Archives for the 'Hugo Awards' Category
EP158: Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359?
Published on 15 May 2008 at 9:15 pm.
8 Comments.
Filed under Hugo Awards, Rated R.
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-->2008 Hugo Nominee!
By Ken MacLeod.
Read by Stephen Eley.
First appeared in The New Space Opera, ed. Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan.
When you’re as old as I am, you’ll find your memory’s not what it was. It’s not that you lose memories. That hasn’t happened to me or anyone else since the Paleocosmic Era, the Old Space Age, when people lived in caves on the Moon. My trouble is that I’ve gained memories, and I don’t know which of them are real. I was very casual about memory storage back then, I seem to recall. This could happen to you too, if you’re not careful. So be warned. Do as I say, not as I did.
Some of the tales about me contradict each other, or couldn’t possibly have happened, because that’s how I told them in the first place. Others I blame on the writers and tellers. They make things up. I’ve never done that. If I’ve told stories that couldn’t be true, it’s because that’s how I remember them.
Here’s one.
Rated R. Contains profanity, nudity, and in flagrante delicto.
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Referenced Sites:
2008 Hugo Awards
Free Novels for Worldcon Members
EP157: A Small Room in Koboldtown
Published on 8 May 2008 at 11:58 pm.
25 Comments.
Filed under Hugo Awards, Podcasts, Rated PG.
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-->2008 Hugo Nominee!
By Michael Swanwick.
Read by Cheyenne Wright (of Arcane Times and Girl Genius).
First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May 2007.
That Winter, Will le Fey held down a job working for a haint politician named Salem Toussaint. Chiefly, his function was to run errands while looking conspicuously solid. He fetched tax forms for the alderman’s constituents, delivered stacks of documents to trollish functionaries, fixed L&I violations, presented boxes of candied John-the-Conqueror root to retiring secretaries, absent-mindedly dropped slim envelopes containing twenty-dollar bills on desks. When somebody important died, he brought a white goat to the back door of the Fane of Darkness to be sacrificed to the Nameless One. When somebody else’s son was drafted or went to prison, he hammered a nail in the nkisi nkonde that Toussaint kept in the office to ensure his safe return.
He canvassed voters in haint neighborhoods like Ginny Gall, Beluthahatchie, and Diddy-Wah-Diddy, where the bars were smoky, the music was good, and it was dangerous to smile at the whores. He negotiated the labyrinthine bureaucracies of City Hall. Not everything he did was strictly legal, but none of it was actually criminal. Salem Toussaint didn’t trust him enough for that.
Rated PG. Contains dark, seedy places and dark, seedy characters, only a few of them alive.
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Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams
EP108: Kin
Published on 31 May 2007 at 3:45 pm.
20 Comments.
Filed under Hugo Awards, Podcasts, Rated PG.
2007 Hugo Nominee!
By Bruce McAllister.
Read by Stephen Eley.
First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, February 2006.
The alien and the boy, who was twelve, sat in the windowless room high above the city that afternoon. The boy talked and the alien listened.
The boy was ordinary—the genes of three continents in his features, his clothes cut in the style of all boys in the vast housing project called LAX. The alien was something else, awful to behold; and though the boy knew it was rude, he did not look up as he talked.
He wanted the alien to kill a man, he said. It was that simple.
Rated PG. Contains implied violence and morally complex themes.
Referenced Sites:
The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories by Bruce McAllister
Balticon 2007 Trip Report
EP107: Eight Episodes
Published on 24 May 2007 at 4:20 am.
29 Comments.
Filed under Hugo Awards, Podcasts, Rated PG.
2007 Hugo Nominee!
By Robert Reed.
Read by MarBelle (of Director’s Notes).
First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, June 2006.
Eighteen months later, the fledging Web network declared bankruptcy, and a small consortium acquired its assets, including Invasion of a Small World. Eager to recoup their investment, the new owners offered all eight episodes as a quick-and-dirty DVD package. When sales proved somewhat better than predicted, a new version was cobbled together, helped along by a genuine ad budget. The strongest initial sales came from the tiny pool of determined fans—young and well educated, with little preference for nationality or gender. But the scientists in several fields, astronomy and paleontology included, were the ones who created a genuine buzz that eventually put Invasion into the public eye.
Rated PG. Contains some suggestive imagery, references to infidelity, and not very good television.
Referenced Sites:
World Science Fiction Society
Steve’s LiveJournal
EP106: The House Beyond Your Sky
Published on 17 May 2007 at 3:31 pm.
24 Comments.
Filed under Hugo Awards, Podcasts, Rated R.
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-->2007 Hugo Nominee!
By Benjamin Rosenbaum.
Read by Paul Tevis (of Have Games Will Travel).
First appeared in Strange Horizons, September 2006.
The simulations, while good, are not impenetrable even to their own inhabitants. Scientists teaching baboons to sort blocks may notice that all other baboons become instantly better at block-sorting, revealing a high-level caching mechanism. Or engineers building their own virtual worlds may find they cannot use certain tricks of optimization and compression‚Äîfor Matthias has already used them. Only when the jig is up does Matthias reveal himself, asking each simulated soul: what now? Most accept Matthias’s offer to graduate beyond the confines of their simulation, and join the general society of Matthias’s house.
You may regard them as bright parakeets, living in wicker cages with open doors. The cages are hung from the ceiling of the priest’s clay hut. The parakeets flutter about the ceiling, visit each other, steal bread from the table, and comment on Matthias’s doings.
Rated R. Contains some profanity and child abuse. It’s probably too complex for young children as well.
Referenced Sites:
Diversity in SF Markets (blog post by Tobias S. Buckell)
Finis: A Book of Endings
Nina Kimberly the Merciless
SciFi Smackdown
EP105: Impossible Dreams
Published on 10 May 2007 at 5:26 am.
72 Comments.
Filed under Hugo Awards, Podcasts, Rated G.
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-->2007 Hugo Nominee!
By Tim Pratt.
Read by Matthew Wayne Selznick (of Brave Men Run and Writers Talking).
First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 2006.
He went to the Sci-Fi shelf‚Äîand had another shock. I, Robot was there, but not the forgettable action movie with Will Smith‚Äîthis was older, and the credits said “written by Harlan Ellison.” But Ellison’s adaptation of the Isaac Asimov book had never been produced, though it had been published in book form. “Must be some bootleg student production,” he muttered, and he didn’t recognize the name of the production company. But‚Äîbut‚Äîit said “winner of the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.” That had to be a student director’s little joke, straight-facedly absurd box copy, as if this were a film from some alternate reality. Worth watching, certainly, though again, he couldn’t imagine how he’d never heard of this. Maybe it had been done by someone local. He took it to the counter and offered his credit card.
She looked at the card dubiously. “Visa? Sorry, we only take Weber and FosterCard.”
Rated G. Contains excessive movie trivia; some of it true.
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Referenced Sites:
Balticon 2007
EP101: The 43 Antarean Dynasties
Published on 12 Apr 2007 at 7:29 pm.
19 Comments.
Filed under Hugo Awards, Podcasts, Rated PG.
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-->1998 Hugo Winner!
By Mike Resnick.
Read by Steven Burley and Gregg Taylor (of Decoder Ring Theatre).
First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 1997.
A man, a woman, and a child emerge from the Temple of the Honored Sun. The woman holds a camera to her eye, capturing the same image from a dozen unimaginative angles. The child, his lip sparsely covered with hair that is supposed to imply maturity, never sees beyond the game he is playing on his pocket computer. The man looks around to make sure no one is watching him, grinds out a smokeless cigar beneath his heel, and then increases his pace until he joins them.
They approach me, and I will myself to become one with my surroundings, to insinuate myself into the marble walls and stone walkways before they can speak to me.
I am invisible. You cannot see me. You will pass me by.
“Hey, fella — we’re looking for a guide,” says the man. “You interested?”
Rated PG. Contains mild documentary references to violence and sexual acts. It’s also not very upbeat.
Referenced Sites:
Joe Murphy Tribute Podcast
Joe Murphy Memorial Fund
Beatnik Turtle
EP056: The Clockwork Atom Bomb
Published on 1 Jun 2006 at 4:00 am.
12 Comments.
Filed under Hugo Awards, Podcasts, Rated R.
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-->By Dominic Green.
Read by Dr. Jonathon Sullivan.
The wind in here was deafening. The girl had to shout. “THERE IS MORE THAN ONE IN HERE. THEY LIVE IN THE MACHINES. THE GOVERNMENT MADE THE MACHINES, BUT NOT WITH TECHNICIANS AND ELECTRICIANS. WITH SORCERY.”
The machines did not look made by sorcery. They were entirely silent, looking like rows of gigantic, rusted steel chess pawns twice the height of a man, with no pipes or wires entering or leaving them, apparently sitting here unused for any purpose. Mativi felt an urgent, entirely rational need to be in an another line of employment.
Rated R. Contains profanity and some violence.
Referenced sites:
2006 Hugo Nominees
The Balticon Podcast
Michael & Evo’s Slice of SciFi
Rock & Roll Monster Bash
EP055: Down Memory Lane
Published on 25 May 2006 at 5:35 am.
29 Comments.
Filed under Hugo Awards, Podcasts, Rated G.
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-->By Mike Resnick.
Read by Alex Wilson (of Telltale Weekly).
I don’t know where I was when Kennedy was shot. I don’t know what I was doing when the World Trade Center collapsed under the onslaught of two jetliners. But I remember every single detail, every minute, every second, of the day we got the bad news.
“It may not be Alzheimer’s,” said Dr. Castleman. “Alzheimer’s is becoming a catchword for a variety of senile dementias. Eventually we’ll find out exactly which dementia it is, but there’s no question that Gwendolyn is suffering from one of them.”
Rated G.
Referenced sites:
2006 Hugo Nominees
World Science Fiction Convention
L.A.Con IV
TellTale Weekly — Clarion Foundation Fundraiser
Hooting Yard Benevolent Fund for Distressed Out of Print Pamphleteers
EP054: Tk’tk’tk
Published on 18 May 2006 at 8:00 am.
12 Comments.
Filed under Hugo Awards, Podcasts, Rated PG.
By David D. Levine.
Read by Paul Tevis (of Have Games Will Travel).
Shkthh pth kstphst, the shopkeeper said, and Walker’s hypno-implanted vocabulary provided a translation: “What a delightful object.” Chitinous fingers picked up the recorder, scrabbling against the aluminum case with a sound that Walker found deeply disturbing. “What does it do?”
It took him a moment to formulate a reply. Even with hypno, Thfshpfth was a formidably complex language. “It listens and repeats,” he said. “You talk all day, it remembers all. Earth technology. Nothing like it for light-years.” The word for “light-year” was hkshkhthskht, difficult to pronounce. He hoped he’d gotten it right.
Rated PG. Contains scatology and crimes against pronunciation.
Referenced sites:
2006 Hugo Nominees
Shelley the Republican
CAP Alert System
Bento Fanzine
National PTA
Rescuing Recess
