Variant Frequencies

Hi everyone. This post was supposed to be a celebration of our fourth anniversary, on our anniversary. Unfortunately for us, Variant Frequencies was off-line for a week and a half, we were unable to post this on the actual anniversary. Thank you to everyone who stuck with us.

On January 24th, 2006, Variant Frequencies was born. It is hard to believe that we have been going for over four years now. Many things have happened in those four years.

We started out as a showcase of the writing by Matt Wallace and Anne Stringer. Our first story was written by Matt Wallace. Another Man’s Run was released in two parts.

Another Man’s Run – part 1

Another Man’s Run – part 2

Our second story was another Matt Wallace piece. Absolution Insured was not only a great story, but it won a Parsec Award for Best Short Story. Not bad for only the second story that we produced.

Absolution Insured

After that was the beginning of the ground breaking “The Failed Cities Monologues” by Matt Wallace. This dystopian tale was told from the perspective of eight characters. It was critically acclaimed, and also appeared on Podiobooks.com.

The Failed Cities Monologues 01: Ethan

Our first story written by Anne Stringer was “Evelyn.” Evelyn, actually is two stories in one podcast episode. It is two short stories called “Any Other Name,” and “Evelyn.” Both stories are narrated by Stacey Griffith Livingston.

Evelyn

Over the next three years, we added more authors and won three more Parsec Awards.

Now, in our fifth season, we are bringing you even more great stories.

Thank you for listening to Variant Frequencies. We hope you have found our stories to be entertaining.

“Out of Time” by Jack Westlake has been nominated for BSFA (The British Science Fiction Association) award. We found out when Ilan Lerman posted about it on his blog. Congratulations Jack! Good luck with the award.

“Out of Time” originally appeared in Murky Depths #8.

You can listen to Jack’s short story right here on Variant Frequencies.

“Out of Time” by Jack Westlake.

In a seaside town, a young man finds the world around him frozen in time.

***
Written by Jack Westlake
Narrated by Rick Stringer

The podcasting community suffered a loss on Wednesday, January 06, 2010. Natalie Morris, the wife of our friend, Tee Morris, died. Now Tee has to deal with that grief and their young daughter. Phillipa Ballantine has setup a fund to help them. Please consider helping out.

Round #8 – It’s the eighth installment of the scifi/mma novella co-written by Scott Sigler and hard-boiled author Matt Wallace. Korak the Cutter and Chiyal “The Heretic” North are ready to enter the octagon, and all hell is sure to break loose..
***
Written and narrated by Scott Sigler

TITLE FIGHT: Round #8
Copyright 2009 Scott Sigler and Matt Wallace
http://www.scottsigler.com
http://www.matt-wallace.com

Variant Frequencies
Copyright 2009 Rick Stringer
http://www.variantfrequencies.com
My Channel On Big Contact

 

 TITLE FIGHT: Round #8 [27:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Variant Frequencies: Season V starts on October 15, 2009. We will be back with a great story by Matthew Warner.

In December, we are going to blast your ears twice a week with The Failed Cities: Hath a Darkness by Matt Wallace! The action starts on December 1 and ends on Christmas Day.

In January we will continue the Christmas theme with a fantastic story by New York Times Best Selling Author, Michael A. Stackpole.

We are just getting rolling folks. It is going to be a great season!

There is a really great review of The Failed Cities Monologues on The Podagogue right now.

Check it out, and tell him what you thought of the review!

http://podagogue.blogspot.com/2009/07/podcast-novel-review-failed-cities.html

I narrated “Aerophelia” by Tobias Buckell. It was a fun story to do, and StarShipSofa is doing a fantastic job with their stories. Check it out at: http://www.starshipsofa.com.

The Parsec Awards are now open for submissions for 2009. As you all know, Variant Frequencies has done well at the Parsec Awards. We don’t know if we can win an unprecedented fourth year in a row, but that sure would be nice.

Here is a list of our episodes that qualify for Best Speculative Fiction Story (Short Form).

Saint Darwin’s Spirituals
Grounders
The Destruction of Sennacherib
Queue
All The Time
Under The Bridge Downtown
Best In Class
Creature of God
Gill Bando
Prisoners
Under The Bed

For Best Speculative Fiction Story (novella)
The End of Flesh

Finally, you certainly could nominate us for Best Speculative Fiction Magazine or Anthology Podcast.

We hope that you have enjoyed Variant Frequencies enough to nominate us again for the Parsec Awards. It has been an honor to be part of it for the past three years. So, if you think we deserve it, please go to http://parsecawards.com/submission and tell them what you think about us.

Thank you from everyone at Variant Frequencies.

__

UPDATE: Variant Frequencies has been nominated by a few people now. Thank you to those that have nominated us. If you want to nominate a specific story, then go to this page: http://www.parsecawards.com/node/618. Then add a comment that tells them the exact story that you want to nominate.

No matter how crazy the time or the schedules in life get, we make time to remember; and on April 1st, Jack and I are asking that you remember our fallen friend, Joe Murphy.

For those of you new to podcasting, you might have missed the audio wit and always-clever banter of my friend, Joe Murphy. He was (and still is) an amazing guy, his voice now part of the history of such podcasts, as Wingin’ It, Slice of SciFi, The Kick Ass Mystic Ninjas, and the award-winning The Case of the Singing Sword: A Billibub Baddings Mystery. He was taken from us too soon, and on April 1 we remember him.

Please, syndicate this podcast through your feeds, blog about Joe, tell a friend today about Joe Murphy, show your support in an avatar change, and let your subscribers know that you also remember Joe.

 

 I Remember Joe [34:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The cover art for Saint Darwin’s Spirituals by D.K. Thompson has been shortlisted for the BSFA Best Art Award. The artwork by Vincent Chong was commissioned by Murky Depths for their fourth issue. Vincent and Murky Depths were both kind enough to let us use the artwork for our podcast version of the story which was released at the same time. We are excited for Vincent, and wish him the best of luck.