Archive for Podcasts

Escape Pod 54: Tk’tk’tk

Show Notes

Rated PG. Contains scatology and crimes against pronunciation.

Referenced sites:
2006 Hugo Nominees
Shelley the Republican
CAP Alert System
Bento Fanzine
National PTA
Rescuing Recess


Tk’tk’tk

by David D. Levine

Shkthh pth kstphst, the shopkeeper said, and Walker’s hypno-implanted vocabulary provided a translation: “What a delightful object.” Chitinous fingers picked up the recorder, scrabbling against the aluminum case with a sound that Walker found deeply disturbing. “What does it do?”

It took him a moment to formulate a reply. Even with hypno, Thfshpfth was a formidably complex language. “It listens and repeats,” he said. “You talk all day, it remembers all. Earth technology. Nothing like it for light-years.” The word for “light-year” was hkshkhthskht, difficult to pronounce. He hoped he’d gotten it right.

Escape Pod 53: Seventy-Five Years

Show Notes

Rated G. Contains politics and reference to moral issues. (Your kids may not get it, but it shouldn’t offend.)

Referenced sites:
2006 Hugo Nominees
Wikipedia on the Hugo Award
Hugo History at a Glance
Novel Nominees – Electronic Editions
Rock ‘N’ Roll Monster Bash 2006


Seventy-Five Years

by Michael A. Burstein

Isabel turned the handheld on and read to herself briefly. “According to this, your bill would push the date of release of the individual Census forms from seventy-two to seventy- five years.”

“It makes sense, Isabel.”

“It does?”

He pointed to her handheld. “You say you have my argument in there.”

“I do. And I find it specious.”

EP Metacast #2


The second “state of the podcast” address, in which we discuss:

  • Why it’s been too long
  • Steve’s new day job
  • EP publicity and audience growth
  • Current finances
  • Future goals for 2007
  • Marketing plans & conventions
  • Why EP is not going non-profit
  • New company name: Escape Artists, Inc.
  • Different ways to raise funds in the future
  • Why we’ve turned down advertising (and what we might accept)
  • No pay-for-content models, ever
  • Please tell us what you think!

And our bonus flash story:

EPn+1
By Rob Graber.
(Read by Stephen Eley.)

Thanks for a great year, everyone! This coming year will be bigger and better. Nothing can stop us now!

(Well, okay. Giant monsters could. That’s why we got them on our side.)

Escape Pod 52: Single White Farmhouse

Show Notes

Rated R. Contains strong language and home… Oh, erotica.

Referenced sites:
EP on LiveJournal
EP on MySpace
2006 Hugo Nominees
Balticon
Escape Pod Classic


Single White Farmhouse

by Heather Shaw

The house consented to the wiring, and as soon as it was done she explored it carefully, like you or I would poke at a new tooth filling. Wasn’t long before any unused terminal would be flashing from her zooms around the internet. New bookmarks were always appearing in the browser files — architecture sites, construction sites, even some redecorating, Better Homes and Gardens-type sites were piling up in the history. Dad was disgusted by this — called it “house porn,” which made me and my brother giggle.

Escape Pod 51: Is You Is / Is You Ain’t?

Show Notes

Rated R. Contains profanity, sexual situations, and Hollywood actors. None of which are suitable for children.

Referenced sites:
Escape Pod Classic
Balticon
Escape Archive


Is You Is / Is You Ain’t?

By Michael Canfield

I won’t kid you, the main reason I contracted to upload this biography is the money. I want a way out of my baby body–expensive surgery. Thank you for buying this link: even if you don’t like what I have to say, you’ve helped an old actor out.

I’m told the public will not buy a starbio uplink unless there is a tragedy involved–and a triumph.

Escape Pod 50: The Malcontent

Show Notes

Rated PG. Contains killer robots, incidental violence, and love looked for in all the wrong places.


The Malcontent

by Stephen Eley

Finally Nicholas summoned his overseers and all other servants who were mobile to his chamber. “You are merely robots,” Nicholas said, “but I know you are not stupid. Doubtless during my withdrawal you laid plans to snare me again, to draw me against my will into a plot for my own happiness.”

“Harshly said, sir,” said the Overseer of Planning, “but essentially correct. We have found a young lady with whom we feel you will establish a more-than-satisfactory rapport, and taken measures to ensure that you shall not avoid her.”

Escape Pod 49: Union Dues: Off White Lies

Show Notes

Rated R. Contains graphic violence, mature themes, and some profanity.

Referenced sites:
Viable Paradise
Escape Pod Feedback

Update:
The first Union Dues story (thanks, Aaron!)


Union Dues: Off White Lies

by Jeffrey R. DeRego

“Leave,” she said calmly, “just go. A recruiting visit was here just three weeks ago and they had no success. The people here don’t much like the Union. Hell, it took me almost a year before any of them would even speak to me, and I didn’t try to razzle-dazzle them.” She quickly scanned the list and produced folders matching each name. “Here,” she said and slid them across the desk, “but they won’t go with you.”

The Union tries very hard to get all Supers to sign on and become active members, but some simply won’t. This is the first Village, and already The Union is constructing others. Either the mutation rate is rising among the Normals, or we’re getting better at ferreting them out. Either way, we need more space.

Escape Pod 48: Soul Food

Show Notes

Rated PG. Contains deep moral and gastronomical issues. And yelling.


Soul Food

By Paul E. Martens

They are a quick lot, these humans. They dart about, rushing here, there, everywhere, as if something were chasing them. They speak quickly, as well. I have to remember the sounds they
make, then replay them in my memory at a slower speed to decipher their words. And my mission is not made any easier by the way they perceive it, and therefore me. To them, the fact that I have come to eat one of them automatically makes me a monster.

Escape Pod 47: Poet for Hire

Show Notes

Rated G. Contains implied violence and the sordid crimes of the pickle business.


Poet for Hire

By Sue Burke

She had been wondering if she should start her own poetry business. She believed Milwaukee might need a poet for hire to spread the magic of verse around the town. Sometimes, in her current job as a medical secretary, she secretly wrote poems for especially ill patients. They got well, and Verity felt certain the focused mental energy from the poems helped them. She wanted to write poetry full-time to spread its energy to more people — to become the city’s first commercial free-lance poet.

Escape Pod 46: Natural Order

Show Notes

Rated R. Contains graphic violent imagery, intense themes of natural and man-made disasters, and incidental profanity. Not one of our lighter stories.

Referenced sites:
“B for Betrayal” (an essay by William Richter)
Bound By Law? (a comic from Duke University)
T. Barnabus WigWiggins (a celebrity puppet author)
EP Review Guidelines


Natural Order

By Michael Jasper

Missy downshifted as she pulled into the median of the interstate to avoid the state troopers and the mess of traffic-snarled cars attempting to leave the coast too late. I tried not to look at the panicked faces inside the cars, lit by the headlights of those behind them. All waiting to escape the storm. Just like us, but powerless to move — to phase, if needed — the way we did. Sucking on the cigarette, I slid lower onto the wornout springs of the back seat. Slowly I pulled my gaze away from those we were leaving behind.

One thing I learned from Oklahoma: if I thought about the people too much, I’d be worthless.

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