EP037: Craphound
By Cory Doctorow.
Read by Jesse Thorn (of The Sound of Young America).
Craphound beat me out the door, as usual. His exoskeleton is programmable, so he
can record little scripts for it like: move left arm to door handle, pop it,
swing legs out to running-board, jump to ground, close door, move forward.
Meanwhile, I’m still making sure I’ve switched off the headlights and that I’ve
got my wallet.
Rated PG. Contains some profanity. That’s it, really.
Referenced sites:
Mostly News
Escape Pod Submission Guidelines
Yay Cory! Is this Escape Pod’s most famous/published featured writer so far?
It won’t download for me
So its not just me. Was going to listern on the way home as well.
I had to download it manually (which isn’t really a problem, just unexpected).
Also, do I have deja vu or did I read this story a couple of years ago in F&SF or Asimovs or even way back in Science Fiction Age? I know I read it, a long time ago, but when??
Accroding to Croy
http://craphound.com/000140.html
it’s been published in
* Year’s Best Science Fiction XVI, Griffin, 1999
* Northern Suns, Tor, 1999
* Podcast, Escape Pod, January 2006
It doesn’t mention any magazines, but then it doesn’t mention “A Place So Foriegn and Eight More”.
I’m looking forward to listening to this on the tube home tonight.
I’m sorry about the earlier download issues, guys. Please try it again — it should work. The problem was with the tracking service we use. Their server went down, and since it relied on redirects, that meant nobody could get to our stuff… I’ve taken all the tracking links out from all of our files until I get some assurance from them that it’s not just fixed, but fixed.
On the story itself: Your memory’s good, Jeffry. I totally forgot to mention that it was first published in the late great Science Fiction Age in 1998. And yes, since then it’s been in a few anthologies (Northern Suns is a good one, BTW), not to mention all over the place online thanks to the Creative Commons license.
No still not working for me but I am using a work computer so it may be me.
AHA!!!! I knew I wasn’t dreaming it Steve! Thanks!
Masterful, just plain Masterful. The Craphound is a perfect story, has to be my new favorite.
i get a server error everytime i try to download! HELP!
Argh. I’m sorry about that, Rob. Please try it one more time.
Thanks for giving me the chance to read this, Stephen. What a story, huh?
This was a great story, and Jesse did a great job reading.
I need to listen to this story a couple of more times, because I get the feeling that there’s layers upon layers of story here… and I’ve only gotten a couple of ‘em.
It is a great, masterfully-written story.
Wonderful reading too, Jesse! I recently listened to Steve Martin reading one of his books – - very similar tone and delivery. Well done indeed.
A goodie
Corey Doctorow has the ability to take a subject that you’d think would be really boring, like venture capital or yardsale hunting, and by adding just a few sci-fi elements, turn it into something really amazingly, mind-numbingly boring.
[...] Cory Doctorow is a superb short fiction writer as well. If you do anything within the next months of your life, I beseech you to check out this book and his futuristic yard sale story “Craphound.” A podcast of it can be found over at Escape Pod. [...]
[...] for free on his website, named after a delightful short story. I like the EscapePod recording of Craphound. At the end of this review you’ll find a slew of links which I culled from the bibliography [...]