And this time from JC Hutchins!  He’s gearing up for the release of his novel Personal Effects: Dark Arts podcast prequel Sword of Blood and you can learn a bit more about it here.  Share, enjoy, have fun and please help continue the support of our podcast novelists.

Having spent a good portion of the day listening to Metamor City and trying to catch up… particularly since I had to start it over again… I can’t say that I’m not listening to podcasts anymore.  Just not listening to them at work.

Why?  Because two of my many favorite podcasters are totally NOT safe for work.  As can be discovered here in this brilliant advertisement for the upcoming Parsec Awards.  Poor Hutch.

Let’s keep supporting the podcasters, nominate your favorite qualifying podcast for a Parsec today!

One thing I haven’t discussed around here much lately is podcasts.  I haven’t gone cold turkey, but I’m limited, by choice & ancient MP3 player, in the capacity as to when I can listen to them anymore.  I tend not to have them running when my husband is home, we’re usually listening to Pandora then.  The only exception to the rule is Piggy Moto and that’s because he’s in it…. Then again, so am I.

So, now that I have a day off and there’s only 3 kittehs in the house with me, its time to open up iTunes and dust off the podcasts.  So I’m playing catch up today with the hope of getting some new articles written up for you all.

What am I listening to today?

New World Orders
UltraCreatives
Obsidian
Infected
Nocturnal
Chasing the Bard
Starkeeper
Metamor City
…and anything else I’ve missed, which I’m sure is a lot.

It’s a long list and I’m hoping to get through it all today.  We’ll see what we see.  I may save Starkeeper for when Sloane’s home with me, Star Wars nut that he is.

In the meantime, if you have a bit of time to waste, I’ll point you back to the list above.  Anything off of it is a winner.

For now, I’m going to enjoy my day off from answering phones.

Well folks, tonight is the full moon and that means we should have the very first episide of Piggy Moto.  Nick has worked his curly tail off on this one, and I’m willing to wager it sounds fantastic.  I hope you’ll give this new podcast a chance on your playlists and help support my co-writer’s show by giving it a listen.  You’ll even get to hear me….  eventually! 

Well Rats.  Just saw an update and this is delayed until Thursday.  Oh the sweet antici……

Nick posted this one in June and I’ve finally tuned in.  This story is amazing and I’m on pins and needles waiting for the next part to drop.  You’ll get my review later, but for now, check out “You Gotta See This” in the sidebar and give a listen to New World Orders.  That is, unless, you want Samuel Tan ordering your death.

I don’t like political drama mumbo jumbo – presidents and spies and rich people who have too many rubber duckies for their own good. PLEH!

That having been said, I’m listening to Edward G. Talbot’s New World Orders I was a little leery at first, but this thing gripped REAL quick.. RIGHT inside the guts. So.. Yeah.

The world is all burnies- destroyed and stuff; there’s a huge conspiracy going on; and there’s JUST enough creative historical speculation to make me go: “HOLEY CARPTURDS! DOUBLE TEA EFF?!!”

I don’t really know where to begin describing the plot.. *thinks* Okay, you know all those global energy conspiracy theories? Well, they are really going on. Cold fusion, moon landing, oil embargos. they are real, and there is ONE man behind it all (well, a man and his group of cohorts). The world is going to end, they know how and pretty much when, and they are cashing in.

Well, enter the tabloid editor. He gets a weird call from some wormy N.A.S.A guy who puts a bug in his ear and gets his noodle going. And thus the ball starts rolling!

The pacing is comfortable, the scenes are quick enough to keep interest and intrigue brewing, and the writing is pretty durn tight! *squinty look* I don’t quite know what to make of the intro music.. and the outro music makes it sound like I’m wandering down 6th street in Austin on Friday Night. But the scene break sound *Pshooooom* it AWESOME!

There aren’t 5,000,000,000 characters to think about too, which I REALLY like. just a couple – good ones at that. there are a couple plot lines going on, and like I said, the pacing really makes it easy to follow along.

Now, THIS story isn’t finished yet, so you can still get in on it pretty close to the ground floor. There’s even some Audience input forums, so we can all take part. I started listening out of curiosity today, and I’ve not turned it off since. You better believe this one is going into my Subscribe list!

Anyway. I’ve blathered enough for now. Great stuff, well chosen narrative voice (imho), fun and talented performance- just great stuff. Check it out. get in on the ground floor. Listen and subscribe. tell your friends.

You KNOW how the world ends up.. The question is WTF HAPPENED?! Listen and find out!

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Originally posted on 4/21/2008 by FlippantMoniker about the Playing for Keeps podcast(which is why the original cover is still here).  Repost value – it’s Mighty Monday, there’s no better reason than that.

Well, now I’d like to yammer a bit about Mur Lafferty‘s Playing For Keeps.

Fantastic!!

This novel is set in a very recognizable future, where a small fraction of the population has developed super powers. There are the usual players: Heroes, Villains, Police.. But there are also those people who’ve developed.. Hmm.. let’s not call them “powers”. Let’s call them.. special quirks. There’s a chick who will never drop her bar tray. There’s a dude who shoots poop out of his hands. Ooh ooh, and a guy who has ultimate, unquestioned power and control.. over elevators. And then there’s our heroine: Keepsie. Her special power: nothing belonging to her can be stolen.

The story is comfortable and easy to follow. Mur’s performance and writing are really, just delightful. She’s got some teeth, and characters to buy the farm, but it’s not a slaughter fest, which I appreciated. Ooh ooh! And another thing I loved.. Occasionally things would come up in the story, and I’m all like “Wait a minute.. That’s not right because of X Y and Z!!” Then, come to find out, I was right. It’s fun, it’s well put together, and I cared about the characters. Brava! Brava!

I feel a little compelled to say at least something negative, I mean, this isn’t much of an exercise in critique if all I do is gush, right? Hmm, Well, okay, in the beginning, it’s a little hard to keep track of the heroes and their powers. Or, well, the Pseudoheroes. Everyone is very normal, very average (and I think that’s the point) but, I found myself in a couple places wishing I’d kept a list. This levels out though.

Okay, the next thing is not a complaint, so much as a “I hope in the second book she…” statement. Next time, I’d like more in depth exploration of the would be heroes’ powers. We got a great look at them in this book, but if there is a sequel and series to follow (hope hope beg plead hope) then that is one thing I’d like to see more of, How the powers feel to use, how they become instinctive- second nature.. Stuff like that.

Again, we got a great look at that in Playing For Keeps, but I’d like to see even more in the next one.

Seriously, scroll through the entries here, cause there’s a vblog story that’s a lot of fun! And there’s merchandising! That means you can go buy stuff. So, naturally, I compell you. Compelllll compellllll!(Not gonna say it’s adult, compared to other stuff, but there is some violence, some death and some kinda graphic stuff. If you’re SUPER squeamish, maybe have someone screen the “eeeew” bits for you )

That sounds like it has to do with swine doesn’t it?  You’re right, it does.  Sort of.  Swine, and a lot of other animal species, only in anthropomorphic style.

Piggy Moto is the brainchild of our own Nicholas “FlippantMoniker” McRae.  The story is about a small, starting sounder who travels half way across the world to enter a musical talent contest.

What do you mean that sounds boaring?  Believe me when I tell you that boredom is the last thing you’ll be contending with when you experience Piggy Moto.  The story is enthralling and very difficult to put down.

But how can I enjoy something I’ve never heard of?  Like many other really good stories, All Star Boar Band is another tale that got passed up by the publishers and could have easily gone the way of “I Give Up.”  Instead, Nick is publishing the story podcast style.  He’s recording chapters now, with yours truly providing a few of the female voices, but he’s working on an all star and new comer cast as well.

As I’ve always felt that stories should be summarized by their writer’s words, I’ll give you the blurb for Piggy Moto:

It ain’t easy being small, and being a pig is no cakewalk, either.  For Cecil “Eberhard” Berringer – dwarf, porcine musician – life’s just one pain-in-the-butt after another.  He and his friends can’t even participate in a simple, foreign music competition without things going to the Hells in a haversack.  Hope and ambition rapidly turn to paranoia and dread as Eberhard and his friends are thrust into an investigation to bring down a deranged saboteur before mere pranks turn deadly.  As opening night draws close, the swine find themselves reconsidering whether social equality is worth dying for.

So, ya hooked yet?  If not you can find out more about Piggy Moto – All Star Boar Band by visiting the website.  You can pick up a trailer there, read more from Nick and see that this story is kicking off on the next full moon, September 15, 2008.

I think you’ll enjoy Piggy Moto, and I hope you’ll give it a listen.

Super107 is ROCKING Seventh City!  This awesome little radio bit is brought to you by Radio Isopod and SciFi Surplus.

Super107 is a short piece from a radio station set in the Playing for Keeps universe.  It has some awesome music by Sherby and the Futuristic Sex Robots intermixed with ads from Seventh City businesses.  The whole thing is maybe ten minutes long, fifteen tops, and sounds like all I did was turn a radio dial.

It’s also introduced me to more music, and more podcasts, that I need to look into.  Entertainment in compact packages, gotta love it!

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Episode 4 is brought to you by the Geek Survival Guide, another podcast that was instantly added to my rotations.  Man I should have found a job that would let me listen to these at work.  Oh well, I digress…

Geek Survival Guide did a special episode for the Mightiest of Murs and discusses how to recognize villainous lairs.  If you’re living in a crime riddled city, near a dormant volcano or old dark castle I would suggest you don’t go out at night.

Also in the discussion are how to design your hideout, how to install death traps and why heroes have sidekicks.  It had me in stitches and it’s not even a full fifteen minutes long.  There are D&D game masters who would benefit from this episode.  So hang up that herophone, why do you have that thing anyway?, and take a listen.  It’s well worth the time.

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Anything that opens with the Bangle’s Manic Monday is good in my book.  And Manic Mondays meets Seventh City was just awesome.

Manic Mondays is a podcast by Tom Rockwell of Sudden Death.  The show is similar to that of a shock jock’s radio morning program made to ease you into the work week.  He kicks the show off with a song from Sudden Death dedicated to White Lightning which is just absolutely hilarious.

Like any good shock jock he brings on some poor sap to be made fun of and in this case the victim is a Third Waver who excretes water.  Then there’s the News of the Stupid.  These had me rolling on the floor and howling but I have to wonder if they were real or does Tom just have that awesome of an imagination.

There’s more music in the cast, which leaves me hunting down URLs and band names so I can find and enjoy more of this.  Plus it’s another podcast I’m going to have to look into, satirical fun for all is a good thing.

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