Steve Eley — editor of Escape Pod, the internet’s most popular science fiction podcast — stops by this week and we discuss the very promising future of audio fiction.
Introduction
0:00 Introduction by Tor.com
0:37 Dave and John introduce the show
Interview: Steve Eley, creator and host of Escape Pod
01:27 Interview begins
01:47 How Escape Pod began as a paying market, and convincing Steve’s wife that he isn’t insane
05:08 On fun in fiction and competing with other media for readers’ time
08:28 Pairing narrators with stories
11:05 The pitfalls of adapting prose to audio
13:31 Recommended Escape Pod episodes: Connie, Maybe by Paul E. Martens, Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, Nightfall by Isaac Asimov
15:04 The Escape Pod message board, and how to not be a jerk on the internet
17:46 Escape Pod meetups
18:40 The creation of Podcastle and Pseudopod
22:38 Young adults and Escape Pod
23:55 Making the show personal
25:44 Intros and outros
27:15 The present and future of podcasting
30:03 Recommended fiction podcasts: Drabblecast, Decoder Ring Theater, Metamore City Podcast
32:22 End of interview
Dave and John talk about audio fiction
32:23 Dave talks about the history of audio from his frustrated childhood perspective
33:24 John and Dave talks about the audio explosion in SFF and the abomination that is the “abridged” version of any book
36:36 POV in audiobooks, a challenge for both narrator and listener
37:55 Vanilla narrations vs. ‘acted’ narrations, and props to author Jack Kincaid, performer of GGG’s intro and outro, and his audio drama Hoad’s Grim.
42:03 Considering how the prose will be adapted to audio, and Dave talks about text-to-speech software as a writer’s tool
45:27 The different experiences of reading vs. listening to a story, and attending readings
47:55 It’s “ah-SHEEL,” not “uh-KILL-eez”: listeners’ frustrations
51:08 How podcasting and the web have changed the author-reader relationship in short fiction
52:52 The shortage of audiobook reviews for SFF, and the recent availability of audio samples through sites such as SFFaudio
54:51 Availability of audio books, how and where to find them, and using Markable to rip audio books on cd
56:00 Proto-podcasts: Tell Tale Weekly, and Mech Muse
01:00:07 Recommended listening – see list below
01:14:48 Show wrap-up
Next week: Blake Charlton!
Thanks for listening!
Recommended Listening
| Title | Author | Podcast | Narrator |
|---|---|---|---|
| The 43 Antarean Dynasties | Mike Resnick | Escape Pod | Steven Burley & Gregg Taylor |
| The Annals Of Eelin-Ok | Jeffrey Ford | Podcastle | Rajan Khanna |
| Cup and Table | Tim Pratt | Podcastle | Stephen Eley |
| Impossible Dreams | Tim Pratt | Escape Pod | Matthew Wayne Selznick |
| Instead of a Loving Heart | Jeremiah Tolbert | Escape Pod | Jared Axelrod |
| Nightfall | Isaac Asimov | Escape Pod | Steve Eley |
| Seamstress | Sarah Prineas | Escape Pod | Deborah Green |
| Will You Be an Astronaut? | Greg van Eekhout | Escape Pod | Christiana Ellis |
Stories in John’s Anthologies
| Title | Author | Podcast | Narrator | Anthology |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| And the Deep Blue Sea | Elizabeth Bear | StarShipSofa | Amy H Sturgis | Wastelands |
| Arties Aren’t Stupid | Jeremiah Tolbert | Escape Pod | Philippa Ballantine | Seeds of Change |
| Carthago Delenda Est | Genevieve Valentine | Escape Pod | Kate Baker | Federations |
| Child of an Ancient City | Tad Williams | StarShipSofa | Peter Cavell | By Blood We Live |
| The Culture Archivist | Jeremiah Tolbert | StarShipSofa | Ray Sizemore | Federations |
| Everything’s Better With Zombies | Hannah Wolf Bowen | Pseudopod | Mur Lafferty | The Living Dead |
| Infestation | Garth Nix | Escape Pod | Geoff Michelli | By Blood We Live |
| N-Words | Ted Kosmatka | Escape Pod | Kim The Comic Book Goddess | Seeds of Change |
| Resistance | Tobias Buckell | Escape Pod | Stephen Eley | Seeds of Change |
| The Shoulders of Giants | Robert J. Sawyer | Escape Pod | Stephen Eley | Federations |
| The Skull-Faced Boy | David Barr Kirtley | Pseudopod | Ralph Walters | The Living Dead |
| A Song Before Sunset | David Grigg | Telltale Weekly | Alex Wilson | Wastelands |
| Stockholm Syndrome | David Tallerman | Pseudopod | Cheyenne Wright | The Living Dead |
| Waiting for the Zephyr | Tobias S. Buckell | Telltale Weekly | Mary Robinette Kowal | Wastelands |
| When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth | Cory Doctorow | Cory Doctrow’s Craphound.com |
Full-cast radio drama | Wastelands |
| Dynamics of a Hanging | Tony Pi | Hour of the Wolf (begins at 00:48:25) |
Brilliance Audio | The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
John Joseph Adams (www.johnjosephadams.com) is an anthologist, a writer, and a geek. He is the editor of the anthologies By Blood We Live, Federations, The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Living Dead (a World Fantasy Award finalist), Seeds of Change, and Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse. He is currently assembling several other anthologies, including Brave New Worlds, The Living Dead 2, The Mad Scientistís Guide to World Domination, and The Way of the Wizard. He worked for more than eight years as an editor at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and is currently the fiction editor of Lightspeed Magazine, which launches in June 2010.
David Barr Kirtley (www.davidbarrkirtley.com) is a writer living in New York who has been called ìone of the newest and freshest voices in sf.î His short fiction appears in magazines such as Realms of Fantasy and Weird Tales, and in anthologies such as The Living Dead, New Voices in Science Fiction, and Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2008 Edition.
Show notes compiled by podtern Christie Yant. Friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
