(Unless stated otherwise, all links are podcast RSS feeds. If you want a particular homepage, then use google like everyone else.)
I had a little podcast crisis this past month. I moved on the first of June, so the entire month of May, not only was I burning through podcasts as usual at work, but I devoured them like mad at home as I worked on packing up all my stuff and cleaning the old place.
I got as low as just a few tens of megs of audio media.
This state of affairs came about partially because I had deleted some feeds. I decided that I couldn’t really stand Michael Feldman after all. BBC’s "Best of Natural History Radio" turned out to be far more boring than I was willing to tolerate. And it turns out that Physics and Economics lectures are just as incomprehensible in MP3 format as they are in person.
Luckily, there’s been some new avenues of audio entertainment that have opened up for me.
The Sonic Society (site) isn’t so much a single podcast as it is a glommed showcase of audio drama -slash- radio theater -slash- audio cinema. A significant part of the "interview" section is arguing over which term to use.
It took me a while to figure out the format, but Sonic Society is basically sample dramas from various audio theatrical groups. The Firefly fanfic productions are done by the Sonic Society crowd itself under the auspice of the "Sonic Cinema".
Each episode is between 60 and 90 minutes long. The first twenty minutes is Jack and Shannon, the hosts, bantering in an endearing manner that nevertheless always goes on way too long. Then there’s an episode of audio drama. Then there’s an interview with the creators of the preceding drama. Up until this point I had thought that nothing could be more boring than NPR interviews of jazz musicians, but I guess I was wrong. Then, if you’re lucky, there’s another drama or a soap opera from New Zealand.
The quality of the featured dramas varies widely. I can only tolerate this show if I allow myself to delete an episode the moment it starts to suck. But the back-library of episodes is vast, and a heck of a lot of it truly rocks. And I certainly respect them for being the central distribution point for this community.
Episodes featuring "Colonial Radio Theater (site)" are pure gold, but unless you have XM radio or you’re willing to pay actual money (gasp!) for the CDs, you’re probably not going to hear them anyplace else. It’s probably worth putting money down to hear Colonial Radio Theater more often. The production quality of this group is easily the equal of the old ZBS productions, which also has a podcast these days (including The Adventures of Ruby2, a sci-fi adventure drama that I bought as audio tape back in the 80s).
Decoder Ring Theater has consistently rocked my world. Their "Red Panda Adventures," featuring the eponymous Canadian superhero oscillate between sublime silliness and a tone-perfect imitation of the old Shadow radio series. It makes me painfully nostalgic for the 30s, an odd feeling for someone who is only in his 30s.
Shlock Audio Theater(site) doesn’t have an RSS right now, but they do have a webpage filled with audio-re-creations of trashy movies. I particularly like the way they narrated their version of "Robot Monster" with a Bela Lugosi accent. Now that’s just classy!
There’s actually too many great Sonic Society associate groups to talk about them all, and I’m only a third of the way through the podcast backlog.
The most amusing thing about Sonic Society is the way that Jack and Shannon maintain the conceit of broadcasting from a fictional state called "Nova Scotia." Naming a state after an exploding star, now that’s just silly!
Now I’ve gone a step even further into the podcast universe by getting a free membership with podiobooks.com(site). This is a vast warehouse of speculative fiction, generally novels read by the authors. A lot of the promoted product is by the same handful of names that show up with Escapepod and associated podcasts.
I’ve started listening to Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps a down-and-out superhero novel. Ms.Lafferty is ubiquitious throughout the podsphere, so it’s good to see that she as the talent to back it up.
Scott Sigler (pronounced "Ziggler!") has promoted his book "Infected" with all the ferocity of a Tasmanian devil. It already automatically downloaded in PDF format on my Escapepod feed, and from what I hear, it’s the first podcast novel that’s got itself an honest-to-god publishing house publishing release. I’m about two sections into it, and have yet to be bowled over, but I was extremely impressed by Sigler’s BloodCast, an anthology of gruesome horror. Sigler is big into shouting, self-promotion, and non-subtlety, so I have no doubts that he will be a huge star.
And to follow up on some of the previous podcasts I’ve mentioned, I’ve been incredibly impressed with "Silver Street." Just to give an example of how awesome it is, just before I cancelled the feed to the other BBC daily soap "The Archers", both BBC soaps had a character with an at-risk pregnancy. In "The Archers" the baby got rescued at the last minute. In "Silver Street" the baby’s heart stopped beating and the woman had to carry a dead baby in her for several episodes before they forced a stillbirth.
Dude, that’s raw.
And then there are the "Silver Street" characters of Zak and Fatimah. About a month ago they got married in a rush ceremony that their families couldn’t attend. And then the British security services came for Zak. While they were pushing him into the van, Fatimah saw him and rushed across the street to be at his side, only to be struck by a car. While the feds grilled Zak on suspected terrorism links, Fatimah slipped into a coma and died.
I’m not too proud to say that I got choked up over it. Yeah, I cry when I listen to my stories, you want to make something of it?
Basically, I’ve been consistently impressed by "Silver Street"’s consistently powerful emotional content. The writing makes it worth a look.