Podcast roundup

Sort of a daily/weekly listening summary that I thought I'd share.  Some time ago David put me onto the quite excellent science fiction short story podcast website Escape Pod and I've never looked back, downloading a new story every week.  The Union Dues series of stories has been a bit of a highlight, and there are a number of other great tales there like Shadowboxer, Cinderella Suicide and David's original link, Eight Episodes. 

Escape Pod also has a sister of sorts, PodCastle, which is fantasy focussed.  I've only listened to a couple of stories from there so far though and they didn't particularly grab me.  Before PodCastle came along there was PseudoPod which deals with horror stories.  Not my thing (I scare easy) but others may like it.

What I've really been grabbed by lately though are the Red Panda Adventures over at Decoder Ring Theatre -

...The Red Panda, mysterious crusader for justice, hides his true identity as one of the city's wealthiest men in his never-ending battle against crime and corruption.  Only his trusty driver, Kit Baxter, who joins him in his quest in the guise of The Flying Squirrel, knows who wears the mask of the Red Panda. ...

Just a whole lot of fun.  Sharp dialogue, occasional laugh out loud moments and a wonderful energy in the cast.  Worth starting from the very beginning and working forwards.  If you're into crime/noir, there's also Black Jack Justice done by the same people.

Other Pods of note, just briefly -

• ABC, of course, has a range of their programmes available.  I understand that Late Night Live in particular has a pretty big online audience;
• Other short fiction - Well Told Tales, Clone Pod, Variant Frequencies, Starship Sofa;
• Penny Arcade has a feed for their 'casts as well;
• GeekDads over at Wired;
• Somehow I managed to randomly discover a really interesting podcast about self-defence, Practical Defense.  Listened to a couple and figured it wasn't from the "breaking arms for fun" school of thought;. 
• And finally, check out this site for online language courses put into the public domain, very cool.

Also worth noting that the ABC also has a stack of their television programmes available for download, including the quite excellent The Gruen Transfer.  All very handy.