New Year... New Format

Is this the end of Tales?

No, not really. I'm thinking of it as moving out of the basement and getting more serious about things.

We will continue under a new name - a Gallery of Curiosities. We're already settling into our new home at http://gallerycurious.com.

If you are subscribed, you will not be dropped. The RSS feed will remain the same and continue.

We are buying new original stories, but are still digging through our favorite online public domain sources too. Our slush readers are already chained to special desks bolted to the floor in the Gallery's attic and being offered meager bowls of gruel only after they finish reading down their daily piles.

And come Christmas, we will probably find out way back here, to where we started, on the sooty cobblestoned streets of New Babbage.

See you soon, at the new Gallery. We've collected such odd things for you to ponder.

Christmas Eve Broadcast 2015

Christmas in New Babbage. What could possibly go wrong?

Sir Emerson and the Squire entertain a strange customer at the Gangplank on Christmas Eve and present new original stories of holidays in the city… with urchins. Make a cup of hot chocolate and gather your friends around the radio for a really old fashioned Christmas in New Babbage. Broadcast times are 1pm and 7pm Thursday, Dec. 24th, PST (California) time,  courtesy of Radio Riel Steampunk, or set your podcatcher to grab it off iTunes to listen whenever you are. http://steampunk.radioriel.org

If you like what we're doing, give us some stars on iTunes. Is anyone listening at all? We really don't know beyond our avatars sitting around in pixel bars while our real selves are hundreds and thousands of miles away, getting quite drunk. We are here we are here we are HERE!

This will probably be the last broadcast in this format. Kevin thinks there's a void for steampunk fiction out in podcast land, and he's loony enough to try and fill it. Here's looking forward to the New Year with vintage and original weird fiction and steampunk tales for you to enjoy! 

Test of the Magi by Emerson Lighthouse
Sir Emerson - Emerson Lighthouse
The Squire - Martin Malus
Nicholas - Mavromichali Szondi
Johnny Dawkins - The Radio Riel Intern

A Clockwork Christmas Secret by Nyree Rain
Reader - Fauve Aeon

Spare a Penny written and performed by MacKnight Culdesac
The Urchins - The Cabbits

The Christmas Penny written and performed by Maxwell Grantly
(Free picture book available on iBooks, get it for your kids!)

Additional music: Jon Sayles, Kevin MacLeod
New Babbage Shore by MacKnight Culdesac

Production: Kevin Frost
Skype Conference Call Engineer: Gabrielle Riel
Runtime: 58:19

Temporary upload to Soundcloud at
https://soundcloud.com/tenkism/tales-from-new-babbage-2015-christmas-eve-broadcast

Call for Submissions

Trolling through public domain archives for good stories is depressing work. Too long, too dull, too racist... you get the picture. And it takes time. So. To get the show out of hiatus, maybe I should be considering.... original work! Here is the official *drumroll* CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS.

The Christmas Broadcast on Radio Riel is a long tradition in the Steamlands and I don't want to skip that one. I'm looking for holiday stories that are specific to New Babbage or the environs, no longer than 3500 words. I will pay 2 cents USD a word (converted to linden dollars if you are in Second Life) for stories I use.

For the regular shows that are produced for the rest of the year, I am looking for weird fiction not set in modern times. It doesn't have to be steampunk era, but that is a plus. I would also consider sci-fi or post-apocalypse scenarios that have appropriate technology. Holiday specific stories that are a little less than weird (i.e. Valentine's Day) would also be welcome. For these stories I will pay 1 penny a word USD up to 5000 words, for stories no longer than 7500 words.

Story length is restricted to keep within an audio format of less than one hour.

You will retain publishing rights to your story. I get the right to hand it off to a reader of my choice for audio production which will be broadcast on Radio Riel and available for free download on iTunes. 

My geemail handle is mr.tenk, send submissions to that inbox. Put "TfNB SUBMISSION: Story Title" in the subject bar.

Christmas stories to be considered for this year should be submitted before November 30th, 2015.

Thanks for your support of the show and the city over all these years. Here's to more stories to come!

-Mr. Tenk

We're on iTunes!

Now you can subscribe to Tales on iTunes and never miss another one of our highly irregular broadcasts, or catch up on the ones you missed for a fine literary interlude for your next road trip, even those painfully self conscious early ones. Oh, wait, they are all like that...

Search for Tales From New Babbage in the podcast section of the iTunes store. Note that more than one may pop up, as Radio Riel was uploading them before I figured out how to do it myself. Click on the image of the clocktower in the hazy green smog to get the full series!

 https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tales-from-new-babbage/id909961660?mt=2

Boxing Day Broadcast 2014

Young Ben is a City Messenger, and he is so glad that Christmas is over. Join him at the Messenger Depot on Perdido Street as he presents three seasonal stories from New Babbage.

The City Messenger by Abbey Hood, read by Bookworm Hienrichs.

Be Careful What You Wish For by Ceejay Writer, read by Ianone Constantine.

A Gift of Clarity by Loki Eliot, read by Loki Eliot.

Brother Lapis was played by Jon Sayles, who has a really nice archive of royalty free classical guitar music he has played at jsayles.com.

Additional music by Kevin MacLeod.

Produced by Mosseveno Tenk in the wee dark hours of Christmas morning, which is why it was important that Ben was was played by Steadman Kondor, an Australian.We had quite a time filtering out the noise of his neighbor's Christmas BBQ.

Picture credit: Kimika Ying.

The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost

“Are you a member?”

We return to Brunel Hall to hear Mr. Victor Mornington, the steamlands’ most famous hotelier, read The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost by H.G. Wells. Grab a drink, turn down the lights, and get comfortable, because story night is Serious Business in New Babbage.

Listen live, Sunday, August 17th, on Radio Riel Steampunk at 1pm and 7pm PDT. Social listening gatherings will be held at Brunel Hall in the Academy of Industry sim in Second Life. 


download link:
https://archive.org/details/TfNB16-TheStoryOfTheInexperiencedGhost 

first publication: The Strand Magazine, March 1902

Reader: Mr. Victor Mornington

Intro/Outro: Miss Garnet Psaltery

Music:

Dark and Stormy Night written and performed by MacKnight Culdesac

Tranquility, Reawakening, Clean Soul written and performed by Kevin MacLeod.

Additional music provided by MusOpen.org

Produced by Mosseveno Tenk

runtime 41:00

Christmas 2013 - To the North!

Christmas in New Babbage - What could possibly go wrong? Mr. Mornington glories over the success of Brunel Hall Hotel during the holiday season, while across town at a rival bar, the Squire tries to balance the books after putting on a feast to match the Brunel's buffet. Junie Ginsburg reads a truly horrible children's story by Willa Cather, and Mr. Pearse himself tells an unusual arctic tale by the famed Madame Blavatsky. Original music by Babbage residents MacKnight Culdesac and Canolli Capalini. What a year it was!

Listening party today at noon PST at the Babbage Palisade tinker camp. 
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Babbage%20Palisade/34/195/94

Stream host: Radio Riel Steampunk http://steampunk.radioriel.org

Download: https://archive.org/details/TfNBChristmas2013

Christmas at Brunel Hall
written and performed by Vic Mullins.
Music: Winter Bells and Winter Psalm by MacKnight Culdesac.

The Strategy of the Were-Wolf Dog by Willa Cather.
First published in Home Monthly, December 1896
Reader: Junie Ginsburg
Music provided by MusOpen.org public domain classical music. 

From the Polar Lands, A Christmas Tale by Helena P. Blavatsky.
From the collected works of H.P. Blavatsky, Vol. 13.
Reader: Edward Pearse
Music: Fluidscape by Kevin MacLeod


Music Box pieces: JeTaime, Daisy, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Silver Bells, Silent Night, Fugue in D, by Canolli Capalini.

Additional material written by Kevin Frost.
Runtime 47:30

Produced by  Mosseveno Tenk on December 26th of 2013.