared from the current catalogue in the past, are still available in customer’s accounts.
3. I don’t see myself listening to Vorkosigan books again soon as I am not finding enough SF-ness in it. But, oddly, I probably will listen to the next Rat book fairly soon – I guess I like a little humor with my space opera.
4. Sadly we need a new audiobook version as the BOOKS ON TAPE edition is out of print and not available on Audible.com. It is available used:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=0736691316
5. Yes, a long commute and an extensive gym routine will handily explain long audiobooks and long series. I cannnot however come up with much of an excuse for a 2 hour and 8 minute podcast. Sorry.
Let me know if Speed of Dark has any horses.
5 discs in and it has lots of cool Fencing, no horses so far.