BREAKING! Escape Pod is a Finalist for the Hugo Award! As is Alasdair Stuart!

Twice means it’s not a fluke! We are thrilled to announce that Escape Pod is again a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine! Our excellent team’s work of fifteen years has led up to this recognition, and we’re so grateful to those who nominated us! We would be nothing without you, our authors who trust us to bring their stories to our audience, and our narrators who help us get the stories there.

In extra special news, one of our hosts and owner of Escape Artists himself, Alasdair Stuart, was nominated for the Hugo for Best Fan Writer! Congrats, Alasdair! Other Escape Artists staff or alum nominees include Sarah Gailey and Shiv Ramdas!

Unfortunately, because of the COVID-19 global pandemic crisis, WorldCon 2020 has moved to a virtual convention. However, the con staff is working hard to bring the best virtual convention they can, which will hopefully include some of the Escape Pod team as part of programming. If you have a membership, please consider keeping it to support the con, be able to access the virtual programming, and to keep your Hugo voting rights!

Here’s the full 2020 ballot.

Congratulations to all of the finalists!

Thank you from the bottoms of our heart for your support!

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Escape Pod 734: Murmuration

This story appeared in InterGalactic Medicine Show, Issue 56 (April 2017)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:50 — 64.8MB)

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Show Notes

This is the fourth in a special series of space-themed stories in May 2020.

Murmuration

by E. Catherine Tobler

Sita Balachandran found the bone on her forty-first birthday, its pale wind-scoured point emerging from the dry Martian floodplain like the splintered stalk of a flower. At first, she thought it was a stone, the floodplain a riot of similar, jagged debris, but the shape and color told her otherwise. A fossilized rib bone, she was sure.

The Martian atmosphere was well-known for the tricks it would play, even the earliest collected images of Mars calling to mind familiar shapes. A rock that resembled a crouched squirrel. A swirl of dark dust that took on the shape of a mourning woman. People sought what they understood, preferring the familiar rather than contemplating what they did not know. Especially when it came to distant worlds. But archaeologists couldn’t afford to look away; they had to look at everything from a new perspective, in order to assemble the broken past.

No matter how Sita looked at the bone, no matter how she tried to see it from a new perspective, it remained a bone. Beneath the shadow of the ancient, excavated Pathfinder lander shell, a bone.

(Continue Reading…)

Flash Fiction Contest Semi-Finals

Voting is now open for the semi-final round of our flash fiction contest! Semi-final voting will run from Wed, May 27, 2020 close Wed, Jun 3, 2020 (just after midnight UTC).

Contest voting is open to everyone, not only authors who entered stories! Find all the details at our community forums.

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Escape Pod 733: Relative Fortune

Relative Fortune was originally published in Galaxy’s Edge in October 2018.

Cursing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:32 — 28.7MB)

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Show Notes

This is the third in a special series of space-themed stories in May 2020.

Relative Fortune

By Brian K. Lowe

When I was seventeen, class president, and a year from the Space Force Academy, Dad fell into an antique gun rack at work, dead from a stroke before he hit the floor.

I had been helping him in the pawn shop after school, partly to make some tuition money and partly because it looked good on my Academy application. After he died it was either take over the shop, or let Mom work it and my brother Rey raise himself while I ran off to the Academy. I opened up two hours after the funeral.

Every night, I’d sweep the floors, dust the shelves, double-lock the front door, and walk upstairs after a 12-hour day of trading in things that people had once thought they couldn’t live without, but now couldn’t live without selling.

But while I was scratching out a living buying and selling second-hand guitars, the real money was in things that had gone Out There. Tools, spacesuits, uniform patches… And when it came to interstellar travel, stuff that had been to another star… Years before I was born, the first guys to come back from Proxima Centauri had gotten rich selling their underwear. The best part was that, thanks to time dilation, they were still young. They’d been able to retire in their thirties. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 732: At Her Fingertips

This story was first published in Betwixt Magazine

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:55 — 60.8MB)

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Show Notes

This is the second in a special series of space-themed stories for May 2020.

At Her Fingertips

by Jason Kimble

Ten fingers, ten toes. That’s the baseline for a healthy kid, right? You’d have thought I’d be a bonus, what with eighteen fingers. Guess they all have to function before you count them.

As Deficiencies go, mine’s not so bad. The Skew was a hell of a thing, and everyone on the Rim’s still feeling it. I knew a guy once had a fully formed jaw down around his nuts. I only wish I was kidding. On the upside, the hinge didn’t work, or it would’ve been a nightmare sitting down.

So, yeah, I have extra digits grown out from the top of my primary knuckles. You get used to working around them, though. Makes some things tenser for me when I’m elbow-deep in an engine than it does for people without them, but it only took once or twice pinching them before my reflexes amped up. And, like I said: could be worse.

“Acaja!”

Case in point: I could have a mouth that doesn’t close all the way like my boss, Harvey. He literally never shuts his trap.

“Acaja, get the hell over here!”

No matter how much I wish he would.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 731: For Whatever We Lose

For Whatever We Lose was first published in 2019 in issue 37 of Luna Station Quarterly.

Includes one F-bomb. Includes mention of death, loss, and danger.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:39 — 28.8MB)

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Show Notes

This is the first in a special series of space-themed stories in May 2020.

For Whatever We Lose

By Jennifer R. Donohue

I lied to meet an astronaut.

Or my dad did, which is the same thing. I was supposed to be at least eight years old to attend, and I was only six but the tallest in my class. So I got to meet the astronaut that August day, instead of going to the beach, or playing in somebody’s backyard and running barefoot to the ice cream truck when we heard its roving song.

He was the third man on the moon, and at home I still have the framed and autographed NASA black and white of him young and serious in his spacesuit. It used to be one of the pictures on his Wikipedia page, a piece of my memories there on the internet for everybody to see. It’s probably the same promo photo he used for years and years; I wonder how many other kids kept theirs. Thinking of it like that makes him seem still alive, like as long as all those pictures are out there, he can’t possibly be gone. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 730: When We Were Patched

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:44 — 45.4MB)

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When We Were Patched

by Deji Bryce Olukotun

The last time we ever spoke, my partner Malik asked me whether I believed speed or power made for the best athlete. I was puzzled, of course, feeling that neither could explain why some athletes excelled more than others, even in straightforward competitions like sprinting or the javelin. “There are enough variables to make it unclear,” I observed, “whether speed or power offers a better advantage in competition, or whether some other factor confers the greatest advantage.” It seemed to me an unanswerable question.

“And how about elegance versus quickness of thought?” Malik asked. But he stormed off before I could respond, as if he had confirmed some awful quality about me. By then I should have known not to expect anything from Malik, because he was about to ruin my career.

​You see, I come from an illustrious line of sports officiants, spanning the world’s most dynamic and lucrative competitions, and I think my family would agree that my treatment by the FogoTennis Officiants Association was abominable. I should never have been suspended because of dishonorable behavior on Malik’s part.

​Like many referees, I remember the very instant I was called for the first time to officiate on the professional FogoTennis circuit, widely considered the most exciting and dangerous sport in the world. I had honed my skills by watching my parents officiate before me, and by observing my siblings, cousins, and extended family. You could say that I was an officiant from the day I was born. Not only did I learn from other matches, but I also visualized countless scenarios of FogoTennis so that I could fulfill my duties to the best of my ability, cementing my family’s reputation as impartial, efficient, and affordable judges. But there is a difference between officiating in theory—even when it is woven into your very soul—and officiating in reality, when you can find yourself with an irresponsible refereeing partner.

(Continue Reading…)

Flash Fiction Contest Voting Open

Voting is now open for our flash fiction contest! Preliminary rounds of voting will run weekly through May 25, 2020. Semi-final voting will run from May 27, 2020 to June 3, 2020, and the finalists will be determined starting June 5, 2020.

Contest voting is open to everyone, not just authors who entered stories! Find all the details at our community forums.

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Escape Pod 729: Gaze of Robot, Gaze of Bird

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:53 — 59.4MB)

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Gaze of Robot, Gaze of Bird

By Eric Schwitzgebel

First, an eye. The camera rose, swiveling on its joint, compiling initial scans of the planetary surface. Second, six wheels on struts, pop-pop, pop-pop, pop-pop, and a platform unfolding between the main body and the eye. Third, an atmospheric taster and wind gauge. Fourth, a robotic arm. The arm emerged holding a fluffy, resilient nanocarbon monkey doll, which it carefully set on the platform.

The monkey doll had no actuators, no servos, no sensors, no cognitive processors. Monkey was, however, quite huggable. Monkey lay on his back on the warm platform, his black bead eyes pointed up toward the stars. He had traveled wadded near J11-L’s core for ninety-five thousand years. His arms, legs, and tail lay open and relaxed for the first time since his hurried manufacture.

J11-L sprouted more eyes, more arms, more gauges – also stabilizers, ears, a scoop, solar panels, soil sensors, magnetic whirligigs. Always, J11-L observed Monkey more closely than anything else, leaning its eyes and gauges in.

J11-L arranged Monkey’s limbs on the platform, gently flexing and massaging the doll. J11-L scooped up a smooth stone from near its left front wheel, brushed it clean, then wedged it under Monkey’s head to serve as a pillow. J11-L stroked and smoothed Monkey’s fur, which was rumpled from the long journey.

“I love you, Monkey,” emitted J11-L, in a sound resembling language. “Will you stay with me while I build a Home?”

Monkey did not reply.
(Continue Reading…)

Flash Fiction Contest Submissions Closed

Submissions to the Flash Fiction Contest have now closed. We received a total of 224 stories!

Preliminary rounds of voting will run from April 27, 2020 through May 25, 2020. Semi-final voting will run from May 27, 2020 to June 3, 2020, and the finalists will be determined starting June 5, 2020.

Contest voting is open to everyone, not just authors who entered stories! Find all the details at our community forums.

Genres:

Escape Pod 728: The Cost of Wonder

This story first appeared in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, February 2019

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:23 — 29.8MB)

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The Cost of Wonder

by Leah Cypess

I’ll keep this one, I thought, that day at the fair, as the sunset cut a sharp line across the sky. Gina’s laughter rose in a crescendo of delighted giggles, and life seemed absolutely perfect: a sparkling gift of wonder and joy.

I could never afford a memory like this, but I wasn’t buying this one. I had made it, and it was mine, and I wanted it to last forever.

I’m not going to sell this day.

But even as I thought it, I was calculating, trying to guess just how much it was worth. I had known today would be magical; I had dressed Gina for the part, in a little denim dress and matching hat, both of which I’d bought with my earnings from last week’s trip to the playground. The hat flattened but didn’t tame her curls, and her round face was stretched by her smile. She squealed again as soap bubbles filled the air, trying to catch them with tiny, uncoordinated half-jumps, unaware of the iridescent globes settling all over her arms.

My heart swelled with a joy so potent it almost hurt, and I swore it again: I’ll keep this day for myself.

But the next morning Gina woke up sobbing, with a temperature so high she was hot to the touch. I had to beg the doctor to let me bring her in. He was busy, but he relented; I always paid on time.

It was, as I had feared, strep throat. I looked at the antibiotics prescription, which included the price, and knew the day at the fair was already gone.

(Continue Reading…)