Archive for Podcasts

Genres:

Escape Pod 372: Flash Fiction Collection

Health Tips for Traveler by David W. Goldman originally appeared in Nature, 2 September 2010.

Echoes of a Bouncing Ball by Paul Celmer originally appeared in Bull Spec, Summer 2010.

Tornado on Fire by Luc Reid originally appeared in Bam!: 172 Hellaciously Quick Stories.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:56 — 14.5MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

Show Notes

Awkward– Miscommunication between editor, host, and producer caused us to, within the audio, proclaim these stories as the winners of the flash contest, and they’re not, they’re stories we’ve purchased through the year. We will be showcasing the flash contest winners on their own in future episodes. I apologize for the embarrassing mistake.

Health Tips for Traveler

by David W. Goldman

Since the short time from mutual greetings of worlds, many Earther wish to visit the lovely world of the Pooquar peoples. This explainer before so will bring yourselves a voyage most lovely.

Within The Transit

The travel via cross-continuum portal will be novel to many Earther. Hydration is a paramount for not having the small problems of liver, marrow, blood tubes, and self memory. Also good before your trip is to make fat, especially under the skin. The scrawny traveler should begin preparation many week prior.

Portal going is sudden and then done. But many Earther say after that they think the journey is very very very long and never to stop. Thus is Earther brains supposed bad attuned to one or more of the interim journey continuum. For thus, non-conscious makes for most lovely travel. Means of non-conscious both pharmacological and percussive are on offer by helpful Pooquar portal agents.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 371: A Querulous Flute of Bone

Originally appeared in Tales from the Fathomless Abyss.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:03 — 24.8MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

A Querulous Flute of Bone

by Cat Rambo

Wherever, whenever wealth accumulates enough to create the idle, one finds those who collect things.

Such collections vary. Some catalog every cast off bit of flesh or chitin they shed. Others look outside themselves for art, or titillation, or an oblivion in which they can forget everyday life.

Collections may consist of the most mundane objects: string, or chewed up paper, or broken teacups, for example. Or they can take on outré forms: dioramas made of nihlex bone (considered contraband in certain areas), or squares of cloth exposed to the Smog, prized for the oracular patterns of dirt left deposited on the fabric, or the tiny aluminum snowflakes said to have fallen into the world during an Opening over a century ago.

Aaben was such a collector. S/he was one of the geniod, whose gender varies according to mood, location, and other private considerations, and who are known, in the face of great trauma, to forget who they are and become entirely different personalities, their old selves never to be resumed or spoken of. Some races adulate them for this, while others mock them. Such excesses of reaction have driven the geniod to keep to themselves, not by law, but preference.

Aaben was an oddity in its own preferences, for it was willing to travel, to go farther than most of its race, driven by the desire to augment its collection, choosing to focus only on its quest.

The items it sought, ranging up and down the Tube in expeditions funded by two sets of indulgent grandparents and a much less indulgent set of parents, were things that could be considered metaphors for the world and the state of those in it. In this pursuit, it followed the strictures of the philosopher-king Nackle, who described the emotions that such objects evoked in the beholder in one five hundred page monograph, and the intellectual effect of such exposure in a second, even longer work, followed by a six volume set of explanatory footnotes and addendums.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 370: The Care and Feeding of Mammalian Bipeds, v. 2.1

Escape Pod 370: The Care and Feeding of Mammalian Bipeds, v. 2.1 is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:00 — 23.4MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

Show Notes

Rated 13 and up for language

The Care and Feeding of Mammalian Bipeds, v. 2.1

by M. Darusha Wehm

The first day I meet my human herd they are so well-behaved that I wonder if they really need me at all. I arrive at their dwelling, and am greeted by the largest one of their group. I access the manual with which I have been programmed and skip to Section 3: Verbal and Physical Clues for Sexing Humans. I can tell by the shape and outer garments that this human is a male, and I make a note of this data. He brings me into the main area of their living space, and as we move deeper into the dwelling, he asks me to call him Taylor, so immediately I do. He makes a noise deep in his throat, then introduces me to the rest of the herd.

He puts his forelimb around the next largest one, who he introduces as Madison. The Madison bares its teeth at me in a manner that Section 14: Advanced Non-Verbal Communication suggests is a gesture indicating happiness, approval, cheerfulness, or amusement, but which may belie insincerity, boredom or hostility. The Madison says, “Welcome to the family, Rosie.”

“Thank you, Madison,” I respond, as suggested by the manual in Section 2: Introductions: Getting To Know Your Humans. “I am looking forward to serving you and your family.” The manual indicates that human herds designate each individual with a name, and that most will bestow a similar designation on their caregiver. Section 0: A Brief Overview of Current Anthropological Theories states that the predominant view is that humans believe we are a new addition to the herd, and the best thing to do is to go along with this idea so as not to confuse them. The Taylor and the Madison appear to have chosen to refer to me by the name Rosie, and I set my monitoring routine to key on the sound of that word.

“These here are Agatha and Frederick,” the Taylor says, pushing two smaller humans toward me. I am unable to tell by looking whether or not they are male or female — they are about the same height as each other, with shoulder-length glossy fur. Their outer coverings are very similar, shapeless and dark coloured except with colourful designs in the upper section. One of them bares its teeth at me, in a manner similar to the Madison’s earlier display, but the other looks away. “Kids,” the Taylor says, his voice growing deeper, “say hi to the new robot.”

“Hi, Rosie,” the toothy one says, “I’m Frederick, and this is my sister, Aggie.” The Frederick pulls on the forelimb of the other one, who looks through its fur at me.

“This is so stupid,” it says, pulling its arm out of its sibling’s grip. “I don’t have to say hi to the dishwasher or the school bus, why do I have to pretend to be nice to this thing?”

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 369: Passengers

Passengers was a nominee for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story (1970)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:20 — 27.1MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

Show Notes

Rated 13 and over for sexual innuendo

Passengers

By Robert Silverberg

There are only fragments of me left now. Chunks of memory have broken free and drifted away like calved glaciers. It is always 
like that when a Passenger leaves us. We can never be sure of all the things our borrowed bodies did. We have only the lingering traces, 
the imprints.

Like sand clinging to an ocean-tossed bottle. Like the throbbings of amputated legs.

I rise. I collect myself. My hair is rumpled; I comb it. My face is creased from too little sleep. There is sourness in my mouth. Has my Passenger been eating dung with my mouth? They do that. They do anything.

It is morning.

A gray, uncertain morning. I stare at it awhile, and then, shuddering, I opaque the window and confront instead the gray, uncertain surface of the inner panel. My room looks untidy. Did I have a woman here? There are ashes in the trays. Searching for butts, I find several with lipstick stains. Yes, a woman was here.

I touched the bedsheets. Still warm with shared warmth. Both 
pillows tousled. She has gone, though, and the Passenger is gone, and I am alone.

How long did it last, this time?

(Continue Reading…)

Escape Pod 368: Springtime for Deathtraps

Escape Pod 368: Springtime for Deathtraps is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:23 — 25.1MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

Show Notes

Rated 13 and up for language

Springtime for Deathtraps

By Marjorie James

The building sat in a small clearing in the jungle, its stone walls radiating solidity and the midday heat. Giant statues of warrior-gods crushing skulls beneath their feet flanked the doorway. Xnab looked from the ornately carved keyhole to his customer and back again.

“And the key is where, exactly?” he asked.

“In the treasure chamber,” the big man said in a small voice. “We had just finished putting everything away and, well, it had been a long day. I think I must have put the key down on the altar or something. The problem is, the place locks automatically, and our entire fortune is in there. We had a few locksmiths out to work on it, but they didn’t get very far.”

Xnab nodded. He had already noticed the blood spatter around the keyhole.

“So that’s why we called you. Everyone said that if anybody could get in there, it would be you.”

Xnab accepted that, not as a compliment, but a statement of fact. He was a specialist the design and construction of booby traps, deadfalls and other, largely fatal, security options. He was a small man, thin and wiry, his shaved head still smooth and unwrinkled despite years of working in the sun. Despite making a very good living, he wore a plain tunic and no adornments at all. In his business, he considered it a bad idea to have anything extra hanging around, and he was very good at his business. In fact, anyone who knew anything considered Xnab the best death trap designer alive.

Which typically would have been reason enough to turn down a job like this, but in this case it was actually why he was there.

“How long have you owned the temple?” he asked the man, who had introduced himself as Tuak.

“Just a couple of months, actually,” Tuak admitted. “It’s not really a temple. I think the statues of the gods are just there for show. The family who used to have it used it to store their treasures and they spared no expense on the security.” He sighed heavily and stared up at the tiers of stone vanishing into the jungle. “It seemed like a good idea when we bought it.”

(Continue Reading…)

Escape Pod 367: Lion Dance

Originally appeared in Asimov’s (2012)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:03 — 32.4MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

Show Notes

Rated 17 and up for language and adult situations

Lion Dance

by Vylar Kaftan

I knew Wing’s idea was stupid.  But we were all so goddamn sick of quarantine that it sounded great anyway.

“Chinese New Year on Halloween night, huh?” I asked him.  We sat on his broken futon and some folding chairs, passing a bottle of Captain Jack among the eight of us.  Someone leaned on a car horn outside our apartment.  When they didn’t stop, my buddy Matt leaned out the window and swore at them in Mandarin.  Matt was loud–even a flu mask didn’t muffle his bellowing.  I swear, even though every restaurant in San Francisco Chinatown had been closed since February, tourists still cruised the streets.  Even a pandemic couldn’t stop them completely.

“Dude.  Someone will shoot us,” said the guy from 4B, who I think was named Jimmy Li.  We all lived in the same nasty building on Grant Street above a dim sum place owned by our slumlord.  I knew Matt, who’d invited me, and my little brother Jian of course.  Wing lived here in 3A.  I’d just met the Chao twins who had different haircuts, and then Jimmy and some dude Xiang.  At twenty-three, I was pretty sure I was the oldest guy here.

“That’s the point,” said Wing heavily, as if he’d explained this a hundred times when he actually hadn’t.  “We’ll be in costume.  First off, all the riots will be in the Mission, so that’s where the cops will be.  Second, no one’s going to shoot a New Year’s lion.  Dude.  It’s Chinatown.  All the old cops here are superstitious.  Can you imagine how much bad luck it would bring?  Even if some cop got itchy on the trigger, he’ll think about it long enough for us to run away.”

“No one’s shooting anyone,” said Matt.  “For God’s sake, this isn’t Montana.”  He pushed his mask aside, swigged the Jack, and passed it to Jian.  I snagged the bottle out of his hands.  No freaking way would I let my little brother drink from that bottle.  Who knew where the other guys had been?  They might pull off their masks and drink, but damned if I let my little brother do it.  Jian glared at me, but didn’t fight back.

I passed the bottle to Wing.  “They might shoot if things get out of hand,” I said.  “It’s Halloween.  Everyone’s twitchy.  But you’re right, I heard a bunch of people are gonna swarm the Mission.  That’s where the cops will go.”

Wing took another swig.  He wasn’t wearing a mask; that was only Matt and Jian and me.  Wing went to the kitchen and reappeared with a stack of well-used disposable cups and washed straws.  He swiped an unopened bottle of Jose Cuervo off a shelf and handed it to me.

I thanked him and poured myself way too much tequila.  I knew I wasn’t supposed to peel the mask off, even for a minute, but it’d been a bad week.  My parents were getting evicted and Jian’s antivirals were out of stock everywhere.  Pissed me off–HIV drugs did crap against the flu, but people were desperate and they got prescriptions from quacks.  So my little brother might develop full-blown AIDS thanks to those selfish jackholes.
(Continue Reading…)

Escape Pod 366: Some of Them Closer

Originally appeared in Analog (2011)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:42 — 23.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

Show Notes

Rated 13 and up

Some of Them Closer

by Marissa Lingen

Coming back to Earth was not the immediate shock they expected it to be for me. It was something, certainly, but I’d been catching up on the highlights of the news as it cascaded back to the ship on our relativistic return trip, and I never knew the island where we landed, when we left home twenty of our years ago and a hundred of theirs, so I expected it to look foreign to me, and it did. The sun was a little yellower than on New Landing, the plants friendlier.

But I never thought of myself as an Earther. Even with the new system, hardly any of us do. I thought of myself as from Montreal. Quebecoise. Canadian, even. But Earther? No. I am far more provincial than the colonists whose home I built will ever be.

I flew into the new place instead of Dorval. It looked like Dorval used to. It looked nearly exactly like Dorval used to, and I had a twinge of discomfort. The floors were curiously springy, though, which made me feel like something was different, and that was reassuring. There isn’t an Old Spacers’ Legion or anything like that to meet people like me coming in from off-planet–they did that on the little Brazilian island where we landed–but there was a department for Cultural Integration, meant for people traveling from elsewhere on Earth. They assigned me to a representative of the government, who greeted me in a French whose accent was nearly my own. To my ear it sounded more English, with the round vowels, but even with the new system I thought it might be rude to say that to a Quebecoise.

The English-sounding French-speaker gave me a key to the four-room apartment they’d gotten me, not far from the Guy-Concordia Metro station. I told her I could take the Metro to it, but she smiled and said no, they’d have to get my things out of storage for me anyway. So we did that. There were only three boxes. Once you do the math on what will keep for a hundred years, it’s a lot easier to give away the things you can’t take with you. I gave them to my sister, who died, and whatever was left, she probably gave to her son, who had also died, or her daughter, who was retired and living comfortably in Senegal last I heard. So what I had left myself fit in three small plastic boxes, all labeled “Mireille Ayotte NL000014.”

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 365: The Garden of Earthly Delights

Originally appeared in Electric Velocipede (2007)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:00 — 17.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

Show Notes

Rated 17 and up for sexual situations

The Garden of Earthly Delights

By Jay Caselberg

Bosch drew deeply on his cigarette and exhaled slowly, watching the smoke paint clouds of tissue paper across the chill moon. If his hard-boned mouth had been capable of smiling, it would have. He’d tried to mimic the gesture often enough. He took one last drag at the cigarette, then flicked it out in a wide arc to scatter sparks against the broad stone steps. It was funny how compelling these human habits could be, even the ones they frowned upon. There was no risk for Bosch, but the humans seemed to like the fact that he had adopted one of their vices. It showed them he had his personal weakness.

Compelling. It was less compulsion than convenient subterfuge, but they weren’t to know that. Smoking, and alcohol, and sex — particularly sex; the examples went on and on.

“Ambassador Bosch, come to escape the crowd?” It was Davy, his shadow, his cultural liaison, assigned to keep him on the straight and narrow.

Bosch turned his head to make eye contact. These humans liked eye contact. He whistled once and snapped his mouth, forgetting for a moment for the hundredth time that Davy could not understand. Quickly, he followed it with a series of signs using his three long fingers. Davy nodded and waited while Bosch withdrew his pad from inside his clothes, slipped the stylus from the carry case and tapped at the screen. Davy craned over Bosch’s shoulder to read, then glanced down at the still-smouldering cigarette end lying on the steps below.

“Yes, I needed some fresh air as well. I think it’s going well, don’t you?” Bosch tapped at the pad once. As well as it could be, he thought, but Davy seemed satisfied.

The smooth, dark-haired human leaned his head back and looked up at the stars. “Yes, a good night for it,” he said.

A good night for what? Often, these little expressions eluded Bosch. Expressions, cultural behaviours, so many things.
(Continue Reading…)

Escape Pod 364: Techno-Rat

Originally appeared in Reflection’s Edge, 2010

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:43 — 20.5MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

Show Notes

Rated 13 and up for language

Techno-Rat

by Brad Hafford

West London was, as always, abuzz. Even at 4:00 AM on a chilly November Tuesday, electric motorcars whirred down Kings Road, zipping people along, early to work or late from parties. The residential side streets, however, were quiet. Lined with parked cars, occasional street lamps, and darkened flats, they dozed peacefully. Ornate houses huddled in gracefully curving queues, awaiting the sunrise with little attention to the two figures loitering outside their narrow, iron-fenced entryways.

“There it is, innit?” the scrawnier figure said, pointing to a parked car. “D’ya see?”

The taller man stared intently at the vehicle. “See what?” he said, his breath misting in the frosty air.

Their eyes were fixed on a car sitting at the curb of a constricted street in Chelsea, part of the fashionable Kensington district. It was a brown cabriolet with a weather-worn faux leather top. An aging example, its low-light number plates showed it to be registered ten years previously. Its MOT and inspection were up to date, but its bonnet was dented and its windscreen cracked. Such an automobile did not belong in Chelsea. But neither did the two men examining it.

The smaller of the two impatiently tugged on the grey flatcap he wore. “Pay attention, Mik,” he sniped. “We in’t got all night.” Clipped words and rounded vowels marked his speech. The bells of St. Mary’s were ancient history and the East End had long since been gentrified, but he was retro-Cockney.

“I’m paying as much attention as I’ve got, Artie. More, really. I just don’t see it.”

“It’s a slight vibration, see. An ’ologram shift called glitching. The generator keeps the image dynamic, right. So it has to refresh at a specific rate.” He tapped his nose, a signal that he was imparting secrets. “Oy, there it goes again!”

“I still don’t see it.”

“And you fink you got what it takes to be a Techno-Rat?”
(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 363: Flowing Shapes

Originally appeared in Basement Stories Issue 1 (2010)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:54 — 28.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

Show Notes

Rated 17 and up for sexual situations

Flowing Shapes

By Rajan Khanna

Part One: Contemplation

The human came to She Shalu on the Day of Flowering Awareness. Damo met him near the Still Garden, the fumes of the exiting shuttle mixing with the sharp spice of the tall, white twizak plant. Damo wore a humanoid shape so as to minimize the stranger’s discomfort.

Damo studied the human with the practiced eyes of a Synan. Dark hair covered his head and parts of his body, and he was sleight of build, despite the solidity of his form. About 1.7 meters tall. His features were mostly smooth, bones prominent, eyes with the barest hint of a slant. A mouth surrounded by full lips.

“How may I help you?” Damo said, trying to sound gracious.

“I came to study Wan She,” the human said.

Damo felt his features flow with his astonishment. Perhaps he had not heard correctly, or his translation module was malfunctioning. “I am sorry,” he said. “Wan She is the Path of Flowing Shapes. It is a Synan practice. Humans, being incapable of shifting, cannot practice it.”

The human smiled, revealing straight, white teeth. “I know. I’m writing a book,” he said. “But isn’t it true that the first stage is concerned solely with contemplation? Surely that is not beyond a human.”

Damo stifled his urge to shift in response to his unease. Uncontrolled shifting was against the teachings of Wan She. “That is true,” he said. “But Wan She is a path. Not a series of distinct teachings. To step on that path is to begin a journey.”

“All I ask is that you let me speak to your Tanshe. Let him decide.”

Damo was all too willing to accommodate the human in this. Let the Tanshe decide. It certainly saved Damo the trouble of having to assimilate this odd request.

“Please follow me,” he said.

(Continue Reading…)

hot mature website