''StarShipSofa'' is a science fiction audio magazine and podcast from the United Kingdom hosted by Tony C. Smith. It publishes audio short fiction, commentary, essays, and anthologies of transcribed material. StarShipSofa was the first ever podcast to be both nominated for and to win a Hugo Award for Best Fanzine. It was also nominated for Best Fan Podcast in the 2007 Parsec Awards. StarShipSofa is free directly from the web site and is available for subscription and automatic download through

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

History

The audio magazine is hosted weekly by Tony C. Smith in the UK. It was first broadcast in July 2006 by Smith and Ciaran O'Carrol with an episode focusing on Alfred Bester. The next 70 episodes ran weekly and featured commentary on such subjects as

Harlan Ellison Harlan Jay Ellison (May 27, 1934 – June 28, 2018) was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. Robert Bloch, the author of '' Psycho'' ...

, Samuel R. Delany, Charles Stross, and other well-known science fiction authors. StarShipSofa also covered subjects such as films and specific themes such as religion in science fiction. In 2010 many of these original podcasts were transcribed and published in book form as ''StarShipSofa: The Captain's Logs''. At the end of this initial run O'Carrol left StarShipSofa and the podcast began to transition to an audio fiction magazine, with narrated fiction mixed with commentary and essays. Now calling itself ''StarShipSofa - The Audio Science Fiction Magazine,'' in October 2007 StarShipSofa began podcasting

Hugo Award The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention and chosen by its members. The Hugo is widely considered the premier a ...

winning audio stories for free. In March 2008, for the first time ever, all five of the short stories that had been shortlisted for the BSFA Award for Best Short Story were made available on the StarShipSofa in audio narrated format. Adam Pracht was the assistant editor up until September 2014, when he left to pursue other activities. He was replaced with

Jeremy Szal Jeremy Szal (born May 31, 1995) is an Australian space opera and fantasy author. He often describes his work as "spacepunk" or gothic space opera. His first novel, ''Stormblood'', was published by Gollancz in 2020, with the sequel ''Blindspace'' ...

, which was announced i
Episode 361
Szal is the fiction editor and producer, Gary Dowell the co-producer and Ralph M. Ambrose the assistant editor.

Hugo Award

On 4 April 2010, StarShipSofa became the first podcast to ever be included on the

s ballot. It was nominated in the category Best Fanzine. On 5 September 2010 StarShipSofa went on to become the first podcast to win a Hugo Award. The award was presented at Aussiecon 4 in Melbourne, Australia. As a result, the 2011 business meeting of the Worldcon voted to create a new category for "Best Fancast", so that podcasts would no longer be deemed a

fanzine A fanzine (blend word, blend of ''fan (person), fan'' and ''magazine'' or ''-zine'') is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by fan (person), enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) ...

or be eligible for a fanzine Hugo.

District of Wonders

In January 2012 StarShipSofa launched its first spin-off, a horror podcast hosted by

Lawrence Santoro Lawrence may refer to: Education Colleges and universities * Lawrence Technological University, a university in Southfield, Michigan, United States * Lawrence University, a liberal arts university in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States Preparator ...

called Tales to Terrify. This was followed in July 2012 by two more spin-offs - the crime-themed Crime City Central hosted by

Jack Calverley Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, ...

, and the pulp-themed Protecting Project Pulp hosted by

Dave Robison Dave may refer to: Film, television, and theater * ''Dave'' (film), a 1993 film starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver * ''Dave'' (musical), a 2018 stage musical adaptation of the film * Dave (TV channel), a digital television channel in the ...

. The four are now united under the District of Wonders banner. However, The District of Wonders soon abandoned both Crime City Central and Protecting Project Pulp. Instead in April 2014 they started fantasy podcast Far Fetched Fables, leaving the District of Wonders with three podcasts, respectively.

''StarShipSofa Stories''

To celebrate the 100th episode of StarShipSofa's audio fiction magazine, an anthology of stories titled ''StarShipSofa Stories, Volume 1'' was published, featuring fiction by Michael Moorcock, Gene Wolfe, Peter Watts, Elizabeth Bear, and others. The second volume of stories was published in October 2010 and contains fiction by

Neil Gaiman Neil Richard MacKinnon GaimanBorn as Neil Richard Gaiman, with "MacKinnon" added on the occasion of his marriage to Amanda Palmer. ; ( Neil Richard Gaiman; born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, gr ...

, China Miéville, Mary Rosenblum, and others. Two subsequent volumes, and a collection of stories from the Tales To Terrify horror show were later published.

Special episodes

In June 2015 fo
Episode 389
StarShipSofa produced and adapted in audio the story "The Men of Greywater Station" co-written by George R. R. Martin and Howard Waldrop. The story was published in the anthology ''

Songs of Stars and Shadows ''Songs of Stars and Shadows'' is the second short story collection by author George R. R. Martin. The collection was first published by Pocket Books Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books. ...

'', published in 1977 and now out of print with no electronic copies existing and the story never previously appearing online. The story was narrated by English actor Nicholas Camm. StarShipSofa produced a YouTube video discussing the story to promote the episode. In an interview with Boing Boing, assistant editor Jeremy Szal revealed that the author offered to post a copy of the anthology by snail mail. Shortly after the episode's launch the author himself publicly approved of the story's production and narration on his blog. YouTuber prestonjacobs created an analysis of the podcast's adaptation and the story, highlighting the similarities to the ''

A Song of Ice and Fire ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' is a series of epic fantasy novels by the American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. He began the first volume of the series, ''A Game of Thrones'', in 1991, and it was published in 1996. Martin, who init ...

'' canon and theorizing that all stories written by George R. R. Martin are contained in one singular universe.

Notable Authors

Notable authors published in the magazine include: * Harry Harrison *

Kevin J. Anderson Kevin James Anderson (born March 27, 1962) is an American science fiction author. He has written spin-off novels for ''Star Wars'', ''StarCraft'', ''Titan A.E.'' and ''The X-Files literature#Novels, The X-Files'', and with Brian Herbert is the ...

* Neal Asher * Paolo Bacigalupi * Kage Baker * Elizabeth Bear * Terry Bisson * Aliette de Bodard * David Brin *

Ben Bova Benjamin William Bova (November 8, 1932November 29, 2020) was an American writer and editor. During a writing career of 60 years, he was the author of more than 120 works of science fact and fiction, an editor of '' Analog Science Fiction and F ...

* Pat Cadigan * Ted Chiang * Cory Doctorow * Stephen Donaldson * Paul Di Filippo * Jeffrey Ford * Eugie Foster * Karen Joy Fowler *

* William Gibson * Joe Haldeman *

Peter F. Hamilton Peter F. Hamilton (born 1960) is a British author. He is known for writing science fiction space opera. Biography Peter F. Hamilton was born in Rutland in 1960. He did not attend university. He said in an interview, "I did science at school ...

Robin Hobb Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden (born March 5, 1952), known by her pen names Robin Hobb and Megan Lindholm, is an American writer of speculative fiction. As Hobb, she is best known for her fantasy novels set in the ''Realm of the Elderlings'', w ...

* Hugh Howey * Kij Johnson * James Patrick Kelly * Caitlín R. Kiernan *

Ted Kosmatka Ted Kosmatka is an American writer. His short stories have been reprinted in ten Year's Best anthologies, and he is co-winner of the 2010 Asimov's Readers' Choice Award. His 2012 novel The Games was nominated for a Locus Award for Best First Novel ...

Nancy Kress Nancy Anne Kress (born January 20, 1948) is an American science fiction writer. She began writing in 1976 but has achieved her greatest notice since the publication of her Hugo- and Nebula-winning 1991 novella '' Beggars in Spain'', which became ...

* Jay Lake * Mark Lawrence *

David D. Levine David D. Levine (born February 21, 1961, in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American science fiction writer who won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 2006 for his story "Tk'tk'tk". His novel ''Arabella of Mars'' was published by Tor Books in J ...

* Karen Lord * Jack McDevitt * Ian McDonald * Will McIntosh * Ken MacLeod * George R. R. Martin * China Miéville * Michael Moorcock * Cat Rambo * Robert Reed * Mike Resnick * Alastair Reynolds * Kim Stanley Robinson * Mary Rosenblum * Spider Robinson *

R. Scott Bakker Richard Scott Bakker (born February 2, 1967, Simcoe, Ontario) is a Canadian fantasy author and frequent lecturer in the South Western Ontario university community. He grew up on a tobacco farm in the Simcoe area. In 1986 he attended the Univers ...

* Jason Sanford * John Scalzi * Norman Spinrad *

Allen Steele Allen Mulherin Steele, Jr. (born January 19, 1958) is an American journalist and science fiction author. Background Steele was born in Nashville, Tennessee on January 19, 1958. He was introduced to science fiction fandom attending meetings o ...

Bruce Sterling Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American science fiction author known for his novels and short fiction and editorship of the ''Mirrorshades'' anthology. In particular, he is linked to the cyberpunk subgenre. Sterling's first ...

Eric James Stone Eric James Stone (born 1967) is an American science fiction, fantasy, and horror author. He won the 2004 Writers of the Future contest, and has published in ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'', ''InterGalactic Medicine Show'', and ''Jim Baen's U ...

* Lavie Tidhar * Harry Turtledove * Lisa Tuttle * Jack Vance * Carrie Vaughn * Peter Watts * Tad Williams * Gene Wolfe

References

External links

StarShipSofa website

Tales to Terrify website

District of Wonders website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Starshipsofa Audio podcasts Science fiction podcasts Science fiction websites 2006 podcast debuts 2006 establishments in the United Kingdom Hugo Award-winning works