science news

StarShipSofa No 429 Gareth L. Powell and Rachel Armstrong

March 30, 2016 by Jeremy Szal

 

Interview: Rachel Armstrong – Will We Ever Build StarShips

Main Fiction: “Distant Galaxies Colliding” by Gareth L. Powell

First published in Quantum Muse (2005)

GARETH L. POWELL is an award-winning writer from the UK. He is the author of the novels Silversands, The Recollection, Ack-Ack Macaque, Hive Monkey and Macaque Attack.

His alternate history thriller, Ack-Ack Macaque, won the 2013 BSFA (British Science Fiction Association) Award for Best Novel, and his story, ‘Ride The Blue Horse’, is currently shortlisted for the 2015 BSFA Award, in the short fiction category. In addition to winning the BSFA Award, Ack-Ack Macaque has also been published in Japan by Tokyo Sogensha; Fantasy Book Reviews placed it at #40 in their list of Top 100 Fantasy Books; and it has also inspired a comic strip, fan art, graffiti murals, a pop song, and at least one tattoo.

In 2011, The Guardian review of Gareth’s second novel, The Recollection, insisted that, “If you only read one space opera this year, it’s got to be The Recollection.” The book went on to be translated and published in Germany by Heyne (a division of Random House) under the title Sternentor. He is currently working on his sixth novel.

Gareth’s short stories have appeared in a host of magazines and anthologies, including Interzone, Solaris Rising 3, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Many of his stories have been brought together in the collections, The Last Reef (2008) and The New Ships (coming 2017).

The Guardian says, “Powell draws his characters with fine brushstrokes.” SF Book Reviews places him, “at the forefront of science fiction,” and Gutenberg’s Son writes that he, “has managed to find the balance between thoughtful existentialism and pulp adventure. In addition to his fiction, Gareth has penned a strip for the long-running British comic, 2000 AD, and has written articles and reviews for The Irish Times, Acoustic Magazine, and SFX.

In the early 1990s, Gareth studied creative writing at the University of Glamorgan. He has since run a genre fiction workshop at Aberystwyth University and given guest lectures on creative writing at Bath Spa Uni. He is also a popular panelist and speaker at literary events and conventions, and was a guest of honour at BristolCon in 2012. He is a frequent guest on local radio, and has appeared on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme.

Narrated by: Katherine Inskip

Katherine weighs galaxies for a living, and builds worlds in her spare time. She is addicted to chocolate and Japanese logic puzzles.

Science News by J J Campanella

Discuss this story and episode on our forums.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Categories: Podcast | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

StarShipSofa No 420 David Steffen and David Brin

January 27, 2016 by Jeremy Szal

Coming Up…

Interview: David Brin and The Best Year in Space Ever!

Fact: Science News by J J Campanella 

Main Fiction: “Catastrophic Failure” by David Steffen

Fiction originally appeared in Perihelion Science Fiction.

David is a software engineer and writer living in Minnesota. He is the editor of Diabolical Plots, a speculative fiction zine of fiction and nonfiction. In 2015 Diabolical Plots began publishing original fiction for the first time. He is also the administrator of the Submission Grinder, a web tool for writers to track their submissions and find markets for their work. His fiction has been published in Escape Pod, Daily Science Fiction, AE and many others.

Narrated by: 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.

Discuss this episode in our forums.

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Categories: Podcast | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

StarShipSofa No 416 Colin P. Davies and Anatoly Belilovsky

December 30, 2015 by Jeremy Szal

Coming Up…

Fact: Science News by J J Campanella

Interview with editor of Escape Artists’ MotherShip Zeta, Karen Bovenmyer with Jeremy Szal

Main Fiction: “Julian of Earth” by Colin P. Davies

Originally published in Asimov’s.

Colin P. Davies lives near Liverpool, England and has been contributing to the science fiction and fantasy magazines for twenty-five years. His stories have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Abyss & Apex, Andromeda Spaceways, Daily Science Fiction and elsewhere. His story “The Defenders” was included in The Year’s Best Science Fiction #22 edited by Gardner Dozois. Colin is currently working on the third novel in his Young Adult comic fantasy trilogy Clifford and the Bookmole. More information can be found at Colin’s webite www.colinpdavies.com

Narrated by Sarah Afa

Sarah was born and raised in the United States, and moved to Australia in 2009. She has years of experience doing public speaking, as well as reading poetry and prose for competitions. Yes, she is a talker! She enjoys singing, reading, and adventuring the world with her new husband.

Short Fiction: “Tempora Mutantur” by Anatoly Belilovsky

Originally appeared in Stupefying Stories.

Anatoly Belilovsky is a Russian-American author and translator of speculative fiction. He was born in a city that went through six or seven owners in the last century, all of whom used it to do a lot more than drive to church on Sundays; he is old enough to remember tanks rolling through it on their way to Czechoslovakia in 1968. After being traded to the US for a shipload of grain and a defector to be named later (see wikipedia, Jackson-Vanik amendment), he learned English from Star Trek reruns and went on to become a paediatrician in an area of New York where English is only the fourth most commonly used language. His original work appeared or will appear in the Unidentified Funny Objects anthology, Ideomancer, Nature Futures, Stupefying Stories, Immersion Book of Steampunk, Daily SF, Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk, and Genius Loci anthology, and has been podcast by Cast of Wonders, Tales of Old, and Toasted Cake; his translations from Russian have sold to F&SF, Year’s Best SF #32 (edited by Gardner Dozois,) Grimdark, and Kasma. He blogs about writing at loldoc.net.

Narrated by J.S. Arquin

J.S. Arquin is an actor, writer, musician and pessimistic optimist.  He lives in Portland, Oregon and spends a large portion of his time producing The Overcast, a speculative fiction podcast featuring breathtaking stories from the Pacific Northwest and Beyond. Find it at: www.peoples-ink.com/the-overcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Categories: Podcast | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,