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12-12-08: Agony Column Podcast News Report :
Panel Discussion with Geoff Ryman, Ellen Klages, Terry Bisson, and Nalo Hopkinson : SF in SF, November 15, 2008.
Three rather different authors sat down to "piss and moan about the sorry state of science fiction" with Terry Bisson in the final performance of SF in SF for 2008. The guests were Nalo Hopkinson, Ellen Klages, and Geoff Ryman. You can hear the entire panel discussion — during which the participants remained largely on-mic and totally on-topic, by following this link to the MP3 file.
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12-11-08: Agony Column Podcast News Report :
Geoff Ryman "Reads" More: SF in SF, November 15, 2008
Back with the second reading done by Geoff Ryman at SF in SF on November 15, 2008. He did stay a bit more on mic this time, but don't take that to mean that he was any less fevered in his presentation. For the second part of his reading, Geoff Ryman chose a slightly more moderate reading style, remaining at a fairly fixed distance from the microphone as he read from "a novel about Cambodia."
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12-10-08: Agony Column Podcast News Report :
Geoff Ryman "Reads : SF in SF November 15, 2008
I couldnt even keep the man on the microphone, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Geoff Ryman is clearly a force and a world unto himself, which you'll quickly figure out if you read any of his work. But seeing him, hell, I'd not miss him again for this or any other world he might care to conjure from the depths of his imagination. I just think he ought to allot himself a costume budget, though, heaven knows he doesn't seem to need it. Still, it might be the only way to add to his performance. Here's an excerpt of him reading from 'The Child Garden'. Hold on to your hats! And they'd better be funny hats.
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Nalo Hopkinson's latest hard cover |
12-09-08: Agony Column Podcast News Report:
Nalo Hopkinson Reads from 'Blackheart Man' : SF in SF November 15, 2008
I'm working my way through the SF in SF material as fast as I can, and I hope readers and listeners will be patient with me. Today's podcast is the second reading that Nalo Hopkinson did, this one an excerpt from 'Blackheart Man', one of three forthcoming novels she has in the hopper. This is very different in tone and tenor from her first reading, but has many of the same charms as well. Hopkinson has the knack to stroll effortlessly from one genre to the other so quickly, it really doesn't matter how you try to describe the work; it's simply a Nalo Hopkinson novel, and that's pretty much all you need to know. Well, that and this link to the MP3 audio file.
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12-08-08: Agony Column Interview:
A 2008 Interview with Burton Raffel : 43 Words
Some things just come to you when you don't even expect them. So here I am immersing myself in the worlds of two translators, Bea Basso and Julie Rose, when over the transom comes an incredible ARC of 'The Canterbury Tales' (Modern Library / Random House ; November 18, 2008; $36), translated by Burton Raffel. Raffel's translation of 'Beowulf' is certainly the industry standard — so who better to talk to about the art of translation, just to get that trifecta of voices?
Happily, Raffel has done more than translations — he's written about his process of translation in 'The Art of Translating Prose', a fascinating book that offers a vision of translation I never would have suspected. Raffel's concept of syntactic movement is really quite unexpected and fascinating, and it emphasizes the art, as opposed to the science of translation, which is certainly why he's the go-to guy in this field. He's also very funny, which makes this linked MP3 interview remarkably entertaining.
Raffel talked about syntactic movement and about the importance of sound when translating poetry. We also discussed the translation of Chaucer, which, as I thought is a new thing. We certainly didn't have any translations of Chaucer when I read 'The Canterbury Tales' in college. We read it in the original and we liked it — then we walked twelve miles back to the dormitories in the snow, in our bare feet.
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