SF Signal does it again with a listing of 120 more awesome and free SF/F/H stories, culled from the collection linked at Free Speculative Fiction Online. The stories authors include Kevin J. Anderson, Kage Baker, Peter S. Beagle, Michael Bishop, Terry Bisson, Ben Bova, David Brin, Emma Bull… and that’s just some of the authors listed from the first 2 letters of the alphabet. The more is because they previously posted 76 Free SF/F Audio Stories, a direct link to Starship Sofa’s famous Complete Nebula Best Short Story Nominees 2008, and an absolute ton of individual links in their various Free Fiction posts. Be sure to check out Starship Sofa in detail while you are there, since they have a new quality story pretty much every week. Other sites for good stories include Podcastle and the related Psudopod and Escape Pod, and of course Librivox is a must-visit site for audio stories.
Congrats to 365 Days of Astronomy for taking home a Parsec Award, handed out for excellence in science fiction podcasts (see their award here). If it seems a bit strange that an astronomy podcast won this award, don’t panic (and keep your towel handy), because it was for the category Best “Infotainment” Cast, things that entertain as they educate. As part of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy project, 365 Days certainly does that. If you or your kids have an interest in astronomy, be sure to look into the Galileoscope, a low-cost replica of Galileo’s original telescope that you can build and use for your own. There were a lot of other winners, including PseudoPod for Best Speculative Fiction Magazine or Anthology Podcast, the ScapeCast for Best Speculative Fiction Fan Podcast, Stranger Things for Best Speculative Fiction Video Podcast, Cool Shite on the Tube for Best Speculative Fiction News Podcast, and The FuMP for Best Speculative Fiction Music Podcast. There are a lot of other categories, you can catch the latest roundup of them at Wander Radio, or download the full report here. And then there are the Masquerade Winners for 2009, another group you should be familiar with. And my favorite author post from DragonCon came here by way of Suvudu, with the correct attitude!
There is a new Anime podcast available from the Anime News Network. The first episode covers Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Ponyo and other Miyazaki films, and more.
Anime Today interviewed Bandi Entertainment’s Robert Napton about the new movie EUREKA SEVEN – good night, sleep, tight, young lovers for episode 99. They covered some other interesting topics as well, which mostly involves trying to sell you things, but there are a few good contests you might want to get in on. The movie will be showing on the big screen in the US for one night only on 24Sep09 courtesy of Fathom Entertainment. If you happen to be in Texas this weekend, you might want to hit San Japan, the Japanese Culture and Anime Con in San Antonio. To the north, there is Anime Iowa, and for Europe try Aya Revolution. All the Cons are running Panels, Cosplay, Screening Rooms, and all the other usual; two have AMV competitions, and one has both a J-Pop and J-Rock lounges.
Duncan Jones will be interviewed on Sci-Friday on NPR tomorrow, talking about his movie Moon. They will also be looking into an inexpensive microscope made out of a cell phone and some inexpensive parts; if you want to build your own, you can find details here.
TOR has put together a celebration of the Lunar landing which includes a lot of top-quality SF/F authors putting forward their own input on the topic. It is a little hard to find all the bits, but that’s all right; the team at SF Signal have compiled the links in one handy location for us! If you are one of those folks who love finding the Easter Eggs on DVDs, feel free to skip the cheet sheet and hunt them down on your own. Sci-Fi Heaven has put together their first podcast, called Continuum. The first episode is in standard several-geeks-babbling mode (pretty much the way I would do it, but with more voices), we will see how it evolves.