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Jason Kahn

Listeners of the live show said that this was a bit of a “giggly” episode. Well considering that this was episode 300 I was a bit giddy plus a few of the station’s show hosts were out in studio 3 making sure I didn’t get too serious.

Anyway, this week I play episode four of our favorite Psychic detective Jack Garrett on New Arden in “In Plain Sight”. I then review the movie “I am Number Four” blu-ray and as luck had it
was able to find a cut of one of the songs to play, Adel’s “Rolling in the Deep” is used in the movie very effectively I might add. From there we head back to the Beam Me Up blog and talk about Mars reaching aphelion this week and play a report on the event from Earth Sky. I find a Youtube short that shows a fascinating experiment on-board the ISS concerning of all things, knitting needles and drops of water! Boing Boing posts a link to a decidedly weird video from the band Total Ghost called “Space Station” now what is really funny about this is that SpaceX founder Elon Musk Tweeted this video saying it would be an appropriate theme song for their efforts to get private industry into space. Even though the video is totally out there the mind set is really dead on! Scientists from Russia have finally reached the surface of Lake Vostok more than two miles under Antarctica ice! Back to Earth Sky, I run an article on the discovery of more of brown dwarf class y stars. These stars are some of the more unusual of their class.

Finally I play a story from this month’s Antipodean flash fiction site. This story is called “Love in a Time of Entropy” by Geordie McLeod and is a great short story that I had a great deal of fun reading.

That’s pretty much it for episode 300. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed doing it. Thanks.

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Harris Tobias

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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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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!

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Cory Doctorow

This week on Beam Me Up episode 286 I start playing This must be the Place by new author Elliot Bangs.  In part one of this masterful tale we are introduced to  Lauren Wells and the main character Andria who through a year develop a something akin to a relationship but so strange that even Andria has to question he sanity.  Part one sets the stage this week.

But first a story from Cory Doctorow called Authorised Domain which Cory takes us into the near future where the digital certificate is not something to fool with!

Between stories I take a look at some of the reviews and articles from the past couple of weeks.

NASA would like to have a “Tractor Beam”. The problem is that no one has of yet ever built a tractor beam or even agreed on what constitutes a tractor beam,

Issue 161 of the Australian Flash SF online magazine Antipodean is now ready for downloading.

Photographer Peter Chang used an array of Canon 5D Mark IIs and motion control sliders to capture both indoors and outdoors time-lapse scenes in 3D, and it contains stunning visuals!

In an effort to eradicate mosquito borne illnesses researchers report initial success from the first test release into the wild of mutant  mosquitoes.  Their job….to pass on a lethal gene to their offspring that kills them before reaching maturity.

Facebook plans to build three giant server halls covering an area the size of 11 football fields 60 miles south of the Arctic circle in Sweden.

But first I review the bluray disk version of the movie Paul!

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Peter Watts

Well lets continue on with the goulish theme started the first of October, in episode 284.  This week what better than a rather frightening tale from an author not unknown to the BMU listening audience.  Mr.  Peter Watts.

As we all know at this point, there is a new “Thing Movie”  in the theaters.  Many long time SF fans know that there are three movies based on Who Goes There?  by John W. Campbell, Jr. under the pen name Don A. Stuart   published August 1938 in Astounding Stories.  In 1973, the story was voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the finest science fiction novellas ever written, and was  published in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two edit by non – other than Isaac Asimov!  The name was changed to “The Thing” when the first of 3 movies made from the basic story line.

Now if you are like me you read the story and found the first movie really lacking.  In the second, directed by Scott Carpenter,  There was a more technically adept and effects rich offering but in the end, a monster movie with no empathy for the creature and no attempt to communicate.  With me, it also closed the door on any further offering in the “Things” franchise.  So what a pleasant surprise I got when reading this new story for Peter Watts called the Things… to discover it had a major twist  right in the beginning that you will ask why wasn’t this done earlier!
Needless to say it is a wonderful homage  to John Campbell’s work.

I wanted this story so bad …..but asking Peter I found out that Clarksworld online magazine had picked up the rights, but Peter said he didn’t mind me playing an audio version as well, so the wonderful folks at Clarkesworld Magazine very graciously let me play their recording of Things.

I want to tell you that their reader got the pathos.  It is an excellent reading.   I play part 1 this week and next week I will finish it up.   Remember is is material better suited for adult sensibilities though not graphic, it could still be considered disturbing at times.

But first to get things warmed up I start with Atlanta Rhythm Section playing Alien…rather appropriate huh?

And from the blog I start with a review of the anime classic Cowboy Bebop.  The movie is a series fan’s movie. Not really a good introduction to the Bebop universe and more a treat for fans.  I loved it, but then I was a fan.  If you have seen the complete series and want a bit  more than this is for you!

Astronomers have discovered the oldest and farthest supernova ever detected — a massive star that exploded 11 billion years ago.

In August of 1883 447 objects passing in front of the sun over two days. But this huge amount of material was only observed by one astronomer.  But panic took hold anyway….These objects were so huge and coming in so close that folks were taking out comet insurance.  Other astronomers  suggested all form of fauna and flora that could have flown in front of the lens and give an erroneous result.  What WAS observed were actually fragments of a massive, billion-ton comet, and the reason that no one else was able to observe the objects is that they passed so close to the Earth!  Calculations show that the ultra massive object passed between 300 to 5000 miles above the surface!!

Using the Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea, astronomers have captured the first direct image of a planet being born.

And so much more!  Honest!

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Kit St. Germaine

Once again we get into the scaring season in Episode 282.

This week’s story is a true horror piece produced for radio by Kit St. Germain as well as a very talented acting troupe performing- Mr. Bronze from a short story written by Phil Voyd. Heather Brown engineers. And the narrator in the story is Mark Oliver. Ben, the “star” of tonight’s outing is a consummate body builder, working all the way from a literal 90 lb weakling to wining the Mr. Bronze trophy. Everything was going right in his world, that was until he found this weird photo album, then things got decidedly worse.

From the Blog I review Rio the Movie. Unfortunately this Plot-line for this film is something you have seen over and over again, especially in animal based animation. How did I rate it? Well animation is good but the plot is soulless and the studio flips you off with no extras. 6…I suspect everyone was in for a payday on this one. Next I found something interesting in Dvice…..a Princeton Grad Student has created a device that is wired with a complex system of electrical sensors to make the plastic sheet fly?!

Is SpaceX up to picking up space missions of resupply and service in effect privatizing many of the low Earth orbit projects… Antipodean issue 160 is out…. and have you see where Mars Curiosity Rover is going to land? Yeah, inside the Gale crater, this bad boy has a central mountain over 3 miles high and the crater itself is 90 miles across, but still…it is quite a feat of programming.

Of course I could not resist starting the program with news of the October sky and a new song from Anealio called I want a Stormtrooper for Halloween….

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This week on Beam Me Up, episode 278 I play part one of Adam Troy-Castro’s amazing short story “Arvies”.  Adam’s tale flips our assumptions of what is true or false or what is alive or dead.  What is a person and what is not.

From the Beam Me Up blog

I play the new Symphony of Science  music, which features the voices of Morgan Freeman,, Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking among others.

Next I review the Disney CGI animation Tangled which all in all the best thing that can be said about the movie is that it may not take any chances, but is endearing in its own right. Plus the added benefit of high quality animation only adds to the enjoyment.

Next,  From the NYT via Boing Boing comes evidence of the earliest tool manufacture. From the science journal Nature, tools from Kenya that were dated to about 1.7 million years ago. This is the earliest found so far.

Astronomers are studying the nearest and brightest supernova of of a type that has not been observed for 40 years.

A recent study suggests that super-massive black holes can trigger the formation of stars, thus ‘building’ their own host galaxies. This could also explain why galaxies hosting larger black holes have more stars.

NASA’s 6.5-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite will be re-entering Earth’s atmosphere in what NASA has described as “an uncontrolled fall” sometime in late September or early October.

Was there ever an Apollo 18?  Well technically…yes.  In July 1975 there was indeed an Apollo mission. It was the last Apollo mission and the last manned US space mission until the first Space Shuttle flight in April 1981.  This last mission was called the ASTP and it was the first joint U.S./Soviet space flight.

Antipodean’s September 2011 issue, #159 is now online.

and finally Photos taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of Apollo 12, 14 and 17 have proved to be some of the sharpest ever taken of the landing sites.  Even experiment packages can clearly be seen!

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Keith Latch

I start episode 276 off with the closing theme music to Requiem for the Dark called The Flame. For those of you familiar with the anime series you will appreciate the complete version of the song.

Stories this week are the continuation of Keith Latch’s “The Stars Fell”. This week is part 3 and Keenan finds that not only did the strange meteor he discovered in his family’s field not only rendered him unconscious, but something ever so much more strange and confusing! However the first story is a wicked tongue in cheek (if I dare say so) story from the early pen of Philip K. Dick – “The Eyes Have it” where our protagonist has either found a description of the invasion of Earth by the most unusual creatures to date, or the gent is taking the written language far to literally!

From the Beam Me Up blog I review the movie based on Philip K. Dick’s Adjustment Team called “The Adjustment Bureau”, The 2011 Hugo Awards are out and I list a few of the winners, clever short films abound on YouTube, the first one I found this week was the Tron Duck Tape short, which is more a commercial for Duck Tape, but it’s nothing if not clever, Robonaut is turning out to be a Robo Not, my gripe this week is that robo hobo is turning into nothing more than an expensive toy. The Russians it would seem are looking to build a tunnel under the Bering Strait and at 65billion they are looking for investors, USA included… Fans of Portal will enjoy this fan made Portal short movie that is astoundingly well made! Nancy Fulda has sent us a note on her newest book of short stories and Russian Progress m-12m crashes in Siberia with three tons of supplies for the ISS – this could cause the station to reconsider a lot of options!

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Welcome to Beam Me Up.  This week’s episode is show 263.  I am very happy with how the show progressed this week, I think you find it equally entertaining.

I open this week with My Favorite Martian doing the song “All These Villains” This will get the blood pumping and the toes taping for sure.

This week’s fiction is a couple of short stories from Doug Hilton and Ken Liu.

Doug’s offering this week is a twisted tale in the vein of Damon Knights “To Serve Man”.  Doug’s story is titled “Better than Jelly Beans”  and it is every bit as twisted as you can imagine.  As the title suggest Humans are treated like rather unhealthy junk food.  Oh my!

Ken Liu’s Simulacrum is of much more serious stuff.  This week I play the conclusion of Ken’s story.  We are carried deeper into the dynamics and implications of the Simulacrum device and how it has impacted the inventor’s life and those around him to a most disturbing conclusion and totally unsuspected ending.  I hope you are as floored as I was by the last half of this wonderful story.

In between the stories I check out the Beam Me Up blog.  Kaydara is  a fan made movie based in the Matrix universe and is visually stunning, you will not believe this is a non professional movie.

Scientists have announced that sub-surface Moon rock may contain as much water as we have on Earth. Levels in fact 100 times higher than previous estimates.

I review the Green Hornet.  My whole review can be pared down to one word…Terrible.

NASA has placed the Spirit Rover  on the inactive list.  This after a year of no response to queries from NASA. NASA will cease trying to signal the rover.

During the height of the hysteria, a very enterprising person designed a DIY Rapture kit!

The 2010 Nebula Awards have been announced!