Archive for Podcasts

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Escape Pod 290: Tom the Universe

Escape Pod 290: Tom the Universe is an Escape Pod original.

Rated PG-13: sexual situations

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:17 — 23.6MB)

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Tom the Universe

By Larry Hodges

I permeate this universe, which I’ve named Tom, and guard against its destruction. If someone had done that for the universe I came from, then Mary, my sweet Mary, would still be alive, and I wouldn’t have killed her and everyone else when I accidentally destroyed that universe.

And now I’m on the verge of destroying much more.

My name is also Tom. I was an undergrad in neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore that January in 2040 when I made the discovery that doomed us all. My field of study was cognitive science, the study of human consciousness. What makes us aware of ourselves? Is it just the biomechanical workings of the brain, or something else?

Sherlock Holmes said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” I spent countless hours in the lab eliminating the impossible, and there didn’t seem to be anything left, improbable or not. The interconnectivity required for human consciousness to exist was just too many levels beyond what was possible. By all rights, we should all be unconscious blobs of matter mechanically going about our business as directed by electronic impulses from the brain, with no more consciousness than a calculator. I suffered brain cramps in the lab trying to figure out what improbables were left.

(Continue Reading…)

Escape Pod Special Episode- The Arthur C. Clarke Award Winner!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:43 — 25.5MB)

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You heard it here first, folks, we have an exclusive interview and book excerpt from this year’s Arthur C. Clarke award winner, Lauren Beukes, author of Zoo City (Angry Robot Books)!

Zoo City explores a present day, but alternate, Johannesburg, and follows the story of Zinzi December, one of the animalled – people who are psychically bonded with animals due to crimes they have committed in the past. Zinzi has a talent for finding lost things, but when she is asked to take on a missing persons case, her life becomes increasingly more complicated and she discovers that beneath the seedy underbelly of Zoo City, things can – and do – get a lot worse.

Rated PG-13 for talk of sex workers and street violence.

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

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Escape Pod 289: Flash Contest Honorable Mentions

Escape Pod 289: Flash Contest Honorable Mentions is an Escape Pod original.

Rated PG for some naughty language in Many Mistakes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:30 — 10.1MB)

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Show Notes

This episode has three of the honorable mentions from the flash contest we held on our forums.

Captain Max Stone versus DESTRUCTOBOT!

By Angela Lee

Read by: Joshua McNichols

When last we left our heroes, Captain Max Stone and his brother Billy had just navigated Hyperion’s perilous asteroid field and battled their way into the fortified base of the villainous robot Destructobot. The dastardly robot’s latest scheme is the deadliest yet – he intends to destroy the Earth using a high-powered negabomb! Will Max stop Destructobot in time? Or will the earth be vaporized?

 

Many Mistakes, All Out of Order

By M. C. Wagner

Read by: Wilson Fowlie

The first mistake was in our thinking they were ghosts. In our defense, the tradition of vanishing, translucent figures wailing in the night might’ve influenced us.

 

Mr. Omega

By Arnold Gardner

Read By: Marshall Latham

Mr. Omega checked the time on his trans-dimensional pocket watch and stared out the taxi’s rain pelted window. Four minutes to midnight. Four minutes to the culmination of his life’s work.

Genres:

Escape Pod 288: Future Perfect

Originally published in Ideomancer

Rated R: language, adult situations

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:16 — 19.5MB)

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Future Perfect

By LaShawn M. Wanak

I saw you at a party once. You stood by the bookshelf, reading a tattered volume on Proust. You wore an orange and yellow XTC shirt beneath brown flannel. I bumped your elbow by accident and you looked up, your eyes startling green.

I smiled and said, “Hi. I’m Nina.”

“Hi. Eric.”

I trailed behind you for the rest of the party. You introduced me to your friends and I laughed at their jokes. Twice, our sleeves brushed against each other.

Around two in the morning, you left with your friends. An hour later, I also left. I crossed the empty campus, humming under my breath, wondering if I’d ever see you again.

The watch on my arm beeped.

“This experiment will measure how small changes occurring before a certain event affect its outcome positively and negatively.”

The chair is her creation. She bought the frame on impulse at a medical supply shop. The conical helmet, perforated with slender tubes, fits on top. Whenever she maneuvers her head beneath it, she thinks of the hair dryers at her mother’s beauty salon. All those bulky astronaut bonnets lined in perfect rows, vibrating air molecules to a feverish pitch. She likes this scientific homage to her mother extracting time from thin air.

“Recording of the control event complete. Setting a change in a condition set slightly in the past. The goal of this first jump is to see if this will change the outcome of the event to a more positive circumstance.”

She types on the laptop built into the armrest, then glances at the elaborate flowchart tacked upon the far wall of the laboratory. Written in
her own hand, neat and precise, equations and sums branch and connect like a roadmap of a probability highway.

She wonders which formula will have his lips pressing against hers.

“Test #1. Begin.” (Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 287: A Taste of Time

Originally published in Deep Magic, May 2004

Rated PG: references to infidelity

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:05 — 22.8MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • No feedback this week because of site issues!
  • Next week… don’t drink the water.

A Taste of Time

By Abby Goldsmith

1.

On the night she turned twenty-nine, Jane sat on her narrow bed, watching TV and drinking alone. She’d gone through a bottle of wine and was mostly through a second bottle. Tomorrow morning would be painful.

Or she could stop worrying about tomorrow. The ibuprofen in her cabinet kept popping into her mind. Jane wasn’t sure if all those pills chased by alcohol would be enough to end her life, but the idea of looking up how to commit suicide online seemed just too pathetic.

The front door of her tiny apartment creaked open.

Jane leaned forward, peering through her bedroom doorway. A black wine bottle stood on the floor, with a placard dangling from its silver ribbon.

Her gaze immediately went to the deadbolt. It was in place, as she’d left it.

Jane shut the TV off and listened for noises from the hallway. All she heard were the sounds of Boston traffic outside. Several weeks ago, after she’d come home to find her boyfriend screwing a fat chick on her couch, she’d had the locks changed. No one could have gotten in.

Yet the bottle sat mysteriously on the wooden floor.

At last, Jane crossed her apartment, checking every shadow for an intruder.

She picked up the bottle. The placard had gilded letters, making it a potentially expensive gift.

Tabula Rasa
Warning: There Is No Return

Jane flipped the placard over twice, but nothing else was written on it.

She listened, alert for any noise. Mystery had never been much a part of her adult life, and it gave her a strangely excited feeling. If the warning label meant something like poison, it seemed like a more dignified way to go than pills and alcohol.

Her reflection on the black surface of the bottle was disturbingly clear. There she was: Plain Jane, a frumpy woman with a double-chin and acne scars.

She unscrewed the cap and popped the foil underneath. A stringent smell wafted up, making her wrinkle her nose and salivate at the same time.

“Happy birthday, Jane,” she told herself, and swallowed a mouthful. (Continue Reading…)

The Soundproof Escape Pod #6

Read

E-Book PDF: Open in New Window | Download (1.1MB)

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The ePub version can be found here.

Welcome to April! —

March was a sad month worldwide, and I, frankly, am looking forward to leaving winter behind. (Yeah, I know March starts spring in the Northern Hemisphere, but the damp and dank weather we’ve been having the US South makes me feel more like winter than January did.)

First, the world was shocked by the disasters in Japan, earthquake, tsunami, and the continuing threat of radiation from their nuclear plant.

Then fantasy lost one of its masters with the death of Diana Wynne Jones. Any fan or writer of fantasy needs to read her Tough Guide to Fantasyland, and, well, any of her other books. Thirdly…

Well, hell, isn’t that enough?

Many people find themselves feeling lost and useless when it comes to disasters, especially if they’re happening far away. Luckily, some very quick and innovative SFF fans and professionals (including Pseudopod’s own Alasdair Stuart) got together to create Genre for Japan ( http://genreforjapan.wordpress.com/ ), an auction featuring signed books from authors, collections of books from publishers (like Tor and Angry Robot), and editing or critique services from agents and editors. All proceeds go to the Japan Tsunami Appeal run by the British Red Cross. (They know what they’re doing.) Give generously and you can get some awesome prizes.

We hope you’re enjoying the monthly Soundproof PDFs.

We have had gotten a couple of questions asking why some of our audio stories don’t get printed on the site or in the Soundproof. The answer is simple: we don’t have the rights.

We buy the audio and ebook rights to all stories we are able to, but sometimes we are only able to get the audio rights, so those stories are in our audio feed. As we move forward we will do everything we can to get both ebook and audio rights.

Here’s to a better month.

——Mur

Mur Lafferty

Editor

Genres:

Escape Pod 286: The ’76 Goldwater Dime

Originally published in Residential Aliens in July, 2010

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:21 — 14.8MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • Feedback for Episode 278
  • Next week… a taste of time.

The ’76 Goldwater Dime

by John Medaille

I started in 1962, that’s when I became a numismatist. You know what that is? It’s the study of… well, it’s not the study of anything. It’s coin collecting, is what it is.

I was ten in 1962, and Christmas I got my first coin album. I didn’t actually get it. My father gave it to my brother. It was, you know, you’ve seen them, a sturdy cardboard folder with slots punched out that you put the coins in. Behind the slots, the empties, it had a backing of blue felt, I remember that. My dad gave it to my brother, I guess maybe thinking it would straighten him out. But coins, you know, they don’t really have that power. He wasn’t interested. He gave it to me. Me, I was interested.

The album was for Lincoln pennies, 1909 to 1959. I had five cents in the world then and each of the five fit in the slot. It only took me five more days to get the other forty-five. I would do anything for those pennies and slot it in its slot. Anything, anything. When I got my last penny, wow. It was a 1943 steel mint penny, a ‘steelie.’ They had to use steel instead of copper that year cause they needed the copper for all the bombs. I was so proud.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 285: Jaiden’s Weaver

Originally published in Diamonds in the Sky

Rated G

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:17 — 24.3MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • Feedback for Episode 277
  • Next week… Coin collecting SF. I’m serious.

Jaiden’s Weaver

By Mary Robinette Kowal

I was never one of those girls who fell in love with horses. For one thing, on our part of New Oregon they were largely impractical animals. Most of the countryside consisted of forests attached to sheer hills and you wanted to ride something with a little more clinging ability. So from the time I was, well, from the time I can remember I wanted a teddy bear spider more than I wanted to breathe.

The problem is that teddy bear spiders were not cheap, especially not for a pioneer family trying to make a go of it.

Mom and Dad had moved us out of Landington in the first wave of expansion, to take advantage of the homesteading act. Our new place was way out on the eastern side of the Olson mountains where Dad had found this natural level patch about halfway up a forested ridge, so we got sunshine all year round, except for the weeks in spring and autumn when the shadow of our planet’s rings passed over us. Our simple extruded concrete house had nothing going for it except a view of the valley, which faced due south to where the rings were like a giant arch in the sky. Even as a twelve-year-old, angry at being taken away from our livewalls in town to this dead structure, I fell in love with the wild beauty of the trees clinging to the sheer faces of the valley walls.

The only thing that would have made it better was a teddy bear spider so I could go exploring on my own. I felt trapped by the walls of the house and the valley. I had this dream that, if I had a spider, that I’d be able to sell its weavings for enough to install livewalls in my room. That’s not as crazy as it sounds; teddy-bear spider weavings are collected all over the colonies and sell for insane amounts of money.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 284: On a Clear Day You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy

Originally published in SFReader

Rated PG: This story contains a real obnoxious dude.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:09 — 22.9MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • Feedback for Episode 276
  • Next week… The hopes and dreams of a child, and her pet.

On a Clear Day You can See All the Way to Conspiracy

By Desmond Warzel

You’re listening to the Mike Colavito Show on Cleveland’s home for straight talk, WCUY 1200. The opinions expressed on this program do not reflect those of WCUY, its management, or its sponsors.

Fair warning; I’m in a mood today, folks.

We’ve got a mayor whose only talent seems to be showing up at luncheons and waving at the cameras.

Eighty bucks I had to pay yesterday for not wearing my seatbelt. Show me the seatbelts on a school bus.

I saw a Cleveland athlete on national TV last night wearing a Yankees cap.

And every day I get at least a dozen calls from schmucks who think that people like me are the problem in this city.

Tell me America’s not falling apart.

[pause]

And some of you people–including our programming director, by the way–seem to think I’m running my mouth too much and not taking enough phone calls. I’ve only been number one in radio in this city for ten straight years; what would I know?
(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 283: Grandfather Paradox

Originally published in Electric Velocipede

Rated PG-13: This story contains violence.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:31 — 25.9MB)

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Show Notes

I am doing the drawing for the A&E Prize pack at the end of today! There is still a couple of hours to get your email with “CONTEST” to feedback at Escapepod.org and you can win Blu Ray copies of Space 1999 and The Prisoner!

Show Notes:

  • Feedback for Episode 275
  • Next week… How far can you see on a clear day?

Grandfather Paradox

By Katherine Mankiller

JUNE 23, 1994

Ann stuffed her blood-spattered clothes into the next door apartment complex’s dumpster. He wasn’t dead, but it was harder to get a knife through someone’s chest than she’d expected. Maybe he’d bleed to death before someone found him. She didn’t care either way. She was a juvenile, so it wasn’t like she was going to fry.

She walked. The YMCA was open. She locked herself in the men’s room, curled up on the floor, and fell asleep.

The next morning, she stopped at an IHOP and told a grey-haired waitress, “I don’t have any money, but can I have a cup of coffee?” The waitress must have felt sorry for her: she bought her breakfast. Afterwards, she went to Safeway and hid a steak and a bottle of beer under her coat and walked out. And kept walking. Someone had a barbecue grill in their back yard. She took it, and the charcoal, too.

What she could really go for now was some mushrooms. She should swipe some Kool-Aid and find a cow pasture. Or maybe she could rob a veterinary clinic. Anything to get the thought of him touching her out of her head, and that beer wasn’t going to cut it.

Steak and beer. Almost luxurious.

The sign read “Open House.” Yes, that sounded about perfect. She spent the night there, on the carpet smelling faintly of shampoo.

It had happened to him, too. What her father had done to her, his father had done to him. Which, in her opinion, just made it worse. He knew what it was like.

When the police arrived and told her she was under arrest for murder, she couldn’t stop laughing. (Continue Reading…)

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