Archives for the 'Rated PG' Category
EP167: Love and Death in the Time of Monsters
Published on 18 Jul 2008 at 3:30 am.
22 Comments.
Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.
Read ‘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
EP165: Those Eyes
Published on 4 Jul 2008 at 4:00 am.
42 Comments.
Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.
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.
EP157: A Small Room in Koboldtown
Published on 8 May 2008 at 11:58 pm.
34 Comments.
Filed under Hugo Awards, Podcasts, Rated PG.
Read ‘EP157: A Small Room in Koboldtown’
-->2008 Hugo Nominee!
By Michael Swanwick.
Read by Cheyenne Wright (of Arcane Times and Girl Genius).
First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May 2007.
That Winter, Will le Fey held down a job working for a haint politician named Salem Toussaint. Chiefly, his function was to run errands while looking conspicuously solid. He fetched tax forms for the alderman’s constituents, delivered stacks of documents to trollish functionaries, fixed L&I violations, presented boxes of candied John-the-Conqueror root to retiring secretaries, absent-mindedly dropped slim envelopes containing twenty-dollar bills on desks. When somebody important died, he brought a white goat to the back door of the Fane of Darkness to be sacrificed to the Nameless One. When somebody else’s son was drafted or went to prison, he hammered a nail in the nkisi nkonde that Toussaint kept in the office to ensure his safe return.
He canvassed voters in haint neighborhoods like Ginny Gall, Beluthahatchie, and Diddy-Wah-Diddy, where the bars were smoky, the music was good, and it was dangerous to smile at the whores. He negotiated the labyrinthine bureaucracies of City Hall. Not everything he did was strictly legal, but none of it was actually criminal. Salem Toussaint didn’t trust him enough for that.
Rated PG. Contains dark, seedy places and dark, seedy characters, only a few of them alive.
Today’s Sponsor:
Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams
EP156: Distant Replay
Published on 1 May 2008 at 11:59 pm.
42 Comments.
Filed under Hugo Awards, Podcasts, Rated PG.
2008 Hugo Nominee!
By Mike Resnick.
Read by Steve Anderson (of SGA Creative and Great Tales Live).
First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May 2007.
“Let me show you,” I said, pulling out my wallet. I took my Deirdre’s photo out and handed it to her.
“It’s uncanny,” she said, studying the picture. “We even sort of wear our hair the same way. When was this taken?”
“Forty-seven years ago.”
“Is she dead?”
I nodded.
Rated PG. Contains mature themes and wistfulness.
Referenced Sites:
2008 Hugo Awards
“First of May” by Jonathan Coulton (Not work-safe)
EP155: Tideline
Published on 24 Apr 2008 at 12:19 pm.
52 Comments.
Filed under Hugo Awards, Podcasts, Rated PG.
2008 Hugo Nominee!
By Elizabeth Bear.
Read by Stephen Eley.
Closing Music: “The Fall” by Red Hunter.
They would have called her salvage, if there were anyone left to salvage her. But she was the last of the war machines, a three-legged oblate teardrop as big as a main battle tank, two big grabs and one fine manipulator folded like a spider’s palps beneath the turreted head that finished her pointed end, her polyceramic armor spiderwebbed like shatterproof glass. Unhelmed by her remote masters, she limped along the beach, dragging one fused limb. She was nearly derelict.
The beach was where she met Belvedere.
Rated PG. Contains implied violence and themes of death.
Referenced Sites:
2008 Hugo Awards
WisCon May 23-26, Madison, WI
EP Review: Classics - Dr. Strangelove
Published on 30 Mar 2008 at 9:19 pm.
6 Comments.
Filed under Rated PG, Reviews.
Read ‘EP Review: Classics - Dr. Strangelove’
-->
A Film By Stanley Kubrick.
Reviewed by Jonathon Sullivan
EP148: Homecoming at the Borderlands Café
Published on 6 Mar 2008 at 11:09 pm.
84 Comments.
Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.
Read ‘EP148: Homecoming at the Borderlands Café’
-->By Carole McDonnell.
Read by Stephen Eley.
First appeared in Jigsaw Nation, ed. Edward J. McFadden III and E. Sedia.
We don’t see a lot of mixed couples around here, and we’re not like some of the other states in the Confederate United Republic. It’s not like they’re gonna get killed or lynched or nothing. But it’s tough just the same. And although it’s weird enough that they’re an interracial couple, it seems to me that they’re arguing about something bigger than merely coming into this café.
I don’t know any Blacks. You got to go to Laramie, or Cheyenne to see them. But I watch Cosby when it’s on. The Confederacy ain’t as bad as the folks in Columbia might think. Sure everyone’s segregated, but it’s all equal and the Platte County school district is pretty good about African-American History Month.
Rated PG. Contains heavy racial and political themes.
Referenced Sites:
Decoder Ring Theatre
EP147: Pressure
Published on 28 Feb 2008 at 2:43 pm.
40 Comments.
Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.
By Jeff Carlson.
Read by Graydancer (of The Ropecast).
First appeared in Strange Horizons, August 2003.
Closing music: “I Crush Everything” by Jonathan Coulton.
I spent the longest five weeks of my life in that tank and in a deeper pool, healing, testing, practicing. My feet and toes had been augmented much like my hands, my thighs shortened to maximize the available muscle. I was damned quick. Relearning construction techniques with my new fingers was sometimes frustrating, yet my progress was real and those periods of solitary labor became important to me.
At the surface, in the shallows, doctors poked and prodded and put me through redundant tortures. I had been warned that the study of my new body would be extensive and did my best not to fear or hate them, but I’d never imagined such intense scrutiny. During my years as a SEAL, I had been like a bug under a microscope, constantly evaluated and scored. Here I was the microscope, my body the only lens through which they could measure their work. Stenstrom tried to be my buddy, as he had always tried, joking and asking what I’d do with the money, yet his possessiveness was obvious. “We’ll be famous,” he said. “We’ll change the world.”
I wasn’t a slave or a pet, exactly, but I was anxious to get started. To get away from them.
Rated PG. Contains moderate violence.
Audible.com Promotion!
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Referenced Sites:
PodCastle
EP146: Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk
Published on 21 Feb 2008 at 9:41 pm.
78 Comments.
Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.
Read ‘EP146: Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk’
-->By Ken Scholes.
Read by Stephen Eley.
First appeared in Talebones, Spring 2001.
“Do you know what’s happened to the children?”
Edward swallowed. Suddenly, he wanted to cry. “Yes. They’re…sleeping?”
He hoped and hoped and hoped and hoped, grimacing as he did. He looked around.
Makeshift beds lined the room. Small hands gripped blankets, small eyes stared at the ceiling.
“No.” The boy frowned. “They’ve died.”
“Because of Something Very Bad?”
“Yes. And I need you to be a Very Brave Bear. Can you do that?”
Rated PG. Contains strong images of death and violence. Almost certainly not appropriate for small children.
EP145: Instead of a Loving Heart
Published on 14 Feb 2008 at 6:32 am.
23 Comments.
Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.
Read ‘EP145: Instead of a Loving Heart’
-->By Jeremiah Tolbert.
Read by Jared Axelrod (of The Voice of Free Planet X).
First appeared in All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories (ed. David Moles & Jay Lake).
We are somewhere among the tallest mountains of the world. When we arrived, I was locked away in a cargo hold, so I don’t know exactly where. Our home is a small, drafty castle and a separate laboratory. Dr. Octavio had the locals construct the lab before he tested the new death ray on their village. There’s very little left there. In my little bit of spare time, I try to bury the bodies and collect anything useful to the doctor’s experiment.
My primary duties consist of keeping the castle’s furnace running and clearing the never-ending snow from the path between the two buildings. Sometimes, it falls too fast for my slow treads and shovel attachment to keep up with and I find myself half-buried in the snow. It is horrible on my gears when this happens, but I use heavyweight oil now and it helps.
It is one of the few benefits of my metal frame that I appreciate. Life in this contraption is like being wrapped in swaddling clothes. I wonder if I would feel anything if my casing caught on fire? I need to ask the doctor when he isn’t in one of his moods.
Rated PG. Parental guidance suggested for violence and ennui.
Audible.com Promotion!
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Referenced Sites:
Jared Axelrod’s Commissions
