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Around the Podosphere #2: Podcasts of Note for 12/17/2014

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Here’s what we’ve been listening to in the podcast world.  What about you? On Writing: Tina Connolly and Brad Beaulieu guest star on Tor.com’s Rocket Talk podcast and discuss writing and selling short fiction. Speculate! also discusses writing short fiction (with special guests Brenda Cooper and Martha Wells). On Books: The folks at The Three Hoarsemen discuss William Hope Hodgson’s The House on the Borderland with Karen Burnham. Episode 61 of Galactic Chat is an interview with Kameron Hurley. The first episode of Midnight in Karachi interviews Audrey Neffenegger about her work. The Incomparable crew look at Ben Winters’ The Last Policeman. On Movies: The Incomparable podcast discuss the parody classic, Galaxy Quest. Do you need a fix of nostalgia?  Read It and Weep tackles Duck Tales for all you old enough to remember watching it on the tube! Super Mario Bros.  The folks at We Hate Movies talk about it.  What else is there to say? In traditional holiday fashion, The Book Was Better takes a bite out of Jack Frost. On Conspiracies: The 18th episode of Doorway to the Hidden World takes a second stab at the mysteries of Atlantis. On Gaming: Episode 119 of Ken and Robin Talk about Stuff covers Salvador Dali and creating supporting characters for games (useful for writers, too)

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Shorty on Friday: Omenana

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Omenana, a bimonthly speculative fiction magazine edited by Mazi Nwonwu and Chinelo Onwualu, includes short fiction, essays, and art by and about people from the African continent. Its debut issue appeared on November 30, and the stories within work very well together. Two are more traditional narratives, while two are more experimental; there are contemporary settings and futures near and far, nods to Nigeria’s literary legacy, and a love letter to Lagos. The essays are powerful and the art is lovely. The tl;dr of this column is that you should alter your weekend plans as necessary to read the first issue.

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My Superpower: Erik Williams (Demon)

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My Superpower is a regular guest column on the Skiffy and Fanty blog where authors and creators tell us about one weird skill, neat trick, highly specialized cybernetic upgrade, or other superpower they have, and how it helped (or hindered!) their creative process as they built their project. Today we welcome Erik Williams to talk about how the power of verisimilitude relates to Demon. —————————————— My superpower?  Where do I begin?  I have so many, you see… Chief among them is BS.  Outside of my ability to BS, I’d say my most important superpower in writing my book was verisimilitude. You see, I wrote this novel Demon.  It’s about a CIA assassin who finds himself hunting down a real, true blue demon in war-torn Iraq.  A demon that pretty much causes anyone within a few feet of it to go crazy and kill each other.  It doesn’t even do it on purpose.  It’s his presence, by Jove!

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Book Review: Nobody’s Home (An Anubis Gates Story) by Tim Powers

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Tracking the murderer of her fiance through 19th century London’s darkest warrens, Jacky Snapp has disguised herself as a boy. But the disguise fails when she tries to save a girl from the ghost of her jealous husband. Jacky soon finds that she has made herself visible to the ghosts that cluster around the Thames… And one of them is the ghost of her fiancee, who was poisoned and physically transformed by his murderer and unwittingly shot dead by Jacky herself. Jacky and the girl she rescued, united in the need to banish their pursuing ghosts, learn that their only hope is to flee upriver to the barge known as Nobody’s Home — where the exorcist whose name is Nobody charges an intolerable price.

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Book Review: Zombies & Calculus by Colin Adams

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If you’re looking for a good zombie novel, then just keep looking. But if you’d like a light refresher on mathematical principles with a side of peril, or if you need a gift for somebody taking calculus or pre-cal who doesn’t mind a sprinkling of gore, then Zombies & Calculus may be a good pick. The author, Colin Adams, is a professor at Williams College and the humor columnist for the Mathematical Intelligencer. He has written several other math-related books; this is his latest (published in September). A couple of videos starting here illustrate some of the scenarios in Zombies & Calculus, in case you want to get a sense of the book’s tone.

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Around the Podosphere #1: Podcasts of Note for 12/8/2014

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All the genre-friendly podcasts recommended by your Skiffy and Fanty robogoblins in one convenient place! Interviews: The Agony Column interviews Anne Rice about her upcoming vampire novel, Prince Lestat. On Books: The Book Was Better takes a stab at the movie tie-in novel for Batman Returns. Galactic Suburbia has a recommendations for the year episode. Midnight in Karachi has its debut episode as Mahvesh Murad talks to The Time Traveler’s Wife author Audrey Niffenegger On Movies: Last Month, We Hate Movies covered Johnny Mnemonic, starring Keanu Reeves. The Incomparable crew dedicate an episode to Mystery Science Theater 3000, which will certainly make folks who were around in the old days very happy.  They also spend over an hour talking about the recent Star Wars VII:  The Force Awakens trailer, which is moderately insane, to say the least. The folks at Read It and Weep discuss the film adaptation of Mockingjay (part one). On Podcasting: The recent episode of Speculate! features Patrick Hester and Anton Strout on the subject of podcasting (dos, don’ts, etc.).  Obviously, the entire S&F crew should have been there, but it’s still worth listening to (:P). On Conspiracies: Taking a cue from our Torture Cinema review of Omega Man, Kevin Lux dedicates an entire episode to the CDU.  There’s also an episode on the history of cannabis, which is totally full of truth. On Conventions: The Three Hoarsemen discuss World Fantasy Convention in Arlington/D.C.; apparently, Shaun is mentioned more times than Paul in this one, which means something to someone somewhere…They also talk about some of the media they’ve been consuming, which should give you lots of ideas for things to buy. On History: Stuff You Missing in History Class discusses Henry Hudson in a two-part history adventure!  This might be of interest to anyone writing fantasy with seafaring peoples.

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