io9: podcasts

Listen To Iain Banks' New Novel For Free

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:00:00 PDT

Iain Banks' free podcast of his new novel Transition just launched in the U.S. today, and it's already #11 on the iTunes Top 20 in the U.K. The author is reading 15-minute installments from an abridged version twice a week.

Hear The Voices Behind 60 Years Of Fantastic Stories

Charlie Jane Anders — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:00:00 PDT

A new anthology, out now, covers the highlights of 60 years of The Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction. To celebrate The Very Best Of F&SF from Tachyon Press, Rick Kleffel interviewed some classic authors that both companies have published.

I'm dying to get into this volume, which does look staggeringly awesome. Writes Keith Brooke in the Guardian:

The word "classic" could justifiably be applied to many stories in this volume, which, as a tribute to the magazine and an introduction to some of the finest authors of fantasy, SF and horror, is a landmark anthology.

But while you're waiting to get your hands on a copy, you can listen to some of the writers who've made F&SF so classic, plus the magazine's current editor. According to book publicist and blogger Matt Staggs:

Peter Beagle, Karen Joy Fowler, Michael Swanwick, Mary Rickert, Jeffrey Ford, John Kessel, Delia Sherman, Ellen Klages, Gene Wolfe, Charles de Lint, and Fantasy and Science Fiction publisher Gordon Van Gelder himself are among those interviewed.

You can listen to the first half of the interviews as part of Kleffel's regular podcast, Agony Column.

Listen To Disembodied Alien Voices All Afternoon

Charlie Jane Anders — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 11:21:03 PDT

Starship Sofa has uploaded all seven Nebula-nominated stories from 2008 as podcasts, including Gwyneth Jones' "Tomb Wife," James Patrick Kelly's "Don't Stop," and Ruth Nestvold's "Mars: A Traveler's Guide." Good way to spend your afternoon.

Mars Invades Earth With X-Rated Movies: Hear For Yourself!

Charlie Jane Anders — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 13:00:00 PST

Bizarre, pornographic silent movies turn up, allegedly made in 1911 — and then they start to feature uncannily real-looking Martians and other creatures straight out of Edgar Rice Burroughs' stories. The bitchy, demented story "The Film-makers Of Mars" could only be the work of Geoff Ryman (Air). It was published at Tor.com a while back, but now you can hear Ryman himself read it on the Starship Sofa podcast, and it gains a whole extra layer of snark in his own voice. You really need to hear Ryman discuss shaved pubes on Mars. Why? Because it's Saturday, and that's what one does on Saturdays. [Starship Sofa, via Books On Mars]

Joss Whedon Hates Weird Science

charliejane — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:40:17 PST

That Buffy episode where Warren makes a robot girlfriend, who then goes berzerk? "I Was Made To Love You?" Turns out it's Joss Whedon's way of critiquing Weird Science, a movie he loathes. That's just one of the insights that Joss dropped in a discussion with group of L.A. geeks for the GeeksOn podcast. He also revealed some new details about his upcoming projects.

The GeeksOn podcast was devoted to artificial intelligence, and when the subject of Kelly LeBrock's Weird Science came up, Joss got intense:

I hate Weird Science not a little. I find it offensive. The boy fantasy of building a girl. Obviously, we were doing the nasty version of it, because I find it grotesque.

Joss says his new Eliza Dushku show Dollhouse is "very much about humanity and how much of it is programmed," not unlike that creepy robo-girlfriend. Also in the pipeline: A movie he cowrote with Drew Goddard, which may be more bankable now that Goddard's Cloverfield is a big hit. And Joss has some "embryonic" projects to make money by putting content on the Internet. Finally, he's working on the Giant Size Astonishing X-Men annual, the end of his AXM run, and finishing up his Runaways run. But his Wonder Woman movie? Still dead.

Joss also mentioned that the metaphor of Winona Ryder, girl robot, changed his whole writing style, back when he wrote Alien: Resurrection:

That was a huge beginning for my whole career, when I had the metaphor for: "She's come back from the dead and has alien in her." And [Winona Ryder] is a robot. And to have this beautiful girl say, "Look at me I'm disgusting." I was like, "Oh my god, this robot is a metaphor for everybody who feels different." And [then I thought] "metaphors! Maybe I could do that again some time." I basically went from being a yarn-spinner to being a writer in that moment.

But of course Joss wasn't too happy with how Alien: Resurrection actually turned out on screen.

Joss is also very sad that X-fans didn't like his Astonishing X-Men storyline where the Danger Room becomes sentient, because he was trying to play with all sorts of clever themes of "cognitive dissonance" where we learn to sympathize with the exploited Danger Room AI. But the fans just wanted the X-men doing X-things. [Geeks On Podcast]