StarShipSofa No 366 Paul Berger Alexander Burns

December 10, 2014 by Jeremy Szal

Coming Up…

Main Fiction: Subduction, by Paul Berger

Paul M. Berger has been a Japanese bureaucrat, an M.I.T. program administrator, an Internet
entrepreneur, a butterfly wrangler, a museum tour guide and (God help him) a Wall Street
recruiter, all of which, in the aggregate, may have prepared him for nothing except the cretion
of speculative fiction. His work has appeared in publications including The Magazine of Fantasy
& Science Fiction, Rich Horton’s Space Opera, Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction
and Fantasy 2011, Strange Horizons, Interzone, Podcastle and Escape Pod. The story of his
battle against giant Japanese spiders was the first true-life memoir published in Weird Tales.
He is a graduate of the 2008 Clarion workshop, and is a founding member of the stunningly
talented New York-based writers’ group Altered Fluid. His next published story will appear inthe March/April issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction “Subduction” was inspired by material he covers as a tour guide in the American Museum of

Natural History. He discusses the story in an interview with editor C. C. Finlay here:
https:// www.sfsite.com/fsf/blog/2014/07/16/interview-paul-m-berger-on-subduction/

Narrator: Mark Kilfoil

Mark “the Encaffeinated ONE” Kilfoil loves fiction, so much so that he’s written some (such as the Parsec-nominated Tainted Roses), read quite a lot (a library of over a thousand half-read books and growing) and now narrates them (sometimes actually recorded for others). He’s found that volunteering for a dozen years in radio was a decent way to get a full-time job as a Program Director at a community radio station in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, but not such a great way to finish his thesis, so he stopped at a Masters in Computer Science. He can be heard frequently on CHSRfm.ca, and two of his shows irregularly appear as podcasts, and can be found at encaffeinated.ca (CAFFEEN!) and theweirdshow.com (The WEIRD Show, winner of a Parsec Award for “Best Infotainment”). He likes cats enough to pet them but not enough to own one, and computers enough to own several but pet none of them. He will someday write a million words, but at this rate, that will require life extension, so he eagerly awaits the ability to upload into a computer, if that hasn’t already happened and this is all only a simulation.

Short Fiction: Iron Privateers, by Alexander Burns

Alexander Burns lives in Denton, Texas, and writes because he doesn’t have a basement in which to build robots or time machines. His work has appeared at Every Day Fiction, The Future Fire, Big Pulp, and other fine online journals. He can be found online at afburns.com.

Narrator: Anne-Marie Czajkowski.

Anne-Marie Czajkowski is a postgraduate of the Royal College of Music. She was a regular soloist at the Royal College with fellow student Alfie Boe and has sung on Channel 4 and Royal Gala performances on ITV. Her recently performed concert repertoire includes ‘Mild und Leise’ from Tristan and Isolde by Wagner on tour in Berlin with LUSO in association with Opera North. She also has a teaching practice and amongst her students are Laura Marling who won 2012 British Female Solo Artist at the Brit Awards, comedian Lenny Henry and UK Classic Chart No1 artist, Rebecca Newman.

Comments

  1. Thoroughly enjoyed listening to “Subduction” by Paul M. Berger. Excellent narration by Mark Kilfoil. I’m normally more into hard SF and not a huge fan of magical fantasy, but this was a welcome exception. Kept my attention throughout. Masterful.

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  1. […] over at StarShipSofa has seen fit to produce Iron Privateers for their podcast, and it’s out! You can listen to it here, or find it on iTunes if you […]