Journey #141 - If Dragon's Mass Eve Be Cold and Clear by Ken Scholes

Mel Farrelly faces the edge of the world alone after the death of her father on Dargon's Mass Eve.  Many devout wait for the Santaman to return and save them, but Mel looks elsewhere for the fate of her future.

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Art by Gregory Manchess

Relevant Links:
All journeys with Ken Scholes

Ken Scholes grew up in a trailer outside a smallish logging town not far from the base of Mount Rainier in the Pacific Northwest.  Baptized into Story at a young age, he fed himself on Speed Racer, Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants and Marine Boy sprinkled with a generous dose of dinosaur picture books.  When he was thirteen, he read Bradbury's essay "How to Keep and Feed a Muse" and knew he had to be a writer. When he was fourteen, he started writing stories of his own and by fifteen, he had started his own Rejection Slip Collection.

After a long break away from writing, Ken returned to it after logging time as a sailor, soldier, preacher, musician, label gun repairman, retail manager and nonprofit director. He sold his first story to Talebones Magazine in 2000 and won the Writers of the Future contest in 2004. His quirky, offbeat fiction continues to show up in various magazines and anthologies like Polyphony 6, Weird Tales and Clarkesworld Magazine.

In 2006, his short story "Of Metal Men and Scarlet Thread and Dancing with the Sunrise" appeared in the August issue of Realms of Fantasy. Later that year, inspired and taunted by his friends and family to finally write a novel, Ken extended that story and Lamentation was born. Lamentation is the first in a five book series from Tor Books called The Psalms of Isaak.  He has since also written Canticle, Antiphon, and Requiem in that series.

Ken lives near Portland, Oregon.  If you'd like to know more about Ken, you can  contact him through his website.

Cast of characters:

Tina Connolly (of Toasted Cake, and co-host of Escape Pod) as Mel Farrelly
Rish Outfield (of the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine) as Brother Simon
Bryan Lincoln (of Bryan Lincoln Productions) as the Bureaucracy man
James Silverstein (author of Necropolis) as Parson Brown
Marshal Latham as Drum Farrelly (and excerpt reader)

Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space

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OR leave us a voicemail at 77-JINTO-107 (775-4686-107)

Journey #107 - Of Metal Men and Scarlet Threads and Dancing with the Sunrise by Ken Scholes

The great city of Windwir has been destroyed; and the Androfrancine order wiped out.  The only survivor seems to be a lone mechanical man.

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Episode Art courtesy of Allen Douglas

Ken Scholes grew up in a trailer outside a smallish logging town not far from the base of Mount Rainier in the Pacific Northwest.  Baptized into Story at a young age, he fed himself on Speed Racer, Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants and Marine Boy sprinkled with a generous dose of dinosaur picture books.  When he was thirteen, he read Bradbury's essay "How to Keep and Feed a Muse" and knew he had to be a writer. When he was fourteen, he started writing stories of his own and by fifteen, he had started his own Rejection Slip Collection. 

After a long break away from writing, Ken returned to it after logging time as a sailor, soldier, preacher, musician, label gun repairman, retail manager and nonprofit director. He sold his first story to Talebones Magazine in 2000 and won the Writers of the Future contest in 2004. His quirky, offbeat fiction continues to show up in various magazines and anthologies like Polyphony 6, Weird Tales and Clarkesworld Magazine.

In 2006, his short story "Of Metal Men and Scarlet Thread and Dancing with the Sunrise" appeared in the August issue of Realms of Fantasy. Later that year, inspired and taunted by his friends and family to finally write a novel, Ken extended that story and Lamentation was born. Lamentation is the first in a five book series from Tor Books called The Psalms of Isaak.  He has since also written Canticle, Antiphon, and Requiem in that series.

Ken lives near Portland, Oregon, with his amazing wonder-wife Jen West Scholes and their twin daughters: Elizabeth and Rachel.  If you'd like to know more about Ken, you can  contact him through his website.

Cast of characters:

Wilson Fowlie as Rudolfo
Rish Outfield (of the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine) as Isaak
Big Anklevich (of the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine) as Sethbert
Josh Roseman (not the trombonist) as Gregoric
Julie Hoverson (of 19 Nocturne Boulevard) as Lady Jin Li Tam
Nathaniel Lee (of Mirrorshards) as Chief Gypsy Scout, and the Armorer
Bryan Lincoln (of Full Cast Podcast) as the programmer
Johnny Feisty (of TV Copilot) as Sethbert's mechoservitor
Marshal Latham as Narrator

Music used in this production:
Original custom compositions of "Bawdy Androfrancine Song" and "Upbeat Number" by Juicy Melon Jim
"Temping Secrets", "Master of the Feast", and "Truth of the Legend" by Kevin MacLeod

Realated Links:

Edgar Allan Poe Meets Ken Scholes Kickstarter

"Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk" by Ken Scholes on Escape Pod
"Summer in Paris, Light from the Sky" by Ken Scholes on Escape Pod
Ken Scholes on Amazon

Several sound effects were found at freesound.org.


Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space

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Journey #105 - The Nex by Tim Pratt (a preview)

Teenager Miranda Candle finds a mysterious necklace and is suddenly transported to The Nex, the bizarre city at the center of all possible universes, where she falls in with a pair of would-be revolutionaries - the skinshifter Howlaa, and the bodiless Wisp.

To download, right-click here and then click Save

Cast of characters:
Renee Chambliss (author of Dreaming of Deliverance) as Miranda Candle (Randy)
Abigail Hilton (of the Fullcast Podcast and Guild of the Cowry Catchers) as Howlaa Moor
Bryan Lincoln (of the Fullcast Podcast) as Cal Candle, Randy's brother
Marshal Latham as Wisp


Tim Pratt is a science fiction and fantasy writer and poet. He grew up in the vicinity of Dudley, North Carolina, and attended Appalachian State University, where he earned a Bachelor's in English. In 1999 he attended the Clarion East Writing Workshop. He moved to Santa Cruz, California in 2000, and currently resides in Oakland with his wife Heather Shaw and son River. He currently works as a senior editor at Locus Magazine.

Tim's work has appeared in a number of markets, including Asimov's Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, and Strange Horizons. His story "Little Gods" (2002) was nominated for Nebula Award for the Best Short Story. His story "Hart & Boot," first published in Polyphony 4, was reprinted in Best American Short Stories: 2005. His "Impossible Dreams" (Asimov's July 2006) won the Hugo Award in the Best Short Story category. Collection Hart & Boot & Other Stories was a World Fantasy Award finalist in 2008.


If you liked this preview of The Nex, you can finish the adventure in the free serialized blog form, as a paperback or Kindle, or as a continuation of the full cast Audible book.

To listen to the first story set in this world, you can listen to Part 1 and Part 2 of "Dream Engine" by Tim Pratt.  Caution: The roles of the cast are shifted around a bit, as explained in the today's discussion after the preview.

To listen to the further adventures of Miranda and Jenny Kay, you can listen to "We Go Back" by Tim Pratt as read by Mur Lafferty on Escape Pod..


Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space.


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Journey #72 - Respite by Autumn Rachel Dryden

Edward and Ann, who carries their child, race against time to travel to the safety of the caves before the ravenous scupp shells hatch.

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Artwork courtesy of Nathan Pinnock

A special thanks to Bryan Lincoln for producing this epiosde.

Autumn Rachel Dryden is a Colorado native, though her family spent ten years living all over the country during her formative years before re-settling in Denver. The travel bug has never left. She's skinny dipped in Montana, scaled mountains in Nepal, performed mime in Chile, ridden a narrow-gauge railroad in Alaska, climbed a tower in Scotland, and eaten the best pineapple sorbet of her life in Hawaii.

She's building her own business as a massage therapist, wrangles three children, and hopes to someday own retired racing greyhounds and a hot air balloon. In her writing, she asks the question "What if?" and dreams whole worlds in answer.

After its original appearance in IGMS in 2005, "Respite" was re-printed in the IGMS anthology in 2008, and went on to inspire Bryan Thomas Schmidt to create the "Beyond the Sun" Anthology that will be released this summer, filled with stories of other worlds by Robert Heinlein, Nancy Kress, Mike Resnick, and more.

Autumn's next story, "Supermom: 0, Laundry: 1" is forthcoming this summer in the new magazine Blue Shift, and will be available both in print and online."

Cast of characters:

Autumn Rachel Dryden as Narrator

Lauren "Scribe" Harris as Ann

Bryan Lincoln as Nethaniel

Marshal Latham as Edward

Related Links:

Kickstarter for FLYTRAP Magazine, co-edited by Heather Shaw and Tim Pratt

Kickstarter Apology

Byran Lincoln's Fullcast Podcast and My Epic Heals

Willie and Martin Handcart Companies

The Donner Party

Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space


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Side Trip #5 - New Media Expo Panel - Tone and Emotion: The Keys to Compelling Podcast Fiction Narration

A panel featuring Renee Chambliss, Bryan Lincoln, and myself.

 
To download, right-click here and then click Save


Theme music: Surfs Down by Man In Space.

 

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Journey #21 - Dream Engine, Part 2 by Tim Pratt

Episode art by Howard Lyon

When Howlaa and Wisp follow the Fat Man back to his world, they must unravel the mystery behind the dream engine..


To download, right-click here and then click Save

Listen to Part 1 of Dream Engine

Stay updated with Tim Pratt on his blog. Check out more with these characters, and this world, in Tim's YA online novel, The Nex.

Cast of characters:
Renee Chambliss (author of Dreaming of Deliverance) as Wisp
Rish Outfield (of the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine) as the Regent
Bryan Lincoln (of the Fullcast Podcast) as the Fat Man, and the dreamer
Abigail Hilton (of the Fullcast Podcast and Guild of the Cowry Catchers) as the dreamer's wife
Marshal Latham as Howlaa Moor

Music used in this production: Calm at Heaven Disrupted by Industrial Water

Several sound effects were found at freesound.org.
Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space.


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Side Trip #1 - Pardon by Marshal Latham

Is being picked for the Selection more important than friendship?


To download, right-click here and then click Save

Big Thanks to Bryan Lincoln (of the Fullcast Podcast) for producing the episode for me!!

Cast of characters:
This cast is entirely made up of members of the A.I.E. guild in World of Warcraft (hence the gaming names as pseudonyms):

Bryan Lincoln (of My Epic Heals, and the Fullcast Podcast ) as the Narrator
Zhug (of Convert To Raid and the Independent Music Podcast) as Massasoit
RevnGeek (of RevnGeek's Paraody Palace) as Bradford
Shmage as Cranberry
Koltrane  (of Convert To Raid) as Mashed, and the President
Eade (of My Epic Heals) as One of the men

Music used in this production:  "Fit for a king" by Josh Woodward

Several sound effects were found at freesound.org.

Theme music: Surfs Down by Man In Space.

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Journey #20 - Dream Engine, Part 1 by Tim Pratt

Episode art by Howard Lyon

Howlaa and Wisp are are assigned by the Regent to rid Nexington-on-Axis of a murderous naked fat man.


To download, right-click here and then click Save

Listen to Part 2 of Dream Engine

Stay updated with Tim Pratt on his blog. Check out more with these characters, and this world, in Tim's YA online novel, The Nex.

Cast of characters:
Renee Chambliss (author of Dreaming of Deliverance) as Wisp
Rish Outfield (of the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine) as the Regent
Bryan Lincoln (of the Fullcast Podcast) as the Fat Man
Marshal Latham as Howlaa Moor

Music used in this production:  Calm at Heaven Disrupted by Industrial Water

Several sound effects were found at freesound.org.

Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space.

To comment on this story, journey on over to the Forums