podcast

Fiction Podcasts Part I – The Big 3

/ Shane / 2 Comments

I spend a lot of time listening to audio fiction. I mostly download full length audio books from the library, but it later I discovered that there are a lot of sites and podcasts out there that do weekly episodes of short fiction.

I have always enjoyed short fiction, but it seems to work especially well in this format. It usually takes me a couple of weeks to listen to a novel, but I can do a piece of short fiction in a day or two, maximum. There are advantages to each length, but I really have been enjoying getting in the car and anticipating a totally new story. It provides great variety.

Most of these have been going for a long time, so there are hundreds of episodes out there. So, you can go browse these sites yourself, or you can do what I did: go off one of the “best of” lists out there on the Internet. I’ve been using the lists over at Diabolical Plots (Get it? Plots? Diabolical Plots?) to get a run-down of where to start. Now certainly my tastes aren’t exactly the same, and I’m sure I’m missing out on some great stories, and on the other hand I don’t always love the stories selected, but it gives me a pretty good flavor of what’s going on there.

When it comes to speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, and/or horror) podcasts, there are three that sort of stand out from the rest as being especially well known and high quality, one for each genre. I don’t think you can really go wrong with any of these, so just pick the appropriate one for the genre you like (or pick all three if you can’t choose, like I did). Again, all of these feature really good short fiction, which can be downloaded totally free. What’s not to love?

Escape Pod – Science Fiction (best of lists here and here).

My super, super condensed list of favorites include stories that vary from hilarious (Connie, Maybe, or The Love Quest of Smidgen the Snack Cake) to poignant and sad (Barnaby in Exile). Anybody who thinks science fiction can’t be moving should really check the last one out!

PodCastle – Fantasy (best of lists here and here).

This one really runs the gamut of fantasy, from the more traditional fantasy (Sir Hereward and Mr. Fitz Go to War Again) to other, very dark fantasy (The Mermaid’s Tea Party). Note that fantasy here doesn’t necessarily mean traditional sword and sorcery, but many other things in between (take Sir Hereward and Mr. Fitz up there…very interesting and non-traditional).

Pseudopod – Horror (best of here and here).

Horror is a genre that I just can’t help but come back to. I love it! So I have a lot of personal favorites here: Hometown Horrible, The Evil-Eater, Suicide Notes, Written by an Alien Mind, The Button Bin,  and Bottle Babies, to name a few. Particularly, you should stick with Hometown Horrible. It starts slow, but wow does it finish strong!

Stay tuned for tomorrow when I cover some of the smaller fiction podcasts!

SModcast

/ Shane / 1 Comment

I forget how I stumbled on this, but one of my favorite directors Kevin Smith has as podcast which goes by the name of SModcast. The name is derived from the names of the two hosts, Kevin Smith and his long time producer Scott Mosier. It is so funny that I have burst out laughing many times to the odd looks of my co-workers.

If you like Kevin Smith, and especially if you liked his “Evening With” series, I would most heartily recommend it. If, on the other hand, you have even the slightest chance to be offended, then I would most heartily NOT recommend it. In fact, I will let their own disclaimer speak for itself:

SModcast features harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Listener discretion is advised.

If you do have nerves of steel, you might start with the following episodes:

  1. Episode 29, Harry Scotter
  2. Episode 52, in which a discussion of great length explores what kind of powers you could get from Satan in order to fight Jesus (answer: not a whole lot)
  3. Episode 10, I think this is the one where they discuss the secret lives of chickens

There is also a great one about the awful things that happened when Kevin’s wiener dog Shecky went into heat, but I couldn’t remember which episode that was.

I think the best episodes are those with Mosier, which are about half the episodes. If Scott can’t be there, fill in host Walt Flannagan is the next best.