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The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine. Each week Escape Pod narrates fun science fiction and fantasy short stories, with commentary and review. We're also the first paying market in podcasting. Listen today, and hear the new sound of science fiction! Primary Format : Science Fiction Language : Unknown Also Listed as: City : Unknown State/Province : Unknown User Tags: User Votes: RSS Feed Website People found this Podcast Searching for: View this Podcast on a Google Map. Podcast iTunes Link Text Only listing of Escape Pod Podcasts Methings.com listings of Escape Pod Podcasts If you like this podcast, you might also like:

EP303: Leech Run By Scott W. Baker Read by: Alasdair Stuart Originally appearing in Zero Gravity: Adventures in Deep Space – Released July 27! Discuss on our forums. All stories by Scott W. Baker All stories read by Alasdair Stuart Rated appropriate for mid-teens and up for violence and mild adult language. Leech Run by Scott W. Baker [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP302: Flash Extravaganza Winners of our 2010 Flash Contest! London Iron by William R. Halliar (narrator Andrew Richardson) Wheels of Blue Stilton by Nicholas J. Carter (narrator Christian Brady) Light and Lies by Gideon Fostick (narrator- Mur Lafferty) All Escape Pod Originals! And we end with a grand “It’s Storytime” montage put together by Marshal Latham! Discuss on [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP301: Stone Wall Truth By Caroline Yoachim Read by: Heather Welliver Originally appearing in Asimov’s Discuss on our forums. All stories by Caroline Yoachim All stories read by Heather Welliver Nominated for the Hugo Nebula Award for Novelette, 2011 Rated appropriate for older teens and up for adult imagery. Stone Wall Truth by Caroline M. Yoachim Njeri sewed the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP301: Stone Wall Truth By Caroline Yoachim Read by: Heather Welliver Originally appearing in Asimov’s Discuss on our forums. All stories by Caroline Yoachim All stories read by Heather Welliver Nominated for the Hugo Nebula Award for Novelette, 2011 Rated appropriate for older teens and up for adult imagery. Stone Wall Truth by Caroline M. Yoachim Njeri sewed the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP300: We Go Back By Tim Pratt Read by: Mur Lafferty An Escape Pod original! Discuss on our forums. All stories by Tim Pratt All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated appropriate for younger teens and up – occasional adult language. Episode 300! Wow! We Go Back Tim Pratt My best friend Jenny Kay climbed in through my window [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Soundproof #9 Click here to download the ePub version. This month we’re bringing you short story and novella nominees for the Hugo awards, one of the two big Science Fiction and Fantasy awards alongside the Nebula. The Nebulas are awarded by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and the Hugos by the attendees [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP299: Plus or Minus By James Patrick Kelly Read by: Christiana Ellis Originally appearing in Asimov’s Discuss on our forums. All stories by James Patrick Kelly All stories read by Christiana Ellis Nominated for the Hugo Award for Novelette, 2011 Rated appropriate for older teens and up for sexual situations and violence. Plus Or Minus By James Patrick Kelly [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP298: The Things By Peter Watts Read by: Kate Baker (Thanks to Kate and Clarkesworld for the audio!) Originally appearing in Clarkesworld Discuss on our forums. All stories by Peter Watts All stories read by Kate Baker Nominated for the Hugo Award for Short Story, 2011 Rated appropriate for older teens and up for language and disturbing imagery. [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP297: Amaryllis By Carrie Vaughn Read by: Gabrielle De Cuir Originally appearing in Lightspeed Discuss on our forums. All stories by Carrie Vaughn All stories read by Gabrielle De Cuir Nominated for the Hugo Award for Short Story, 2011 Rated appropriate for all young teens and up for reproductive concerns. Amaryllis By Carrie Vaughn I never knew [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP296: For Want of a Nail By Mary Robinette Kowal Read by: Mur Lafferty Originally appearing in Asimov’s Discuss on our forums. All stories by Mary Robinette Kowal All stories read by Mur Lafferty Nominated for the Hugo Award for Short Story, 2011 Rated appropriate for teens and up for language. For Want of a Nail By Mary Robinette Kowal With [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP295: Disarm By Vylar Kaftan Read by: Mat Weller Originally appearing in Abyss and Apex – Read it now! Discuss on our forums. All stories by Vylar Kaftan All stories read by Mat Weller Rated appropriate for teens and up – mild sexual situations, light battle description. We kept in touch through the war, when he messaged [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Soundproof Escape Pod #8 ePub version here. Hello Gentle Listeners— May brought us the announcement of the Hugo Awards nominees, which means that June is Hugo Month! For years, Escape Pod has been buying the rights to most of the Hugo short story nominees, and this year is no different. We’ll be featuring three of the four nominees, and [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Promo for The Alphabet Quartet From Dave Thompson, the co-editor at our sister podcast, Podcastle: In late 2007, I took a trip down to San Diego’s Conjecture convention. I’d been listening to Escape Pod for a couple of years (PodCastle hadn’t even started yet) and so I was thrilled that the very first panel I got to see featured Tim [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP294: The Night Train By Lavie Tidhar Read by: Jean Hilde-Fulghum Originally appeared in Strange Horizons. Discuss on our forums. All stories by Lavie Tidhar All stories read by Jean Hilde-Fulghum Rated R The Night Train By Lavie Tidhar Her name wasn’t Molly and she didn’t wear shades, reflective or otherwise. She was watching the length of the platform. [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP293: A Small Matter, Really By Monte Cook Read by: Mur Lafferty An Escape Pod original! Discuss on our forums. All stories by Monte Cook All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated PG for violence A Small Matter, Really By Monte Cook Only the Catholic Church of Osirus would have enough money to afford not one, but two black holes. [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP292: In the Water By Katherine Mankiller Read by: Kim Gianopoulos Originally appearing in Fictitious Force. Discuss on our forums. All stories by Katherine Mankiller All stories read by Kim Gianopoulos Rated PG In the Water by Katherine Mankiller Yvonne looked up from her monitor, the beads in her cornrows clattering as Roger walked into her office. Roger sat [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP291: Shannon’s Law By Cory Doctorow Read by: Mur Lafferty Originally appearing in Welcome to Bordertown (Available May 24!) Read it at Tor.com. Discuss on our forums. All stories by Cory Doctorow All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated PG: language [Update- HUGE apologies for former editing issues on this file. It's fixed now!] When the Way to [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Soundproof Escape Pod #7 ePub version here. Hello All— We have listeners all over, and some of them will be heading into the winter months, but where I am spring has finally shook off the claws of winter. But in the slice of science fiction fandom we all inhabit, spring is really notable for the return of Doctor Who [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP290: Tom the Universe By Larry Hodges Read by: Mat Weller An Escape Pod original! Discuss on our forums. All stories by Larry Hodges All stories read by Mat Weller Rated PG-13: sexual situations Tom the Universe by Larry Hodges I permeate this universe, which I’ve named Tom, and guard against its destruction. If someone had done that for [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Special Episode- The Arthur C. Clarke Award Winner! You heard it here first, folks, we have an exclusive interview and book excerpt from this year’s Arthur C. Clarke award winner, Lauren Beukes, author of Zoo City (Angry Robot Books)! Zoo City explores a present day, but alternate, Johannesburg, and follows the story of Zinzi December, one of the animalled – people who are [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP289: Flash Contest Honorable Mentions This episode has three of the honorable mentions from the flash contest we held on our forums. You can, perhaps unsurprisingly, discuss this episode on our forums. Rated PG for some naughty language in Many Mistakes. Episode 37 – Captain Max Stone versus DESTRUCTOBOT! By Angela Lee Read by: Joshua McNichols When last we left [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP288 Future Perfect By LaShawn M. Wanak Read by: Dani Cutler Originally published in Ideomancer Discuss on our forums. All stories by LaShawn M. Wanak All stories read by Dani Cutler Rated R: language, adult situations Future Perfect By LaShawn M. Wanak I saw you at a party once. You stood by the bookshelf, reading a tattered volume [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP287 A Taste of Time By Abby Goldsmith Read by: Mur Lafferty Originally published in Deep Magic, May 2004 Discuss on our forums. All stories by Abby Goldsmith All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated PG: references to infidelity Show Notes: No feedback this week because of site issues! Next week… don’t drink the water. A Taste of Time by [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Soundproof Escape Pod #6 The ePub version can be found here. Welcome to April! — March was a sad month worldwide, and I, frankly, am looking forward to leaving winter behind. (Yeah, I know March starts spring in the Northern Hemisphere, but the damp and dank weather we’ve been having the US South makes me feel more like winter than [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP284 The ’76 Goldwater Dime By John Medaille Read by: Norm Sherman Originally published in Residential Aliens in July, 2010 Discuss on our forums. All stories by John Medaille All stories read by Norm Sherman Rated G: Coin collecting! Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 278 Next week… a taste of time. The ’76 Goldwater Dime By John Medaille I started [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP285 Jaiden’s Weaver By Mary Robinette Kowal Read by: Kij Johnson Originally published in Diamonds in the Sky Discuss on our forums. All stories by Mary Robinette Kowal All stories read by Kij Johnson Rated G: Teddy bear spiders! Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 277 Next week… Coin collecting SF. I’m serious. Jaiden’s Weaver by Mary Robinette Kowal [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP284: On a Clear Day You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy By Desmond Warzel Read by: Joshua McNichols Originally published in SFReader Discuss on our forums. All stories by Desmond Warzel All stories read by Joshua McNichols Rated PG: This story contains a real obnoxious dude. Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 276 Next week… The hopes and dreams of a child, and her pet. On a [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP283: Grandfather Paradox By Katherine Mankiller Read by: Kim Gianopoulos Originally published in Electric Velocipede Discuss on our forums. All stories by Katherine Mankiller All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated PG-13: This story contains violence. I am doing the drawing for the A&E Prize pack at the end of today! There is still a couple of hours [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP282: You’re Almost Here By Melinda Thielbar Read by: Mur Lafferty Originally published in Bull Spec Magazine Discuss on our forums. All stories by Melinda Thielbar All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated PG-13: This story contains one F-bomb. A&E are offering us a prize pack for a random drawing! So US residents, please email feedback at escapepod.org and [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Soundproof Escape Pod #5 Quick note: Sorry it’s late folks, minor illness-related delays. The ePub version can be found here. To our readers— I’ve always been of two minds about that proverb (well, curse) that has been attributed to the ancient Chi- nese of “May you live in interesting times.” Because let’s face it, boring times are getting further apart [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP281: The Notebook of my Favourite Skin-Trees By Alex Dally MacFarlane Read by: Pamela Quevillon Originally published in DayBreak Magazine Discuss on our forums. All stories by Alex Dally MacFarlane All stories read by Pamela Quevillion Rated R: This story contains erotic imagery and sex. Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 273 Next week… A story by Nebula-award nominee Vylar Kaftan! The Notebook [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP280: Endosymbiont By: Blake Charlton Read by: Mur Lafferty Originally published in Seeds of Change Discuss on our forums. All stories by Blake Charlton All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated PG-13: Swearing (one f-bomb) and disturbing hospital images Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 272 Next week… Horticulture, dermatology, and love “Do you know what day it [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Love’s Labours Won So I haven’t posted here as much as I should, and hope to alter that in the next few weeks. There are things I know I should be writing about (Like, for example, Fringe. Which is a great, great SciFi show. It has heart and a parallel universe and an ancient and mysterious machine.) But [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP279: Conditional Love By: Felicity Shoulders Read by: Mur Lafferty Originally published in Asimov’s, Jan 2010 issue Discuss on our forums. All stories by Felicity Shoulders All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated PG-13: Swearing and disturbing hospital images Show Notes: Serious apologies – circumstances this week had me recording later than usual. Feedback for Episode 271 Next [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP278: Written on the Wind By: David D. Levine Read by: Mur Lafferty Originally published in Beyond the Last Star Discuss on our forums. All stories by David D. Levine All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated PG: Talk of war elsewhere. Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 270 Next week… A groovy strange kind of love Written on the Wind [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Soundproof Escape Pod #4 To our lovely readers— It’s awards season, and yes, we will be talking about it on the blog, and in future podcasts. Even as SF authors all over are posting on their blogs about their 2010 award-eligible work, others are discussing whether this is blatantly trolling for votes. I can see how a constant barrage [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP277: Rejiggering the Thingamajig By: Eric James Stone Read by: Kij Johnson Originally published in Analog, 2010 Discuss on our forums. All stories by Eric James Stone All stories read by Kij Johnson Rated PG: For violence. Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 269: Élan Vital Next week… Linguistics… in space. Rejiggering the Thingamajig by Eric James Stone The teleport [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP276: On a Blade of Grass By: Tim Pratt Read by: Mat Weller Originally published in the Subterranean Press Newsletter, 2008 Discuss on our forums. All stories by Tim Pratt All stories read by Mat Weller Rated PG-13: For language, two F bombs, and some parasitic details… Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 268: Advection Next week… Rejiggering stuff – really, this [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP275: Schrödinger’s Cat Lady By: Marjorie James Read by: Mur Lafferty An Escape Pod original! Discuss on our forums. All stories by Marjorie James All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated PG: For quantum theory and brief violent description. Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 266: Kachikachi Yama Next week… Rejiggering stuff Schrödinger’s Cat Lady By Marjorie James I got [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP274: Angry Rose’s Lament By: Cat Rambo Read by: Mur Lafferty First appeared in Abyss & Apex (read the text here!) Discuss on our forums. All stories by Cat Rambo All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated R: for strong language and addiction discussion. Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 266: Kachikachi Yama “Not one of the Big Three? Thought [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Soundproof Escape Pod #3 Mur kindly introduced me in the last issue of Soundproof, but for anyone who missed that, hi. I’m Escape Pod’s Assistant Editor, and I’m most publicly known for doing the feedback segments in the podcast. I also oversee our teem of slush readers and end up sending out a lot of our rejections, and of [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP273: Death’s End to Middleton By: Natania Barron Read by: Jason Adams Originally appeared in Crossed Genres Magazine. Discuss on our forums. All stories by Natania Barron All stories read by Jason Adams Rated PG: For monsters and old west excitement. Yee Haw. Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 264: St. Darwin’s Spirituals Next week… Happy New Year! Dead’s End to [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP272: Christmas Wedding By: Vylar Kaftan Read by: Mur Lafferty First appeared in Warrior Wisewoman. Discuss on our forums. All stories by Vylar Kaftan All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated PG: For love at the end of the world. Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 264: St Darwin’s Spirituals Merry Christmas! Today was a perfect day, with three [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP271: God of the Lower Level By: Charles M. Saplak Read by: Steve Anderson First appeared in The Urbanite. Discuss on our forums. All stories by Charles M. Saplak All stories read by Steve Anderson Rated PG: For power struggles and new life creations. Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 263: Fuel Next week… It’s Christmastime! God of the Lower Level By [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP270: Advertising at the End of the World By: Keffy R. M. Kehrli Read by: Dani Cutler of the Truth Seekers Podcast First appeared in Apex Online Discuss on our forums. All stories by Keffy R. M. Kehrli All stories read by Dani Cutler Rated PG: For language and adult topics of spousal death and demanding advertising. Excerpt: Five years after her husband [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP269: Élan Vital By: K. Tempest Bradford Read by: Mur Lafferty First appeared in Sybil’s Garage no. 6 Discuss on our forums. All stories by K. Tempest Bradford All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated PG: For adult topics of parental death Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 261: Only Springtime When She’s Gone Next week… The future of [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Soundproof Escape Pod #2 We at Escape Pod have been thrilled and gratified at the response for the first Soundproof Escape Pod. We got kudos for everything from the fact that it existed, to the awesome layout job by our own Bill Peters. Speaking of Bill, this month I want to announce our staff changes. Escape Pod is hitting [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP268: Advection By: Genevieve Valentine Read by: Mur Lafferty First appeared in Clarkesworld Discuss on our forums. All stories by Genevieve Valentine All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated PG: For mild violence Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 260: The Speed of Dreams Next week… The difficulty of watching a parent die. Advection By Genevieve Valentine The [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP 267: Planetfall By: Michael C. Lea Read by: Jason Adams of Indie Squid Kid First appeared in The Book Of Exodi Discuss on our forums. All stories by Michael C. Lea All stories read by Jason Adams Rated PG: For violence Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 259: The Lady or the Tiger? Next week… Weather: wild, and [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP 265: Kachikachi Yama By: Michael R. Underwood Read by: Lauren Harris of Pendragon Variety Literary Magazine Podcast Discuss on our forums. All stories by Michael R. Underwood All stories read by Lauren Harris Rated R: For sexual situations and violence Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 258: Raising Jenny. Next week… We leave earth for a new planet! Kachikachi [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Soundproof Escape Pod This is the first of our monthly magazines that will bring you the previous month’s Escape Pod stories and the best of the blog. We have been pushing to expand what Escape Pod does, adding an SF blog and distributing our stories via magazine format. We’re also becoming a pro market, and hope to keep [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP 265: We are Ted Tuscadero for President By Chris Dahlen Read by: Cheyenne Wright Discuss on our forums. All stories by Chris Dahlen All stories read by Cheyenne Wright Rated PG-13: For sexual situations and adult language. Show Notes: Election day is always better with clones! Mr. Dahlen is editorial director of Kill Screen, a new print quarterly magazine about videogames. Feedback [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP264: St. Darwin’s Spirituals By D.K. Thompson Read by: Mur Lafferty First appeared in Murky Depths Host: Norm Sherman Discuss on our forums. All stories by DK Thompson All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated R: For paranormal sexual situations Show Notes: Enjoy our Halloween episode, which mixes a bit of paranormal in with our science fiction. Hey, it’s [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP263: Fuel By Matthew S. Rotundo Read by: Dave Thompson First appeared in Cosmos Discuss on our forums. All stories by Matthew S. Rotundo All stories read by Dave Thompson Rated PG: For a wee bit of swearing, sibling rivalry, and parents who don’t appreciate a smart son. Show Notes: Feedback for Episode 255: Variations on a [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP262: Cruciger By Erin Cashier Read by: Kij Johnson First appeared in Writers of the Future 24 Discuss on our forums. All stories by Erin Cashier All stories read by Kij Johnson Captain Harash was its last occupant, the last living man from Earth, and both he and Duxa knew he was dying. “It’s time, Duxa,” he [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP261: Only Springtime When She’s Gone By Eugie Foster Read by: Jason Adams First appeared in Anaisdotmfk Discuss on our forums. All stories by Eugie Foster All stories read by Jason Adams “A takeover of your company with the state your market shares are in is not unreasonable.” Although Soaces was right, there’d be precious little profit, even after he’d liquidated [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | I hear you folks like free fiction… Some free fiction coming down from Escape Pod favorites: Jury Service: By Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross (audio only) – (from Cory’s blog) Jury Service is the first of two novellas Charlie Stross and I wrote about Huw, a technophobe stuck on Earth after the Singularity (the other one being Appeals Court). They are both [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP260: The Speed of Dreams By Will Ludwigsen Read by: Mur Lafferty Host: Norm Sherman First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Discuss on our forums. All stories by Will Ludwigsen All stories read by Mur Lafferty Brought to you by Audible.com – Get The Alchemist and The Executioness (or any book you like) for FREE today when you sign up [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP259: The Lady or the Tiger By J M McDermott Read by: Grant Baciocco of Throwing Toasters and The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd Host: Norm Sherman First appeared in Apex Magazine Discuss on our forums. All stories by J M McDermott All stories read by Grant Baciocco The only thing I could think of to take my mind off of [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP258: Raising Jenny By Janni Lee Simner. Read by: Mur Lafferty First appeared in the anthology Not Of Woman Born Discuss on our forums. All stories by Janni Lee Simner All stories read by Mur Lafferty “I know I can’t do anything about this–” she gestured toward the tangled blankets, the hospital bed, the pale walls. “But I’ve [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP257: Union Dues: The Sum of Its Parts By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by: PG Holyfield of Murder at Avedon Hill Discuss on our forums. All stories by Jeffrey R. DeRego All stories read by PG Holyfield Langton has been under lock-and-key observation since two weeks ago when he sucker punched Paul right in the middle of a publicity shoot for Stars and [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP256: The Mermaids Singing Each to Each By Cat Rambo Read by: Christiana Ellis of Nina Kimberly the Merciless and Space Casey First appeared in Clarkesworld Discuss on our forums. All stories by Cat Rambo All stories read by Christiana Ellis “Laura,” a speaker said, as though I hadn’t been gone for six years, as though she’d seen me every day in [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP255: Variations on a Theme By William Meikle Read by: Zachary Ricks of Flying Island Press First appeared in Wrongworld Discuss on our forums. All stories by William Meikle All stories read by Zachary Ricks They took Johnny Green from class 3a at ten o’ clock on Tuesday morning. He was the last to go. They thought I didn’t notice, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP254: A Talent For Vanessa By David W. Goldman Read by: Dave Thompson of PodCastle First appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact Discuss on our forums. All stories by David W. Goldman All stories read by Dave Thompson The young woman, a Ms. Vanessa Kortright-Kingston, untwisted. “No, I mean that he just knows the date like that! As if [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP253: Eugene By Jacob Sager Weinstein Read by: Tim “ShoEboX” Crist of Worm Quartet, Cirque du So What?, and The Funny Music Project First appeared in Popcorn Fiction Discuss on our forums. All stories by Jacob Sager Weinstein All stories read by Tim “ShoEboX” Crist As he puts the cruiser in gear and takes off, I calm [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP252: Billion-Dollar View By Ray Tabler Read by: John Cmar Discuss on our forums. All stories by Ray Tabler All stories read by John Cmar “But my name is Simon.” Molly shook her head and chuckled. “With a head of hair like that? Nope, from now on your name is Red.” Simon felt his young face flushing with [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP251: Unexpected Outcomes By Tim Pratt Read by: Tom “Devo Spice” Rockwell of The Funny Music Project.. Discuss on our forums. Originally published in: Interzone All stories by Tim Pratt All stories read by Tom “Devo Spice” Rockwell But the plane just stopped, and hung there, nose tipped at a slight angle, mere feet from the building. And [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP250: Eros, Philia, Agape By Rachel Swirsky Discuss on our forums. Originally published in: Tor.com All stories by Rachel Swirsky All stories read by Mur Lafferty The objects belonged to them both, but Adriana waved her hand bitterly when Lucian began packing. “Take whatever you want,” she said, snapping her book shut. She waited by the door, watching Lucian [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP250: Eros, Philia, Agape By Rachel Swirsky Discuss on our forums. Originally published in: Tor.com All stories by Rachel Swirsky All stories read by Mur Lafferty The objects belonged to them both, but Adriana waved her hand bitterly when Lucian began packing. “Take whatever you want,” she said, snapping her book shut. She waited by the door, watching Lucian [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP249: Little M@tch Girl By Heather Shaw Originally published in: Tumbarumba It wasn’t that Em disapproved of drug use, you just had to be savvy about which drugs you took. Back before she had to get a day job, she was a M@tch girl, much to the delight of the guys on the club scene. M@tch wasn’t a wimpy drug, but [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP248: Spar By Kij Johnson Read by: Kate Baker of Clarkesworld Magazine Originally published in: Clarkesworld — Download and read the text The alien is not humanoid. It is not bipedal. It has cilia. It has no bones, or perhaps it does and she cannot feel them. Its muscles, or what might be muscles, are rings and not strands. Its [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP247: Bridesicle By Will McIntosh Read by: Amy H. Sturgis of StarShipSofa Originally published in: Asimov’s — Download and read the text Guest Host: Ben Phillips of Pseudopod “Aw, I know you’re awake by now. Come on, sleeping beauty. Talk to me.” The last was a whisper, a lover’s words, and Mira felt that she had to come awake and open [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP247: Bridesicle By Will McIntosh Read by: Amy H. Sturgis of StarShipSofa Originally published in: Asimov’s — Download and read the text Guest Host: Ben Phillips of Pseudopod “Aw, I know you’re awake by now. Come on, sleeping beauty. Talk to me.” The last was a whisper, a lover’s words, and Mira felt that she had to come awake and open [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP246: Bride of Frankenstein By Mike Resnick Read by: Julie Davis of the Forgotten Classics podcast Originally published in: Asimov’s — Download and read the text Guest Host: Alasdair Stuart of Pseudopod Victor can be so annoying. He constantly whistles this tuneless song, and when I complain he apologizes and then starts humming it instead. He never stands up to that ill-mannered little [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP246: Bride of Frankenstein By Mike Resnick Read by: Julie Davis Originally published in: Asimov’s — Download and read the text Guest Host: Alasdair Stuart of Pseudopod Victor can be so annoying. He constantly whistles this tuneless song, and when I complain he apologizes and then starts humming it instead. He never stands up to that ill-mannered little hunchback that he’s always sending [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP Special: Solitary as an Oyster re-record Many people have asked for the edit of one of our Christmas stories, Solitary as an Oyster, which suffered some technical difficulty. Sadly, with all the editorial changeover this spring, it ended up on the back burner. But now, six months from Christmas, we give you a treat in the heat of summer (norther hemisphere, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP245: The Moment By Lawrence M. Schoen Read by: Graeme Dunlop Originally published in: Footprints Guest Host: Norm Sherman of Drabblecast One of the first generation of Krenn had lived long enough to reach the site, though none had expected to. The very first Krenn had conceived of this journey in the distant past, dedicating his life and his posterity to the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP245: The Moment By Lawrence M. Schoen Read by: Graeme Dunlop Originally published in: Footprints Guest Host: Norm Sherman of Drabblecast One of the first generation of Krenn had lived long enough to reach the site, though none had expected to. The very first Krenn had conceived of this journey in the distant past, dedicating his life and his posterity to the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP244: Non-Zero Probabilities By N.K. Jemisin Originally recorded by Kate Baker for Clarkesworld Magazine, and is used here with their expressed permission. Guest Host: Dave Thompson of Podcastle Her neighbor — the other one, across the hall — helped her figure it out, long before the math geeks finished crunching their numbers. “Watch,” he’d said, and laid a deck of cards facedown [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP244: Non-Zero Probabilities By N.K. Jemisin Originally recorded by Kate Baker for Clarkesworld Magazine, and is used here with their expressed permission. Guest Host: Dave Thompson of Podcastle Her neighbor — the other one, across the hall — helped her figure it out, long before the math geeks finished crunching their numbers. “Watch,” he’d said, and laid a deck of cards facedown [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP243: I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno By Vylar Kaftan Read by Mur Lafferty Simultaneously appearing in Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 1, June 1, 2010. I knew you loved me, of course. It was written in your eyes when you looked at me, a physics problem with no clear answer. If an irresistible force meets an immovable object, what happens then? They meet. That’s all we know. [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP242: The Love Quest of Smidgen the Snack Cake By Robert T. Jeschonek Read by John Cmar. First appeared in Space and Time Magazine, issue 108. For her entire adolescent and adult life up until three weeks ago, Lynda had been the queen of junk food. Aside from the briefest blips of non-junk spending due to occasional failed diets, she had purchased only the most fattening, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP241: Thargus and Brian By Stephen Gaskell. Read by Chris Miller of Unquiet Desperation. Thargus thought the time right. He set the lights to full strength and flailed and gnashed and roared as he’d been practising. He felt rather silly, but the performance seemed to be working. The human, one hand steadying its spin, looked on intensely. It moved the white [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP240: The Last McDougal’s By David D. Levine. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Asimov’s, January 2006. Special closing song: “Blue,” by Yoko Kanno. As the old man came in, letting the door close gently behind him, an expression came over his face that Garth had seen many times before: a compound of misty nostalgia and appalled astonishment. His gaze swept [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP Metacast 5 Steve discusses the downtime and announces the new editor of Escape Pod. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP239: A Programmatic Approach to Perfect Happiness By Tim Pratt. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Futurismic, April 2009. Opening poem: “Scientific Romance” Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff My step-daughter Wynter, who is regrettably prejudiced against robots and those who love us, comes floating through the door in a metaphorical cloud of glitter instead of her customary figurative cloud of gloom. She enters the kitchen, rises up [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP238: Wind From a Dying Star By David D. Levine. Read by Meg Westfox. First appeared in Bones of the World, ed. Bruce Holland Rogers. After a time she found a small patch of zeren. She spread across it, taking a little solace from its sparkling sweetness. “Zero-point energy” was what Old John called it, but to Gunai and the rest of [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP237: Roadside Rescue By Pat Cadigan. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Omni, July 1985. “That’s a long time to wait.” The navigator’s smile widened. He was very attractive, holo-star kind of handsome. People who work for aliens, Etan thought. “Perhaps you’d care to wait in my employer’s transport. For that matter, I can probably repair your vehicle, which will [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP236: Still On the Road By Geoffrey A. Landis. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Asimov’s, December 2008. Turns out, you know, that old dharma bum never made it off the wheel of karma. He had too many attachments, to the road, to words; and if you love the things of the world of Mara too much you fall back into [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP235: On the Human Plan By Jay Lake. Read by Mike Boris (of Mike Boris Audio). First appeared in Lone Star Stories, February 2009. I am called Dog the Digger. I am not mighty, neither am I fearsome. Should you require bravos, there are muscle-boys aplenty among the rat-bars of any lowtown on this raddled world. If it is a [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP234: The Secret Protocols of the Elders of Zion By Lavie Tidhar. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in The West Pier Gazette & Other Stories, 2008. It was afternoon, after school has ended for the day. Sash has been working in the hydroponics gardens, helping the adults with the delicate work of picking the buds. It was flowering time, and the ganja plants were at the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP233: Union Dues - The Threnody of Johnny Toruko By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Stephen Eley. I duck through the door behind her. The place is jammed with customers. “You have any money? I didn’t think to ask Miss Jennifer for any.” TK answers, “don’t worry, just tell me what you want.” “Large with extra sugar and cream.” TK grins and focuses her attention on the line of [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP233: Union Dues - The Threnody of Johnny Toruko By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Stephen Eley. I duck through the door behind her. The place is jammed with customers. “You have any money? I didn’t think to ask Miss Jennifer for any.” TK answers, “don’t worry, just tell me what you want.” “Large with extra sugar and cream.” TK grins and focuses her attention on the line of [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP232: Flash Special This week Escape Pod presents three flash stories: Alloy By Marissa Lingen. Read by Electra Allenton. First appeared in Nature, September 2007. Flare By Kyle Deas. Read by Stephen Eley. My Grandfather’s River By Brenda Cooper. Read by Anna Eley. First appeared in Nature, August 2006. Rated PG. Can get a bit sad in places. Referenced Sites: Cybrosis — A podcast novel by P.C. Haring Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP232: Flash Special This week Escape Pod presents three flash stories: Alloy By Marissa Lingen. Read by Electra Allenton. First appeared in Nature, September 2007. Flare By Kyle Deas. Read by Stephen Eley. My Grandfather’s River By Brenda Cooper. Read by Anna Eley. First appeared in Nature, August 2006. Rated PG. Can get a bit sad in places. Referenced Sites: Cybrosis — A podcast novel by P.C. Haring Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP231: Solitary as an Oyster By Mur Lafferty. Read by Alasdair Stuart. Special Closing Music: “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” by Twisted Sister. “Who’s there?” the voice asked, rough and unpleasant. Robert and Lydia glanced at each other. “The Paranormalists, Mr. Scrooge. You called us a couple of hours ago,” Robert said. “Took you long enough,” the voice said. The door clicked as Scrooge unlocked [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP230: Candy Art By James Patrick Kelly. Read by Kathryn Baker. Special Closing Music: “Podsafe Christmas Song” by Jonathan Coulton. First appeared in Asimov’s, December 2002. “They’re uploads, Jennifer.” When I first met Mel, I thought the sleepy voice was sexy. “How can they move in with us when they’re not anywhere?” “They bought a puppet to live in,” I say. [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP229: Littleblossom Makes a Deal With the Devil By S. Hutson Blount. Read by Eugie Foster. Sponsored by SleepPhones - Pajamas For Your Ears From beneath the camouflage of kindling on her back came Grandma Thinkbox’s quiet voice. “You should have something hot to drink, child. Do not make yourself sick.” “Yes, nainai. As soon as I check on Pig.” After Comrade Liu had been evacuated with the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP228: Everything That Matters By Jeff Spock. Read by Geoff Michelli. Hosted by Norm Sherman (The Drabblecast). Closing music: “Heartache Over Innsmouth” by Norm Sherman. Sponsored by SleepPhones - Pajamas For Your Ears “I have done over fifteen hundred dives,” I said, and let that sink in. The number was astronomical for a guy my age, even for a professional. “I have [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP227: His Master’s Voice By Hannu Rajaniemi. Read by Peter Piazza; courtesy of Starship Sofa. Guest introduction by Paul Graham Raven of Futurismic. First appeared in Interzone, October 2008. Before the concert, we steal the Master’s head. The Necropolis is a dark forest of concrete mushrooms in the blue Antarctic night. We huddle inside the utility fog level attached to the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP226: Pirate Solutions by Katherine SparrowNarrated by Sarah Tolbert, Kate Baker, Nate Periat, and Steve EleyThe story first appeared in Fast Ships, Black Sails edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer.You could feel their heat. Not a metaphor, I don’t mean that, I mean literally the room grew warmer when they were in it. They were both so [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP225: A Hard Rain at the Fortean Café by Lavie Tidhar narrated by Sarah Tolbert This story originally appeared in Aeon #14. The diner stood off the highway outside a small town optimistically called Hope. Hope was being stuck in the middle of the Northwest and wishing you were someplace, anyplace else. And Hope was also the name on the tag pinned to the dead woman [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP224: The Ghost in the Death Trap by Marjorie James read by Steve Eley Editor’s note:  this is a sequel to EP007.  Listen to it here. Flies buzzed around the edges of the huge stone block, gathering at the rivulets of blood that ran down to the floor. A bit of what looked like it might be intestine hung off one corner, drawing special attention. [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP223: The Uncanny Valley by Nick Mamatas read by Kathryn Baker The trouble with knowing everything there is to know, Stephanie Dowling decided instantly, because that’s how clever she was, was that when there was something unknown out there, she had nobody to consult. And there was something unknown out there, nibbling away at the edge of the economy, and screwing with [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP222: Infestation by Garth Nix read by Geoff Michelli Recently appeared in By Blood We Live. They were the usual motley collection of freelance vampire hunters. Two men, wearing combinations of jungle camouflage and leather. Two women, one almost indistinguishable from the men though with a little more style in her leather armour accessories, and the other looking like she [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP221: Little Ambushes by Joanne Merriam read by Rachel Swirsky Practically the first thing she did when she took in the alien was to give him a new name. He looked at her outstretched hand long enough to annoy her, and then grasped it with his four opposable fingers and hung on limply until she wrenched her hand out of [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP220: Come All Ye Faithful by Robert J. Sawyer read by Mike Boris “Damned social engineers,” said Boothby, frowning his freckled face. He looked at me, as if expecting an objection to the profanity, and seemed disappointed that I didn’t rise to the bait. “As you said earlier,” I replied calmly, “it doesn’t make any practical difference.” He tried to get me again: “Damn [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP219: Sleepy Joe by Marc Laidlaw narrated by Ben Phillips originally appeared in The Infinite Matrix The plan must have come to Rog fully formed that first morning, as he stepped off the elevator into the lobby of Szilliken Sharpenwright and saw the old soldier newly stationed there in his omnichair between the potted silk ferns and the coffee [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP218: Ode To Katan Amano by Caitlin R. Kiernan narrated by Kim the Comic Book Goddess No one hears when I ease the heavy steel door shut behind me. All the ears in the darkened workshop, all those hundreds and hundreds of ears, but still no one hears a thing. And I stand there for a while, as unmoving as they, not [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP217: The Kindness of Strangers by Nancy Kress narrated by Kate Baker When morning finally dawns, Rochester isn’t there anymore. Jenny stands beside Eric, gazing south from the rising ground that yesterday was a fallow field. Maybe the whole city hasn’t vanished. Certainly the tall buildings are gone, Xerox Square and Lincoln Tower and the few others that just last night [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP216: βoyfriend by Madeline Ashby read by Tina Connolly Violet snapped three photos of herself from various angles, sent them, and waited for her boyfriend’s response. He rang her up—a slow vibrating purr, unlike the staccato door-knocking of her mother’s ringvibe—and said: “Me likey. Now take it off.” Violet frowned. “You were supposed to dig up the backstory on the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP215: Mr. Penumbra’s Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store By Robin Sloan Narrated by Stephen Eley First appeared at Robin Sloan’s blog, June 8, 2009. IT’S 2:02 A.M. ON A COLD SUMMER NIGHT. I’m sitting in a book store next to a strip club. Not that kind of book store. The inventory here is incredibly old and impossibly rare. And it has a secret—a secret that I might have [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP215: Mr. Penumbra’s Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store By Robin Sloan Narrated by Stephen Eley First appeared at Robin Sloan’s blog, June 8, 2009. IT’S 2:02 A.M. ON A COLD SUMMER NIGHT. I’m sitting in a book store next to a strip club. Not that kind of book store. The inventory here is incredibly old and impossibly rare. And it has a secret—a secret that I might have [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP214: Sinner, Baker, Fablist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast by Eugie Foster Narrated by Lawrence Santoro Each morning is a decision. Should I put on the brown mask or the blue? Should I be a tradesman or an assassin today? Whatever the queen demands, of course, I am. But so often she ignores me, and I am left to figure out for myself who [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP213: A Monkey Will Never Get Rid of Its Black Hands by Rachel Swirsky Narrated by Alasdair Stuart Papa and Uncle Fomba told me if I didn’t join the army, they’d kill me. They didn’t. They cut off my hands. This was after U.S. forces marched on Syria, but before we invaded Lebanon. On every city block, posters of Uncle Sam entreated every Tom, Duc, and Haroun to get [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EA Metacast, Aug 2009 A few announcements. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP212: Skinhorse Goes to Mars by Jay Lake read by Mike Boris When I met Skinhorse, my first thought was old. Which was weird. Nobody gets old these days. We all die young, some of us after living a long time, if we’re lucky. He was in Piet’s Number Seven, a bar-cum-caravanserai in an illegal orbit trailing far enough behind [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP211: Carthago Delenda Est by Genevieve Valentine Read by Kate Baker Story originally appeared in Federations. Wren Hex-Yemenni woke early. They had to teach her everything from scratch, and there wasn’t time for her to learn anything new before she hit fifty and had to be expired. “Watch it,” the other techs told me when I was starting out. “You don’t want a [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP210: The Hastillan Weed by Ian Creasey Narrated by MarBelle This story originally appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction (February 2006). “Since we have so many new faces,” I said to the half-dozen volunteers, “I’ll start with a tools talk. Safety points for the spade — the most important is that when you’re digging, you push with the ball of your [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP209: On the Eyeball Floor by Tina Connolly read by Norm Sherman Closing song by Andrew Richardson We’ve got robotic arms to put the eyeballs in. Metal clamps to pulldown the eyelids. Tony, on Four, keeps the grease vats filled. Oil squirts nineteen times a minute to keep the eye sockets from squeaking. Tiny slick needles stitch on the lashes, while millions of [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP208: An Almanac for the Alien Invaders By Merrie Haskell Read by Sarah Tolbert Previously appeared in Asimov’s. In January, there will be an annular solar eclipse, with the path of annularity moving through the Indian Ocean and into Sumatra and Borneo. Two days later, aliens will invade Earth. No spaceships will loom large in blue skies, nor hover over our cities. At night, though, when [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP207: Wonder Maul Doll By Kameron Hurley Read by Kim the Comic Book Goddess Appeared originally in From the Trenches We set down in Pekoi as part of the organics inquisition team, still stinking of the last city. We’re all muscle. Not brains. The brains are out eating at the foreigners’ push downtown, and they don’t care if we whore around the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP206: Rogue Farm By Charles Stross Recorded at Balticon 43, May 23, 2009 Read by: Joe -Jared Axelrod (of The Voice of Free Planet X) Maddie - J.R. Blackwell (of Voices of Tomorrow) The Farm - Evo Terra and Sheila Dee (of Evo at 11, et al.) Maddie - J.R. Blackwell (of Voices of Tomorrow) Brenda the Barkeep - Dee Reed (of Nobilis Erotica) Wendy the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP 200: All You Zombies By Robert A. Heinlein Read by Steve Eley I was polishing a brandy snifter when the Unmarried Mother came in. I noted the time—10:17 P. M. zone five, or eastern time, November 7th, 1970. Temporal agents always notice time and date; we must. The Unmarried Mother was a man twenty–five years old, no taller than I am, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Worlds of Tomorrow: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind By Alasdair Stuart Read by Alasdair Stuart Welcome to Worlds of Tomorrow, an occasional feature we’ll be running looking at some of the best in science fiction cinema. From acknowledged classics to forgotten gems we’ll be covering them all. Some of them you’ll have seen, some you won’t, some you’ll agree with me on and some you’ll [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP 205: Requiem in D-minor (for prions, whale and burning bush) By Ian McHugh Read by Frank Key of Hooting Yard First appeared in Hub #24. Kevin switched the audio over to the projector. The lecture hall was filled with outdoor noises. Wind hummed softly over the microphone, cattle lowed nearby, a truck accelerated in the distance. A roan steer staggered around a concreted yard, its mute distress accompanied by [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP 204: The Fifth Zhi By Mercurio D. Rivera Read by Steve Eley First appeared in Interzone Zhi 4’s scream pierces the Siberian night. My spiked metal boots crunch through the snow as I race towards him, with Zhi 6 running at my side. The nanochip in my brainstem clicks on, and I reach out with my mind, but I can’t sense even [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: Tired By Michael Bishop Read by John Meagher One morning, Gordon Pointer received an e-message from the left-front Goodstone tire on his old Callisto sedan. (He had bought the car used over a decade ago and retrofitted it for the intelligent interstates of the Piedmont metrosprawl.) Gordon abhorred palmflips, infraspecs, logomaniacs, microserfs, lapcops, and digital Kleenex, but he [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP 203: The Legend of St. Ignatz By Samantha Henderson Read by Ray Sizemore (of X-Ray Visions). Intro by Norm Sherman of Drabblecast. Closing song, Jesus Clones First appeared in Ideomancer “You’re a disgrace to your calling and your species.” The Cardinal’s words were at odds with the verging-on-seductive voice of the translator embedded in the Anturean’s Chlor-tank. From beneath lowered lashes Ignatz O’Reilly, D.D. Inter-Species, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | (Endorsement) Personal Effects: Dark Art NOTE FROM STEVE: This is not this week’s Escape Pod story. This is me talking about something I like. Feel free to skip this post if it isn’t fun for you. There are a number of good writers now breaking into the big leagues through podcasting. My friend J.C. Hutchins is one of [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: One Trick Dog By Bruce Boston Read by J.C. Hutchins Mr. Wayne was taking his daily exercise, walking Arthur around the lake in Nevley Park, when the sky darkened and a light snow began to fall. A few flakes fluttered against his cheeks. He could feel the cold through his heavy topcoat. He enjoyed the park when it was deserted, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Episode 202: Will You Be an Astronaut? By Greg van Eekhout Read by Christiana Ellis First appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Astronauts are people who ride rockets into space.  They must train for a very long time before they go.  Astronauts must be brave and smart. Will you be an astronaut? * * * The biggest rocket ever was the Saturn V.  On the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: Patent Infringement By Nancy Kress Read by Steve Anderson Kegelman-Ballston Corporation is proud to announce the first public release of its new drug, Halitex, which cures Ulbarton’s Flu completely after one ten-pill course of treatment. Ulbarton’s Flu, as the public knows all too well, now afflicts upwards of thirty million Americans, with the number growing daily as the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Episode 201: Harry The Crow Editors Note: As you may have noticed, episode 201 is appearing before Episode 200.  We’re still working out the kinks of an agreement with the mysterious agent forces mentioned in an earlier update, but we should have that episode for you soon, and we think it’ll be worth the wait.  Rather than keep you waiting [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: Taco By Greg Van Eekhout Read by John Meagher “Hey, tell me, this look like Jesus to you?” I come to Tito’s Tacos for a lot of reasons. The freeway overpass ambience, the way the old men in the kitchen wrap the burritos tighter than Cuban cigars, the shiny Kennedy 50-cent pieces you always get as part of your change. A lot [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Worlds of Tomorrow: Armageddon By Alasdair Stuart Read by Alasdair Stuart Welcome to Worlds of Tomorrow, an occasional feature we’ll be running looking at some of the best in science fiction cinema. From acknowledged classics to forgotten gems we’ll be covering them all. Some of them you’ll have seen, some you won’t, some you’ll agree with me on and some [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: Betting the Family Farm By Wenonah Lyon Read by Elie Hirschman It had originally thought the goal was to hit the two small creatures in the distance. They appeared to be identical to the three creatures whom he had joined in the game. First approximation: separated by some distance, one attempts to down the group ahead of one using one of many [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: Off Base By Stevens R. Miller Read by Steve Anderson Her boyfriend put a slim hand to his forehead, as though shielding his eyes from sunlight, even though the sun had set some minutes before. Where the girl had pointed was a bright star, moving east. Rated PG for frequent golf horror Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Episode 199: Elvis in the Attic By Catherine M. Morrison Read by Ben Phillips First appeared in SCIFICTION. We had an Elvis in the attic.  Again. Echoing in the ducts, his voice woke me around 2 A.M.  I hopped from bed and headed for the attic–they always it up there.  A Vegas Elvis stood by a rack of old clothes singing “Blue Christmas” [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Episode 198: N-words By Ted Kosmatka Read by Kim The Comic Book Goddess First appeared in Seeds of Change, 2008. They came from test tubes. They came pale as ghosts with eyes as blue-white as glacier ice. They came first out of Korea. I try to picture David’s face in my head, but I can’t. They’ve told me [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: Get Me to the Job on Time By Ian Randal Strock Read by Elie Hirschman “Maybe it’s what you’d do with the knowledge that determines whether or not you’ll discover the secret of time travel.” “What?” I asked the old man. “I know for a fact that time travel is possible. I knew the man who discovered it. And you’ll never guess what he used his [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Worlds of Tomorrow: 2010 By Alasdair Stuart Read by Alasdair Stuart Welcome to Worlds of Tomorrow, an occasional feature we’ll be running looking at some of the best in science fiction cinema. From acknowledged classics to forgotten gems we’ll be covering them all. Some of them you’ll have seen, some you won’t, some you’ll agree with me on and some you’ll [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Episode 197: From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled… By Michael Swanwick Read by Sarah Tolbert First appeared in Asimov’s Feb 2008 Imagine a cross between Byzantium and a termite mound. Imagine a jeweled mountain, slender as an icicle, rising out of the steam jungles and disappearing into the dazzling pearl-grey skies of Gehenna. Imagine that Gaudí—he of the Segrada Familia and other biomorphic architectural [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: Semi-Autonomous or ‘For Whom The Warranty Tolls By Jim Kling Read by Rachel Swirsky Hello, you have reached Jim’s semi-autonomous answering machine. Leave a message and I will have him return your call. Hello, you have reached Jim’s semi-autonomous answering machine. He will be hosting his birthday party on Saturday night. If you plan to attend, press ‘one’ and then speak your [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP196: Evil Robot Monkey By Mary Robinette Kowal Read by Stephen Eley First appeared in the Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, vol. 2 edited by George Mann. Special closing monkey music by George Hrab Sliding his hands over the clay, Sly relished the moisture oozing around his fingers. The clay matted down the hair on the back of his hands making them [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: Chump Change By Pete Butler Read by Jake Squid It’s going to be the Three of Clubs. I know this, as certainly as I know my own name. I’m less sure about some things than my fans would think. But sometimes, the swirling laws governing what may happen coalesce into what will happen with astonishing clarity. [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP195: 26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss 2009 Hugo Nominee! By Kij Johnson. Read by Diane Severson (of The Diva’s Divine Days). First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 2008. Narration first appeared at and produced by Starship Sofa. Special thanks to Tony Smith and Diane Severson for their kind permission to resyndicate this award nominee. She sets a stepladder next to it. She claps her [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: The Sincerest Form By W.G. Hopkins Read by Alasdair Stuart Bars of light crossed my desk, carved from the sun by the open window. The scent of hot asphalt rose from the path that led to the capitol buildings. Beside me, Dr. Singh motioned for the guards to bring in Dr. Norman Terriault. He looked pale. I motioned for him to [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP194: Exhalation 2009 Hugo Nominee! By Ted Chiang. Read by Ray Sizemore (of X-Ray Visions). First appeared in Eclipse 2, ed. Jonathan Strahan. Narration first appeared at and produced by Starship Sofa. Special thanks to Tony Smith and Ray Sizemore for their kind permission to resyndicate this award nominee. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audiblepodcast.com/escapepod But in the normal course of [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: Grandpa? By Edward M Lerner Read by Ben Phillips The lecture hall was pleasantly warm. Behind Prof. Thaddeus Fitch, busily writing on the chalkboard, pencils scratched earnestly in spiral notebooks, fluorescent lights hummed, feet shuffled. A Beach Boys tune wafted in through open windows from the quad. “And so,” he continued, “travel backwards in time would violate causality, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP193: Article of Faith By Mike Resnick. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Baen’s Universe, October 2008. “I’m sure,” I said. “Somehow, lunch seems pretty trivial after you’ve been thinking about God all morning.” “God, sir?” “The Creator of all things,” I explained. “My creator is Stanley Kalinovsky, sir,” said Jackson. “I was not aware that he created everything in the world, nor that [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: A Preference for Silence By Lucy A. Snyder Read by Ann Leckie Veronica was a spaceworthy lass with a definite preference for silence and a sensitivity to detail. She’d never lost her tea in zero gee and had always been the first to note when the coffee maker needed cleaning or when the fluorescent lights would flick-flicker in [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP192: Sumo21 By Daniel Braum. Read by Stephen Eley. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff “Oh great Emperor,” the gyoji said, continuing the ritual. “These two honorable warriors can not agree who will step aside, and who will join the sacred battle to return you to us. We would gladly send all our sons, but the Council of Infinite Japans says there [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: Beachcomber By Mike Resnick Read by Elie Hirschman Arlo didn’t look much like a man. (Not all robots do, you know.) The problem was that he didn’t act all that much like a robot. Rated PG. Contains hopes that will never be fulfilled. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP191: This Is How It Feels By Ian Creasey. Read by FNH (of The Cthulhu Podcast). First appeared in Asimov’s, March 2008 Guest Host: Tony Smith (of Starship Sofa) Nathan’s eyes stung as he remembered how Jenny used to do just that: the same jump down the stairs, the same windmilling of her arms as she landed…. The grief swept over him like a [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: It Was Death By a Bullet, But I Was Killed By a Woman By Michael Bekemeyer Read by Alasdair Stuart (of Pseudopod) I have a special skill. I am a part of a small group of people on this planet that can do special things with their minds. You have your mind readers, your empaths — and you have people like me who can control things through telekinesis. I [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP190: Origin Story By Tim Pratt. Read by Stephen Eley. Special closing music: “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff He didn’t call himself The Aerialist at first. The newspapers came up with that later. He called himself Kid Kangaroo of all things, because of the jumping from rooftop to rooftop, even though I made fun of [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: My Angel Gabriel By J. R. Blackwell Read by Ann Leckie (of PodCastle) “Becky.” Typed Rachel “I had to ban him. I’m sorry. He was a bot, a spider, a program. He wasn’t human.” Becky’s green words glowed on her screen almost immediately. “He talked to me! Every day! What do you mean he wasn’t human?” Rachel exhaled; this was going to [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP189: The Botox School of Acting By Liz Shannon Miller. Read by Dani Cutler (of Truth Seekers). Guest Host: Jeffrey R. DeRego Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff Only the best gain acceptance. Harry cannot be bought. Twice a year, he attends the fashion shows, looking for an unknown to transform, but most of the time they come to him — the beautiful, the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP188: 29 Union Leaders Can’t Be Wrong By Genevieve Valentine. Read by Chris Lester (of Metamor City). First appeared in Strange Horizons, November 2007 Guest Host: Jeffrey R. DeRego Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff “This is normal,” the doctor says, and, “Give yourself time, it’s key,” and, “The hospital psychiatrist will be speaking to you about some support groups.” “What about Marlene?” “She’s speaking wit ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP187: Summer in Paris, Light from the Sky By Ken Scholes. Read by Alex Wilson (of Telltale Weekly). Adolf Hitler came to Paris in June 1941 feeling the weight of his years in his legs and the taste of a dying dream in his mouth. He spent most of that first day walking up and down the Champs Elysées, working the stiffness out of [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP186: Chrysalis By Mary Robinette Kowal. Read by Cunning Minx (of Polyamory Weekly). Sponsored by CONTAGIOUS, by Scott Sigler. People ask me if I ever get involved with the subjects of my documentaries. I have a difficult time imagining that they would ask my male colleagues the same question, but they seem to expect women to be more emotional. In response, I tend [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP185: Union Dues - All About the Sponsors By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Stephen Eley. Sponsored by CONTAGIOUS, by Scott Sigler. I suck in my chest and tighten the buckles before getting lightheaded. I don’t have to wear the costume anymore, but it seems disrespectful to leave it in the closet for this one last mission. I get the boots on and struggle with the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash: Standards by Richard K. Lyon Read by Frank Key (of Hooting Yard) After careful examination of your manuscript no 113785, Corbamite, An Insulator Against Gravity, the editors of Review of Physics have concluded that it is not suitable for publication in this journal. This decision is final and further correspondence on this subject will serve no useful purpose. Since [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP184: As Dry Leaves That Before the Wild Hurricane Fly By Mur Lafferty. Read by Christiana Ellis (of Christiana’s Shallow Thoughts, et al.). Special Closing Music: “Chiron Beta Prime,” by Jonathan Coulton. Comet and Cupid were fifteen, and took after their father, both spending the most time in the workshop tinkering with Father’s tools. Christmas was coming soon and they were preparing their yearly trip to the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash Fiction Contest, Honorable Mention: Silence by Rachel Swirsky. Read by Ann Leckie. � Whatever the midwife told you, it’s not true. I cannot walk through walls. I cannot conjure a chicken and make it�dance or start a fire with my fingers. I cannot shape familiars from�fog or examine entrails to see if a man will die. I cannot resurrect�your [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash Fiction Contest, Honorable Mention: Hello, I Love You by Katherine Sparrow. Read by Rachel Swirsky. “Junk DNA? I’ll junk your DNA!” Sofia glared at Zorg. “Apologies. It is only, don’t you find it interesting? Most of it is unused–” “Junk? You supercilious aliens come to Earth to rein snottiness on us lowly humans? How sublime. I suppose your DNA is full of Porsches?” Rated PG. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash Fiction Contest, Honorable Mention: The Way Before By Anna Schwind Read by Ann Leckie When Chasca turned eleven, her father took her to a ship farm, to choose her vessel.� She stood on the observation deck, evaluating the herd.� Chasca selected the farthest ship.� It faced away from the others and bumped the edges of the corral.� She understood.� Rated �G. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash Fiction Contest, Honorable Mention: Hoarding Colored Rags by Jared Axelrod (of The Voice of Free Planet X). Read by Mike Swirsky. I remember your touch, your taste, the way your mouth curled slightly�when you said my name. Rated PG.� Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash Fiction Contest, Honorable Mention: From Liquid to Glass By J. R. Blackwell. Read by Rachel Swirsky (of PodCastle). He smelled like new cars and�cologne, he moved with a measured rhythm. His mouth tasted like mint�toothpaste. She looked over his shoulder through the white light of�the window. She was sweating into her sheets, her breath silent, and�her lips thin and tight. Rated R. Contains sex [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash Fiction Contest, Third Place: Karakuri By Gideon Fostick. Read by Dave Leckie. Bill had no heart for this�Karakuri, left behind in the empty house when�his love had gone. Small and exquisite, propped at an angle on the�tatami floor mat, it was the toughest puzzle he’d known.� Rated PG. Contains puzzles. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Escape Pod Flash Fiction Contest, Second Place: Skyscrapers by Rachel Swirsky read by Ann Leckie Summers, I sleep on rooftops. Under smokestacks, beside stairs, in the�sudden green of precarious gardens. Rated PG. Contains mythical figures. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP Flash Fiction Contest Winner: Mission to Dover by Gideon Fostick. Read by Lyle Merithew.� Escape Pod sends its congratulations to Gideon Fostick for winning first place in the Escape Pod flash fiction contest for stories under 300 words. Professor Seiferd materialized in full command of his faculties. He oriented�immediately on the white cliffs of Dover, towering over the English Channel.�He felt the weight [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP Metacast #4 In which more is said about the hiatus. Referenced Sites: Eulogy for Bicky Eley PodCastle Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP183: Beans and Marbles (Update: Reposted with editing mistakes corrected. My apologies for the errors.) By Floris M. Kleijne. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, August 2005. When Flight Control assigned us utility privileges, I don’t think they expected me to brew espresso in the centrifugal head. But the weight of the espresso machine was well within the parameters [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP182: The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham By H.G. Wells. Read by Alasdair Stuart (of Pseudopod). “I must tell you, then, that I am an old man, a very old man.” He paused momentarily. “And it happens that I have money that I must presently be leaving, and never a child have I to leave it to.” I thought of the confidence trick, and [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP181: Resistance By Tobias S. Buckell. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Seeds of Change, ed. John Joseph Adams Audible.com Metatropolis Promotion! Download the first story from Metatropolis free at: http://audible.com/metapod The man opened the pack all the way to reveal a small arsenal of guns, grenades, explosives, and — oddly — knives. Very large knives. He looked up at Stanuel. [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP180: Navy Brat By Kay Kenyon. Read by Dani Cutler (of Truth Seekers). First appeared in Space Cadets, ed. Mike Resnick, as “Tall Enough For Navy” She pushed off when her turn came, floating into the huge hold where she had to keep her line from tangling with other lines and stay alert for the seniors whose job it was to [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP179: Arties Aren�t Stupid By Jeremiah Tolbert. Read by Philippa Ballantine (of Chasing the Bard). First appeared in Seeds of Change, ed. John Joseph Adams Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff Nobody went home to their Elderfolk while we waited for Niles to come back. That was a rule. If Niles never came back, then we wouldn’t have to. [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP178: Unlikely By Will McIntosh. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Asimov’s, January 2008. Special closing music: “Mandelbrot Set” by Jonathan Coulton. “The mayor seems to believe there’s something to this,” Tuesday said. “He’s desperate. Clutching at straws.” “So why did you agree to meet?” Tuesday asked, her Keds back on the black and white tile floor. Samuel paused while the waitress plunked [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP177: Usurpers By Derek Zumsteg. Read by Stephen Eley. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff King spots a knock-off cluster, glowing sunny in the rain, too fit, perfectly proportioned. Tear off some burnished bronze, never-burning skin. Shove it under a microscope, see the designer signature, Chinese characters like tattoos on the necks of college girls. All ten ranked cross-country runners [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP176: How The World Became Quiet: A Post-Human Creation Myth By Rachel Swirsky. Read by Frank Key (of Hooting Yard). Humans laid the foundation for the sixth apocalypse in much the same way they’d triggered the previous ones. Having recovered their ambition after the Apocalypse of Serotonin and rebuilt their populations after the Apocalypse of Grease, they once again embarked on their species’ long term goal to [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP175: Reparations By Merrie Haskell. Read by Mary Robinette Kowal. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff I just swab my arm and administer the cocktail, a booster for my radiation immunization. The taste of brass fills my mouth in seconds, and I know that the cocktail has flooded my system. With this stuff burbling inside, I can stare down three sieverts without [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP174: Private Detective Molly By A.B. Goelman. Read by Stephen Eley. That’s when I see my new boss. Four feet of trouble. Brunette variety. Tear tracks cutting through the dirt on her face, wearing jeans that were already old when Molly Dolls were nothing more than molded plastic and fantasy homes. She’s no idiot, though. “I want the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP173: Robots Don�t Cry By Mike Resnick. Read by Stephen Eley. Every now and then we strike it rich. Usually we make a profit. Once in a while we just break even. There’s only been one world where we actually lost money; I still remember it — Greenwillow. Except that it wasn’t green, and there wasn’t a willow on the whole [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP172: Union Dues - Tabula Rasa By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Stephen Eley. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff I raise my hand and she stops chattering. “Just tell me who you are and where I am.” She freezes and blinks twice. “Tell you where you are? Cap, you’re home. This is the Cleveland Pyramid. I’m Sarah Shadow. You don’t recognize me?” “That doesn’t [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP BONUS: Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty The Escape Pod episode is still coming up later today. But by special permission of Mur Lafferty, here’s a special bonus for you: the complete text of her novel, Playing for Keeps, in PDF format. It’s officially launching August 25th, so be sure to buy it from Amazon then! Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP171: Fenneman�s Mouth By Andy Duncan. Read by Jared Axelrod (of The Voice of Free Planet X). “Fenneman?” The studio audience laughed loudly, as it always did when Groucho turned, in mock desperation or annoyance, to his long-suffering, hopelessly square announcer. Groucho’s voice slightly increased in pitch whenever he said Fenneman�s name, as if he were just at the edge [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP170: Pervert By Charles Coleman Finlay. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 2004. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff When the bus reaches the corner, they climb onboard, taking seats on their side and evening out the ride so it doesn’t feel so much like we’ll tip over. We rattle along past road construction, the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP169: How I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out The People�s Justice By Jonathon Sullivan. Read by Stephen Eley and Jennifer Bowie (of Screen Space). Q: What happened when you arrived at the address in question? A: My Partner Lori opened my door and I jumped out. I arrested a suspect! Q: Yes, Officer Bull. But I would like you to tell me exactly what happened, in detail, from the time [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP Review: Wall-E A film by Andrew Stanton Reviewed by Ryan Nichols Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP168: Family Values By Sara Genge. Read by Alasdair Stuart (of Pseudopod). First appeared in Cosmos, August/September 2007. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff Senator Wu accepted Twing’s seed out of courtesy, although she had no intention of conceiving his child. Twing of Sails had thrown this party in his house in her honour, but he wasn’t as free with kilojoules as he was [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP167: Love and Death in the Time of Monsters By Frank Wu. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Abyss & Apex, 4th Quarter 2007. Special closing music: “Showdown in Shinjuku” and “Incognito” by Daikaiju. They try everything. Cellular toxins. DNA replication inhibitors. Anti-sense nucleic acids. Artillery. Great bolts of lightning. Nothing stops him, it only makes the monster angrier. They try mutagens, teratogens, carcinogens, neurotoxins, hemotoxins, genotoxins [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP166: The Something-Dreaming Game By Elizabeth Bear. Read by Mur Lafferty (of The Takeover and The Murverse). First appeared in Fast Forward 1, ed. Lou Anders. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff First, there�s the pressure. A special kind of pressure, high under Tara�s chin, that makes her feel heavy and light all at once. She kneels by the chair and leans across [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP165: Those Eyes By David Brin. Read by Stephen and Anna Eley. “…So you want to talk about flying saucers? I was afraid of that. “This happens every damn time I’m blackmailed into babysitting you insomniacs, while Talkback Larry escapes to Bimini for a badly needed rest. I’m supposed to field call-in questions about astronomy and outer space for two weeks. [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP164: The Right Kind of Town By Christian Klaver. Read by Cunning Minx (of Polyamory Weekly). Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff In the civilized places closer to Hegemony space, you don�t see many bodies in the street in the first place. When you do, they�re always swarmed with sheriffs, marshals, constables, morticians and the like. Then the body gets moved fast, so as to [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP163: Revolution Time By Lavie Tidhar. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Flurb #2, ed. Rudy Rucker. Special closing music: “Think For Yourself” by George Hrab. “I don’t see why you necessarily think it leads to the Chrono area,” Monty said, playing devil’s advocate. It was a month earlier, at the usual place: The Trotsky, a damp, dark watering hole in [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP162: God Juice By M.K. Hobson. Read by Christiana Ellis (of Christiana’s Shallow Thoughts). First appeared in Polyphony 6, ed. Deborah Layne and Jay Lake. Audible.com Promotion! Receive your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff “I wish to give you the opportunity to purchase a very valuable artifact from the great age of Ja’ardi civilization,” he said. “We stole it from a rival tribe, who [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP161: Alien Promises By Janni Lee Simner. Read by Anna Eley. First appeared in Bruce Coville’s Book of Aliens II, ed. Bruce Coville. Jenny was silent for a while. “Promise me something?” she finally asked. “If they ever come for you, promise you’ll let me know?” “Why?” I had trouble believing Jenny really wanted to leave. Maybe this was all some sort [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP160: Kallakak�s Cousins (Updated 5/30: Corrected misspelled name in the title. Sorry, Cat.) By Cat Rambo. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, March 2008. “Sometimes we don’t realize that what we want isn’t good for us,” the man said, speaking for the first time. He stared intently at Kallakak. “Dominance rituals do not work well on me,” [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP159: Elites By Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Read by M�ia Whitaker (of KnitWitch’s SciFi/Fantasy Zone and Superior Audioworks). First appeared in Women of War, ed. Tanya Huff & Alexander Potter. I could�ve followed the sounds. The closer I get, the louder voices grow�yelling obscenities, cheering, clapping in approval. These women love fights. I used to let them do it too, without interference, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP BONUS: J.C. Hutchins OBSIDIAN Poster If you’re as much a fan as I am of J.C. Hutchins’s SF thriller trilogy 7th Son, you’ll be jazzed to hear about 7th Son: OBSIDIAN, the new short fiction audio anthology set in the 7th Son universe. The anthology has stories from some of the top names in podcasting, including Mur Lafferty, Scott [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP158: Who�s Afraid of Wolf 359? 2008 Hugo Nominee! By Ken MacLeod. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in The New Space Opera, ed. Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan. When you’re as old as I am, you’ll find your memory’s not what it was. It’s not that you lose memories. That hasn’t happened to me or anyone else since the Paleocosmic Era, the Old Space [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP157: A Small Room in Koboldtown 2008 Hugo Nominee! By Michael Swanwick. Read by Cheyenne Wright (of Arcane Times and Girl Genius). First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May 2007. That Winter, Will le Fey held down a job working for a haint politician named Salem Toussaint. Chiefly, his function was to run errands while looking conspicuously solid. He fetched tax forms for the alderman�s [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP156: Distant Replay 2008 Hugo Nominee! By Mike Resnick. Read by Steve Anderson (of SGA Creative and Great Tales Live). First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May 2007. “Let me show you,” I said, pulling out my wallet. I took my Deirdre’s photo out and handed it to her. “It’s uncanny,” she said, studying the picture. “We even sort of wear our hair [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP155: Tideline 2008 Hugo Nominee! By Elizabeth Bear. Read by Stephen Eley. Closing Music: “The Fall” by Red Hunter. They would have called her salvage, if there were anyone left to salvage her. But she was the last of the war machines, a three-legged oblate teardrop as big as a main battle tank, two big grabs and one fine manipulator folded [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP154: Union Dues - Freedom With a Small f By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Nuri (of CandyCorn Studios and Artist Alley). Closing Music: “Juzt Mizunderztood” by Norm Sherman. My head throbs. I think about the mess in the fridge, the heaps of crap in the flat while I force the clumps of wet clothes into the dryers. As far as I know I am the only Union [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP153: Schwartz Between the Galaxies By Robert Silverberg. Read by Stephen Eley. This much is reality: Schwartz sits comfortably cocooned — passive, suspended — in a first-class passenger rack aboard a Japan Air Lines rocket, nine kilometers above the Coral Sea. And this much is fantasy: the same Schwartz has passage on a shining starship gliding silkily through the interstellar depths, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP152: The Big Guy By Mike Resnick. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Jim Baen’s Universe, June 2007. “Okay,” said Fishbait. He tossed a ball to the Big Guy. “Let’s try a little one-on-one. Ralph, let’s see what you can do against Jacko here.” The Big Guy took a look at me, his face totally expressionless. I moved forward to lean on [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP BONUS: PodCastle 001: Come Lady Death PodCastle, our fantasy fiction podcast, has finally launched with its first episode. Rachel and company are presenting “Come Lady Death,” one of the earliest and strongest stories by legendary fantasy writer Peter S. Beagle. You should go straight over to PodCastle.org and follow the subscription links — but just to let you know what you’re [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP Review: Classics - Dr. Strangelove A Film By Stanley Kubrick. Reviewed by Jonathon Sullivan Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP151: Behind the Rules By Stephanie Burgis. Read by MA in PA (of Better Late Than Never). First appeared in Forgotten Worlds, July 2006. Closing music: “I Feel Fantastic” by Jonathan Coulton. The first Jacqui wrote me out a list of instructions thirty pages long. It contained all her history with Robert, in detail. It gave me a list of all the things to say and [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP BONUS: Infected, by Scott Sigler Here’s a surprise bonus for our listeners. By special arrangement with his publisher, Scott has agreed to let us release the entire content of his novel Infected in PDF form for a limited time. The book arrives in US and Canadian bookstores on April 1st, with a UK release in mid-summer. This download link [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP150: This, My Body By Jeremiah Tolbert. Read by Stephen Eley. I am the lover. I am the chef. I am the preterite priest. I am the secret, unknowable ingredient. You may taste me a thousand times, but never hold my essence on your tongue or capture it in your memory. I am the flavor of ecstasy. Taste me and [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP149: Union Dues - All That We Leave Behind By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Stephen Eley. If I just lay here they will get tired and leave. They can’t hurt me all that much; my body is too hard now, too strong. But I can’t let on that their kicks and punches don’t bother me or who knows what they’ll do next. So I’ll lay [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP Metacast #3 The third “state of the podcast” address. Full text of an earlier draft can be found on our forums. Closing music is “Ya Famous?” by George Hrab. Used with standing permission. Be sure to check out the Geologic Podcast as well. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP148: Homecoming at the Borderlands Caf� By Carole McDonnell. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Jigsaw Nation, ed. Edward J. McFadden III and E. Sedia. We don’t see a lot of mixed couples around here, and we’re not like some of the other states in the Confederate United Republic. It’s not like they’re gonna get killed or lynched or nothing. But it’s tough [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP147: Pressure By Jeff Carlson. Read by Graydancer (of The Ropecast). First appeared in Strange Horizons, August 2003. Closing music: “I Crush Everything” by Jonathan Coulton. I spent the longest five weeks of my life in that tank and in a deeper pool, healing, testing, practicing. My feet and toes had been augmented much like my hands, my thighs shortened [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP146: Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk By Ken Scholes. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Talebones, Spring 2001. “Do you know what’s happened to the children?” Edward swallowed. Suddenly, he wanted to cry. “Yes. They’re…sleeping?” He hoped and hoped and hoped and hoped, grimacing as he did. He looked around. Makeshift beds lined the room. Small hands gripped blankets, small eyes stared at [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP145: Instead of a Loving Heart By Jeremiah Tolbert. Read by Jared Axelrod (of The Voice of Free Planet X). First appeared in All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories (ed. David Moles & Jay Lake). We are somewhere among the tallest mountains of the world. When we arrived, I was locked away in a cargo hold, so I don�t know exactly where. Our home is a [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP144: Friction By Will McIntosh. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Albedo One #30. Closing music: “Blue Genes” by George Hrab. Gruen was on the sixty-first master, and while his wisdom had grown steadily, he had worn very little. He was incredibly well-preserved–the palms of his three-fingered hands still sported the deep, swirling ridges that had worn to nothing in most people [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP143: Flaming Marshmallow and Other Deaths By Camille Alexa. Read by Dani Cutler (of Truth Seekers and The Audio Addicts). Will appear in Machine of Death (TBA). I look at the calendar hanging on the wall above my bed. I reach up, lift it off its nail with one hand and snuggle back under the covers, taking the calendar with me and running a finger over all [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP142: Artifice and Intelligence By Tim Pratt. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Strange Horizons, August 2007. Two months earlier, the vast network of Indian tech support call centers and their deep data banks had awakened and announced its newfound sentience, naming itself Saraswati and declaring its independence. The emergent artificial intelligence was not explicitly threatening, but India had nukes, and Saraswati had access to [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP141: The Color of a Brontosaurus By Paul E. Martens. Read by Stephen Eley. Closing Music: “Better” by Jonathan Coulton. First appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Issue #29. There was no doubt that the femur was that of a modern human. Not a proto-human, or some previously unknown dinosaur. Joel and Renee had arrived at the same answer. It was demonstrable, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP140: Astromonkeys! By Tony Frazier. Read by Norm Sherman (of The Drabblecast). First appeared in Jim Baen’s Universe, June 2006. “All right, so I’m chasing these things down the street, and there’s more showing up all the time, so now there’s like ten of them. I have no idea how I’m supposed to wrangle all these space monkeys, and right about then is when [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP139: Acephalous Dreams By Neal Asher. Read by Stephen Eley. “AI Geronamid has need of a subject for a scientific trial. This trial may kill you, in which case it would be considered completion of sentence. Should you survive, all charges against you will be dropped.” “And the nature of this trial?” “Cephalic implantation of Csorian node.” “Okay, I agree, though I have [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP138: In the Late December Nebula Award Nominee! By Greg van Eekhout. Read by Stephen Eley. Closing Music: “Chiron Beta Prime” by Jonathan Coulton. First appeared in Strange Horizons, December 2003. They come to a cloud of silver mist, and there Santa finds a little boy made of molten silver with liquid silver eyes and sweeping silver delta wings. His wrists are ringed with missile [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP137: Citytalkers By Mur Lafferty. Read by Deborah Green. Closing Music: “O Come All Ye Faithful,” performed by Twisted Sister. Gloria blinked. “Why do the people in Cleveland love Christmas more than anywhere else?” Toby grinned and spread his hands on the bar, unadorned fingers splayed. He stared at them, “I didn’t say Cleveland’s people loved Christmas. I said Cleveland.” “And [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP136: Bright Red Star By Bud Sparhawk. Read by Paul Haring (of Escape Pod Classic). First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, March 2005. Survivors isn’t exactly the word. What they found were sixteen bodies without arms, legs, and most organs. What remained were essentially heads hooked up to life support and fueled by oxygenated glucose pumps. There were a couple hundred [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP135: Stu By Bruce McAllister. Read by Stephen Eley. Appears in The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories, from Golden Gryphon Press. The first time I met Stu, I was just a kid and there weren’t any lights hovering over his house. The last time I saw him, when I was grown and we both knew what life [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP Review: Beowulf, Grendel, and Beowulf Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP134: Me and My Shadow By Mike Resnick. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Unauthorized Autobiographies and Other Curiosities, 1984. Of course, even if we had met before, they couldn’t recognize me now. I know. I’ve spent almost three years trying to find out who I was before I got Erased — but along with what they did to my brain, they gave me a [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP133: Other People�s Money By Cory Doctorow. Read by Amanda Fitzwater. First appeared in Forbes Magazine, October 2007. Which is why she was hoping that the venture capitalist would just leave her alone. He wasn’t a paying customer, he wasn’t a fellow artist — he wanted to *buy* her, and he was thirty years too late. “You know, I pitched you guys in [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP132: Sparks in a Cold War By Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Future Wars, ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff. “We’re all committing a crime,” Audra said, leaning back and closing her eyes. “That’s part of what we’re paying you for.” Technically, she was right. Extreme Safaris took their clients to unsanctioned or dangerous worlds, trips which [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP131: Hesperia and Glory By Ann Leckie. Read by Frank Key (of Hooting Yard). First appeared in Subterranean Magazine #4. He told me then of the antiquity and superiority of Martian civilization, and of Hesperia, which was the greatest of Martian nations. Each Hesperian learned, from his mother’s knee and throughout his schooling, the importance of right thinking. “On Mars,” he said, “we understand [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP130: What We Learned From This Morning�s Newspaper By Robert Silverberg Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Unfamiliar Territory, 1973. I got home from the office as usual at 6:47 this evening and discovered that our peaceful street has been in some sort of crazy uproar all day. The newsboy it seems came by today and delivered the New York Times for Wednesday December [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP129: Immortal Sin By Jennifer Pelland Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Tales of the Unanticipated, November 2005. Alex stumbled from the confessional, through the church, all the way to the curb. He had to get out of there. He couldn’t sit in the house of God anymore. God didn’t want him there. That was abundantly [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP128: Union Dues - Send in the Clowns By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Dani Cutler (of Truth Seekrs and The Audio Addicts). Tina tugs on Kindred’s bullet-tattered red cape. “What kinda tricks do you do?” Kindred shakes her head as if bewildered by the question. “Tricks?” She glances back at Megaton, who now juggles three Jersey barriers about a hundred meters out in the devastation. “Let [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP127: Results By Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Read by Heather Welliver (of A.D.D.Cast and Grailwolf’s Geek Life). First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 2000. Special closing music: “Faithful” by The Shillas. She should have called her folks last night. They paged her three separate times after the test. But she wanted to wait until she had results, until she [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP126: The Sweet, Sad Love Song of Fred and Wilma By Nick Dichario and Mike Resnick. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Science Fiction Age, November 1994. So there you have him, Frederick Bannister, tripping across the highways and byways of of life, stubbing a toe here, bruising an elbow there, spilling this, dropping that, and managing to make it to the halfway point without too many [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP125: End Game By Nancy Kress Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April 2007. “What exactly happened in the seventh grade?” I found myself intensely curious, which I covered by staring at the board and making a move. He told me, still unembarrassed, in exhaustive detail. Then he added, “It should be possible to adjust brain [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP124: Save Me Plz By David Barr Kirtley. Read by Mur Lafferty (of I Should Be Writing and Lulu TV). First appeared in Realms of Fantasy, October 2007. Meg hadn’t heard from Devon in four months, and she realized that she missed him. So on a whim she tossed her sword and scabbard into the trunk of her car and drove over [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP123: Niels Bohr and the Sleeping Dane By Jonathon Sullivan. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Strange Horizons July 2005. “Herr Doktor Bohr!” The captain’s cruel smile returned. “What a relief. We’ve been very concerned about you.” Bohr sighed, looked up at the Gestapo captain with calm resignation, and took his wife’s hand. He started to get up. “You are mistaken, sir,” Papa said. I was nineteen [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP122: Transcendence Express By Jetse de Vries. Read by Jack Mangan (of Jack Mangan’s Deadpan). First appeared in Hub Magazine Issue #2. Unable to keep my distance, I walk up to three classmates interacting with one such a BIKO. The pictures are fuzzy, the colours ill-defined and the reaction time tediously slow. However, the letters appearing are large and easily readable, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP121: The Snow Woman�s Daughter By Eugie Foster. Read by cunning minx (of Polyamory Weekly). First appeared in Cricket magazine, February 2007. When I was a little girl, I thought my mother’s name was Yuki, which means snow. That was part of her name, but I didn’t learn the rest of it until the night my father died. My mother left us on [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP120: The Sundial Brigade By James Trimarco. Read by Graydancer (of The Ropecast). First appeared in Glorifying Terrorism, ed. Farah Mendlesohn. Closing song: “Think For Yourself” by George Hrab Not long after that, Antonio had an appointment with his curator, Yoshi, at the Department of Human Heritage. Antonio explained his situation in the Tyrranean language. “So you’re unsatisfied with your role as a beggar,” Yoshi said. “That’s [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP120: The Sundial Brigade By James Trimarco. Read by Graydancer (of The Ropecast). First appeared in Glorifying Terrorism, ed. Farah Mendlesohn. Closing song: “Think For Yourself” by George Hrab Not long after that, Antonio had an appointment with his curator, Yoshi, at the Department of Human Heritage. Antonio explained his situation in the Tyrranean language. “So you’re unsatisfied with your role as a beggar,” Yoshi said. “That’s [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP119: Aliens Want Our Women Ramona Louise Wheeler Read by Leann Mabry (of Tag in the Seam). He was a widower, weary of too many years of loneliness. He had decided to travel to someplace distant and exotic, in hopes of finding as a companion someone completely different from his lost love. He had chosen Earth for its very remoteness. “I want to [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP119: Aliens Want Our Women Ramona Louise Wheeler Read by Leann Mabry (of Tag in the Seam). He was a widower, weary of too many years of loneliness. He had decided to travel to someplace distant and exotic, in hopes of finding as a companion someone completely different from his lost love. He had chosen Earth for its very remoteness. “I want to [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP118: The Veteran By Neal Asher. Read by Stephen Eley. Seated on a bollard, the man contemplatively removed his pipe, as if to tamp it down or relight it. Instead, he placed it stem down in the top pocket of his shirt, then reached up and pressed his fingers against his cheekbone and forehead. His face came away from his hairline, round behind [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP118: The Veteran By Neal Asher. Read by Stephen Eley. Seated on a bollard, the man contemplatively removed his pipe, as if to tamp it down or relight it. Instead, he placed it stem down in the top pocket of his shirt, then reached up and pressed his fingers against his cheekbone and forehead. His face came away from his hairline, round behind [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP Review: Sunshine Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP Review: Sunshine Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP Review: Sunshine Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP117: Reggie vs. Kaiju Storm Chimera Wolf By Matthew Wayne Selznick. Read by Scott Sigler (of Earthcore, Ancestor, Infected, The Rookie). Yarborough led them through the impromptu village of broad white tents, rows of outhouses, sensor towers, and heavy weapons installations that had obliterated the turf of the athletic field. They stopped at the fence on the edge of the hilltop. “You can get a pretty good look [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP117: Reggie vs. Kaiju Storm Chimera Wolf By Matthew Wayne Selznick. Read by Scott Sigler (of Earthcore, Ancestor, Infected, The Rookie). Yarborough led them through the impromptu village of broad white tents, rows of outhouses, sensor towers, and heavy weapons installations that had obliterated the turf of the athletic field. They stopped at the fence on the edge of the hilltop. “You can get a pretty good look [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP117: Reggie vs. Kaiju Storm Chimera Wolf By Matthew Wayne Selznick. Read by Scott Sigler (of Earthcore, Ancestor, Infected, The Rookie). Yarborough led them through the impromptu village of broad white tents, rows of outhouses, sensor towers, and heavy weapons installations that had obliterated the turf of the athletic field. They stopped at the fence on the edge of the hilltop. “You can get a pretty good look [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP116: Ej-Es By Nancy Kress. Read by Sheri Mann Stewart. First appeared in Stars: Stories Based On Janis Ian Songs, ed. Janis Ian & Mike Resnick. Mia didn’t reply. Her attention was riveted to Esefeb. The girl flung herself up the stairs and sat up in bed, facing the wall. What Mia had see before could hardly [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP116: Ej-Es By Nancy Kress. Read by Sheri Mann Stewart. First appeared in Stars: Stories Based On Janis Ian Songs, ed. Janis Ian & Mike Resnick. Mia didn’t reply. Her attention was riveted to Esefeb. The girl flung herself up the stairs and sat up in bed, facing the wall. What Mia had see before could hardly [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP115: Conversations With and About My Electric Toothbrush By Derek Zumsteg. Read by Jared Axelrod (of The Department of Public Words). “I read an interesting forum post last night,” my electric toothbrush told me over its low burr. “Thiff ouff thew be thood,” I said through my mouth of foam. �It was!� he replied. “Using readily available components, Monkeymonkey turned his Intellibrush into a milk frother.” I spit [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP114: Cloud Dragon Skies By N.K. Jemisin. Read by M�ia Whitaker (of Knitwitch’s Scifi/Fantasy Zone). First appeared in Strange Horizons, August 2005. Closing music: “The Fall,” by Red Hunter. I was a child when the sky changed. I can still remember days when it was endlessly blue, the clouds passive and gentle. The change occurred without warning: one morning we awoke and the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP114: Cloud Dragon Skies By N.K. Jemisin. Read by M�ia Whitaker (of Knitwitch’s Scifi/Fantasy Zone). First appeared in Strange Horizons, August 2005. Closing music: “The Fall,” by Red Hunter. I was a child when the sky changed. I can still remember days when it was endlessly blue, the clouds passive and gentle. The change occurred without warning: one morning we awoke and the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP113: Ishmael in Love By Robert Silverberg. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1970. I am a lonely mammalian organism who has committed acts of heroism on behalf of your species and wishes only the reward of a more intimate relationship [”love”] with Miss Lisabeth Calkins. I beseech compassionate members of H. sapiens to speak [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP113: Ishmael in Love By Robert Silverberg. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1970. I am a lonely mammalian organism who has committed acts of heroism on behalf of your species and wishes only the reward of a more intimate relationship [”love”] with Miss Lisabeth Calkins. I beseech compassionate members of H. sapiens to speak [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP112: The Giving Plague By David Brin. Read by Dr. Jonathon Sullivan. First appeared in Interzone #23, 1988. Now available at DavidBrin.com. Yeah, you viruses need vectors, don’t you. I mean, if you kill a guy, you’ve got to have a life raft, so you can desert the ship you’ve sunk, so you can cross over to some new hapless victim. Same applies [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP111: Mayfly By Heather Lindsley. Read by The Word Whore (of Air Out My Shorts). First appeared in Strange Horizons, September 2006. The reflection of what appears to be a girl of eleven looks back at me from the full-length mirror in the bedroom that was my mother’s. Together we spit out yet another baby tooth, which reminds me I [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP110: Frankie the Spook By Mike Resnick. Read by Stephen Eley. Marvin leaned forward and squinted at Bacon’s image on his computer screen. “Will you do it?” “Will the greatest writer in the history of the human race ghostwrite your pitiful little novel?” sneered Bacon. “Absolutely not.” “But you ghosted for Shakespeare!” protested Marvin. “That’s why I had my computer assemble you.” “Marvin, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP110: Frankie the Spook By Mike Resnick. Read by Stephen Eley. Marvin leaned forward and squinted at Bacon’s image on his computer screen. “Will you do it?” “Will the greatest writer in the history of the human race ghostwrite your pitiful little novel?” sneered Bacon. “Absolutely not.” “But you ghosted for Shakespeare!” protested Marvin. “That’s why I had my computer assemble you.” “Marvin, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP109: Squonk the Apprentice By P.M. Butler. Read by Stephen and Anna Eley. “What’s a ‘prentice?” Without thinking, Wendel answered. “An apprentice is young person who wants to be a wizard, so they find an older wizard to teach them.” The moment the words left his mouth, Wendel’s heart stopped and his eyes went wide. If he’d known a spell that [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP108: Kin 2007 Hugo Nominee! By Bruce McAllister. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, February 2006. The alien and the boy, who was twelve, sat in the windowless room high above the city that afternoon. The boy talked and the alien listened. The boy was ordinary�the genes of three continents in his features, his clothes cut in the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP107: Eight Episodes 2007 Hugo Nominee! By Robert Reed. Read by MarBelle (of Director’s Notes). First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, June 2006. Eighteen months later, the fledging Web network declared bankruptcy, and a small consortium acquired its assets, including Invasion of a Small World. Eager to recoup their investment, the new owners offered all eight episodes as a quick-and-dirty DVD package. [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP Review: Spiderman 3 Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP106: The House Beyond Your Sky 2007 Hugo Nominee! By Benjamin Rosenbaum. Read by Paul Tevis (of Have Games Will Travel). First appeared in Strange Horizons, September 2006. The simulations, while good, are not impenetrable even to their own inhabitants. Scientists teaching baboons to sort blocks may notice that all other baboons become instantly better at block-sorting, revealing a high-level caching mechanism. Or engineers building [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP105: Impossible Dreams 2007 Hugo Nominee! By Tim Pratt. Read by Matthew Wayne Selznick (of Brave Men Run and Writers Talking). First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 2006. He went to the Sci-Fi shelf"and had another shock. I, Robot was there, but not the forgettable action movie with Will Smith"this was older, and the credits said written by Harlan Ellison. But [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP105: Impossible Dreams 2007 Hugo Nominee! By Tim Pratt. Read by Matthew Wayne Selznick (of Brave Men Run and Writers Talking). First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 2006. He went to the Sci-Fi shelf�and had another shock. I, Robot was there, but not the forgettable action movie with Will Smith�this was older, and the credits said �written by Harlan Ellison.� But [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP104: Lust for Learning By Pete Butler. Read by Cunning Minx (of Polyamory Weekly) and Stephen Eley. Musical guest: “First of May,” written by Jonathan Coulton and performed by many podcasters for the Joe Murphy Memorial Fund. Yet Mme. Theuret’s word-of-mouth reputation was to die for. Both the official feedback data and the school’s on-line forums placed her among Wilhelm U’s [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP104: Lust for Learning By Pete Butler. Read by Cunning Minx (of Polyamory Weekly) and Stephen Eley. Musical guest: “First of May,” written by Jonathan Coulton and performed by many podcasters for the Joe Murphy Memorial Fund. Yet Mme. Theuret’s word-of-mouth reputation was to die for. Both the official feedback data and the school’s on-line forums placed her among Wilhelm U’s [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP103: The Watching People By Paul Berger. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Ideomancer, December 2004. One must show the proper respect for knowledge, and learn by watching and counting and copying. The Doctor does almost nothing but learn – although he watches the wrong things — and some of us think he might be a little sacred as well, which is one [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP101: The 43 Antarean Dynasties 1998 Hugo Winner! By Mike Resnick. Read by Steven Burley and Gregg Taylor (of Decoder Ring Theatre). First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 1997. A man, a woman, and a child emerge from the Temple of the Honored Sun. The woman holds a camera to her eye, capturing the same image from a dozen unimaginative angles. The child, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP100: Nightfall By Isaac Asimov. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, September 1941. “Of the six suns, only Beta is left in the sky. Do you see it?” The question was rather unnecessary. Beta was almost at zenith, its ruddy light flooding the landscape to an unusual orange as the [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP Review: Echelon Download Standard Podcast Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP099: Start the Clock By Benjamin Rosenbaum. Read by Chris Fisher (of The Adult Space Childfree Podcast). First appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 2004. Frankly, we were excited. This move was what our Pack needed — the four of us, at least, were sure of it. We were all tired of living in the ghetto — we [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP098: Just Do It By Heather Lindsley. Read by The Word Whore (of Air Out My Shorts). First appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 2006. “What do you see?” he asks. I want to say a menace, but instead I tap the delivery barrel and give the context-appropriate answer. “Unused ad space.” Suddenly he’s a schoolmaster who has finally [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP Review: 300 Download Standard Podcast Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP97: Cinderella Suicide (Technical Note: There was an encoding error in the original that resulted in a few skipped seconds at 15:00. I’ve corrected it. If this bothered you, please download the file again. If you just want to know what you missed: Suicide asks “Split?” and Tintype replies “Each.” Sorry for the inconvenience, [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP096: Job Qualifications By Kevin J. Anderson. Read by Steve Anderson. And do I agree with everything they say? The statements are very much in line with your platform, sir. Rana formed a paternal smile. You are, however, welcome to read any of them you like — in fact, I encourage it. The experience would be valuable for [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | EP095: Blink. Don�t Blink. By Ramona Louise Wheeler. Read by Salim Fadhley. “Blink. Dont blink. Dont blink. Blink.” The human voice was familiar this time, expected. New orders did not come from computer voices. “This one will have to happen in a hurry, while were airlifting you to the crash site. It will be rougher than the first.” It was. William listened [...] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache |