HUGO AWARD-WINNING SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY MAGAZINE
Sirius
Our first piece of audio fiction for December is "Sirius" written by Ben Peek and read by Kate Baker.
Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 63 - Sirius by Ben Peek [30:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9638)Please Support This Month's Sponsors
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben Peek is the Sydney based author of three novels, Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth, Black Sheep, and most recently, Above/Below with Stephanie Campisi.
His short fiction has appeared in numerous publications, including anthologies and magazines such as Paper Cities, Polyhony, Leviathan, Forever Shores, Overland, Aurealis, and in numerous Year's Best anthologies. He has a doctorate in literature and has published reviews and criticism, a psychogeographical pamphlet, and an autobiographical comic, Nowhere Near Savannah, which was illustrated by Anna Brown. His collection, Dead Americans, is forthcoming from ChiZine Publications.
WEBSITE
ISSN 1937-7843 Clarkesworld Magazine © 2013 Wyrm Publishing. Robot illustration by Serj Iulian.
Suzanne wrote on December 4th, 2011 at 11:47 am:
I can only comment on the British accent with any sort of authority, and I reckon you did a decent job. I heard you clipping the tones a little, and straightening up some of the vowels, although some of the longer ones escaped you ('ask' is 'arsk'. yeah). Trouble is, British military - especially army and very especially officers (or Ruperts, as they're disparagingly called by the Other Ranks) have a style all to themselves. Listen to Prince Harry/William - they operate almost without vowels at all, and contract their words into a form of code so they're barely separated one from the next - and that's the norm. Heaven help us! http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=woCN_l6yDzM
stickler wrote on December 9th, 2011 at 11:51 pm:
Please correct the following pronunciation errors:
1. "sweat" is pronounced SWET, but you pronounced it SWEET in the following sentence:
"Amadou and fellow Libyan born researcher, Dr. Waled, were a pair of sweat-stained, badly-dieted, over-worked men"
2. visage is pronounced "VISij", but you pronounced it "visAJ" in the sentence "I turned away from the terrible visage"
Suzanne wrote on December 10th, 2011 at 11:06 am:
I'd cut Kate some slack over 'sweat'. That sort of mispronunciation happens when you read aloud. As to 'visage' - depends where you live. I was happy with 'visAge' but actually, I think it's the wrong word for the job and that's what confuses the pronunciation. It usually means 'face' or 'appearance' and here it's being used to mean 'sight' or 'view'. I've noticed US writers/speakers say 'envisage' (pronounced as you suggest) where we would normally use 'envision', which might underpin your opinion. For me, that means 'see ahead' or 'speculate' and so 'visage' as you would have it, doesn't make sense because it has the wrong stem meaning.
Picky lot, aren't we?!
Suzanne wrote on December 12th, 2011 at 7:36 am:
Darn it - other way round! YOU say 'envision', we say 'envisage'. Tomatoes, tomartoes ...
stickler wrote on December 12th, 2011 at 8:21 pm:
It's not a big deal, but if Kate can fix it that would be great. It would be like fixing a typo in a published story.
The cambridge dictionary online says visage has the same pronunciation in UK english and US english: "vɪz.ɪdʒ."
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/visage?q=visage
I agree that it's the wrong word for the job here, but I can't fault Kate for that.
Mark wrote on January 22nd, 2012 at 11:34 pm:
I just found this site and am SO happy to
hear KATE !! WOW !! Sure, we could ask
for perfection or improvement, but, PLEASE
remember that there might be LURKERS like me
so ALWAYS point out how great the stories are
and how SWEET is KATE,
Thank YOU !!