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
Editor’s Note: There are significant audio issues in the first half of this file. Alasdair Stuart has volunteered to record it again and we’ll post a corrected version soon. Thank you for your patience.
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 several locks, and finally it slid open a couple of centimeters. Scrooge peered out, the heavy chain still on the door. Jenny flipped the night vision off her camera to get a clear view of him in the foyer’s dim light. He was much smaller than his voice implied, a diminutive man who was probably a bear in the conference room, but a pussycat when in thin pajamas and a robe.
Well, not a pussycat. Something more like a weasel.
Rated PG. Contains ghostly visitations. Film at 11.
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. “Life-sized, nuskin, real speak – top of the line. It’s supposed to be my Christmas present. Bring the family back together for the holidays and live unhappily ever after.”
“A puppet.” A puzzlement glyph pops up at the bottom of my screen. “As in one puppet?”
“It’s a timeshare – you know. They live it serially. Ten hours of him, fourteen of her.”
“Not fifty-fifty?”
“He’s giving her the difference so he can take extra time off for his bass tournament in June.”
Rated PG. Contains family drama and way too much sugar.
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 last of the support troops, Xiaoying had rearranged the personality of her assistant battlefield AI into something that suited her better. If she were going to spend months carrying it around, she wasn’t going to listen to it drone on like a party chief. The way it talked now reminded her of her grandmother. The missiles had overlays for their small brains, too, and she’d decorated them with personalities as well. Boredom was a more immediate enemy than Japan.
Rated PG. Contains violence and political complexity.
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 done free diving down to eighty meters. I have worked as a commercial diver and in commercial salvage.”
They were listening and nodding, concentrating on me while recording the conversation. “Then you, of all people, should have known better,” said the little guy.
“I did know better!” They were acting like the shark was the victim, not me. “How many people in the whole fucking galaxy could have come up alive, huh? How many would have had the technology and experience and conditioning?”
“If you want our congratulations, you got ‘em,” said Odenny. “But we’re more interested in what you were doing.”
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 steep southern wall of the ice valley. The cat washes itself with a pink tongue. It reeks of infinite confidence.
“Get ready,” I tell it. “We don’t have all night.”
It gives me a moderately offended look, and dons its armor.
Referenced Sites:
PodDisc.com
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