Archive for Podcasts

Escape Pod 198: N-words

First appeared in Seeds of Change, 2008.

Rated PG-13. Contains racism and genetic engineering.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:33 — 38.1MB)

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N-words

By Ted Kosmatka

They came from test tubes. They came pale as ghosts with eyes as blue-white as glacier ice. They came first out of Korea.

I try to picture David’s face in my head, but I can’t. They’ve told me this is temporary—a kind of shock that happens sometimes when you’ve seen a person die that way. Although I try to picture David’s face, it’s only his pale eyes I can see.

My sister squeezes my hand in the back of the limo. “It’s almost over,” she says. Up the road, against the long, wrought iron railing, the protestors grow excited as our procession approaches. They’re standing in the snow on both sides of the cemetery gates, men and women wearing hats and gloves and looks of righteous indignation, carrying signs I refuse to read.

Escape Pod Flash: Get Me to the Job on Time

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:29 — 4.5MB)

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Get Me to the Job on Time

By Ian Randal Strock

Read by Elie Hirschman

“Maybe it’s what you’d do with the knowledge that determines whether or not you’ll discover the secret of time travel.”

“What?” I asked the old man.

“I know for a fact that time travel is possible. I knew the man who discovered it. And you’ll never guess what he used his discovery for.”

Well, I didn’t believe that old man any more than you believe me, but we’d been waiting in that airport for four hours, so I humored him.

“All right, I’ll bite,” I said. “What did he use time travel for?”

“Wally didn’t need to see the pyramids getting built, or sail with Columbus, or even watch JFK’s assassination. What Wally wanted to do, more than anything, was get to work on time.”

An introduction like that demands a story, so I sat down and let him tell me.

Escape Pod 197: From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled…

First appeared in Asimov’s Feb 2008

Rated PG. Contains the destruction of cities, a lack of trust, and sentient suits.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:00 — 40.5MB)

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From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled…

By Michael Swanwick

Imagine a cross between Byzantium and a termite mound. Imagine a jeweled mountain, slender as an icicle, rising out of the steam jungles and disappearing into the dazzling pearl-grey skies of Gehenna. Imagine that Gaudí—he of the Segrada Familia and other biomorphic architectural whimsies—had been commissioned by a nightmare race of giant black millipedes to recreate Barcelona at the height of its glory, along with touches of the Forbidden City in the eighteenth century and Tokyo in the twenty-second, all within a single miles-high structure. Hold every bit of that in your mind at once, multiply by a thousand, and you’ve got only the faintest ghost of a notion of the splendor that was Babel.

Now imagine being inside Babel when it fell.

Genres:

Escape Pod Flash: Semi-Autonomous or ‘For Whom The Warranty Tolls

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:31 — 4.5MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG and now available in a wide variety of colours!

Semi-Autonomous or ‘For Whom The Warranty Tolls

By Jim Kling

Hello, you have reached Jim’s semi-autonomous answering machine. Leave a message and I will have him return your call.

Hello, you have reached Jim’s semi-autonomous answering machine. He will be hosting his birthday party on Saturday night. If you plan to attend, press ‘one’ and then speak your name. I will add you to the guest list. Otherwise, leave a message and I will make sure he receives it.

Hello, you have reached Jim’s semi-autonomous answering machine. My records indicate that you have previously RSVP’d for the Saturday night party. Please indicate your alcohol preference. For beer, press ‘one.’ For wine, press ‘two.’ For mixed drinks, press ‘three.’ If you prefer non-alcoholic beverages, press ‘four.’ This information will be used for ordering purposes only, transmitted through my wireless connection to Jim’s refrigerator, which in turn is linked to an online grocery. For more information about AutonomInc’s SmartAppliance line, please view our web site at www.autonominc.com. “AutonomInc: We give a whole new meaning to housework!” If you have a message for Jim, please leave it now.

Genres:

Escape Pod 196: Evil Robot Monkey

First appeared in the Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, vol. 2 edited by George Mann.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:10 — 13.8MB)

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Show Notes

Special closing monkey music by George Hrab

Evil Robot Monkey

By Mary Robinette Kowal

Sliding his hands over the clay, Sly relished the moisture oozing around his fingers. The clay matted down the hair on the back of his hands making them look almost human. He turned the potter’s wheel with his prehensile feet as he shaped the vase. Pinching the clay between his fingers he lifted the wall of the vase, spinning it higher.

Someone banged on the window of his pen. Sly jumped and then screamed as the vase collapsed under its own weight. He spun and hurled it at the picture window like feces. The clay spattered against the Plexiglas, sliding down the window.

Escape Pod Flash: Chump Change

Rated PG for… welll, you already know why, don’t you?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:51 — 5.4MB)

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Chump Change

By Pete Butler

Read by Jake Squid

It’s going to be the Three of Clubs.

I know this, as certainly as I know my own name. I’m less sure about some things than my fans would think. But sometimes, the swirling laws governing what _may_ happen coalesce into what _will_ happen with astonishing clarity. The sun will rise tomorrow, the Pirates will beat the Mets tonight, and as soon as I announce my “guess,” the Three of Clubs will appear on the monitor in front of me.

“Jack of Spades,” I proclaim, full of conviction.

The monitor flickers, and is suddenly filled by a pixilated version of the Three of Clubs.

Rated PG for…welll, you already know why, don’t you?

Escape Pod 195: 26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss

First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 2008.

Rated PG. Contains 26 monkeys. Also, the abyss.

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

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Show Notes

Narration first appeared at and produced by Starship Sofa. Special thanks to Tony Smith and Diane Severson for their kind permission to resyndicate this award nominee.

26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss

By Kij Johnson

She sets a stepladder next to it. She claps her hands and the 26 monkeys onstage run up the ladder one after the other and jump into the bathtub. The bathtub shakes as each monkey thuds in among the others. The audience can see heads, legs, tails; but eventually every monkey settles and the bathtub is still again. Zeb is always the last monkey up the ladder. As he climbs into the bathtub, he makes a humming boom deep in his chest. It fills the stage.

And then there’s a flash of light, two of the chains fall off, and the bathtub swings down to expose its interior.

Empty.

Escape Pod Flash: The Sincerest Form

Rated PG for low intensity inter-species conflict

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:07 — 5.6MB)

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The Sincerest Form

By W.G. Hopkins

Bars of light crossed my desk, carved from the sun by the open window. The
scent of hot asphalt rose from the path that led to the capitol buildings.

Beside me, Dr. Singh motioned for the guards to bring in Dr. Norman Terriault. He looked pale. I motioned for him to sit.

The guards stood on either side. The officer saluted.

I closed the window. A faint buzzing hovered in the air.

“Why me?” Terriault asked.

“You must be familiar with the work of the Imitant Office,” Singh consulted his tablet, “Dr. Terriault.”

“I’m just like both of you.” Terriault leaned forward, the guards pulled him back.

“Apparently,” I said.

Escape Pod 194: Exhalation

First appeared in Eclipse 2, ed. Jonathan Strahan.

Rated PG. Contains entropy, eschatology, and empirical evisceration.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:24 — 35.3MB)

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Show Notes

2009 Hugo Nominee Winner!


Narration first appeared at and produced by Starship Sofa. Special thanks to Tony Smith and Ray Sizemore for their kind permission to resyndicate this award nominee.

Exhalation

by Ted Chiang

But in the normal course of life, our need for air is far from our thoughts, and indeed many would say that satisfying that need is the least important part of going to the filling stations. For the filling stations are the primary venue for social conversation, the places from which we draw emotional sustenance as well as physical. We all keep spare sets of full lungs in our homes, but when one is alone, the act of opening one’s chest and replacing one’s lungs can seem little better than a chore. In the company of others, however, it becomes a communal activity, a shared pleasure.

Escape Pod Flash: Grandpa?

Rated PG for paradoxical violence.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:43 — 3.9MB)

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Show Notes

Be sure to check out Mr. Lerner’s new book, FOOLS’ EXPERIMENTS.

Grandpa?

By Edward M Lerner

The lecture hall was pleasantly warm. Behind Prof. Thaddeus Fitch, busily writing on the chalkboard, pencils scratched earnestly in spiral notebooks, fluorescent lights hummed, feet shuffled. A Beach Boys tune wafted in through open windows from the quad.

“And so,” he continued, “travel backwards in time would violate causality, and hence appears to be impossible.” He turned to face the class. “The problem is most commonly illustrated with the ‘Grandfather Paradox.’

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