Archive for the ‘Podcasts’ Category

The Secret Lair #28

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

The Secret Lair

The latest episode of The Secret Lair is up, in which Overlords Johnson and Miller have a dinner conversation with their respective Overladies about the the novel The Time Traveler’s Wife. Said discussion is lively and insightful, and contains many yummy-noises as the foursome devours what sounds to be approximately 7.896 English pounds of chili and Fritos.

Also, therein is my fourth report as the Lair’s CMO, in which I discuss the recent elucidation of water on the moon, and how said water might be collected to benefit the Lair’s supply. And how it is imperative that Mister Lynn, as the Minister of Crackpot Schemes and Unfortunate Synergies, must not be allowed to contribute to the mission.

Go here and listen, else when the Overlords’ time comes, you will be the first into servitude.

The Secret Lair #27

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

The Secret Lair

The latest episode of The Secret Lair is up, in which Overlords Johnson and Miller respond to a recent commentary about “science fiction becoming too infected by fantasy.” They are joined for this insightful rant by the nigh-superhuman Earl Newton, the executive producer and creator of the jaw-droppingly awesome Stranger Things.

Other goodness in this episode includes Mr. Newquist’s excellent review of The Day After Ragnarok, a new RPG setting using the Savage Worlds rules that is so uniquely cool that it makes me salivate. Also, therein is my third report as the Lair’s CMO, in which I discuss how recently elucidated chimpanzee bargaining techniques may have played a role in our Shetland-bonobo hybrids plaguing Twitter with randy mischief. Well, that and Minister Lynn’s crackpot advice.

Go here and listen, else when the Overlords’ time comes, you will be the first into servitude.

The Secret Lair #26

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

The Secret Lair

A new episode of The Secret Lair is up, and this time Overlords Johnson and Miller revisit the Secret Library to discuss Christopher Moore’s Lamb, the Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. They gave it high marks, as do I. The story is Moore operating in top form, balancing well-executed hilarity with surprising insightfulness.

Other goodness in this episode includes my second report as the Lair’s CMO, this time detailing exactly how the progression of the simian-equine hybridization program inadvertently resulted in another new virus being let loose in the world, as well as Minister Lynn’s first description of one of the Crackpot Schemes he is now in charge of.

Go here and listen, else when the Overlords’ time comes, you will be the first into servitude.

the Bad Doctor is in the house – The Secret Lair #25

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

The Secret Lair

There exists, in the northern hinterlands of Ohio, a nefarious fortress. This indomitable structure is the home of two mad Overlords who plan to rule this miserable rock with fists of iron, and bend its population to even their most minor of whims… that is, if they are able to stop being distracted by philosophizing on geeky subjects, which I doubt will happen anytime soon. I am, naturally, referring to The Secret Lair.

The Secret Lair is an audio podcast that is comprised of the in-depth, witty analytical discussion all of us long to have about various geeky subjects. And by “all of us,” I do specifically mean you. Come on, you know it. I’ve found you out, and there’s no use denying it to yourself and others any longer.

As of episode #25, I have become the Chief Medical Officer of The Secret Lair, and so am obligated to furnish regular reports on my activities, the first one of which is contained herein. Other excellence in this edition include an interesting and occasionally surprising discussion of superheroes and other topics of intrigue by Overlords Johnson and Miller, as well as the visiting Kingfish.

Go here and listen, else when the Overlords’ time comes, you will be the first into servitude.

i can be heard – Escape Pod #206, Rogue Farm

Monday, July 13th, 2009

Escape Pod logo from EscapePod.org

Balticon this past Memorial Day was a hectic blast, as usual. One of the highlights of this year’s con for me was participating in the first ever live full cast recording of Escape Pod, the podcast that singlehandedly established the donation-based professional paying market for audio science fiction short stories. If you don’t listen each week for some unfathomable reason, you truly must get over that reason and do so.

Balticon’s guest of honor this year was Charlie Stross, and Steve Eley was able to secure his story Rogue Farm for the live recording. While he couldn’t stay for the whole panel due to a schedule conflict, Charlie was able to stop by at the beginning to to make introductions and give his blessing to the whole affair. Rogue Farm is an excellent story, and without any sort of prior rehearsal, the performance went off exceedingly well. Many thanks to both Steve Eley and Paul Fischer for making this a rousing success.

And what is the tale about, you ask? I’ll let this exerpted bit from Escape Pod’s site say it all:

“Buggerit, I don’t have time for this,” Joe muttered. The stable waiting for the small herd of cloned spidercows cluttering up the north paddock was still knee-deep in manure, and the tractor seat wasn’t getting any warmer while he shivered out here waiting for Maddie to come and sort this thing out. It wasn’t a big herd, but it was as big as his land and his labour could manage – the big biofabricator in the shed could assemble mammalian livestock faster than he could feed them up and sell them with an honest HAND-RAISED NOT VAT-GROWN label.

“What do you want with us?” he yelled up at the gently buzzing farm.

“Brains, fresh brains for baby Jesus,” crooned the farm in a warm contralto, startling Joe half out of his skin. “Buy my brains!” Half a dozen disturbing cauliflower shapes poked suggestively out of the farms’ back then retracted again, coyly.

“Don’t want no brains around here,” Joe said stubbornly, his fingers whitening on the stock of the shotgun. “Don’t want your kind round here, neither. Go away.”

Go there now and listen to the live performance of Rogue Farm, and subscribe to the feed if you haven’t already.

Still not convinced? I voice an elderly boy-toy to Laura’s even-more-elderly bio-rocket scientist. Seriously. This obligates you to listen.

Playing for Keeps On-Sale Tomorrow

Sunday, August 24th, 2008

Playing for Keeps, Mur Lafferty’s brilliant debut novel that sets the entire superhero genre on its ear, goes on sale tomorrow on Amazon. Go buy it then. It may cure your maladies, purify your genes, or give you honest-to-goodness superpowers. Or, failing that, it’s an excellent book and an imperatively entertaining and thought-provoking read.

There’s also an amazing amount of free Playing for Keeps related content that Mur has made available, as a run-up to the book’s release:

  • Still uncertain if the novel is a worthy purchase? (Oh, it is!) The full book, including all of the comic book-style covers from it’s initial podcast run, as well as an all-new short story, are available as a free pdf download.
  • The Playing for Keeps music video that I discussed previously has been released. Sadly, Mur did not recieve enough entrants to spur her to dance for the camera, but plenty of people did send in clips… including me. You just know you want to see me, uh, dance, or something…
  • Last and most certainly not least, Mur revived the Stories of the Third Wave fan podcast, which can be found on the Playing for Keeps website and feed, and has been putting out content for the last several weeks. Episodes include imaginings of what different radio shows might sound like during the daily commute in Seventh City, as well as original fiction set in the Playing for Keeps universe from J. C. Hutchins and Matt Wallace, and the Seventh City version of existing podcasts. Mur generously invited me to contribute, and I decided to riff on NPR’s Faith Matters program and explore how the existance of heroes in the world of Playing for Keeps might impact on exisiting religious faith, and perhaps create new belief systems entirely. I’m pleased with the result, and invite you to check out that episode as well as all the amazing content that has been contributed.

Playing for Keeps. Be a Hero of the 25th, and buy it tomorrow. YES.

Dancing for Keeps

Friday, July 25th, 2008

Playing for Keeps - August 25, 2008

I have a select few moral imperatives. Topping the list is this: no dancing. Oh, sure, slow dancing with a partner is wonderful, but frenzied, bouncing public epileptic fits are a thing that I just don’t engage in. I have been frequently told that I am “awkward,” “gangly,” or “silly-looking” whenever I’ve attempted said spectacle in the past. Furthermore, I recognize this to be true, and beyond that, completely agree with Stephen Fry’s cogent analysis on the ridiculousness of the current social role of group dancing.

That said, there is something that I will break this moral imperative for.

As previously noted, Mur Lafferty’s excellent novel Playing for Keeps is being published by Swarm Press, and will be released on August 25. If you’ve listened to the podiobook (and if you haven’t, for all that is good and right in the world, why not?), you know that Beatnik Turtle created the theme song Playing for Keeps just for that production. As a way to promote the book’s release, Mur has decided to put together a music video for the song, starring… you.

The details are here, but the summation is this – if you want to participate, drop her an email, and she’ll respond with a 20-30 second portion of the song for you to create a video segment of. Dancing, lip synching, or creating a skit are all fair game – the more creative and entertaining, the better. But what’s in it for you, you ask?

If your segment ends up in the final video, you’ll win one of many fabulous prizes, including books from Swarm Press, Beatnik Turtle CD’s, and a Flip camera! You will also have helped do a great thing to promote an awesome book, and become a bonafide interwebs video celebrity in the process. Finally, if enough people participate, Mur will contribute her own dancing video to the effort… and she says, she’s “the geek who doesn’t dance.”

So get the details now, as this is time sensitive – all entries need to be in by August 15. And aren’t you the least bit curious to see what I’ll come up with? I know I am…

Brave Men Run… and jump to print on July 13

Saturday, July 12th, 2008

Brave Men RunIn need of something to do this Sunday? Hungering for some new fiction? It turns out that I have a suggestion for you.

Matthew Wayne Selznick’s Brave Men Run: A Novel of the Sovereign Era is an excellent tale, summed up best by Matt himself as a “teen movie / comic book mash-up,” ala the X-Men meet The Breakfast Club. From the website:

“Brave Men Run” is the story of Nate Charters. Born different, unsure of his origins, he’s an outcast at Abbeque Valley High School, a self-proclaimed “boy freak” with few friends and low self-esteem. When the Sovereign Era dramatically dawns, Nate finds himself in a quest to discover the truth: is he more than he seems, a misfit in a miraculous and powerful new minority… or something else entirely?

The book was among the first free serialized audiobooks on Podiobooks.com (where it still remains available), and was a finalist for the 2006 Parsec Award for Long Fiction. On this Sunday, July 13, Brave Men Run will see print release in a high quality, trade paperback edition from Swarm Press. To both celebrate this momentous event and promote it’s availability on Amazon.com that day, Matt is holding an eight-hour video Book Release Web-a-thon starting at 10:00 EST. During this event, he will be reading original short stories set in his Sovereign Era universe by several top podcast authors (including Mur Lafferty, Matt Wallace, and J.C. Hutchins, to name a few), along with giving live updates on the progress of the novel on Amazon’s sales charts. More details can be found at the official website, as well as Mur’s excellent interview with him for I Should Be Writing.

Tune in to the video Web-a-thon on Sunday, order a copy of Brave Men Run on July 13 on Amazon, and you will be rewarded with wonderful tales! ’nuff said.

Nominations Open For The 2008 Parsec Awards

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

Yeah, I’ve got a couple of con recaps pending, but I figure I’ll work backwards from a con that hasn’t quite, uh, happened yet – namely, Dragon*Con.

The Parsec Awards, now in their third year, are presented to honor the best in podcast-delivered speculative fiction. From the official website:

Dedicated to rewarding excellence in various aspects of Speculative Fiction Podcasting, the Parsec Award is available for Sci-fi & Fantasy Original Content, podiobooks and a variety of other categories dealing with the new frontiers of Portable Media.

The 3nd annual Parsec Awards will be held at the Dragon*Con convention held August 29 through September 1, 2008.

Mur Lafferty, Michael R. Mennenga & Tracy Hickman founded The Parsec Awards in 2006 to celebrate Speculative Fiction Podcasting, under the banner of Farpoint Media.

Podcast shows are nominated by fans, and finalists are chosen by a yearly steering committee. Those finalists are then voted on by an independent panel of judges from outside of podcasting. Awards are given in several categories ranging from content to audio quality.

Nominations are currently open to the public until June 15, so if you have a particular speculative fiction podcast that you would like to suggest, swing by the site and give them a nod. The official site has information on all aspects of nominations, the awards process and the people behind it, as well as the results from both the 2006 and 2007 awards. Video from the 2007 awards (in which, for the morbidly curious, I may be seen as a presenter for the Best Gaming Podcast) is here.

And finally, if you prefer to hear more about the Parsecs in audio format, check out the straight-up promo by 2008 steering committee head Doug Kress, or the hilarious promo done by J.C. Hutchins and Scott Sigler.

Balticon 42 Approacheth

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

No, I haven’t forgotten about a RavenCon recap. There were several requests for me to make my presentation on “The New Red Deaths” available, which I intend to do once I get the citations in order, and the recap shall wait for that to be completed.

That noted, Balticon 42 starts in just a few short days! The new media track has grown once again this year, to be even more of a lumbering Elder God-spawn of a beast, which is definitely a good thing. Also in the “good things” category, the science track has also expanded to include two new members – Laura and myself! Clearly, you now have no arguable reason not to stop by the Marriott Hunt Valley Inn if you are in the Baltimore area this weekend.

Laura will be rocking out with a couple of space related talks, among other things. As to my own schedule:

  • Meet the Scientists Social (Friday, 10pm, Salon A) – Really, there’s got to be a better title for this informal gathering. That said, there’s a damn fine mix of science-y types, from a paleontologist to a local mechanic who mods vehicles (including the Toyota Prius) to run completely on battery power, so the combination of characters and conversation is sure to entertain. And there’s always the Sexy Women In Sci-Fi panel (including Laura, for her “obviously” expert opinion – 11pm, Garden), or the 80’s Party/New Media Meet and Greet (11pm, Chesapeake Suite) to escape to, if things are slow… ;)
  • Live! Takeover! Audio Drama (Saturday, 1pm, Belmont) – This is the live debut of the first two episodes of Mur Lafferty’s new audio drama. What is it about, you ask? Check out a familiarly-voiced promo (guess who the other voice is there for bonus XP) and the freshly-launched website for details. I have the pleasure of voicing Phil, the boss. He cares. Really.
  • Infectious Diseases (Sunday, 4pm, Salon A) – I need your help with this one, people. See that title? It’s a bit… vague. So here’s a question, for anyone interested and willing to answer – what should I talk about? Horrible emerging infectious diseases? A follow-up to my Red Deaths exploration? Or, should I just take the plunge and go with all things SYPHILIS? Let me know!
  • Live! Mr. Adventure (Sunday, 8pm, Chesapeake Suite) – It’s the next episode after the live RavenCon recording! The dastardly villain I’m voicing, Michael Aztec, is setting his evil master plan into motion. What will our heroes do?!?
  • Video Podcasting 102: What’s Out There (Sunday, 10pm, Chesapeake Suite) – I’m on this panel because I am a selective consumer of video podcasts. Or maybe, because I’m a clown and there to entertain. Yup. I’m betting on the latter.

It’s going to be a brilliant time – join us if you can! And, let me know – what infectious thing should I talk about?