Category: 17 and Up

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EP266: Kachikachi Yama

 
icon for podpress  EP266 [36:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By: Michael R. Underwood
Read by: Lauren Harris of Pendragon Variety Literary Magazine Podcast
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All stories by Michael R. Underwood
All stories read by Lauren Harris
Rated R: For sexual situations and violence

Show Notes:

  • Feedback for Episode 258: Raising Jenny.
  • Next week… We leave earth for a new planet!

Kachikachi Yama
By Michael R. Underwood

The howl of the northbound train builds in crescendo as I stand on the ledge of the platform and hold the man above the tracks.  He flails at me.

The Shikoku station is far from empty.  Groaning bodies dot the otherwise hospital-clean platform. A group of fleshmodded Gothic Lolita girls watch us.  They look on with inhumanly white faces and void-black eyes.  Twig-thin arms down to their knees wave in the wind. He begs.

My _denkigami’s_ polite but insistent voice chirps in my head.  _“Yamagata-sama orders the target to be eliminated.”_ Spirit of the fleshware machine in my brain, my _denkigami_ is a constant companion, and keeper of my leash.

The roar of the train grows louder, and bells ring in the station.  The man pleads for his life.  The train’s lights appear from around the around the corner.

Keep reading…

Nov 11, 2010 | 2 comments View Post
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EP264: St. Darwin’s Spirituals

 
icon for podpress  EP264 [39:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By D.K. Thompson
Read by: Mur Lafferty
First appeared in Murky Depths
Host: Norm Sherman
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All stories by DK Thompson
All stories read by Mur Lafferty
Rated R: For paranormal sexual situations

Show Notes:

  • Enjoy our Halloween episode, which mixes a bit of paranormal in with our science fiction. Hey, it’s a special holiday, and we’re apt to get a little crazy around here.
  • If listeners want some lighter Halloween fun, “Horrorworld,” DK’s short story collaboration with Kevin David Anderson, is running as a two-part special at Drabblecast this Halloween. If people have ever had a desire to see Yul Brynner fight zombies, that’s the story for them.
  • Feedback for Episode 256: The Mermaids Singing Each to Each.
  • Next week… A special election day episode!

Saint Darwin’s Spirituals
By D.K. Thompson

The ghosts wanted a threesome – the two of them in Lucy’s body. It wasn’t an unheard of proposition, or so Lucy had been told. Prostitutes considered psychic whoring one of the safest tricks on the streets. All the pleasures of intimacy without the messy clean-up.

Ghosts had a nasty reputation for vanishing the moment after, though, no matter the talisman around your neck or the potion drunk before sunset, and so payments were usually collected up front. Not that Lucy was worried about the money. Her husband was the only thing that concerned her.

She adjusted her brass and leather goggles, peering through the ethereal tinted lenses to examine the ghosts.

They looked like the average apparitions. Both female. One spiraled around Lucy, long and curly hair obscuring her face. Large black blotches covered her body, causing her skin to peel off in patches. The other hovered several feet above the cobblestones in front of Lucy. She had a noose around her throat and her neck was bent so her head hung to the left side. She crossed her arms and took several breaths. Or whatever passed for breaths in the afterlife.

How long had it been since they’d felt someone’s touch? Lucy wondered. She remembered something her husband had told her long ago, before the murders, before he’d disappeared. “Spirits linger in this world longing to be a part of it, to reconnect, to have some kind of physical, sensual experience,” Thomas had said. “Only a host can provide them that.”

Ghosts aren’t the only creatures haunted by the memory of a touch, my love, Lucy thought. And yet, despite being a devout spiritualist, she shuddered at the idea of the cadaverous spirits making love inside her. She’d never had a ghostgasm before, much less been paid for one. The ghosts looked sincere in their desire, not like dangerous murderers. Certainly not monsters. Still, lonely as she was, a ghostgasm wouldn’t help her find Thomas.

Read more….

Oct 28, 2010 | 0 comments View Post
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EP256: The Mermaids Singing Each to Each

 
icon for podpress  EP256 [56:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By Cat Rambo
Read by: Christiana Ellis of Nina Kimberly the Merciless and Space Casey
First appeared in Clarkesworld
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All stories by Cat Rambo
All stories read by Christiana Ellis

“Laura,” a speaker said, as though I hadn’t been gone for six years, as though she’d seen me every day in between. “Laura, where is your uncle?”

I used to imagine her disintegrated, torn apart into silent atoms.

“It’s not Laura anymore,” I said. “It’s Lolo. I’m gender neutral.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“You’ve got a Net connection,” I said. “Search around on “gender neutral” and “biomod operation.”

I wasn’t sure if the pause that came after that was for dramatic effect or whether she really was having trouble understanding the search parameters. Then she said, “Ah, I see. When did you do that?”

“Six years ago.”

“Where is your uncle?”

“Dead,” I said flatly. I hoped that machine intelligences could hurt and so I twisted the knife as far as I could. “Stabbed in a bar fight.”

Rated R for violence, language, and memory of sexual violence. And Spar feedback.

Show Notes:

  • Feedback for Episode 248, Spar

Next week… Union Dues!

Sep 02, 2010 | 0 comments View Post
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EP249: Little M@tch Girl

 
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By Heather Shaw
Read by Mur Lafferty
Discuss on our forums.
Originally published in: Tumbarumba
All stories by Heather Shaw
All stories read by Mur Lafferty

It wasn’t that Em disapproved of drug use, you just had to be savvy about which drugs you took. Back before she had to get a day job, she was a M@tch girl, much to the delight of the guys on the club scene. M@tch wasn’t a wimpy drug, but it didn’t turn you into a murderous street zombie either. It was also expensive — a designer “where it’s @!” drug — that the Tweakers couldn’t afford anyway.

Rated R for one sexual scene and drug use.

Show Notes:

  • We’re back, we hope you liked our Hugo offering! Be sure to vote before July 31!

Next week… Escape Pod ventures into the world of novellas.

Jul 15, 2010 | 0 comments View Post
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EP244: Non-Zero Probabilities

 
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By N.K. Jemisin
Originally recorded by Kate Baker for Clarkesworld Magazine, and is used here with their expressed permission.
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Guest Host: Dave Thompson of Podcastle
All stories by N.K. Jemisin
All stories read by Kate Baker

Her neighbor — the other one, across the hall — helped her figure it out, long before the math geeks finished crunching their numbers.

“Watch,” he’d said, and laid a deck of cards facedown on her coffee table. (There was coffee in the cups, with a generous dollop of Bailey’s. He was a nice-enough guy that Adele felt comfortable offering this.) He shuffled it with the blurring speed of an expert, cut the deck, shuffled again, then picked up the whole deck and spread it, still facedown. “Pick a card.”

Adele picked. The Joker.

“Only two of those in the deck,” he said, then shuffled and spread again. “Pick another.”

She did, and got the other Joker.

“Coincidence,” she said. (This had been months ago, when she was still skeptical.)

Rated R: for Lucky Streaks and Getting Lucky.

Show Notes:

  • Enter the Escape Pod Flash Contest! It runs June 1- July 4, stories must be under 500 words. More information at the link.
  • Editor’s note: Thanks so much to Dave Thompson and Peter Wood for taking on this project of securing all five Hugo stories during the hiatus of Escape Pod. Most of the work was done before I joined, and this wouldn’t have happened without them stepping up.

Next week… Another Hugo-nominated story!

Jun 10, 2010 | 0 comments View Post
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EP239: A Programmatic Approach to Perfect Happiness

 
icon for podpress  Standard Podcast [27:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By Tim Pratt
Read by: Stephen Eley
Discuss on our forums.
Originally published in: Futurismic, April 2009.

All stories by Tim Pratt
All stories read by Stephen Eley

Opening poem: “Scientific Romance”

Audible.com Promotion!

Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff

My step-daughter Wynter, who is regrettably prejudiced against robots
and those who love us, comes floating through the door in a
metaphorical cloud of glitter instead of her customary figurative
cloud of gloom. She enters the kitchen, rises up on the toes of her
black spike-heeled boots, wraps her leather-braceleted arms around my
neck, and places a kiss on my cheek, leaving behind a smear of black
lipstick on my artificial skin and a whiff of white make-up in my
artificial nose. “Hi Kirby,” she says, voice all bubbles and light,
when normally she would never deign to utter my personal designation.
“Is Moms around? Haven’t talked to her in a million.”

I know right away that Wynter has been infected.

Rated R. Contains mature sexual situations and adult themes. (And robot themes.)

Feb 28, 2010 | 0 comments View Post
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EP237: Roadside Rescue

 
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By Pat Cadigan.
Read by Stephen Eley.

First appeared in Omni, July 1985.

“That’s a long time to wait.” The navigator’s smile widened. He was very attractive, holo-star kind of handsome. People who work for aliens, Etan thought. “Perhaps you’d care to wait in my employer’s transport. For that matter, I can probably repair your vehicle, which will save you time and money. Roadside rescue fees are exorbitant.”

“That’s very kind,” Etan said, “but I have called, and I don’t want to impose—“

“It was my employer’s idea to stop, sir. I agreed, of course. My employer is quite fond of people. In fact, my employer loves people. And I’m sure you would be rewarded in some way.”

Rated R. Contains profanity and mature (if alien) themes.

Feb 07, 2010 | 0 comments View Post
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EP234: The Secret Protocols of the Elders of Zion

 
icon for podpress  Standard Podcast [45:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By Lavie Tidhar.
Read by Stephen Eley.

First appeared in The West Pier Gazette & Other Stories, 2008.

It was afternoon, after school has ended for the day. Sash has been working in the hydroponics gardens, helping the adults with the delicate work of picking the buds. It was flowering time, and the ganja plants were at the end of their cycle.

It was then, with her hands sticky with resin and her skin tingling pleasantly from the work and the heat, with Mama Kingston’s deep, melodious voice saying ‘a good harvest, child, a good harvest’ with a throaty chuckle, when Sash felt about herself the presence of Jah in everything she did and was profoundly happy: it was then that Sash discovered, for the first time, the existence of the Secret.

Rated R. Contains some violence and a plot heavily focused on drug use. If you’re good with that, there’s not much else likely to be problematic for younger audiences.

Jan 18, 2010 | 0 comments View Post
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EP227: His Master’s Voice

 
icon for podpress  Standard Podcast [43:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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

Dec 03, 2009 | 0 comments View Post
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EP226: Pirate Solutions

 
icon for podpress  Standard Podcast [42:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

by Katherine Sparrow.
Narrated by Sarah Tolbert, Kate Baker, Nate Periat, and Steve Eley
The story first appeared in Fast Ships, Black Sails edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer.
Discuss on our forums.
All stories by Katherine Sparrow
All stories read by Sarah Tolbert, Kate Baker, Nate Periat, and Steve Eley.

You could feel their heat. Not a metaphor, I don’t mean that, I mean literally the room grew warmer when they were in it. They were both so powerful. Whenever Anne and Jack (they weren’t named that then, but that’s who they were) strolled into the room you got contact highs from their lust. People who would never make out would find excuses to go to the bathroom together and come back with monster hickies. Everyone always wanted to sit near them because of their heat, and because they always said the thing you wish you’d said but only thought to say a billion blinks later.

When I first joined the Freebooter tech collective Anne and Jack were happy to have another girl in the group, but otherwise they ignored me. I could stare and stare at them all day long, hiding behind my black-rimmed glasses. But then one day Anne looked at me, and then Jack looked too, and we all just sort of fell toward each other. Like gravity. Like magic. Like there was a God.

Rated ARRRRR.

Nov 26, 2009 | 0 comments View Post
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