Antarctica Starts Here.

A couple of years ago, I don't remember exactly when or how, I stumbled across an unusual podcast called Tales From the Afternow from Rant Media. I suppose that it's more accurate to call it an audio drama rather than an audiobook because it's not talk radio as we usually think of it, nor is it a performance of a novel. The world described in these stories is a bleak one set on a post-nuclear war, post hyper-corporatization Earth in which licenses are required to read or write, languages and information are considered dangerous weapons, and even Time itself is copywritten (depending on where one lives and who one works for). Unlike many stories in the cyberpunk genre, the divide between those in power and everyone else is vast: the usual tropes (like prosthetic augmentation and computers) are rare outside of the arcologies due to corporate laws and the penalties for violating them (summary execution and recycling into basic organic compounds, memory redaction, or loss of access to information by deleting the records of acceptance of one's EULAs). Sean Kennedy (through the voice and identity of one of his successors, Sean Kennedy VI) builds the world in a unique fashion: by telling folktales passed from person to person, some of which describe how Sean's world got to be the way it is. The broadcasts of Independent Librarian Dynamic Sean Kennedy VI were somehow sent back through Time in an attempt to prevent his world from coming to be.

This post went a little far afield of its intended purpose: Afternow will be getting a third season after all, but it hasn't been announced yet when it'll start running as a podcast. At the Rantmedia 10th Anniversary celebration back in January, Sean Kennedy (not the character) did a stage performance of one of the stories, though I don't know if it was a new one or one of the stories already told. What I can say is that I'm excited that Afternow will be coming back soon, it's one of my favorites these days.

So light your candles, and may SERVER protect us all...