Tactical Highlighter

I get a fair number of requests for information about the podcast fiction I like. This will highlight that and anything else I find interesting.

The stuff I'm linking here is a bit on the older side. This is partly because I should have been linking these things before so I'm a bit behind, and partly because you might miss these stories if I just told you about the websites.

Audio:
• The Stars My Brothers by Edmond Hamilton (read by Gregg Margarite). This 1962 story is about the first man to be frozen in space, and then unfrozen. It plays with the cliché of finding human life on other planets, and is a bit more forward thinking than a film that would come six years after it: The Planet of the Apes. And, as I mentioned, Gregg Margarite is the reader, and that's always a treat.
• Decoder Ring Theatre's Shinkei and Thinking in Ternary. DRT does their work like old school radio dramas. There's a lot of love in these productions and even if you're not nostalgic for the good old days of crowding around the family radio to listen to a story, I think you'll love these. Shinkei is a story about the last hacker on Earth, and Thinking in Ternary is about the first viable artificial intelligence.
• Will McIntosh's One Paper Airplane Graffito Love Note, presented by PodCastle. Ever thought a book, movie, or TV show ‘stole’ one of your ideas? Well, at least they weren't stealing the story of your life one treasured event at a time. One of the things I enjoy about PodCastle's selection choice is that even though the stories are Fantasy, they are generally not stereotypical Fantasy. This one is technically Urban Fantasy, but no one is running around casting magic and the story is the most important thing.
• Nancy Kress's Patent Infringement, presented by Escape Pod. Did you know that pharmas are allowed to patent genes you were born with? This story centers on a man whose genes were used to cure a cold ... and the trouble he gets in when he asks the pharma for compensation.
• SFFaudio put up a post with Chris Anderson's Free: The Future of a Radical Price. This is a non-fiction book (and audiobook) on the economic dynamics of providing goods and services without charge. The third paragraph of SFFaudio's post has a link to a zipped, unabridged, DRM-free copy of the audio book. If you work in business, own a business, or are thinking about starting one, you seriously need to listen to this book.

Other:
• Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. D.B. Grady's review introduced me to this book. I actually didn't read that far into the review because I was intrigued enough to know I wanted to read the book and didn't want any spoilers. I finished reading the book in two sittings, and this is the first book in years that I've sacrificed sleep over. Very light science fiction elements. For a more in-depth review, check out my guest review on Dear Editor.