More KAMN Coming

As promised last fall, my old reviews from before I joined Dragon Page will be reposted here shortly.

I couldn’t decide if it would be better to repost them with the original dates (thus dating them before KAMN existed), or just post them new, with a tagline saying when they were originally done. Brian liked the posting them new idea, so that won out.

I’ll be reposting those reviews here over the next few months, probably one a week or so. Comment as you see fit.

The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy

“The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy” is a series of tips, tricks and helpful hints for fantasy writers from Dragon Moon Press. Volume 3 in this series is “The Author’s Grimoire”, and it’s coming out in September. It’s been delayed for quite some time, but it’s going to hit the shelves at last.

What’s so important about a brand new book about writing fantasy that it gets mentioned here, you ask? You mean, besides the fact that it contains an essay by the inestimable Tee Morris, and one by yours truly? Or that Dragon Moon Press is also the publisher of the print version of Scott Sigler’s “Ancestor”?

“The Author’s Grimoire” contains an essay by Joe Murphy, and the book is dedicated to him. I don’t know if this is the last essay he sold or not, but it’s finally coming to print.

So check it out when it hits the shelves.

Back in the Saddle

The Ninjas are returning, very soon now, with a pretty cool episode about Colossus: The Forbin Project, the 1970 film starring Eric Braeden.

Also, we’ve got a slight change in the lineup for upcoming shows:

Show #30: Galactic Patrol by E. E. “Doc” Smith
Show #31: Poltergeist (1982)
Show #32: War for the Oaks by Emma Bull
Show #33: Quantum Leap (1989-93)

As always, you can check out the list of upcoming shows, and potential upcoming show topics on our Future Topics page.

Joe Murphy Tribute

A tribute to Joe hosted by Michael, Evo, Mur, Charlie the Beer Guy, Chris the Wingin’ It Chef, Debbie from East Mesa, Brian, Tim, Sheila, and Lorrie, featuring clips from “Wingin’ It” episodes gone by.

Raise a root beer in memory of Randy Innuendo.

Song: “Mason Rocket” by Beatnik Turtle

 

 Joe Murphy Tribute [43:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (8871)

Joe Murphy — In Loving Memory

We are sad to announce that our beloved friend and colleague Joe Murphy left us today to his on going battle with leiomyosarcoma. We loved him very much and will be greatly missed in our lives. We bid farewell to a dear and sweet man.

And here is probably the most fitting tribute ever, drawn by Cheyenne Wright. ‘Nuff said.

News: Not So Good

It took me a while to get home, and I still don’t know how to put this.

Mike called me at about 9:30, and said that the doctors said the tumor was inoperable, and it had invasively spread to too many organs to remove. They removed a large chunk of it to do more tests, and see if it can respond to and be manageable with chemo or radiation, but the results of those won’t be in for a while.

So please keep your thoughts and prayers with Joe and his dad, and we’ll have more updates as soon as they’re available.

Going in

Joe’s prepped, and as of 4:20pm, he was heading into pre-op.

Michael kindly sent this along:

Continue reading Going in…

Good wishes and positive thoughts required

This afternoon, Arizona time, Joe goes into surgery, where the those with their A-game and their scalpels are going after Kuato. Time to get that bastard out of there and to see what sort of a mess he’s made of Joe’s innards.

Mike is headed down to Tucson and he has promised to feed me and Evo information via cell phone as he receives it. I’ll in turn post things here to keep you all posted, and Evo will be posting updates at MichaelandEvo.com.

So direct all your positive energy toward Joe this afternoon and tonight. This would also be a good time to click that donation button for the Kill Kuato fund, right over there on the sidebar.

More info later.

Show #25: Schedule Change

Show #25 will be both postponed and changed.

Originally, we were going to talk about “Far-Seer” by Robert J. Sawyer, and since that book was a Joe selection, I really didn’t want to do this topic without his involvement. But he’s taking a Ninjas sabbatical until Kuato is taken care of, so “Far-Seer” is being put back on the shelf.

Instead, Show #25 will go out at the end of January, and the topic will be the one formerly known as Show #26, the 1984 cult classic Buckaroo Banzai. David and I will be back then with hearty discussion on this favorite (or favorite to hate, depending on who you talk to), and we may even have stunt Ninjas in on the show.

Joe said he’d post something here, himself, so I’ll let him give you the health situation update.

Ninja Traveling

Well, I’m about to head to the airport to catch a flight to Austin TX for World Fantasy Con. I wanted to get Show #20 out before I left, so now you know why it went out at 4am.

Sorry again about the audio… based on the quality of the voicemail segment, which was recorded later, I think I have the problem worked out finally. I’ll do some more testing before we actually record next time.

In response to some questions, no, we do not turn on the live feed when we record KAMN shows. That feature is only at the studio, and none of us are at the studio when we record this show.

If anyone’s in the Austin area and wants to say Hello, shoot me an email sometime during the weekend.

Oh, and some shameless Ninja pimping: “So Say We All: An Unauthorized Collection of Thoughts and Opinions on Battlestar Galactica”, from BenBella Books, is now available on shelves. It contains essays by Mur Lafferty, Tee Morris, and myself. Trust me, you’ll like it.

Ninjas Update

Yeah, I know.

This past summer has been a little hectic, and the shows have suffered because of it.

That’s changing, and I’m wondering if we might not better off doing shows once a month during the summer months, given the heavy travel that’s expected of the denizens of FarPoint Media during the busy summer SF con season.

Dragon*Con is this weekend, and along with how busy the podcasting track will be keeping us, there’s also the Parsec Awards and the pomp and partying that will go along with that awards event.

Enjoy the new KAMN show… we should be back on a two-week schedule now, and we should have cleared out all computer-related problems that plagued my Mac back in May and June.

Ninjas have been Nominated

Wow.

“The Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas” podcast has been nominated for a Parsec Award in the “Best Fan Podcast” category.

Sweet!

Now we just have to figure out which episode to submit for consideration…

update: Apparently, for the Fan Podcast category, we have to submit a clip that contains 5-minute segments from 3 different shows, so now I get to pick three shows and edit 5 minutes from each of them into a single file.

I’m open to taking suggestions on which 5 minute chunks to pull from the “Blue Thunder / Airwolf”, “Knight Rider” and “Dune” shows.

Link: Short List for Parsecs Announced!

KAMN Ringtones, anyone?

Barbara R. has created ringtones… one tone for Michael and Evo’s Wingin’ It, and two Ninja tones.

Grab them here, and they’ll be in the Special Features section later:

Wingin’ It ringtone
30-second Ninjas ringtone
40-second Ninjas ringtone

Have I mentioned lately how much I love you guys, our listeners and fans? Now, all of you give Barbara a big kiss…

Ninja Updates

Okay, gang… I think we’re back in the dojo.

I’d like to thank everyone for their patience during the past few weeks, but this is what happens when several different tech disasters converge. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a podcasting tech perfect storm, but I think we may have come close.

We’re going to run into another funny couple of weeks, with next weekend being super-busy with the Nebula Awards and LepreCon at the same time (in addition to me working at a pro beach volleyball tournament), and the weekend after that being Mother’s Day, so we may be recording Show #13 the weekend after Mother’s Day.

Two other items of note: the Ninjas now have a tip jar. Feel free to donate shamelessly, because from time to time, we may pimp shamelessly

Also, David Moldawer is now officially a full-fledged Ninja. In case you haven’t heard it yet, you really need to listen to Wingin’ It Show #56 in order to experience the sheer chutzpa and brilliance that we are calling his Ninja Final Exam.

Feed updates

I’ve done a little housecleaning and updating, mostly just moving the MP3’s of the shows to a different LibSyn location.

While it shouldn’t affect anyone’s feeds, you might see new downloads for the existing shows.

As always, if anyone has any problems with it, let me know.