EP Review: Wall-E
A film by Andrew Stanton
Reviewed by Ryan Nichols
Archive for July, 2008
Jul 29, 2008 | 8 comments
View Post
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 with genetic material, and Senator Wu wasn’t
prepared to funnel the heat donations of her two crèche mates to bring
another man’s child to the World. She acidified the pores in her
tentacle and waved it around, letting the current carry away the dead
spores. She smiled at Twing and a wave of blue burst from his centre
and radiated towards the thin membranes that rippled on the edge of
his disc-shaped body.
He didn’t look bad, but he wasn’t as comely as Senator Wu. Her body
was an almost perfect sphere, and she was well aware of it. Wherever
she went, she took care to rotate every few minutes, lest gravity pull
on her too long in any one direction and tug her gelatinous figure out
of shape.
Rated PG. Contains alien reproduction, politics, and other sordid topics.
Referenced Sites:
The Daily Cabal
Jul 25, 2008 | 30 comments
View Post
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 — they think that toxins in the environment created the monster, and maybe toxins can kill it. Maybe two wrongs can make a right.
They don’t, apparently. I worry about the residues left in the ground after the monster’s moved on. He’s going up and down the eastern seaboard. Janie talks about flying out there to help, but she doesn’t want to get stomped on. Who would? A team of guys from work drive across the country to do whatever they can. They figure that patent annuities can still get paid in their absence. I want to go, but I have to stay to help my mom. That’s my fight.
Rated PG. Contains violence on a grand scale and illness on a human scale.
Referenced Sites:
GUIDOLON The Giant Space Chicken
Well-Told Tales
Jul 18, 2008 | 25 comments
View Post
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 the edge, because if she faints, the chair will roll away and she won’t choke. She’s always careful.
After the pressure she gets dizzy, and her vision gets kind of… narrow, dark around the edges. It’s hard to breathe, and it feels like there’s something stuck in her throat. Prickles run up and down her back, down her arms where the pain used to be, and a warm fluid kind of feeling sloshes around inside her. She slides down, as things get dark, and then she starts to dream.
But not like night time dreams. These are special.
Rated R. Contains children engaging in extremely dangerous practices. Parental guidance STRONGLY recommended.
Referenced Sites:
Brave Men Run: A Novel of the Sovereign Era
Jul 11, 2008 | 39 comments
View Post
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. You know, black holes and comets? But it seems we always have to spend the first night wrangling over puta UFOs.
“…Now, don’t get excited, sir…. Yeah, I’m just a typical ivory tower scientist, out to repress any trace of unconventional thought. Whatever you say, buddy.”
Rated PG. Contains some sexual situations and scattered profanity in both English and Spanish.
Jul 04, 2008 | 45 comments
View Post
