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Edward McKeown

Wow does it go fast in Beam Me Up episode 297!

I start off with a new Symphony of Science titled  The Greatest Show on Earth and I follow it up with another piece of music – When Will You Die?  from They Might be Giants.

Not slowing a bit I play episode three of Erin Bassett’s Clockwork.  This week, tensions begin to build higher as classes start in earnest and Ester once again finds that she is in the midst of the same group of antagonists. However the mysterious Holland seems to always be at the right place and right time to keep things from spiraling completely out of control. However he seems to know more about Ester than he is letting on!

Next up Ron Huber gives us a great review of Under the Moons of Mars: The new Adventures of Barsoom. Ron gives us a great review of the Simon and Shuster release due out 2/12/12.

And at the bottom of the hour I play the conclusion of Beautiful Dreamer by Edward McKeown
In part 2 Sagawa is confident that her dream will pervail, and Taluma can not muster the confidence to dream her people’s future. But after aiding the human child Brittony to gain memories of her mother she may have gained more than just a grateful child but a powerful ally in the dream!

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Edward McKeown

Full card this week on Beam Me Up episode 296. Only four episodes away from 300! Yaaaaaaaaa!
Well anyway – this week I start with a new tune from John Anealio’s Season’s Greetings album called “Is a Chupacabra Kosher?” which is every bit as warped as it sounds. Next is episode 3 of the psychic detective arc called In Plain sight by Jason Kahn.

From the beam Me Up blog:

After a 50 year absence from the stage, William Shatner once again is on stage in a one man show, Stephen Kane at NASA’s Science Institute at CalTech is sure that there is every chance that the galaxy can and does support Life, The Russian Phobos Grunt is due to crash and burn sometime this weekend,  with all the Apollo sites on the moon might pose a great temptation to moon tourists, should the sites be protected like a National Park? The new anime series Blade is up and running on G4 each Friday, if you are a fan of either, it would be worth treating yourself! Is it possible that something horrific as a Hypernove was responsible for one of the worst extinction even in Earth history?

Finally our second story is part 1 of Edward McKeown’s Beautiful Dreamer : Sometimes the simplists of tasks will move mountains and all 10 year old Brittony wants is to remember he mother…..

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Harris Tobias

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K.J. Kabza

 
This week’s episode, 294, is the last for 2011, not that I do anything special, but I do try to fill the hour with entertainment and information.

First is a song from John Anealio from his new Season’s Greetings, called Winter’s Day, which seemed appropriate! Next is an short article from Earthsky with more information on the discovery of massive black holes. Afterwards we travel to the Beam Me Up Blog @ wrfrbeamEup.blogspot.com. First an article concerning a newly discovered galaxy that is only slightly younger than the universe itself and has some very interesting characteristics! Next the LHC has been successful in finding a new quantum state/particle called Bottomonium…..honest….. I found this funny short film for a flash mob gathering in Times square promoting the new Star Wars game The old Republic. A group of costumed players froze in the middle of an epic lightsaber battle with an interesting twist! And after being ultra top secret classified for 45 years the Hexagon project has finally been declassified. Hexagon proved to be an ultra secret spy satellite project that virtually no on had ever heard about!

Stories this week are KJ Kabza’s get happy. How do you define happiness or the meaning of anything when anything is possible and everyone is omnipotent.

And Raven by Susanna Willis a dark fantasy tale of guardian ravens, who protect the sleeper from all form of nocturnal evil – from the pages of the Australian flash fiction magazine Antipodean.

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Jason Kahn

Expect to be visited by three specters……oh yess…. Ok, this week on episode 293 of Beam Me Up, I manage to get about everything in that I thought would be fun and interesting.

The first story of the evening is episode two of In Plain Sight by Jason Kahn. We again join our favorite psychic detective, Jack Garrett as he once again find himself embroiled in mystery and intrigue.

The second story of the evening is the Skinflint Specters by Brian Thompson which is a retelling of A Christmas Carol in which everything is explainable……or is it?

And from the Beam Me Up blog, I review Infidel by Kameron Hurley which takes place on the planet Umayma, in a future so distance that the colony ship that brought settlers to a terraformed planet are eons rusted hulks and origin has faded into myth and legend.

NASA has discovered a black hole that sets a record for being one of the smallest ever discovered.

MIT research scientist Todd Rider says he’s developed a drug named Draco, which he says has successfully destroyed 15 different viruses in lab trials.

Scientists now of the opinion that detecting Parallel Universes might be  impossible.

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D.Thomas Minton

Wow talk about a show that got away from me it was this one – episode 292.  The hour just screams by!   I start the hour off with a song from James Struthers called “You Me and Optimus Prime…”  It is from Struthers’ official YouTube video and the video is every bit as much fun as the song.

Next the first story of the evening, I reenter the world of Clockwork by Erin Bassett.  This week is episode 2.  Ester returns to the academy  only to again come in contact with the mysterious Holland .   At the bottom of the hour is the conclusion of Thief of Futures by D. Thomas Minton.   Eshram has been pulled reluctantly out of retirement for a theft he finds for all intents, abhorrent, but the further he delves the more complex becomes the project and less clear as to the why and even more so the who.  When clarity finally comes it may be too late!

I didn’t have much time today for news other than the Dawn orbiter completed its’ maneuver to its’ new lower altitude of 130 miles.  The pics from the framing camera aboard the craft is already taking stunning photos.

And finally – the creator of Captain America – Joe Simon – has passed away at 98.

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Bart Meehan

This week on Beam Me Up podcast I offer it all! News Views and Reviews! First from the pages of Antipodean the online flash fiction magazine I read Love and Perpetual Motion by Bart Meehan. This tale puts a new spin on love conquering time. At the bottom of the hour is part two of Thief of Futures by Thomas Minton.

From the Beam Me Up Blog and not so much…. astronomers have discovered black holes of truly unimaginable size, an extra solar planet that all three bears would agree is “just right”, Voyager 1 for all intents and purposes has left the building or the solar system as the case may be and has already uncovered the unexpected! Derek Van Gorder and Otto Stockmeier are making a science fiction short with no cgi or green screen, just good ole movie making! How about some extended scenes? The CollegeHumor people have taken the Independence Day iconic “I want you to die!” scene and extended it to hilarious proportions, did you know that there are fuel cells that don’t HAVE to burn hydrogen? Oh and check out the Sony Playstation shorts that are called Great Films Fill Rooms they are great examples of1 take film making! I review the Transformers Dark of the Moon blu-ray directed by Michael “I will not do a Transformers 4” Bay and the silver RV that transported shuttle crew members has been retired to storage……sigh

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D.Thomas Minton

Little bit shorter episode this week.  I fell short by about eight or so minutes.  However I think you will be entertained.

While I got organized I played Karma by Kokia which I have not played for a while.  This song was of course one of the opening titles used in the anime series Gunslinger Girls.

My first story this week is a flash fiction piece from down under.  From the pages of Antipodean is Jason Butterfied’s excellent flash fiction story called “Out of Time” .   At the bottom of the hour is part one of Thomas Minton ‘Thief of Futures’.   Where in the not so distant future a person’s “Future” becomes a commodity, if it proves to be of exceptional quality.  And a X futures thief trying hard to protect what is most important to him, his daughter.

From the Blog: Russia’s failed Mars exploratory rover mission failure mean that scientists and engineers behind the Phobos-Grunt mission could face criminal prosecution.  In an update however:  The European Space Agency (ESA) announced that they will attempt to contact the stranded Russian Phobos-Grunt spacecraft that became stuck at a low-Earth orbit due to engine failure that followed its launch on November 9.    Back in 2010, an out-of-character Stephen Colbert sat down with astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson at Montclair Kimberly Academy to talk for 90 minutes about science, society and the universe. I have the video embedded on the blog.   Comic book character Booster Gold is heading towards a meeting with the SyFy channel with a live action series in the offing.  The Navy is phasing out its steam based catapult aircraft launching system and will be replacing it with an electromagnetic catapult launching system. Plans are to install the new system on the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier now in production.   Intel is hard at work in hopes of bringing augmented reality technology into its’ chips. The Terminator tech of the future….today huh?  NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft is hoping for a third extension of it’s mission.  Controllers fired the spacecrafts engines to keep all mission possibilities open.  From the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a short over-flight of the proto planet Vesta. This 3-D video incorporates images from the framing camera instrument aboard NASA’s Dawn spacecraft from July to August 2011.   There is a lot more on the blog, I just didn’t get a chance to get to it all.

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Totally mixed bag of material on this week’s episode of Beam Me Up number 289.

Before I get too serious I offer Laura Shigihara singing Cube Land.  You really have to check out the YouTube video for this song!  Truly strange.

From the Blog this week – I review Necropolis by Michael Dempsey which is, for lack of a better description – an urban fantasy but with strong science fiction frameworks holding the story up and threaded through it all is a damn good detective murder / mystery!

Is it possible that scientists have discovered a particle that travels faster than the accepted universal limit of 186,282 miles per second, the speed of light.  It would appear that they had measured neutrinos particles which test results show that they traveled around 3.75 miles per second faster than the velocity of light.

To the great sadness of anyone that has ever read anything penned by Anne McCaffrey – the creator of Pern and it’s wonderful dragons has gone between and our world is colder for it.

Plus I spend some time just wondering what to do or for that manner, what I should say about a truly different medical class x-ray.  You can see it on the blog, but that is as far as I plan on taking it.  other that huh? WTF!

And at the bottom   DONT!!!   I play Claude and the Henry Moores written and read by Casey Wolf this story for all the world tell the tale of a man who comes to love art and his expression is probably one of the most unusual I have ever read before.   Now for you that love Casey’s work, she has three stories appearing in _Writers on the Wrong Side of the Road_, edited by Clayton Bye and Sassy Brit.  That sounds like something worth exploring!
Url to the book:  http://cjunewolfden.blogspot.com/

That’s….OMG I keep hearing Buzz Lightyear commercials on the tv!  That just isn’t right!

Once again… that’s about it this week.  Enjoy!

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Ken Scholes

This week’s program goes by FAST!  I start a new series, an Urban Fantasy piece called Clock Work penned and voiced in part by Erin Bassett.    At the bottom of the hour is a strange tale of ultimate escapism called The Boy Who Could Bend and Fall from the very talented hand of Ken Scholes.

In between the two pieces I visit the Beam Me Up blog at wrfrbeameup.blogspot.com.

I review Thor on Blu-ray / DVD.  Directed by Kenneth Branagh  and starring Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, Tom Hiddleston as Loki and Anthony Hopkins as Odin.  A bit of a mixed bag of a movie. Lots of the same ingredients that drives any movie, but in the end for all the flash, not much substance.

On the flip side is  The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the year vol 5 edited by  Jonathan Strahan.  Published by Night Shade Books.  A great collection of stories that some with recognize from the podcast and a ton of really good stories.

Back when the solar system was only 600 million years old the system looked and acted much much stranger than it does today. For instance it now appears that at this early stage in the formation of the solar system there may have been more than four giant planets initially, and some were ejected into inter-stellar space.

NASA was able to talk to the 35 year old Voyager 2 and give it commands that it carried out without pause.  The new configuration will all Voyager to conserve power and continue to do science well into the next decade!

Overall a great show.  Enjoy!