Tag Archives: skyboat media

Learning Letters goes to Lightspeed! 🚀

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Lightspeed Magazine Feb 2023 Issue

Get ready to buckle up … we’re going to Lightspeed! 🚀   Releasing today in the February Issue of Lightspeed Magazine is a new story podcast that I had the pleasure of narrating, called Learning Letters, written by Carrie Vaughn and produced by Skyboat Media.

I have been a long time fan of Vaughn’s writing, so having the opportunity to narrate this really cool, original new sci-fi story, was truly such a treat.

Learning Letters follows Enid, an investigator living in a post-apocalyptic world, who encounters a stranger that arrives in the fields of their small community, known as Haven.  This stranger is from a distant part of the world, intent on delivering a letter dated 30 years ago,  just after the fall.

As the stranger slowly steps down onto the field, exiting from a type of aircraft that the folks in Haven have only ever read about in journals and letters,  he speaks in an odd language –  one that sounds similar to Enid’s – but at first, is just on the edge of her understanding.  As we learn more about the stranger and the recipient of this letter that’s taken 30 years to deliver, these two individuals, find common ground – a way to bridge this gap of time and place – so that they might finally recapture a poignant lost moment from the past.  A moment that has begged to be delivered…

You can listen to, or read Learning Letters by heading over to the February Issue of Lightspeed Magazine, where you’ll be able to access this new story for free online.

Lightspeed Magazine is a Hugo Award-winning digital science fiction & fantasy online magazine, edited by John Joseph Adams and hosted by Jim Freund.

That’s all for now.  See you on the bit stream!

Broodmare – New Story Podcast Drops in the January Issue of Fantasy Magazine!

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fantasy use this promoHello 2023!  I can’t think of a better way to start the year, than with the release of a new story podcast!  Dropping this week over at Fantasy Magazine in the January Issue is an incredibly poignant and impactful story podcast that I had the immense honor and pleasure of narrating called Broodmare – written by Flossie Arend and produced by Skyboat Media.   

This stirring fiction moves back and forth between two different timelines, all from the point of view of Marge.  As a child, Marge discovers that she has a unique and powerful gift that not only can help save the life of the beautiful roan she is caring for, but can also be used years later to help countless women. 

Broodmare begins on a lone country road in the middle of nowhere, in a car with two passengers who are embarking on an important mission.  A mission that propels them straight for the border.  This particular border, however, can seal their fate quicker than the blink of an eye, if even the slightest mistake is made.  The tension is palpable.  The road is vast.  The people in need are many. 

Throughout the 58 minutes or so of this story,  we come to know and care for the rich characters that author Flossie Arend has so artfully crafted.   From our main characters, Marge and Trace, to the woman in the grocery store, to Delores – who is always at the ready with a much needed hug, to the frightened women that Marge aids, to the beautiful roan that this moving story continues to shift back to, to Bill at the border, who thinks his mind is open and fair, yet he is unable to see Trace for who they really are, and finally – to the many people in Marge’s commune who work together tirelessly in a desperate effort to bring about change.  By the time we reach the end of Broodmare,  the journey has been felt,  the road has been traveled, and hopefully, our minds have been opened … just a little bit more.  I know mine has. 

If you would like to find out more about Broodmare, it’s easy to do and won’t cost you a dime.  Here’s how: 

Just head on over to Fantasy Magazine in the Jan 2023 issue, where you can either read or listen to Broodmare.  Here’s the link.  

    

Slow Communication – New Fiction Story Podcast Releases on Fantasy Magazine

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slow communication

Releasing today on Fantasy Magazine’s story podcast is Dominique Dickey’s unique and prolific short fiction, Slow Communication.  I so enjoyed narrating this captivating story that travels from generation to generation. It’s a story shared amongst a long line of women, women who have come into contact at one moment in their lifetime, with an otherworldly being. Women who are given one chance to ask the question of a lifetime.  

Slow Communication follows the life of 17 year old Darla Revere.  Darla is a part of this conversation, this continuum, so to speak.  Each of the Revere women, have in their lifetime, been visited by this alien – this leviathan.  As a child, Darla had heard over and over again, that one day the leviathan would come for her, and that it would come for her when she least expected it.  The leviathan’s contact would evoke immense joy and pain, simultaneously.  All words, all ideas – would be knocked out of your mind by the sheer intensity of the contact, so you had better have your question ready; you needed to have it down pat. You had to know it better than you knew anything else in your life.  And if you changed yourself too much, if you did not bear a resemblance to the women in your family line, the leviathan may not be able to find you when it was your time.  Generation upon generation, questions from the Revere line, along with the leviathan’s answers, were documented, recorded, and passed down to the eldest Revere daughter in the family.  Each daughter waited for this moment.  Their moment.  And thus far, only one daughter had lived to hear the answer to her question.  Darla wanted to change all that. 

One question.

One question to last a lifetime. 

What would your question be?

To listen to Slow Communication, come on over to Fantasy Magazine, Issue 76 of the February offering, where you can listen free of charge here.  This podcast was produced by Skyboat Media. 

 

New Fiction Story Podcast – I WOULD – Releases On Fantasy Magazine

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Step out and fly away … with a new fantasy from Fantasy Magazine! 

I had so much fun narrating this captivating new fiction –  I WOULD by Benjamin C. Kinney releasing this week in the July issue of Fantasy Magazine.  
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Kinney creates a world of magic in this bewitching story that is filled with rich characters and endless possibilities. Endless possibilities, that is … if you happen to be a seer. 

A seer is a person who prophesies future events, and in I WOULD, Knira, is one such person.  She receives her visions through the constellations in the sky.  Knira however, is currently being held captive in a jeweled castle, by robber Queen, Iroda, Warden of the Tollgate. Queen Iroda wants to know what Knira sees in the constellations, and she will stop at nothing to get a glimpse of these visions. Two visitors soon arrive at the castle, Atyce Dragon-Slayer and her traveling companion, Despina – who is dressed in full mail regalia, with sword ready.  The evening begins with a feast to welcome the visitors, … although these visitors are not really welcome. Each person in this intimate party, has their own feast in mind.  As the tension mounts, Knira needs to find a way to cast her eye to the sky, so she can hatch a plan of escape. In one quick moment, she gets away from the guard with just enough time to throw open the shuttered windows.  She stares into the sliver of night, and her visions immediately begin to unfold.  She wonders “what would our lives be if we failed to strive for something glittering beyond our grasp?”  If Knira decides to takes one of the paths that is indeed, glittering beyond her grasp … just how would it play out?  As she is dragged away from the window, we soon learn, that there are many ways … to interpret a vision.
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I WOULD can be found in Issue 69 of Fantasy Magazine.  If you’d like to listen to to this story, please visit Fantasy Magazine here where you can listen or read the story, free of charge. 

Big thank you to the always incredible team at Skyboat Media, for inviting me on the magic carpet ride into this  enchanted world. 

 

The Shadow Prison Experiment – goes LIGHTSPEED!

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Landing this month in Lightspeed Magazine’s August 2020 issue is a new reprint of The Shadow Prison Experiment, written by Caroline M. Yoachim and appearing with a podcast, narrated by yours truly. I really love Yoachim’s writing and had so much fun narrating this exciting work of dystopian fiction.

The Shadow Prison Experiment explores the concept of a society where people wear skin overlays of generic default… which is kind of like a cross between a nondescript human and a silver android! The people here are either citizens, shadowkeepers or shadow prisoners. A shadow prisoner is someone who has undermined the system in some way and is therefore cast into Shade. Shades don’t go to an actual prison for their supposed crimes, instead a shadow prisoner just gets filtered out…even from themselves. They can no longer see their own skin – their body now only appears before them as a featureless, smoky image. If that isn’t frightening enough, everyone and everything else has also been filtered out, even sound. The only people that the Shade can now see and hear, are the Shadowkeepers, who keep them in line.

The Shadow Prison Experiment,  follows Vivian, a mom to sixteen year old Cass.  When Cass is at risk of being arrested for attending a protest, Vivian steps in to protect Cass, and is instead, herself cast in to Shade.  Faced with a choice to accept her new reality or find a way to fight against it, Vivian plunges deep into Shade to find a way to end the Shadow Prison Experiment once and for all.

This story is part of a novelette called Shadow Prisons. The Shadow Prison Experiment was originally published on June 30, 2020 in The Dystopia Triptych, Vol. 1: Ignorance is Strength, edited by John Joseph Adams, Christie Yant, and Hugh Howey, and is now available on Audible and at Amazon. Do check it out! This is a really cool three part anthology. Dystopia Triptych, as well as the podcast at Lightspeed Magazine, are produced by the Grammy and Audie award winning team at Skyboat Media.

 

 

Stay safe and buckle up – MELTING LIKE METAL – goes LIGHTSPEED!

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Landing today is a really cool Sci-fi story that I had so much fun narrating.  Melting Like Metal  is written by the talented Ada Hoffman, and sweeps us into the world where her novel, The Outside, takes place.

In Melting Like Metal, however, we are now in the POV of cyborg, Enga.  As an angel of the God called Nemesis, Enga is no longer human. That’s not to say, she still doesn’t have her own share of struggles. She most definitely does.  One of which, is she is not able to speak. For me as an narrator, this was an exciting challenge to play around with. Enga’s only way of communicating now, is by sending text messages from her heavily modified, technological brain.

This story takes off at warp speed and was truly awesome to work on.  If you’d like to check out the podcast, just head on over to Lightspeed Magazine. This podcast was produced by the amazing team at Skyboat Media, and was edited by John Joseph Adams and hosted by Jim Freud.

So…are you ready? Let’s go LIGHTSPEED 🚀

Dragons, Aliens and Space Pirates…oh my! DRAGONCALLER Releases on Audio!

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From authors Lee French and Jeffrey Cook comes a new action-packed series you don’t want to miss – DRAGONCALLER – Stardrifter, Book One! 

So excited to have co-narrated this awesome book, opposite the talented Judy Young. Published by the amazing team at Skyboat Media, with fabulous direction by Cassandra De Cuir and Claire Bloom Benedek, talking to dragons was never so much fun.

Throw in a little romance, some pirates and a few aliens all while trying to save humanity and hey it makes for a pretty good day!

Want to get your dragon fix? Stop on over at Audible and Amazon.com.

DRAGONCALLER is now available!

 

The Lonely Heart … Just In Time For Valentine’s Day!

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B7PPZ1lCIAE2B4tAlthough not your typical Valentine’s Day love story… The Lonely Heart  is a story sure to capture your heart.  I had so much fun recording this hauntingly disturbing tale, mainly because the writing of Aliette de Bodard is so good!! The story is now available at Lightspeed Magazine and it is a retelling of the “The Painted Skin” from Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.

The Lonely Heart is graphic, explicit, dark and all the while completely compelling. Part of the fun for me as a narrator is learning about the places & traditions of the characters that I get to portray. To get into the right mind-space for this particular story, I spent a lot of time researching the area of China where the story took place, most specifically the “Ghost City” of old Fengdu. It’s incredibly fascinating! In case you’re interested, here is an article on some of the historic facts & myths of this old city located on the bank of the Yangtze River. Enjoy! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fengdu_Ghost_City

“Two-Ton Tony had a hard body…” JUPITER WRESTLERAMA – A wonderfully rich, captivating story that I had the pleasure of narrating

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“Two-Ton Tony had a hard body…” JUPITER WRESTLERAMA – A wonderfully rich, captivating story that I had the pleasure of narrating is now available at Lightspeed Magazine.  This gripping story is about murder, betrayal, love, and intrigue and it all takes place on a cramped space station!

I have become an immediate fan of the writer, Marie Vibbert. Her stunning use of language and imagery in Jupiter Wrestlerama made this particular story incredibly exciting for me to narrate.

You can listen to the podcast of Jupiter Wrestlerama for free here:  Jupiter Wrestlerama.  Be sure to stay and check out the many other incredible stories that the 2014 Hugo Award Winning Lightspeed Magazine has available online. You won’t be disappointed!

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SALVAGE written by Carrie Vaughn

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We’ve had a blast this month destroying Science Fiction and taking over Lightspeed Magazine’s June Issue.  Here is a link to the story SALVAGE  that I had the pleasure of narrating.  This was such fun. I mean…how often does one get to play the captain of a space ship after all? Not often enough, if you ask me!

I also really love Carrie Vaughn’s writing and was super excited to be able to read her fabulous words once more. Enjoy!

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/salvage/