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“Smile Time”, or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Trust in Whedon”

May 29th, 2012 by Posted in Blog, Reviews

The following article contains spoilers for the Angel episode “Smile Time”, and is fair game for spoilers of any episodes preceding it, as well as the entire run of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer.

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When Joss Whedon and the Buffy team announced that they’d be doing a musical episode, people were skeptical. I mean, how can you make a musical about slaying vampires?

Oh we of little faith. “Once More, With Feeling” was one of the best hours of television made in the last quarter-century*.

As I began watching Angel a few months ago, I heard rumblings that there was an episode centered around puppets sometime in the fifth season. I finally got there and my tweet**, no lie, was: Oh crap… it’s the puppet episode. Now, I knew there were some big story pieces coming up — the arrival of Illyria, the coming apocalypse, and the series finale, just to name a few of the things to be crammed into the next eight episodes. I’ve just been waiting to get to that part. The one I watched prior to this was a World War II-era submarine story where Angel and Spike are caught on a captured U-boat, and it… wasn’t that great. So I didn’t have high hopes for “Smile Time”.

Should’ve learned my lesson from OMWF: trust in Whedon and his team, and he will never lead you astray.

May 29, 2012 | 0 comments View Post
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EP346: Hawksbill Station

May 24th, 2012 by Posted in 13 and Up, Podcasts
EP346 [ 1:45:41 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By Robert Silverberg
Read by Paul Tevis
Discuss on our forums.
Originally appeared in Galaxy Magazine
All stories by Robert Silverberg
All stories read by Paul Tevis
Rated 15 and up

Hawksbill Station
by Robert Silverberg

Barrett was the uncrowned King of Hawksbill Station. He had been there the longest; he had suffered the most; he had the deepest inner resources of strength. Before his accident, he had been able to whip any man in the place. Now he was a cripple, but he still had that aura of power that gave him command. When there were problems at the Station, they were brought to Barrett. That was axiomatic. He was the king.

He ruled over quite a kingdom, too. In effect it was the whole world, pole to pole, meridian to meridian. For what it was worth. It wasn’t worth very much.

Now it was raining again. Barrett shrugged himself to his feet in the quick, easy gesture that cost him an infinite amount of carefully concealed agony, and shuffled to the door of his hut. Rain made him impatient:. the pounding of those great greasy drops against the corrugated tin roof was enough even to drive a Jim Barrett loony. He nudged the door open. Standing in the doorway, Barrett looked out over his kingdom.

Barren rock, nearly to the horizon. A shield of raw dolomite going on and on. Raindrops danced and bounced on that continental slab of rock. No trees. No grass. Behind Barrett’s hut lay the sea, gray and vast. The sky was gray too, even when it wasn’t raining.

He hobbled out into the rain. Manipulating his crutch was getting to be a simple matter for him now. He leaned comfortably, letting his crushed left foot dangle. A rockslide had pinned him last year during a trip to the edge of the Inland Sea. Back home, Barrett would have been fitted with prosthetics and that would have been the end of it: a new ankle, a new instep, refurbished ligaments and tendons. But home was a billion years away, and home there’s no returning.

May 24, 2012 | 0 comments View Post
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Book Review: “Joss Whedon: The Complete Companion”

May 21st, 2012 by Posted in Blog, Books, Reviews

This book contains spoilers for all films and television shows Joss Whedon has written, and therefore the review shall consider such material fair game. Reader discretion is advised.

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It doesn’t take an astute student of my Twitter feed or my blog to know that I’ve been on one hell of a Joss Whedon kick over the course of the past year. From full viewings of Buffy and Angel to my opinions on Cabin in the Woods (excellent) and The Avengers (waiting for the DVD), you must know by now that I’m a fan of the man’s work.

So when Amazon’s algorithm suggested I purchase PopMatters’s Joss Whedon: The Complete Companion, I figured it would be something I’d enjoy.

Perhaps I should’ve thought a little more about the purchase first.

May 21, 2012 | 0 comments View Post
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EP345: The Paper Menagerie

May 17th, 2012 by Posted in 10 and Up, Hugo Awards, OK for Kids, Podcasts
EP345 [ 35:19 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By Ken Liu
Read by Rajan Khanna
Discuss on our forums.
Originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
All stories by Ken Liu
All stories read by Rajan Khanna
Rated 10 and up

 The Paper Menagerie
by Ken Liu

One of my earliest memories starts with me sobbing. I refused to be soothed no matter what Mom and Dad tried.

Dad gave up and left the bedroom, but Mom took me into the kitchen and sat me down at the breakfast table.

“Kan, kan,” she said, as she pulled a sheet of wrapping paper from on top of the fridge. For years, Mom carefully sliced open the wrappings around Christmas gifts and saved them on top of the fridge in a thick stack.

She set the paper down, plain side facing up, and began to fold it. I stopped crying and watched her, curious.

She turned the paper over and folded it again. She pleated, packed, tucked, rolled, and twisted until the paper disappeared between her cupped hands. Then she lifted the folded-up paper packet to her mouth and blew into it, like a balloon.

“Kan,” she said. “Laohu.” She put her hands down on the table and let go.

A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees.

I reached out to Mom’s creation. Its tail twitched, and it pounced playfully at my finger. “Rawrr-sa,” it growled, the sound somewhere between a cat and rustling newspapers.

I laughed, startled, and stroked its back with an index finger. The paper tiger vibrated under my finger, purring.

“Zhe jiao zhezhi,” Mom said. This is called origami.

I didn’t know this at the time, but Mom’s kind was special. She breathed into them so that they shared her breath, and thus moved with her life. This was her magic.

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May 17, 2012 | 0 comments View Post
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Soundproof Digest 1

May 15th, 2012 by Posted in TheSoundproofEscapePod
Soundproof Digest 1 Download

Since we’ve had trouble with ebook stuff for a couple of months, we’re introducing Soundproof EP Digests! Here is the digest for Q1, nearly all the stories from January, February, and March, as well as some key blog posts.

The digest for Q2 will be out soon (as soon as Q2 is over) and we’ll be releasing a special Hugo edition of Soundproof! Thanks for your patience.


Mobi version
PDF version

May 15, 2012 | 0 comments View Post
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EP314: Movement (HUGO REPOST)

May 15th, 2012 by Posted in 10 and Up, Podcasts
Standard Podcast Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If you listened to this back when it aired, then you’ve heard it, but I’m reposting it here for the benefit of people who want to experience all the Hugo nominees in a row!

By Nancy Fulda
Read by Marguerite Kenner
Discuss on our forums.
First appeared in Asimov’s
All stories by Nancy Fulda
All stories read by Marguerite Kenner

Movement
By Nancy Fulda

It is sunset. The sky is splendid through the panes of my bedroom window; billowing layers of cumulous blazing with refracted oranges and reds. I think if only it weren’t for the glass, I could reach out and touch the cloudscape, perhaps leave my own trail of turbulence in the swirling patterns that will soon deepen to indigo.

But the window is there, and I feel trapped.

Behind me my parents and a specialist from the neurological research institute are sitting on folding chairs they’ve brought in from the kitchen, quietly discussing my future. They do not know I am listening. They think that, because I do not choose to respond, I do not notice they are there.

“Would there be side effects?” My father asks. In the oppressive heat of the evening, I hear the quiet Zzzapof his shoulder laser as it targets mosquitoes. The device is not as effective as it was two years ago: the mosquitoes are getting faster.

May 15, 2012 | 0 comments View Post
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EP344: The Homecoming

May 10th, 2012 by Posted in 10 and Up, Podcasts
EP344 [ 47:06 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By Mike Resnick
Read by Patrick Bazile
Discuss on our forums.
Originally appeared in Asimov’s
All stories by Mike Resnick
All stories read by Patrick Bazile
Rated 10 and up

The Homecoming
by Mike Resnick

I don’t know which bothers me more, my lumbago or my arthritis. One day it’s one, one day it’s the other. They can cure cancer and transplant every damned organ in your body; you’d think they could find some way to get rid of aches and pains. Let me tell you, growing old isn’t for sissies.

I remember that I was having a typical dream. Well, typical for me, anyway. I was climbing the four steps to my front porch, only when I got to the third step there were six more, so I climbed them and then there were ten more, and it went on and on. I’d probably still be climbing them if the creature hadn’t woke me up.

It stood next to my bed, staring down at me. I blinked a couple of times, trying to focus my eyes, and stared back, sure this was just an extension of my dream.

It was maybe six feet tall, its skin a glistening, almost metallic silver, with multi-faceted bright red eyes like an insect. Its ears were pointed and batlike, and moved independently of its head and each other. Its mouth jutted out a couple of inches like some kind of tube, and looked like it was only good for sucking fluids. Its arms were slender, with no hint of the muscles required to move them, and its fingers were thin and incredibly elongated. It was as weird a nightmare figure as I’d dreamed up in years.

Finally it spoke, in a voice that sounded more like a set of chimes than anything else.

“Hello, Dad,” it said.

That’s when I knew I was awake.

May 10, 2012 | 0 comments View Post
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How Bad Technobabble Hurt A Good Episode: “Our Man Bashir”

May 9th, 2012 by Posted in Blog, Rambling

For the past few months, I’ve been doing a re-watch of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I missed a lot of episodes (maybe 40 percent) while it was in first-run, and I’ve never seen it in syndication, so I figured… why not? It’s on Netflix; might as well make good use of my $7.99 monthly fee.

Last night, I watched “Our Man Bashir”, and I was reminded just how flimsy the “malfunctioning transporter/holodeck” plot can be.

May 09, 2012 | 0 comments View Post
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EP343: The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees

May 3rd, 2012 by Posted in 10 and Up, Hugo Awards, Podcasts
Standard Podcast [ 29:15 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By E. Lily Yu
Read by Mur Lafferty
Discuss on our forums.
Originally appeared in Clarkesworld
All stories by E. Lily Yu
All stories read by Mur Lafferty
Rated 10 and up

The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees
By E. Lily Yu

For longer than anyone could remember, the village of Yiwei had worn, in its orchards and under its eaves, clay-colored globes of paper that hissed and fizzed with wasps. The villagers maintained an uneasy peace with their neighbors for many years, exercising inimitable tact and circumspection. But it all ended the day a boy, digging in the riverbed, found a stone whose balance and weight pleased him. With this, he thought, he could hit a sparrow in flight. There were no sparrows to be seen, but a paper ball hung low and inviting nearby. He considered it for a moment, head cocked, then aimed and threw.

Much later, after he had been plastered and soothed, his mother scalded the fallen nest until the wasps seething in the paper were dead. In this way it was discovered that the wasp nests of Yiwei, dipped in hot water, unfurled into beautifully accurate maps of provinces near and far, inked in vegetable pigments and labeled in careful Mandarin that could be distinguished beneath a microscope.

The villagers’ subsequent incursions with bee veils and kettles of boiling water soon diminished the prosperous population to a handful. Commanded by a single stubborn foundress, the survivors folded a new nest in the shape of a paper boat, provisioned it with fallen apricots and squash blossoms, and launched themselves onto the river. Browsing cows and children fled the riverbanks as they drifted downstream, piping sea chanteys.

At last, forty miles south from where they had begun, their craft snagged on an upthrust stick and sank. Only one drowned in the evacuation, weighed down with the remains of an apricot. They reconvened upon a stump and looked about themselves.

“It’s a good place to land,” the foundress said in her sweet soprano, examining the first rough maps that the scouts brought back. There were plenty of caterpillars, oaks for ink galls, fruiting brambles, and no signs of other wasps. A colony of bees had hived in a split oak two miles away. “Once we are established we will, of course, send a delegation to collect tribute.

“We will not make the same mistakes as before. Ours is a race of explorers and scientists, cartographers and philosophers, and to rest and grow slothful is to die. Once we are established here, we will expand.”

May 03, 2012 | 0 comments View Post
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It’s Hugo Month!

May 2nd, 2012 by Posted in Blog, Housekeeping

For years now, we have done our best here at Escape Pod to bring you audio renditions of the Hugo-nominated short stories. Our original reason was to allow the Worldcon voters to have access to all the nominated stories, as some stories wouldn’t be easy to find (eg, it was in the January issue of a magazine you don’t read…). But now, Worldcon is putting out the Hugo pack for its members to receive the stories in ebook form.

Even though the voters now have the stories emailed to them, we still embrace the tradition of dedicating May to the best stories voted on by fandom. So get ready for Hugo month!

Note- even though we have dedicated ourselves to SF-only stories since branching off Pseudopod and Podcastle, we will run non-SF stories during the Hugo month, if they are nominated. (And this year we have three!)

Also, this year we had a new thing happen- An Escape Pod reprint AND a Podcastle reprint were nominated! We are so thrilled to have already offered these stories, but to remind you, and keep all the Hugo posts together, we will be bringing you Podcastle’s recording of “The Paper Menagerie,” and rerunning “Movement” as a mid-week special.

The nominees and the schedule:

“The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld April 2011) – Running 5/3/12
“The Homecoming” by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s April/May 2011) – Running 5/10/12
“Movement” by Nancy Fulda (Asimov’s March 2011) – Running 5/14/12
“The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction March/April 2011) – Running 5/17/12

The very funny “Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book One: The Dead City: Prologue” by John Scalzi (Tor.com) will not be appearing on Escape Pod, but you can (and should) read it in its entirety at Tor.com. And here’s a taste:

Night had come to the city of Skalandarharia, the sort of night with such a quality of black to it that it was as if black coal had been wrapped in blackest velvet, bathed in the purple-black ink of the demon squid Drindel and flung down a black well that descended toward the deepest, blackest crevasses of Drindelthengen, the netherworld ruled by Drindel, in which the sinful were punished, the black of which was so legendarily black that when the dreaded Drindelthengenflagen, the ravenous blind black badger trolls of Drindelthengen, would feast upon the uselessly dilated eyes of damned, the abandoned would cry out in joy as the Drindelthengenflagenmorden, the feared Black Spoons of the Drindelthengenflagen, pressed against their optic nerves, giving them one last sensation of light before the most absolute blackness fell upon them, made yet even blacker by the injury sustained from a falling lump of ink-bathed, velvet-wrapped coal.

Read more at Tor.com.

This year’s stories are pretty amazing, (two of them may drive you to tears- long time EP fans will easily guess one of the culprits) and it will be tough voting. But we hope you enjoy Hugo month as much as we enjoy bringing it to you.

You can also get ALL of our Hugo-nominated stories on one feed! Subscribe here!

May 02, 2012 | 0 comments View Post
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