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Escape Pod 269: Élan Vital

First appeared in Sybil’s Garage no. 6

Rated PG: For adult topics of parental death

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:07 — 19.4MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • Feedback for Episode 261: Only Springtime When She’s Gone
  • Next week… The future of corporate America

Creative Commons License

Élan Vital by K. Tempest Bradford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at escapepod.org.

Élan Vital

By K. Tempest Bradford

The few minutes I had to spend in the Institute’s waiting room were my least favorite part of coming up to visit my mother. It felt more like a dialysis room, the visitors sunk into the overly-soft couches and not speaking, just drinking orange juice and recovering. There were no magazines and no television, just cold air blowing from the vents and generic music flowing with it. I’d finished my juice and was beginning to brood on my dislike for overly air-conditioned buildings when my mother arrived attended by a nurse.

I kissed and hugged her, automatically asking how she was, mouthing the answer she always gave as she gave it again.

“I’m fine, same as always.”

It wasn’t strictly true, but true enough.

(Continue Reading…)

The Soundproof Escape Pod #2

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E-Book PDF: Open in New Window | Download (1.2MB)

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We at Escape Pod have been thrilled and gratified at the response for the first Soundproof Escape Pod. We got kudos for everything from the fact that it existed, to the awesome layout job by our own Bill Peters.

Speaking of Bill, this month I want to announce our staff changes. Escape Pod is hitting its stride now, thanks mostly to our new assistant editor. We promoted Bill Peters from the inside joke of Assistant to the Regional Manager, or the Right A.R.M., to Assistant Editor. He wrangles the slush and makes sure I am on top of things, and I don’t know where I’d be without him. We’re also delighted to welcome Mat Weller on as our audio producer. If you listen to Escape Pod, you’ll notice that Norm Sherman of the Drabblecast (a fine, award-winning podcast you should totally listen to) is still a part-time host, who, incidentally, makes me work harder on my intros.

Speaking of slush, in order to get a hold of the reins of this mighty team of slush ponies, we’re closing to submissions over December. We’ll be back on the job in January, once the hangovers fade.

Contents:

  • Escape Pod 265: We are Ted Tuscadero for President, By Chris Dahlen
  • Review: Shades of Milk and Honey by Marie Robinette Kowal, Review by Sarah Frost
  • Escape Pod 266: Kachikachi Yama, By Michael R. Underwood
  • Dark Fiction Magazine Q&A, By Adam Christopher
  • Escape Pod 267: Planetfall by Michael C. Lea
  • Review: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Review by Josh Roseman
  • Escape Pod 268: Advection by Genevieve Valentine
  • Review: Zero History by William Gibson, Review by Sarah Frost

The ePub version can be downloaded here.

Edit: The ePub version we previously put out was apparently broken for several types of ePub reading software. It has been hopefully repaired and replaced.

Escape Pod 268: Advection

First appeared in Clarkesworld

Rated PG: For mild violence

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:54 — 18.6MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • Feedback for Episode 260: The Speed of Dreams
  • Next week… The difficulty of watching a parent die.

 

Creative Commons License

Advection by Genevive Valentine is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at escapepod.org.

Advection

By Genevieve Valentine

The first day of fifth year a boy came in with the new eyeshields, a glossy expanse of black with no iris or pupil, and looking at him was like looking into an eclipse.

All the other girls said it made them uncomfortable; they teased him to take them out, to put on some normal sunglasses like everyone else. They said they’d never forgive him for hiding eyes in such a handsome face.

“Fortuni, it’s a little much,” said someone.

That was how I learned his name.

We were all Level Two intelligence, but before the first week was over the news was out that some had managed to find the money for a sixth year. Janik Duranti, who spent the history lectures drawing stick figures screwing on his computer screen, was getting a sixth year. I’d be cleaning his office someday. Answering his phones. Updating the registration on his blue ID cuff.

Carol Clarke opened the top button on her shirt as soon as the shades went down; obvious, but it was worth it to be married to a guy who had a sixth year.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 267: Planetfall

First appeared in The Book Of Exodi

Rated PG: For violence

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:41 — 22.5MB)

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Show Notes

 

Show Notes:

  • Feedback for Episode 259: The Lady or the Tiger?
  • Next week… Weather: wild, and planned.

 

Creative Commons License

Planetfall by Michael C. Lea is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at escapepod.org.

Planetfall

By Michael C. Lea

Galthas Talisar stepped out from the buzzing chaos of the transportal and onto lush greenery. This world was alien, to be sure, but the patterns were almost familiar. The ship’s oracles had chosen well.

Behind him, the transportal hummed again. An armored leg emerged and carefully found its footing on the blue-green ferns carpeting the jungle floor. More than twenty thousand miles above, the leg’s owner shifted his weight and stepped fully through an identical transportal, instantly emerging on the planet’s surface below.

That cautious step belonged to Urjik, who could be called cautious in few other ways. In fact, his reputation had left him few other options for a willing partner on this mission. Urjik did not care. He and Galthas had fought together against the worst the Zayeen had to offer. He trusted Galthas implicitly, despite his disdain for the other scrawny ascetics from Signet Battalion.

Urjik’s greenish skin and jutting lower canines marked him as a charuk, his bloodline tainted by nether influences. Despite this stigma, and despite his temper, he had risen quickly in Rampart Battalion. Even the most burdensome battlesuit did not slow him, and no one was a truer shot with an inferno cannon or a hex-impelled railgun. (Continue Reading…)

Escape Pod 266: Kachikachi Yama

First appearing at Pendragon Variety Literary Magazine Podcast

Rated R: For sexual situations and violence

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:55 — 25.4MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • Feedback for Episode 258: Raising Jenny.
  • Next week… We leave earth for a new planet!

Creative Commons License

Kachikachi Yama by Michael R. Underwood is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at escapepod.org.

Kachikachi Yama

By Michael R. Underwood

The howl of the northbound train builds in crescendo as I stand on the ledge of the platform and hold the man above the tracks.  He flails at me.

The Shikoku station is far from empty.  Groaning bodies dot the otherwise hospital-clean platform. A group of fleshmodded Gothic Lolita girls watch us.  They look on with inhumanly white faces and void-black eyes.  Twig-thin arms down to their knees wave in the wind. He begs.

My _denkigami’s_ polite but insistent voice chirps in my head.  _“Yamagata-sama orders the target to be eliminated.”_ Spirit of the fleshware machine in my brain, my _denkigami_ is a constant companion, and keeper of my leash.

The roar of the train grows louder, and bells ring in the station.  The man pleads for his life.  The train’s lights appear from around the around the corner. (Continue Reading…)

The Soundproof Escape Pod

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E-Book PDF: Open in New Window | Download (487.7KB)

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This is the first of our monthly magazines that will bring you the previous month’s Escape Pod stories and the best of the blog. We have been pushing to expand what Escape Pod does, adding an SF blog and distributing our stories via magazine format. We’re also becoming a pro market, and hope to keep paying our authors pro rates well into 2011 if the donations make it possible.

The rights are the same as in the audio — you are free to print, distribute, etc, these stories, as long as you don’t a) sell them, b) change them, or c) put your name on them. Otherwise, the more people that check out our stories, the better.

This month we bring to you two stories (as we’re on the cusp of stories that we own the epub rights to, and a handful of ones we do not): “Fuel” by Matthew S. Rotundo and “St. Darwin’s Spirituals” by D.K. Thompson.

We hope you enjoy this issue. We know that there are people out there who love to read but yet don’t like audio, and there are people out there who are hearing impaired. So Escape Pod is now in a Soundproof version, catering to more SF fans than ever. And please remember that we are completely donation driven, and if we want to keep paying authors the pro rates they deserve, we need your support. Please give, if you can.

Show Notes:

  • Escape Pod 263: Fuel, By Matthew S. Rotundo
  • Comic Review: Superior, Written by Mark Millar By Alasdair Stuart
  • Escape Pod 264: St. Darwin’s Spirituals, By D.K. Thompson
  • Book Review: I Shall Wear Midnight, By Terry Pratchett By Josh Roseman

The ePub version can be downloaded here.

Escape Pod 265: We are Ted Tuscadero for President

Escape Pod 265: We are Ted Tuscadero for President is an Escape Pod original.

Rated PG-13: For sexual situations and adult language.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:03 — 26.9MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • Election day is always better with clones!
  • Mr. Dahlen is editorial director of Kill Screen, a new print quarterly magazine about videogames.
  • Feedback for Episode 257: Union Dues: The Sum of Its Parts.
  • Next week… We travel to Japan!

 

Creative Commons License

We are Ted Tuscadero for President by Chris Dahlen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at escapepod.org.

We Are Ted Tuscadero For President

By Chris Dahlen

My name is Ted Tuscadero. And I want to be your President.

I say that with a humble heart. I realize that even after eight stellar years in the Senate, some of you are still getting to know me. And I’ll admit, I am not perfect. The other day, when I told a VFW in Littleton I would blast Iran to glass, and at the same exact time I swore off the war at a town hall in Concord? My bad. Or the time that three of me showed up for the big debate in Manchester, and we got in a fistfight over who was going on the air? Yeah, the chattering classes had a few laughs over that one.

And that little incident before the holidays, when I crashed, as lit as a Christmas tree, into a pole and my car exploded, killing me instantly and taking a mailbox, a transformer and a barn cat with me? It looked bad, I know. But that proxy was on the fritz. That’s not me. That’s not who I am. And the more we talk, the better you get to know me, the more you’ll see what I mean. (Continue Reading…)

Escape Pod 264: St. Darwin’s Spirituals

First appeared in Murky Depths

Rated R: For paranormal sexual situations

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:40 — 27.3MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • Enjoy our Halloween episode, which mixes a bit of paranormal in with our science fiction. Hey, it’s a special holiday, and we’re apt to get a little crazy around here.
  • If listeners want some lighter Halloween fun, “Horrorworld,” DK’s short story collaboration with Kevin David Anderson, is running as a two-part special at Drabblecast this Halloween. If people have ever had a desire to see Yul Brynner fight zombies, that’s the story for them.
  • Feedback for Episode 256: The Mermaids Singing Each to Each.
  • Next week… A special election day episode!

 

Creative Commons License
St. Darwin’s Spirituals by D.K. Thompson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at escapepod.org.

Saint Darwin’s Spirituals

By D.K. Thompson

The ghosts wanted a threesome – the two of them in Lucy’s body. It wasn’t an unheard of proposition, or so Lucy had been told. Prostitutes considered psychic whoring one of the safest tricks on the streets. All the pleasures of intimacy without the messy clean-up.

Ghosts had a nasty reputation for vanishing the moment after, though, no matter the talisman around your neck or the potion drunk before sunset, and so payments were usually collected up front. Not that Lucy was worried about the money. Her husband was the only thing that concerned her.

She adjusted her brass and leather goggles, peering through the ethereal tinted lenses to examine the ghosts.

They looked like the average apparitions. Both female. One spiraled around Lucy, long and curly hair obscuring her face. Large black blotches covered her body, causing her skin to peel off in patches. The other hovered several feet above the cobblestones in front of Lucy. She had a noose around her throat and her neck was bent so her head hung to the left side. She crossed her arms and took several breaths. Or whatever passed for breaths in the afterlife.

How long had it been since they’d felt someone’s touch? Lucy wondered. She remembered something her husband had told her long ago, before the murders, before he’d disappeared. “Spirits linger in this world longing to be a part of it, to reconnect, to have some kind of physical, sensual experience,” Thomas had said. “Only a host can provide them that.”

Ghosts aren’t the only creatures haunted by the memory of a touch, my love, Lucy thought. And yet, despite being a devout spiritualist, she shuddered at the idea of the cadaverous spirits making love inside her. She’d never had a ghostgasm before, much less been paid for one. The ghosts looked sincere in their desire, not like dangerous murderers. Certainly not monsters. Still, lonely as she was, a ghostgasm wouldn’t help her find Thomas.

(Continue Reading…)

Escape Pod 263: Fuel

First appeared in Cosmos

Rated PG: For a wee bit of swearing, sibling rivalry, and parents who don’t appreciate a smart son.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:40 — 14.3MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • Feedback for Episode 255: Variations on a Theme.
  • It’s our first full-text story! Read OR listen to it! We’ll have the epub version ready for download in the next few days.
  • Next week… Halloween episode!

Creative Commons License
Fuel by Matthew S. Rotundo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at escapepod.org.

Fuel

By Matthew S. Rotundo

The third quarter report cards came out Thursday, and for Jamie, the timing couldn’t have been worse. The Nike man was coming over that night to sell his brother some new blood.

He took his time walking home from Gilder Middle School, weaving past cracks in the sidewalk and mud puddles left behind by the spring thaw. His pace slowed further as he turned onto Willow Avenue and saw his house, second on the left, a red brick ranch with spidery ivy growing up the east side. Old leaves, fallen tree branches, and other detritus left over from the winter littered the front yard. As he neared, he noted with dismay his father’s car already in the driveway.

“Damn.” Jamie trudged across the yard and let himself in the front door with his keycard.

Dad was at the hall closet, hanging up his overcoat. He stood just under two meters tall; a navy blue business suit wrapped his muscled frame. He beamed when he saw Jamie. “Hey there, kiddo. How was school today?”

“You’re home early,” Jamie said.

“Need to get ready for the presentation tonight. And I’d like you to clean up the front yard. Make sure you use the dirt rake to get up that thatch. Will you do that for me?”

Jamie opened his mouth to protest, but thought the better of it. “Sure,” he said. He unslung his backpack and headed for the stairs.

“Oh. By the way.” Dad fished in a suit pocket and produced a folded piece of paper. “I got this in my email today.” He opened the paper.

Jaime recognized the school’s letterhead on the printout. He slumped, leaning against the wall.

Dad tapped the paper. “What’s this C-plus in Basic Fitness about, kiddo?” (Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 262: Cruciger

First appeared in Writers of the Future 24

Rated PG: For brief violence, the death of tentacled creatures, and the end of the world as we know it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07:06 — 46.2MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • Recommended watching: Babylon 5
  • Feedback for Episode 254: A Talent for Vanessa.

Next week… Sibling rivalry never goes out of style.

Cruciger

By Erin Cashier

Captain Harash was its last occupant, the last living man from Earth, and both he and Duxa knew he was dying.

“It’s time, Duxa,” he told her.

She checked the output from his lifechair. While it was still replicating most of his bodily functions for him he did not seem appreciably worse than when she’d last monitored him, less than half a second before.

“We’re not at our destination yet, Captain.”

“You’ll make it there without me, Duxa.”

And the processors that she must have built but could never quite find — she was enormously bulky, and by now some of her was a mystery even unto herself — created an awkward sensation. Duxa told him: “I will be lonely without you.”

“And that’s good,” Harash said.

“You wish me pain?” Duxa asked him.

“No. I wish for you to feel. I wish,” and he paused here, his lips making the smacking noises she knew indicated a loss of reflexive controls as the plague made its way through his cranial nerves, “I wish that there were more things that you could feel, Duxa.”

“I think I feel quite a lot.”

Harash laughed, a coughing sound. “All teenagers do. Remember that, should you actually feel someday, that the white hot intensity fades, but to keep the embers stoking.”

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