Archives for the 'Rated PG' Category
EP238: Wind From a Dying Star
Published on 13 Feb 2010 at 3:33 pm.
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Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.
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-->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 her tribe it was zeren, delicious and rare. Gunai recalled a time when zeren was something you could almost ignore — a constant crackling thrum beneath the surface of perception — but now there were just a few thin patches here and there. These days the tribe subsisted mostly on a thin diet of starlight, and even that was growing cold. Soon they would be forced to move on again. Yeoshi had told her the foraging was better in the direction of the galactic core, but it was so far…
Rated PG. Contains sacrifice and space battles. Of a sort.
EP236: Still On the Road
Published on 1 Feb 2010 at 2:31 am.
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Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.
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-->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 the world, like gravity pulling back a rocket that doesn’t reach escape velocity. Two, three thousand years later, he’s still on the road. Really, nothing’s changed. And Neal, that old prankster, Neal never really did want to transcend, he loved to see it all streaming past the window, a constant moving circus disappearing in the rear-view mirror, loved to talk, loved it all.
Rated PG. Contains a little profanity and a lot of beat.
EP235: On the Human Plan
Published on 23 Jan 2010 at 4:40 pm.
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Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.
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-->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 wizard you want, follow the powder-trails of crushed silicon and wolf’s blood to their dark and winking lairs. Scholars can be found in their libraries, taikonauts in their launch bunkers and ship foundries, priests amid the tallow-gleaming depths of their bone-ribbed cathedrals.
What I do is dig. For bodies, for treasure, for the rust-pocked hulks of history, for the sheer pleasure of moving what cannot be moved and finding what rots beneath. You may hire me for an afternoon or a month or the entire turning of the year. It makes me no mind whatsoever.
As for you, I know what you want. You want a story.
Rated PG. Contains entropy and age. A lot of it.
EP233: Union Dues - The Threnody of Johnny Toruko
Published on 8 Jan 2010 at 11:46 am.
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Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.
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-->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 people stretching from the entrance down to the counter. They all sidestep and she walks unimpeded front of the pack. “One large black, and one large with extra sugar and cream.”
The barrista, a girl of about 18, repeats the order in a flat monotone.
“And these are on the house. Everyone gets free coffee for the next two hours.”
“Free for everyone,” the clerk answers then puts our order together.
TK snickers and hands the coffee over.
Rated PG. Contains mature themes, violence, and some profanity. You know. Teenage stuff.
Referenced Sites:
Official Union Dues Web Site
Union Dues on Twitter
Clonepod - Previous Team Shikaragaki stories
EP232: Flash Special
Published on 31 Dec 2009 at 6:07 pm.
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Filed under Flash, Podcasts, Rated PG.
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
EP231: Solitary as an Oyster
Published on 25 Dec 2009 at 4:00 am.
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Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.
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-->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.
EP230: Candy Art
Published on 24 Dec 2009 at 4:46 am.
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Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.
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.
EP229: Littleblossom Makes a Deal With the Devil
Published on 18 Dec 2009 at 3:40 am.
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Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.
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-->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.
EP228: Everything That Matters
Published on 10 Dec 2009 at 4:03 pm.
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Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.
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-->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.”
EP224: The Ghost in the Death Trap
Published on 12 Nov 2009 at 6:30 am.
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Filed under Rated PG.
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-->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. It was a testament to the force of the collision that fragments of bone and tissue were scattered all the way down the passage, some even wedged in the carvings in the stone walls. Two men surveyed the scene with dismay.
“See? And this just keeps happening. It’s getting so we can’t get anything done around here,” said the taller of the two, a grey-haired man with red eyes and a patchy beard.
The other man, younger but not precisely young, hauled himself up on top of the block and examined the mechanism. “This bar’s been sliced right through.” He looked back down at his client. “You say this was a poltergeist?”
Rated PG for some violence and language.
