Blast Off with the StarShipSofa |
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| Hosting | Tony C. Smith |
|---|---|
| Updates | Weekly |
| Debut | July 2006 |
| Genre | Science Fiction |
| Website | www.starshipsofa.com |
StarShipSofa is a Hugo-Award-winning science fiction podcast from the UK hosted and edited by Tony C. Smith. It was the first ever podcast to be both nominated for and win a Hugo Award. StarShipSofa was also nominated for Best Fan Podcast in the 2007 Parsec Awards.[1] According to self-reported numbers, 70,000 downloads were recorded for all StarShipSofa episodes in the month of June 2010.[2]
Contents |
The show was first broadcast in July 2006 by Smith and Ciaran O'Carrol with an episode focusing on Alfred Bester.[3] The next 70 episodes ran weekly and featured commentary on such subjects as Harlan Ellison, 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.[4]
In 2010 many of these original podcasts were transcribed and published in book form as StarShipSofa: The Captain's Logs.[5]
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.[6] Now calling itself StarShipSofa - The Audio Science Fiction Magazine, in October 2007 StarShipSofa began podcasting Hugo Award 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.[7]
On 4 April 2010, StarShipSofa became the first podcast to ever be included on the Hugo Awards ballot. It was nominated in the category Best Fanzine after an online lobbying effort by Smith and supporters of the podcast.[8][9] On 5 September 2010 StarShipSofa went on to become the first podcast to win a Hugo.[10] 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 StarShipSofa would no longer be deemed a fanzine or be eligible for a fanzine Hugo.[11]
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.[12] The second volume of stories was published in October 2010 and contains fiction by Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, Mary Rosenblum, and others.
StarShipSofa is free and is available for subscription and automatic download through iTunes.