hard sf

StarShipSofa No 547 Peter Watts

July 18, 2018 by Jeremy Szal

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Main Fiction: “The Colonel” by Peter Watts

Originally published in Tor.com

Peter Watts is a former marine biologist, flesh-eating-disease survivor and Undesirable Element (according to the US government) whose novels— despite an unhealthy focus on Space Vampires— have become required texts for university courses ranging from Philosophy to Neuropsychology. His work is available in 20 languages, has appeared in over two dozen best-of-year anthologies, and has been nominated for roughly 50 awards from a dozen countries. His (somewhat smaller) list of 17 actual wins includes the Hugo, the Shirley Jackson, and the Seiun. His latest efforts include The Freeze-Frame Revolution (June 2018 from Tachyon) and coauthorship of a black metal science opera about sending marbled lungfish to Mars, funded by the Norwegian government (the opera, not the lungfish).

He lives in Toronto with his wife (fantasy author Caitlin Sweet), four-and-a-half cats, a pugilistic rabbit, a Plecostomus the size of a school bus, and a gang of tough raccoons who shake him down for kibble on the porch every summer. He likes all of them significantly more than most people he’s met.

Narrated by Mikael Naramore

Mikael Naramore has narrated well over 100 audiobooks, ranging from best-sellers Nora Roberts, Lisa Gardner, Edward Klein and Clive Barker to sci-fi rising stars Wesley Chu, Ramez Naam and Mark E. Cooper.He was recently chosen to narrate prolific playwright and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Robert Ardrey’s seminal Nature of Man series.

Mikael is also an active musician, having scored the soundtrack to an independent short film and produced and engineered critically acclaimed rock records.  He currently resides in the wild and scenic Columbia River Gorge outside of Portland, Oregon with his wife, two small boys and their beloved Golden Retriever.

 

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StarShipSofa No 474 David John Baker and Colin Gibson

February 22, 2017 by Jeremy Szal

KickStarter: Everyone Worlds Without Walls https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1895930248/everyone-worlds-without-walls

Interview: Colin Gibson, Oscar-winning Production Designer on Mad Max: Fury Road with Jeremy Szal

Main Fiction: “Nanoamerica” by David John Baker

Originally published in PS Publishing’s Catastrophia.

David John Baker is a philosophy professor at the University of Michigan, where he studies the conceptual foundations of modern physics.  He has defended the view that space and time are as real as material objects, and that there is no fundamental difference between your left hand and your right hand.  He also teaches a popular course on science fiction and philosophy.  His stories have appeared in Escape Pod, Writers of the Future, and the PS Publishing anthology Catastrophia.  Visit him online at www-personal.umich.edu/~djbaker.

Narrated by: George Hrab

Multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, producer, composer, and heliocentrist George Hrab has written and produced six independent CDs and a concert DVD; published two books; recorded hundreds of episodes of an award-winning podcast; emceed countless science conferences; been a TEDx speaker; and has even performed for President Clinton. He’s traveled to four continents promoting critical thinking, science, and skepticism through story and song. George is considered one of the preeminent skeptic/science/atheist/geek-culture music icons currently living in his apartment.

Fact: Science News by J J Campanella

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StarShipSofa No 466 Richard Johnson

December 28, 2016 by Jeremy Szal

Main Fiction: “Taking the High Road” by Richard Johnson

Originally published at Baen.com

Richard Johnson is an award-winning writer of science fiction having won the Gold Award at the Writers of the Future Competition in 2011 and the Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest in 2012. He has previously appeared on Starship Sofa with his flash fiction A Friend in Need (and you’ve also accepted my Writers of the Future winging story although that hasn’t appeared yet).

His day job as a structural engineer has taken him all over the world from the UK and Dublin to Singapore and Hong Kong.  He currently lives in Melbourne, Australia with his wife and two young sons.

He blogs at RPLJohnson.com and his previously published short stories can be found at all ebook retailers.

Fact: Science News by J J Campanella

Narrated by: Stephanie Morrris

Stephanie is a professional student, a librarian-in-training, a voracious biblio- and audiophile, and an occasional writer of short stories. She has narrated fiction for Pseudopod, Podcastle, and Cast of Wonders.

 

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StarShipSofa No 459 Martin L. Shoemaker

November 9, 2016 by Jeremy Szal

 

Main Fiction: “Unrefined” by Martin L. Shoemaker

Originally appeared in Writers of the Future #31

Martin L. Shoemaker is a programmer who writes on the side… or maybe it’s the other way around. Programming pays the bills, but a second place story in the Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest earned him lunch with Buzz Aldrin. Programming never did that! His work has appeared in Analog, Clarkesworld, Galaxy’s Edge, Digital Science Fiction, Forever Magazine, and Writers of the Future Volume 31. His novella Murder on the Aldrin Express was reprinted in Year’s Best Science Fiction Thirty-First Annual Collection and in Year’s Top Short SF Novels 4. His short story “Today I Am Paul” will be reprinted in Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-third Annual Edition, The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume One, The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, and The Year’s Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction 8, and will appear in French translation in Galaxies magazine.

Narrated by: Mark Nelson

Mark Nelson (aka Harry Shaw) has been recording audiobooks since 2006, starting as a Librivox volunteer and later for such producers as Audible, Audible Frontiers, Hachette, Wonderaudio, Listen2aBook and Iambik. Recording as Mark Nelson and as “Harry Shaw”, he’s narrated more than fifty commercial audiobooks, including classics, horror, mysteries, and contemporary and classic science fiction. He still regularly contributes to Librivox, which he credits for getting him out of Human Resources and into something useful. Visit his website at www.markdouglasnelson.com.

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StarShipSofa No 428 Stephen Kotowych

March 23, 2016 by Jeremy Szal

Jeremy Szal on Hugos and StarShipSofa

Main Fiction: “Saturn in G Minor” by Stephen Kotowych

Originally published in Writers of the Future: Volume 23

STEPHEN KOTOWYCH is a Writers of the Future Grand Prize winner (for “Saturn in G Minor”) and past finalist for the Prix Aurora Award, Canada’s top SF prize. His stories have appeared in StarShipSofa (#259), Interzone, Intergalactic Medicine Show, numerous anthologies, and been translated into a dozen languages.

His first collection of short fiction, Seven Against Tomorrow (which includes, among other stories, “Saturn in G Minor” and the Nikola Tesla murder mystery novella “Under the Shield”), is available now in both ebook and dead-tree formats. For more details, please visit his website at www.kotowych.com

Stephen is currently completing work on his first novel–a secret history about the real-life friendship between Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla. He enjoys guitar, tropical fish, and writing about himself in the third person.

Check out his blog at www.kotowych.com

Narrated by: Nick Camm

Nick is an actor, audio-book narrator and voice-overer. He recently did a few scenes on the telly with Derek Jacobi, which made him tingle. He’s just finished shooting the feature film ‘Slapper and Me’, which mostly involved him sitting in a sleazy pub for 12 hours a day smoking herbal cigarettes, drinking tepid, non-alcoholic ale and pretending to be in the 1970’s. He thinks it should be out in the autumn, but they’re not telling him, probably because they don’t want him turning up at the première in his cheap suit.

Audio-bookwise, Nick is currently four books into narrating the mystery/thriller ‘Eddie Malloy Series’, written by Richard Pitman and Joe McNally. Set in the skullduggerous world of horse-racing, reluctant part-time detective Eddie gets involved in various capers and generally solves stuff. It’s the first time in many a year that Nick has read, and enjoyed, a set of novels where spaceships refuse to appear. Notwithstanding, Nick has made a polite suggestion to the authors that shiny, future-type stuff might feature in the next of the series (a Hawking-drive, killer robot horse, perhaps). This has fallen on deaf ears.

If you want him to narrate a book for you, he can be found on Twitter, here: @NickCamm1

Or, if you want him to do some acting for you, here: http://amberltd.co.uk/?client=nicholas-camm

My Sci-fi Marc Zicaree

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