EP589: Seb Dreams of Reincarnation

August 17th, 2017 by Posted in 10 and Up, EP Original, Podcasts
EP589: Seb Dreams of Reincarnation [ 36:05 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

AUTHOR: Aimee Ogden

NARRATOR: Matthew Hamblin

HOST: Mur Lafferty

Thanks to our sponsor, ARCHIVOS – a Story Mapping and Development Tool for writers, gamers, and storytellers of all kinds!

 

 

about the author…

Aimee Ogden is a former science teacher and software tester; now she writes about sad astronauts and angry princesses. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband, three-year-old twins, and a very old dog. You can follow her on Twitter: @Aimee_Ogden.

about the narrator…
Matthew is a writer and videographer from Leeds, England. He has a penchant for good stories and a loose grasp of apostrophes. He owns a very cute dog, named Bruce.

Seb Dreams of Reincarnation

By Aimee Ogden

They unplugged Seb’s neurodes at the end of his ten-year tour of duty. He’d known it was coming, had been told before he ever signed the contract that if they left him in any longer his health would start to deteriorate. What they hadn’t mentioned was that his health would deteriorate anyway. Once, Seb had kept six hundred people alive, responded instantly to their needs, and their wishes too when those fell within his power. He had carried them all in his belly, made them part of himself. He thought he would implode under the emptiness of having lost them.

Today, though, his only job was to leave his apartment: something he hadn’t done since the first week he’d moved in. He had groceries delivered, the occasional takeout, odds and ends as he needed them. Supermarkets and corner stores might as well have been on another planet. If they were, he might have actually cared to visit them. He stared out his ninth-floor window while trying to summon up a reason to go out, let alone the will to do so. His fleet-assigned shrink had given him the task and called it homework. Which was of course the exact opposite of what it actually was. Out-of-home work.

Aug 17, 2017 | 0 comments View Post

EP588: Rocket Surgery

August 10th, 2017 by Posted in 10 and Up, Podcasts
EP588: Rocket Surgery [ 29:43 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

AUTHOR: Effie Seiberg

NARRATOR: Summer Brooks

HOST: Divya Breed

Thanks to our sponsor, ARCHIVOS – a Story Mapping and Development Tool for writers, gamers, and storytellers of all kinds!

 

 

about the author… 

Effie Seiberg is a fantasy and science fiction writer. Her stories can be found in the “Women Destroy Science Fiction!” special edition of Lightspeed Magazine, Galaxy’s Edge, Analog, and Fireside Fiction, amongst others. This is her second appearance in Escape Pod.

Effie lives in San Francisco and likes to make sculpted cakes and bad puns. You can follow her on twitter at @effies, or read more of her work at effieseiberg.com.

about the narrator…SummerB

Summer is a bit of a television addict, and enjoys putting her scifi media geek skills to good use in interviewing guests. She had been a co-host for Slice of SciFi from 2005-2009, the co-host for The Babylon Podcast from 2006-2012, and host of Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas, before returning to Slice of SciFi full time as host & producer in August 2014.

She is an avid reader and writer of scifi, fantasy and thrillers, with a handful of publishing credits to her name. Next on her agenda is writing an urban fantasy tale, and a B-movie monster extravaganza.

Currently, Summer designs and maintains websites for clients in addition to having fun with the Slice of SciFi websites, and also does voiceover & narrations for Tales to Terrify, StarShipSofa and Escape Pod, among others.

Rocket Surgery

By Effie Seiberg

We’d tested plenty of missiles before, but Teeny was the only one that convulsed when we cut him open.

Oh, your viewers need more background? OK, I’ll back up a bit. Lemme tell ya, kids today don’t know their history. Even locked up in here for the past ten years, I can tell. No education. Good thing you’re getting the real story out.

Now. This was back when Hamazi was the supreme dictator of the Ambridian Republic, enemy number one. The whole military was buzzing about overthrowing him, and General Pitticks – I guess he’s Presidential Candidate Pitticks now – wanted to make a name for himself. So the weapons division got a lot of money to make something spectacular.

Previous missiles had AIs, of course. Precision navigation with plasma propulsion that could turn on a dime. Facial recognition to find the target and follow them. The Azimuth5900 could detect genetic debris to avoid hitting decoys, and the Tarzon-A-80’s nano-scales could rearrange to make the outer shell take on any shape to blend in with its surroundings, so if it needed to land to gather more intel it could camo without suspicious shadows giving it away.

But Teeny was something else altogether.

Aug 10, 2017 | 3 comments View Post

EP587: Someday

August 3rd, 2017 by Posted in 13 and Up, Podcasts
EP587: Someday [ 30:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

AUTHOR: James Patrick Kelly

NARRATOR: Ibba Armancas

HOST: Mur Lafferty

about the author… 

James Patrick Kelly has won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards; his fiction has been translated into eighteen languages. With John Kessel he is co-editor of Digital Rapture: The Singularity Anthology, Kafkaesque: Stories Inspired by Franz Kafka, The Secret History Of Science Fiction, Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology and Rewired: The Post Cyberpunk Anthology. He writes a column on the internet for Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and is on the faculty of the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine.

about the narrator…narrator Ibba Armancas

Raised by swordfighters and eastern European freedom fighters, Ibba Armancas is a writer-director currently based in Los Angeles. Her darkly comedic genre sensibilities are showcased in two webseries and a feature film forthcoming later this year. One day she will find time to make a website, but in the mean time you can follow her projects and adventures on Twitter or Instagram.

Someday

By James Patrick Kelly 

Daya had been in no hurry to become a mother. In the two years since she’d reached childbearing age, she’d built a modular from parts she’d fabbed herself, thrown her boots into the volcano, and served as blood judge. The village elders all said she was one of the quickest girls they had ever seen — except when it came to choosing fathers for her firstborn. Maybe that was because she was too quick for a sleepy village like Third Landing. When her mother, Tajana, had come of age, she’d left for the blue city to find fathers for her baby. Everyone expected Tajana would stay in Halfway, but she had surprised them and returned home to raise Daya. So once Daya had grown up, everyone assumed that someday she would leave for the city like her mother, especially after Tajana had been killed in the avalanche last winter. What did Third Landing have to hold such a fierce and able woman? Daya could easily build a glittering new life in Halfway. Do great things for the colony.

But everything had changed after the scientists from space had landed on the old site across the river, and Daya had changed most of all. She kept her own counsel and was often hard to find. That spring she had told the elders that she didn’t need to travel to gather the right semen. Her village was happy and prosperous. The scientists had chosen it to study and they had attracted tourists from all over the colony. There were plenty of beautiful and convenient local fathers to take to bed. Daya had sampled the ones she considered best, but never opened herself to blend their sperm. Now she would, here in the place where she had been born.

She chose just three fathers for her baby. She wanted Ganth because he was her brother and because he loved her above all others. Latif because he was a leader and would say what was true when everyone else was afraid. And Bakti because he was a master of stories and because she wanted him to tell hers someday.

Aug 03, 2017 | 2 comments View Post

EP586: The 1st Annual Lunar Biathlon

July 27th, 2017 by Posted in 10 and Up, Podcasts
EP586: The 1st Annual Lunar Biathlon [ 37:58 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

AUTHOR: Rachael K. Jones

NARRATOR: Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali

HOST: Divya Breed

about the author… 

Rachael K. Jones grew up in various cities across Europe and North America, picked up (and mostly forgot) six languages, and acquired several degrees in the arts and sciences. Now she writes speculative fiction from her secret android lair. Rachael’s fiction has appeared in dozens of venues, including Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, and all four Escape Artists podcasts. Follow her on Twitter @RachaelKJones.

about the narrator…

Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali lives and works in Houston as an oncology nurse. She is married and the mother to three brilliant artistic children. She writes because she loves to and also because she has a story (or two, or three…) to tell.

The 1st Annual Lunar Biathlon

By Rachael K. Jones

Raji and I were always designing new torments for ourselves, and then calling them good, and running around the Moon was just the latest idea. We tattooed wedding bands on each other’s fingers after our courthouse elopement, and for good measure, each other’s names. Raji ran down my thumb, and Valanna nestled in his palm along the fleshy crease. We honeymooned outdoors in the dead of winter on the Appalachian Trail, eating garlic couscous boiled in a bag. When we got the flu, we shared it between us like a good book, like a tissue box passed from one nightstand to the other. He worshipped at the mosque, and I at the cathedral. We sinned extravagantly, and we repented extravagantly too. We prayed and fasted with devout abandon. We prided ourselves on our self-denial, on the stares we got when we kissed in our congregation parking lots.

We punished our bodies with crash diets and binge drinking. We took up brutal sports. We ran farther and farther each evening. Eventually, we quit our jobs to seek our limits.

We liked making love on beaches in the rain so the chill drove us closer together. We relished the friction of sand. We got sunburned just to drip aloe down each other’s backs at night. These things reminded us we were alive. Our families called us damned, and most days, we agreed, but this too delighted us. Like Dante, we wanted to pass through Hell at least once before we saw Paradise.

Jul 27, 2017 | 0 comments View Post

EP585: We All Scream

July 23rd, 2017 by Posted in 10 and Up, EP Original, Podcasts
EP585: We All [ 18:56 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

AUTHOR: Marie Vibbert

NARRATOR: Julie Davis

HOST: Tina Connolly

about the author…

 Marie Vibbert is a web developer from Cleveland, Ohio with over 15 professional short story sales. Her work has appeared in Analog, Asimov’s, Apex, Lightspeed, and many other places. She played for the Cleveland Fusion Women’s Tackle Football team and her favorite ice cream is Mitchell’s Toasted Hazelnut.

about the narrator…

Julie Davis lives in Dallas, Texas, where she does not have an ice cream truck but wishes she did after reading this story. Instead she reads favorite books on her podcast Forgotten Classics and discusses favorite books and movies at her other podcast, A Good Story is Hard to Find.

We All Scream

By Marie Vibbert

We weren’t, any of us, heroes. Aiden was a downright chicken. I’m allowed to say that; I love him. My husband doesn’t have to live up to your expectations of masculinity. I’ll beat the crap out of anyone who says otherwise. Me? I don’t stick my neck out. I mind my own business, which is selling ice cream and looking after the twins. That’s Aiden’s business, too. We take turns driving the truck and keeping the kids from falling out of it.

It was Aiden driving that particular day. I was counting the money and finding that we’d gotten short-changed about the price of a dream bar at the playground stop – always happens when there’s a large crowd. Little scammers.

Jul 23, 2017 | 4 comments View Post

EP584: Your Body, By Default

July 13th, 2017 by Posted in 17 and Up, Podcasts
EP384: Your Body, By Default [ 29:24 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

AUTHOR: Alexis Hunter

NARRATOR: Alex Acks

HOST: Divya Breed

about the author…

Alexis A. Hunter is a speculative short story writer in possession of a superbly shaped skull. When she’s not writing, she can usually be found cursing too much on Twitter or taking too many pictures of her daughter. Her stories have appeared in magazines such as Fireside Fiction, Shimmer, and Apex, among others. To learn more, visit www.alexisahunter.com — or if you aren’t afraid of a few (hundred) f-bombs, follow her on Twitter (@alexisahunter).

about the narrator…

Alex is a writer, geologist, and sharp-dressed sir. They have had short stories in Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Daily Science Fiction, Shimmer, and more. They live in Denver (where they bicycle, drink tea, and twirl their ever-so-dapper mustache) with their two furry little bastards cats.

Your Body, By Default

By Alexis Hunter

They brought you back because they want something from you. Maybe one day they will bring people back because they can or because it’s the right thing to do — but for now there’s you and there’s them and there’s the unspoken obligations that lie between you both.

#

The IED blew your body into pieces: bone and brain and blood, sprayed in the sand with the twisted shell of your tank.

Maybe you weren’t always happy with your body; maybe your breasts were smaller than you would have liked and your toes reminded you of tree roots and there was that one mole right in the middle of your back that you always managed to catch with the hook of your bra; but it was your body. Your history was written in scars and tattoos. And you knew it, inside and out.

You made it yours over the years — the shaved sides of your head accenting the bright shock of magenta hair spilling over the top, the solid black contact lenses that made pupil and iris indistinguishable, the ornate scrolling ink that wrapped your ribcage.

This hunk of flesh you now inhabit is foreign. It is devoid of scar and ink and memory. It bulges or dips in all the wrong places. What it is is wrong, just as what it isn’t is wrong. It’s ten kinds of not you and you’re helpless under this skin.

Jul 13, 2017 | 1 comment View Post

EP583: The Librarian

July 6th, 2017 by Posted in 17 and Up, EP Original, Podcasts
EP583: The Librarian [ 33:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

AUTHOR: Andrew Kozma

NARRATOR: John Meagher

HOST: Mur Lafferty

about the author…

Andrew Kozma’s fiction has been published in Albedo One, Drabblecast, Interzone and Daily Science Fiction. His book of poems, City of Regret (Zone 3 Press, 2007), won the Zone 3 First Book Award. He currently, and for the foreseeable future, lives in Houston, Texas.

about the narrator…Displaying JMeagher.jpg

John is the writer/narrator of Tales of the Left Hand, an ongoing fantasy series offering “swashbuckling, intrigue, and a dash of magic.” Links to audio, print and ebook formats of his books are available at www.talesofthelefthand.com. In his secret identity, he’s a graphic designer living in Northern Virginia with his wife, daughter and two cats.

The Librarian

By Andrew Kozma

People call Matt a librarian, but he doesn’t mind. He takes care of the books, so the name makes sense, even if most of that care involves cleaning up their shit and piss, and feeding them nutritious glop in those moments between hits. If he can convince them to eat. If they aren’t so taken over by ledge they don’t move for months at a time, muscles withering like grapes on the vine.
Matt feels more like a drug dealer, even though he is, at best, an enabler. The libraries spit out blue wedges of ledge for anyone to pick up. He’s tried to get rid of the the libraries before, herding them away from the centers of human population, but no matter how far he drove them, a few days later they’d return to where they’d been, their stubby little crab legs clicking on the concrete. And because the libraries follow demand, the streets outside Heyman’s are littered with the little fuckers. He’s just thankful they don’t come inside—some latent biological programming keeps them from entering buildings.
Matt stores the books in what used to be Heyman’s Department Store, a four-story monstrosity which probably took up an entire city-block on Earth, in whatever city it was taken from, but here it’s lost among randomly scattered skyscrapers, row houses, suburban nuclear-family homes, churches, clubs, and sports arenas. He thinks of it as a temple. Or a museum. He tries not to think of it as a tomb. Most of the time, he’s the only non-ledged human there.

Jul 06, 2017 | 1 comment View Post

Announcing: Artemis Rising 4 for March, 2018

June 30th, 2017 by Posted in Uncategorized

Escape Pod is pleased to announce that Artemis Rising will return in March, 2018, across all four Escape Artists podcasts! Our annual event is a month-long showcase of stories by women and nonbinary authors in speculative fiction. This year’s stories will be guest edited by two of our Associate Editors, Laura Pearlman and S. Kay Nash.

Escape Pod is seeking original science fiction with a length of 2000 – 6000 words and will be open for Artemis Rising submissions during September 1-30, 2017. Anyone who identifies as a woman, to whatever degree they do, and non-binary authors are welcome and encouraged to submit a story.

Payment, rights, and manuscript format will be the same as specified in our general guidelines, but Artemis Rising will have a dedicated submissions portal. We will not be accepting simultaneous or multiple submissions for this.

Our fellow Escape Artists podcasts are also taking original submissions for the event. Please visit Cast of Wonders for young adult stories, Pseudopod for horror, and PodCastle for fantasy.

As always, Escape Artists strongly encourages submissions from people of backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented or excluded from traditional science fiction, including, but not limited to, people of color, LGBTQIA authors, persons with disabilities, members of religious minorities, and people from outside the United States. Our goal is to publish fiction that reflects the diversity of humankind, so we strongly encourage submissions from these or any other underrepresented groups.

The Escape Pod Artemis Rising submissions portal will open on September 1, 2017. We look forward to reading your stories!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: If a story has been rejected by Escape Pod in the past, can I submit it to Artemis Rising?
A: No.

Q: Can I submit a rejected Artemis Rising story to Escape Pod’s General Submissions?
A: No, because the Artemis Rising editors may refer your story to the show’s regular editors at their discretion. Otherwise please take a rejection as a rejection of the story from the venue for all purposes.

Q: If a story has multiple authors, do they all have to meet the Artemis Rising criteria?
A: Yes.

Q: If I’ve already submitted an Artemis Rising story, can I submit another I wrote with a co-author to the same podcast’s Artemis Rising?
A: No.

Q: If I have a story on submission to a podcast, can I submit a different story to that podcast’s Artemis Rising while the first one is still in the queue? Or vice versa?
A: Yes.

Q: Can I submit a different story to multiple Escape Artists podcasts for Artemis Rising?
A: Yes! Publication on one show doesn’t preclude publication on another. We’ve had multiple authors accomplish this impressive feat in the past.

Jun 30, 2017 | 0 comments View Post

EP582: Unit Two Does Her Makeup

June 29th, 2017 by Posted in 10 and Up, EP Original, Podcasts
EP582: Unit Two Does Her Makeup [ 37:10 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

AUTHOR: Laura Duerr

NARRATOR: Andrea Phillips

HOST: Tina Connolly

about the author…

Laura Duerr is a writer and social media coordinator from Vancouver, Washington, where she lives with her husband, their rescue dog, and too many cats. She is a lifelong Pacific Northwest resident and has a BA in Creative Writing from Linfield College. Her other stories have appeared in Shoreline of Infinity, Mad Scientist Journal, and the anthologies “Candlesticks & Daggers: An Anthology of Mixed-Genre Mysteries” and “Fitting In: Historical Accounts of Paranormal Subcultures.”

 

 

about the narrator…Displaying IMG_3290.jpg

Andrea Phillips is a game designer and author. Currently she co-writes the serials Bookburners and ReMade. On her own she’s written the novel Revision, pirate serial The Daring Adventures of Captain Lucy Smokeheart, and the novelette The Revolution, Brought to You By Nike.

You can find Andrea on Twitter at @andrhia. I mean, if you like that sort of thing.

Unit Two Does Her Makeup

By Laura Duerr

Doctor Spencer has brought me an artist. My eyes on the outside of the building register the identity of everyone who enters, including her: Suzanne Chantal Salinas, age 26, licensed esthetician and makeup artist, amateur painter. I cut the feed after .3 seconds. The security feed could tell me more, but I have learned that it is impolite to collect extraneous details about a person unless they prove to be a security risk. Given that both Suzanne Chantal Salinas and Doctor Spencer are smiling, and appear to be in companionable conversation, the artist is not a risk.
I observe them enter the building accompanied by a brief burst of cold — it is 37.1 degrees outside. When I view them through infrared, they are glowing red faces encompassed in green and blue jackets. I have been monitoring the interior temperatures; Unit One has made appropriate adjustments to climate control. We are keeping the building comfortable.
The visitor stamps her feet, brushes sleet from her black curls. They shed their jackets, blooming gold and scarlet on infrared. Unit Three has mobile security platforms posted by the front door and the elevators. They do not react: they are faceless, they don’t feel cold, the visitor has clearance.
The artist’s heart rate is elevated. Her cheeks are flushed, and not just from cold: she’s nervous about meeting me. She keeps looking at the security platforms. Perhaps she fears my platform will look like them, featureless and alien.
I chose my face. Unit Three chose hers, too, in a way. Our platforms serve different purposes, and the faces we built reflect that.

Jun 29, 2017 | 0 comments View Post

EP581: That Game We Played During the War

June 22nd, 2017 by Posted in 10 and Up, Hugo Awards, Podcasts
EP581: That Game We Played During the War [ 46:19 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

AUTHOR: Carrie Vaughn

NARRATOR: Amy H. Sturgis

HOST: Mur Lafferty

about the author…

Carrie Vaughn is best known for her New York Times bestselling series of novels about a werewolf named Kitty who hosts a talk radio show for the supernaturally disadvantaged. Her latest novels include a near-Earth space opera, Martians Abroad, from Tor Books, and a post-apocalyptic murder mystery, Bannerless, from John Joseph Adams Books. She’s written several other contemporary fantasy and young adult novels, as well as upwards of 80 short stories. She’s a contributor to the Wild Cards series of shared world superhero books edited by George R. R. Martin and a graduate of the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop. An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado.

 

 

about the narrator…ahsshotfour2

Amy H. Sturgis holds a Ph.D. in Intellectual History from Vanderbilt University and specializes in both Science Fiction and Indigenous American Studies. She is regular staff with the StarShipSofa podcast, editor in chief of Hocus Pocus Comics, and faculty at Lenoir-Rhyne University. She lives with her husband in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina.

That Game We Played During the War

By Carrie Vaughn

From the moment she left the train station, absolutely everybody stopped to look at Calla. They watched her walk across the plaza and up the steps of the Northward Military Hospital. In her dull gray uniform she was like a storm cloud moving among the khaki of the Gaantish soldiers and officials. The peace between their peoples was holding; seeing her should not have been such a shock. And yet, she might very well have been the first citizen of Enith to walk across this plaza without being a prisoner.

Calla wasn’t telepathic, but she could guess what every one of these Gaantish was thinking: What was she doing here? Well, since they were telepathic, they’d know the answer to that. They’d wonder all the same, but they’d know. It would be a comfort not to have to explain herself over and over again.

It was also something of a comfort not bothering to hide her fear. Technically, Enith and Gaant were no longer at war. That did not mean these people didn’t hate her for the uniform she wore. She didn’t think much of their uniforms either, and all the harm soldiers like these had done to her and those she loved. She couldn’t hide that, and so let the emotions slide right through her and away. She felt strangely light, entering the hospital lobby, and her smile was wry.

Some said Enith and Gaant were two sides of the same coin; they would never see eye to eye andwould always fight over the same spit of land between their two continents. But their differences were simple, one might say: only in their minds.

Jun 22, 2017 | 1 comment View Post
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