Musings of a Babylon Lurker

Podcast : Dragonpage Cover to Cover

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 | books, fantasy, podcast, scifi | No Comments

A weekly podcast all about the written word in SciFi, Fantasy etc.

Most of the weeks this show is hosted by Mike Mennenga and Mike Stackpole. Both have written books, Stackpole just “a few” more, including some New York Times bestsellers.

For now I have read just one of his books (Star Wars: “I, Jedi”) and two short stories. I like them, but more about that later.

General discussions about books and publishing can often, to me at least, be quite interesting. It looks like we are going to see a shift in publishing the written word similar to what we have seen in the music industry. Actually it has already started. Ebooks are becoming common, and ebook readers are seriously coming now. Amazon has the Kindle, Sony has a reader, and the iPod Touch has a set of ebook reader packages available, some are free, some not. On the other hand, paper books are not going to disappear overnight, there is something about having a *real paper* book in your hands.

I do have an iPod Touch, more about that at a later stage

Every week has an interview with an author, publisher etc.

Finally, the library segment, where they talk briefly about books that have been sent to the studio, and an occasional book review.

In the last episode I listened to there was an invitation to submit content about book publishing, more reviews etc, so I expect to listen to a more varied podcast in the future.

This is one podcast I expect to stay in my iTunes subscription, I particular like that Mike and Mike sound like they are really enjoying doing the show, apart from it being informative and entertaining.

Tags: podcast

Project Gutenberg.

Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 | books | No Comments

If you are looking for legal and free eBooks with the copyright expired, take a look at Project Gutenberg.

The Gutenberg is working on collecting all texts out of copyright, they have more than 25.000 ebooks in the library. They can be downloaded individually, or in collections as DVD or CD-ROM images.They can be found here.

The DVD from July 2007 has about 17.000 titles, most of what was completed at the time.

For SciFi fans there is a CD-ROM for download. Look at the link above.As far as I know there is *some* modern SciFi stories from people like Cory Doctorow who have released them under a Creative Commons License.Most of the titles, however, are more than 70 years old. One story that I actually downloaded and read on my iPod Touch was Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. Having seen the BBC series by Steven Moffat I wanted to read the original story and downloaded and read it.

So, if you are looking for classic old stories, go there. You can most likely find it.

Tags: ebooks, Gutenberg

Escape Pod : “The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham”

Monday, November 17th, 2008 | books, podcast, scifi | No Comments

One of the fiction podcasts I listen to is Steve Eley’s “Escape Pod”. Every week a new short story reading in the Science Fiction genre. previously they had a mixture of Scifi, Fantasy and Horror, but Horror is now done by the sister podcast “Pseudo Pod” and Fantasy by “Podcastle”. If you go back into the archives you will find all three genres represented.

With so many stories it is impossible to find a story I like every week, occasionally I drop the listening after beginning listening to an episode, but mostly I listen through the story.

Some highlights for me would be Mur Lafferty’s “I Look Forward to Remember You” and the Escape Pod 100th episode was a good reading of Isaac Asimov’s classic short story “Nightfall”, first published in 1941

Episode 182 brought H.G. Wells’ “The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham”, the first time the podcast has brought a story from the public domain.

Mr Elvesham, an old and frail philosopher, takes up contact with a young student and offers him to become his heir. The youn man is, of course, cautious but is slowly drawn to the belief that this could be something.

Let’s just say, the intention of the older man is not quite what it appears, there is no happy end, but simply a cautionary tale – “no one is exactly what he or she appears to be”.

In some ways a similar story could be told today (and has been), it is interesting to note that this story is more than 100 years old. For a story publishes in 1896 it feels surprisingly modern. It makes me want to read more og H.G. Wells’ stories.

On another note : The podcast has been coming out every week since May 2005, but due to family (and other) circumstances there will be a hiatus for the rest of the month of November. Steve has a rather long entry in his blog telling the story. The main point, I think is that he may have been pushing too hard to get this going, and needs a breather to regain the fun of doing the podcast. “Pesudo Pod” and “Podcastle” are not affected.

Link :

Escape Pod

Tags: audio, HG Wells, short story

To read or not to read …

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 | books, fantasy, novel, scifi | No Comments

That is the question.

Since the job requires a lot of reading, mainly technical, I have been reading less than I did when I was growing up. At thet time I was considered a “book worm” – eating stories by the page …. most of it science fiction. The first major fantasy work I read was the classic “Lord of the Rings” (no introduction necessary).

After moving to The Netherlands and having my present job I got to read less, but found more science fiction on video/TV, in the beginning Star Trek TNG, later much more.

I did read the occasional Star Trek and Star Wars book, but not much more, and sometimes had a series of books.

The first series I “discovered” was Raymond E. Feist’s “Riftwar Saga” which I loved. After one or two more sequel series the interest waned, and I have not read the later ones.

About 5 years ago a friend in Denmark introduced me to Anne McCaffrey’s writing. As a birthday present I received “Dragonflight”, “Dragonquest” of the “Dragonriders of Pern” series and the first of the “Acorna” series. Out of those I like the “Pern” series the best, but the other one is not bad at all. This lead to another bout of reading for me, then another hiatus.

In between all this came the “Harry Potter” series and I found that it appeals to the child in me as well as the more grown-up.

About a year ago I was talking to a friend I had not seen for a while. When I mentioned the blog and he heard the keyword “science fiction” he interrupted me and asked “You interested in books ?” well – yes, a few days later he arrived with 5 shopping bags full of books in the scifi and fantasy genre. I ended up with about 70 new titles – a considerable increase of my sf/fantasy book collection, some of which I may never get to read.

It looks like I am going to take a bit more time to do some reading, probably some short stories and an occasional novel. (Remember what I said the other day – time is a limited resource). Actually I have started this, having read a few novels lately. Some of the podcasts I am listening to are scifi/fantasy stories/plays, so I do get some fiction “reading” done. Listening to a podcast while walking to and from work sure beats trying to read a book in the traffic .

Tags: books, reading

Arthur C. Clarke : “Travel by Wire” short story

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 | books, scifi | No Comments

“Travel by Wire” was published in 1937 in “Amateur Science Fiction Stories” in December 1937. According to Clarke it was his first story ever published, and for that reason alone I would consider it historical. It has later been published in the “The Best of Arthur C. Clarke 1937 – 1955″, and later again (2000) in the book I found it in : “Arthur C. Clarke – The Collected Stories” with about 100 of his short stories.

The story is only 4 pages long, in spite of that I quite like it. It concerns the possibilities of sending not just voice, but also matter as signals through wires. To be sure, it also mentions “the radio transporter”, but considers it less reliable. a bit of rivalry between labs where the “wire transporter” and other things are researched gives the story a bit of humour as well. I also liked the final statement of the story.

In such a short story you do not find any character development, it is all about the idea.

I have no doubt that this story was inspiration for the “beaming” transporter in “Star Trek”.

I have recently learned that Clarke and Roddenberry had a long lasting friendship.

Now I have to read some more of the stories of this book. It also contains (no surprise) “The Sentinel” which in part is the basis for Clarke’s most famous work “2001 – A Space Odyssey”

Tags: clarke, short story

Arthur C. Clarke died at 90

Saturday, March 29th, 2008 | authors, books, science, scifi, space, technology | No Comments

I know this happened last week, but the preparations for going to the Eastercon/Orbital2008 have overshadowed most other things. See also previous post.

I first became aware of Atrhur C. Clarke through the movie/novel “2001 – A Space Oddyssey” which made a considreable impression on my young self.

One of my favorite longer stories by Clarke is “Rendezvous With Rama”.

I have on my shelf a brick of a book with about 100 short stories by Clarke , I think I will slowly work my way through those.

At the convention I found a signed copy of “Tales From the White Hart”, and despite the (understandably rather high) price I just had to get it. Should read the short stories in that one, too.

I see Arthur C. Clark as one of the giants in science fiction, and a very influential science writer – one of the few science fiction writers with a scientific writer’s background.

It was good to see a last minute addition to the Eastercon programme of a panel discussion about Clarke’s influence in science as well as science fiction. On top of that, one of the panelists had been the secretary for Arthur C. Clarke for about a year, and he could bring light on theless public sides of the author. Nicely done.

He will be missed in the scifi community.

My early Christmas.

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 | books, fantasy, scifi | No Comments

Count me lucky.I just got a really good early Christmas present.

I talked to a friend of mine on the phone the other day and mentioned my interest in scifi, and he promptly said he probably had something for me. He had collected a pile of books for an English speaking lady in Denmark, but it turned out most of it was SciFi, and she was not really interested. But they both thought that the books should find a home and not simply be dumped. So I received 4 shopping bags full of SciFi/Fantasy books, about 100 books by authors like::

Tad Williams, William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Asimov, Heinlein, Alfred Bester, Stanislaw Lem, Michael Stackpole (Fortress Draconis), Frederik Pohl, Joe Haldeman, Robert Jordan, Larry Niven, Greg Bear, David Brin, Philip K. Dick, George R.R. Martin, Kim Stanley Robinson (the full Mars Trilogy) and more …

Most of the books I did not have already, so a very neat addition to my collection. Many of the books were even unread.

Another bag had some “normal” classic stories from Alexander Dumas and others.

Wow for an early Christmas gift! Now for finding some new shelf space.

I wonder when I get the time to read all this …

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, and a Happy New Year 2008.

My little contribution to the Eurocon

Thursday, October 4th, 2007 | Eurocon, books | 2 Comments

A family member of mine in Denmark is a young writer (my niece). It does not come from strangers, both her parents have books published.

She writes short stories in the SF and Fantasy genre – and as far as I know, she is writing on a fantasy novel. She has had a few short stories published in Denmark – in collections with other writers.

In 2004 and 2005 she won a Danish SF award in the category 17 – 20 years old writers – and in 2006 at the Eurocon in Kiev the Danish delegation made a presentation on her behalf, and she was awarded an Encouragement Award for New Writers. I had to find thet out by looking into the list of award winners, because she never told me. Imagine my surprise at seeing only two Western European names among the long list of Eastern European writers, one of them hers.

At the Eurocon 2007 she was asked to contribute an English language short story for a “Fanzine” short story collection to be released in connection with the Eurocon. Since she does not write very well in English, she asked me to assist with a translation. The story is only 6 – 7 pages long, so I got started. Not as easy as most people would think, since I wanted to translate the sense of the story, not just the words.

So there you have it – my own little contribution to the Eurocon 2007.

The book has the title “Science Fiction – The Danish Fanzine!” (Issue 15/2007)

On another note, I was talking to another participant of the ‘con and, since he had the book, I mentioned the story and he immidiately went to my young niece and asked her to sign the book. He argued that young writers should be encouraged. I should have been quick with the camera (I wasn’t), because this was a first time experience for her.

As an aside, she had another short story in a book released at the ‘con , albeit in Danish. That book is titled “Lige Under Overfladen” (Just Below the Surface) and is a collection of short stories from young European writers (not yet well known, but who knows if and when ?)

Actually I made a second contribution by taking photos at the convention and delivering 2 CDs with all pics taken on the Friday and Saturday of the convention.

A large selection of those have been published here .

Impressions from Eurocon 2007 (5)

Sunday, September 30th, 2007 | Eurocon, books, events | 1 Comment

Sunday : Anne McCaffrey and Zoran Zivkovic readings :

Anne McCaffrey chose to read the short story “The Ship Who Sang” (is the title afaik) , a beautiful and very emotional story that I had not yet heard or read. The story, she told, was written in response to the too early death of a close relative, and she told the audience that this was the first time she could read through the story without breaking down.

For me the surprise of Sunday was the reading of Zoran Zivkovic from Serbia. A BBC recording of his story about a conversation with God (though strictly speaking not quite Science Fiction) was very humorous, and I will try to get some more of his work for reading.

Finally a talk by Lene Kåberbøl, a Danish author of childrens books and fantasy books. What she said about the role of translators of stories struck a cord with me, since I have attempted such a thing myself – and know some of the difficulties of making a good translation – not of the words – but of the essence of the story.

Impressions from Eurocon 2007 (4)

Sunday, September 30th, 2007 | Eurocon, books, cons, events | No Comments

Saturday (2) : More Anne McCaffrey :

An hour long Q&A session and the speech as Guest of Honour with Anne McCaffrey again showing us a *very* lively “Dragon Lady”, telling her story as an author and as a person.
I took the opportunity to get a single book signed by this excellent author : “The White Dragon” , the 3rd book of the Dragonriders of Pern series, and in my view one of the very best of the extensive series.

Also the “Trekkies.dk” had an open coffee meeting . The rest of the day – until the banquet was spent chatting along with other fans – getting to know some new people.

Since I did not have a ticket for the banquet I was watching a quite amusing film about convention goers and their quirks. The title esacapes me, but it was a BBC production.