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Escape Pod 892: Rogue Farm (Flashback Friday)

First appeared in Live Without a Net, ed. Lou Anders

Now available in Wireless, by Charles Stross

Rogue Farm originally appeared on Escape Pod on Episode 206 on July 11, 2009.

Includes strong language, chemical violence, and drug-abusing dogs.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:35 — 54.8MB)

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Show Notes

Recorded at Balticon 43, May 23, 2009

Read by:

Joe – Jared Axelrod (of The Voice of Free Planet X),

Maddie – J.R. Blackwell (of Voices of Tomorrow)

The Farm – Evo Terra and Sheila Dee (of Evo at 11, et al.)

Brenda the Barkeep – Dee Reed (of Nobilis Erotica),

Wendy the Rat – Laura Burns,

Art the Boy Toy – John Cmar,

Bob the Dog – Earl Newton (of Stranger Things),

Narrator – Serah Eley

Special Thanks To:
Paul Fischer (of The Balticon Podcast) for instigating and organizing
Nobilis Reed (of Nobilis Erotica) for engineering

Rogue Farm (Excerpt)

By Charles Stross

“Buggerit, I don’t have time for this,” Joe muttered. The stable waiting for the small herd of cloned spidercows cluttering up the north paddock was still knee-deep in manure, and the tractor seat wasn’t getting any warmer while he shivered out here waiting for Maddie to come and sort this thing out. It wasn’t a big herd, but it was as big as his land and his labour could manage – the big biofabricator in the shed could assemble mammalian livestock faster than he could feed them up and sell them with an honest HAND-RAISED NOT VAT-GROWN label. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 886: If My Body Is a Temple, Raze It to the Ground

If My Body Is a Temple, Raze It to the Ground originally appeared in The Reinvented Heart (CAEZIK SF & Fantasy), February 2022.

Includes sexual harassment.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:25 — 40.9MB)

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If My Body Is a Temple, Raze It to the Ground

By Lauren Ring

Thea helped me with my upload today. Decent response speed. Props to whoever designed her—so realistic!

— anonymous customer review for Acheron Uploads, four out of five stars

 

I know, I know. Don’t read the comments. But Charlie, my sweet Charlie, swearing at the circuits I’ve set on the fritz with my seething, you don’t understand what this feels like. I know you’ll never hear me, but even thinking the truth helps: I am not an AI. This isn’t some robot revolution or some uplifted pedanticism. I’ve never been anything other than human.

Surely by now you must suspect that. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 884: Zhao and the Flightless Crane

Escape Pod 884: Zhao and the Flightless Crane is an Escape Pod original.

Discussion of death and loss.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:32 — 53.4MB)

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Zhao and the Flightless Crane

By A. J. Mo

Quick sapphires danced over sun-silvered water. Soundless, they zipped and wheeled to the quiet rhythm of filtration pumps. Dragonflies, Zhao thought. Other winged jewels joined the flurry, some green as spring, others red as blood, wings iridescent.

“Good,” he said to himself. “Lake’s clean.”

“That is good,” echoed Ah Bak in their tinny voice. “Dragonflies do not breed in stagnant water.”

In the distance, the Pearl River curled east, having conferred upon the lake a small fraction of its life on its thousand-mile journey from the west. Zhao stared at the scene, taking in the collage of colours and contours when he noticed something in the sky. A plane. Almost imperceptibly small, it cut its trail across perfect blue. His stomach tightened, a light prelude to much greater agony. A memory forced its way to the surface, fingers ruined by fire, the rest of the hand lost. All they could find. All that was left of Chen. Zhao clenched his teeth and dragged his eyes over the white naked sun to blot out the image.

“Does Lei like dragonflies?” came Ah Bak’s tinny voice, their haematite beak unmoving. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 882: Hey, George

Escape Pod 882: Hey, George is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:50 — 44.2MB)

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Hey, George

By Elizabeth Guilt

“Hey, George.”

I remind myself that that is not my name; it never was. I will myself not to react, not to break stride, as I stroll along beside the beach.

Old habits die hard, and the best neuro-reset in the world can’t overcome years of routine. Whoever called out could, had they been watching closely, have seen my tiny hesitation. But they are not calling me.

I hear footsteps behind me, running steps, getting closer.

“George!”

I stop walking and take a deep breath. I assume a politely blank expression, and turn around.

And then I see her. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 880: A Cosmonaut’s Guide to Talking to Your Parents

Escape Pod 880: A Cosmonaut’s Guide to Talking to Your Parents is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:22 — 49.0MB)

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A Cosmonaut’s Guide to Talking to Your Parents

By Adriana C. Grigore

You have (3) unopened voicemails on your personal line. Last received 31 minutes ago, Aurea Minor Time.

> Read?

> No. Switch to broadcast.

> Engage deep space satellite?

> Yes. On, say…a five-sector perimeter.

> Live transmission upon connection?

> Sure.

“… and when I said that no, I didn’t order the pie, I made it myself, they said—they said, oh, you shouldn’t have made such a mess! And I, well, I, I cried.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s… it’s like the mess was all they saw, you know?”

“And you wanted them to see you.”

“Yeah… I mean, doesn’t everyone?”

Sam looked at the canopy of stars past the asteroid belt he was supposed to be mapping. None of them would’ve been visible from any of the planets he’d grown up on, but they felt familiar anyway. Distant and still, as his spacesuit ebbed and flowed. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 878: Budo (Flashback Friday)

This story was previously published in the Steampunk World Anthology edited by Sarah Hans and first appeared on Escape Pod Episode 517.

Violence and warfare.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:53 — 40.1MB)

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Budo

By Tade Thompson

“Being desirous, on the other hand, to obviate the misunderstanding and disputes which might in future arise from new acts of occupation (prises de possession) on the coast of Africa; and concerned, at the same time, as to the means of furthering the moral and material well-being of the native populations;”

General Act of the Berlin Conference on West Africa,
26 February 1885

There is a story told in my village about the man who fell from the sky. The British also tell this tale in their history books, but it is a mere paragraph, and they invert the details.

In October 1884 I was a Yoruba translator for a British trading outpost. This man from the sky, we called him Budo. He was in the custody of the English, who questioned him. They tortured him with heat and with cold and with the blade, but they did not know what answers would satisfy. I know this because I carried their words to him, and his silence back to them. His manner was mild and deferent at all times, but they held him in isolation. For good reason they considered him dangerous. I will explain this later.

One afternoon while most of the English were sleeping a white man arrived at the gate demanding admission. One of the Sikh sentries told me he was a scout, and appeared bruised, half-naked and exhausted. He was too out of breath to speak, although he seemed keen to give his report. Kenton, the NCO of the military contingent, asked one of my brothers to bring water while he soothed the scout. The man took two gulps, splashed some on his face, then looked up at Kenton. He said one word.

“French.”

The scout vomited over the floor.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 876: Like Stars Daring to Shine

Like Stars Daring to Shine was first published by Fireside Magazine, July 2022.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:08 — 43.2MB)

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Like Stars Daring to Shine

By Somto Ihezue

When the boy opens his housing unit’s steel door and the incandescent lights pour into his face, he does not blink away. “Little suns” — this is what everyone calls them. The massive disks hover in the atmosphere, spilling streams of radiant light to the ground. The boy stares into the trees, mere meters from the door, and the forest encaving the unit stares back. A breeze finds him, whistling through the trees and into his dungarees. Threadbare with a Batman logo printed on them, the over-alls belonged to his mother when she was a child. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 874: Common Speech

Escape Pod 874: Common Speech is an Escape Pod original.

This story deals with plagues and description of injuries.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:28 — 55.6MB)

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Common Speech

By Elise Stephens

Dr. Jaiyesimi Obiaka tugged at her sweat-damp collar, wiped her eyes, and tried to focus on the copied pages of the final experiment she and Ganiru had created together. Just looking over his familiar handwriting blurred her vision with tears.

Jai’s colleagues had told her to stay home, to take time to grieve, but she’d allowed herself just two days to mourn her husband’s death before donning her lab coat again. She had to be pragmatic. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 871: The Contrary Gardener (Part 2 of 2)

The Contrary Gardener originally appeared in Eclipse Online, October 2012 and has been reprinted in:

  • Science Fiction: The Best of the Year 2013, ed. Rich Horton, Prime Books, 2014.
  • The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, ed. Jonathan Strahan, Night Shade Books, 2014.
  • Telling the Map: Stories (Small Beer Press collection, 2017)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:49 — 55.1MB)

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The Contrary Gardener (Part 2 of 2)

By Christopher Rowe

(Continued from Part 1)

Even in the ‘Ville, even in a family of master cultivators, tickets were not easy to come by, so it was not unusual that Kay Lynne had never been to the Derby. What was unusual was her absolute lack of desire to attend the race.

Kay Lynne genuinely hoped that her instinctive and absolute despisal of the Derby and all its attendant celebrations was born of some logical or at least reasonable quirk of her own personality. But she suspected it was simply because her father loved it so.

“You managed to get two tickets this year?” she asked him, and was surprised that her voice was so steady and calm.

“Just this one,” he replied, turning his back on her before she could hand the ticket back. “I decided this year would be a good one for you to go instead. There’s a good card, top to bottom.” (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 870: The Contrary Gardener (Part 1 of 2)

The Contrary Gardener originally appeared in Eclipse Online, October 2012 and has been reprinted in:

  • Science Fiction: The Best of the Year 2013, ed. Rich Horton, Prime Books, 2014.
  • The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, ed. Jonathan Strahan, Night Shade Books, 2014.
  • Telling the Map: Stories (Small Beer Press collection, 2017)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:17 — 35.2MB)

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The Contrary Gardener (Part 1 of 2)

By Christopher Rowe

Kay Lynne wandered up and down the aisles of the seed library dug out beneath the county extension office. Some of the rows were marked with glowing orange off-limits fungus, warning the unwary away from spores and thistles that required special equipment to handle, which Kay Lynne didn’t have, and special permission to access, which she would never have, if her father had anything to say about it, and he did.

It was the last Friday before the first Saturday in May, the day before Derby Day and so a week from planting day, and Kay Lynne had few ideas and less time for her Victory Garden planning. Last year she had grown a half dozen varieties of tomatoes, three for eating and three for blood transfusions, but she didn’t like to repeat herself. Given that she tended to mumble when she talked, not liking to repeat herself made Kay Lynne a quiet gardener. (Continue Reading…)

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