Thanks to the lovely BoingBoing and Cory Doctorow, I occasionally end up on a podcast/audiobooks website and download all the cool-sounding fiction I can get my grubby virtual hands on. I’m not really into podcasts, but I’ve found a couple of nice places - StarShipSofa and EscapePod, plus SFFAudio which has links to many places. And, for someone who loves accents, listening to Starship’s Tony Smith is very fun (like a puzzle! “now what did he say here?”)
So yesterday, finding myself without a bus book, I listened to stories - one from EscapePod, several from StarShipSofa.
First up was Elizabeth Bear’s Tideline. It’s about death and mourning and new life. And a robot and a kid. Chalcedony is the last of her (human) plutoon, a broken down battle robot that devotes the rest of her existence to creating a memorial to her dead companions and, unexpectedly, protecting a young boy. Another story of the robot-that-develops-a-heart? Yes and no. Every action can be explained by the laws of robotics - Bear’s, if not Asimov’s. A robot protects humans. A robot learned how humans honor their dead. A robot learned about the importance of remembering.
I wasn’t expecting to like a robot story so much, but I did. And although Arthurian myth might sound out of place, it fits right in.
Second, the SSS podcast.
Poetry: Greg Betty - Bottles
I didn’t even realize this was a poem, I thought it was a very short story. A bit of a different take on the “ships in bottles” idea.
Flash Fiction: Atalanta Pendragonne - Moon Over Baton Rouge
Another different take, this time dealing with vampires. A fun little story I enjoyed a lot. (But, really, that name?! Why?)
Article: Matthew Sanborn Smith - Jim Sawgrass
I never had any particular interest in genealogy or genetics, but this guy has a lot of free time on his hands and the short overview of how we’re all really related and how no family is really older than each other and how migration influences genealogy was really fascinating. He’s also funny, which made it even better.
Main Fiction: Paul Di Filippo - Bad Beliefs
I’d heard about Paul Di Filippo, never read anything by him as far as I can recall, and I got this podcast for the Jeff Carlson bit, so I had no particular interest in the fiction. But… boy was it cool. I never got what memes were (except for those annoying tags on blogs), but in here they’re personifications of… ideas? There’s “Drunk driving is safe” and “I’ll never die” and “Fuck the police” and another dozen or so embodiments of good and bad beliefs. Mostly bad, like the title says. The idea might be old, but it was new and exciting for me. I hope I’ll be able to track down a text copy of this, because I kept drifting off and I missed some parts, which is too bad for such an interesting and fun story.
On The Sofa With Jeff Carlson
This actually wasn’t as interesting as I was hoping. I’m sort of currently reading Carlson’s Plague Year and I was curious about the author, but I’d already read his bio so there was nothing really new. I might listen to it once I finish the book(s), because it might be better learning about his sources of inspiration after I finish reading.
And since we’re on internet stuff, Afterworld is an awesome post-apocalyptic animated series which can be watched online (on on AXN if they have it in your country).
To finish off on a positive note, my boyfriend informs me that Big Bang will happen again in 9 days and I should read Forever Peace. Plus: we won’t have to go to work anymore. Minus: we won’t get to go on holiday. I really want to go to Spain, so I hope the Large Hadron Collider doesn’t kill us all. At least not before October 4th.
