Steve Eley, founder of the Escape Pod podcast, joins us to talk about the internet's most popular science fiction podcast and the promising future of audio fiction in this rerun of episode 7 of The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy.
The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy is hosted by John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley.
You can download the MP3 for this episode here, subscribe to The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast feed here, and browse other episodes here.
Read on for this episode's fabulous SHOW NOTES! (Note: Show note time signatures may be slightly off, as the show was re-edited prior to this rebroadcast—it's the director's cut! This episode originally aired on February 15, 2010, on Tor.com.)
Introduction
0:00 Introduction by Tor.com
0:37 Dave and John introduce the show
Interview: Steve Eley, creator and host of Escape Pod*
[* At the time of our original broadcast, Steve was still editing and hosting Escape Pod; since then he's stepped down podcast veteran Mur Lafferty has taken his place.]
01:27 Interview begins
01:47 How Escape Pod began as a paying market, and convincing Steve's wife that he isn't insane
05:08 On fun in fiction and competing with other media for readers' time
08:28 Pairing narrators with stories
11:05 The pitfalls of adapting prose to audio
13:31 Recommended Escape Pod episodes: Connie, Maybe by Paul E. Martens, Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, Nightfall by Isaac Asimov
15:04 The Escape Pod message board, and how to not be a jerk on the internet
17:46 Escape Pod meetups
18:40 The creation of Podcastle and Pseudopod
22:38 Young adults and Escape Pod
23:55 Making the show personal
25:44 Intros and outros
27:15 The present and future of podcasting
30:03 Recommended fiction podcasts: Drabblecast, Decoder Ring Theater, Metamore City Podcast
32:22 End of interview
Dave and John talk about audio fiction
32:23 Dave talks about the history of audio from his frustrated childhood perspective
33:24 John and Dave talks about the audio explosion in SFF and the abomination that is the "abridged" version of any book
36:36 POV in audio books, a challenge for both narrator and listener
37:55 Vanilla narrations vs. ‘acted' narrations, and props to author Jack Kincaid, performer of GGG's intro and outro
42:03 Considering how the prose will be adapted to audio, and Dave talks about text-to-speech software as a writer's tool
45:27 The different experiences of reading vs. listening to a story, and attending readings
47:55 It's "ah-SHEEL," not "uh-KILL-eez": listeners' frustrations
51:08 How podcasting and the web have changed the author-reader relationship in short fiction
52:52 The shortage of audiobook reviews for SFF, and the recent availability of audio samples through sites such as SFFaudio
54:51 Availability of audio books, how and where to find them, and using Markable to rip audio books on cd
56:00 Proto-podcasts: Tell Tale Weekly, and Mech Muse
01:00:07 Recommended listening
01:14:48 Show wrap-up
Thanks for listening!
