Archive for 10 and Up

Escape Pod 144: Friction

First appeared in Albedo One #30.

Rated PG

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:01 — 28.2MB)

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Show Notes

Referenced Sites:
Nawashi, a podcast novel by Graydancer

Closing music: “Blue Genes” by George Hrab

Friction

By Will McIntosh

Gruen was on the sixty-first master, and while his wisdom had grown steadily, he had worn very little. He was incredibly well-preserved–the palms of his three-fingered hands still sported the deep, swirling ridges that had worn to nothing in most people before they’d lived thirty years. Indeed, all of the myriad folds and ridges in his thick maroon skin were for the most part intact. His eyes were still housed in tight sockets, surrounded by thickly-ridged cheeks.

Besides the feet, the eyes were the greatest point of weakness for those who aspired to read the works of the masters. Ceaseless up-and-down eye movement caused the sockets to wear out, and eventually the reader’s eyes fell out. At that point they were forced to trace the carved words with their fingers. Friction quickly took its toll on the hands; readers rarely made it through one master’s teachings this way before their hands were ground to the wrist, and they were finished.

Escape Pod 138: In the Late December

First appeared in Strange Horizons, December 2003.

Nebula Award Nominee!

Rated PG. Contains some dark Santa-related imagery, and the heat death of the universe.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:56 — 18.5MB)

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Show Notes

Closing Music: “Chiron Beta Prime” by Jonathan Coulton.

In the Late December

by Greg van Eekhout

They come to a cloud of silver mist, and there Santa finds a little boy made of molten silver with liquid silver eyes and sweeping silver delta wings. His wrists are ringed with missile launchers, and a rounded cone emerges from a cavity in his chest. Once there were many silver boys, fleets of them, protecting the outermost parts of inhabited space against things that came from outside inhabited space. But now, there is only the silver boy.

“You, sir,” the silver boy says, “are a tiresome consciousness cluster. Your binary value system remains as laughable as it is irrelevant. How you manage to remain cohesive is beyond me.”

“My value system is hardly binary,” Santa says. “In between naughty and nice I’ve made room for you: grumpy but fundamentally sound. Do you want a toy or not?”

Escape Pod 137: Citytalkers

Escape Pod 137: Citytalkers is an Escape Pod original.

Rated PG. Contains moderate violence and stronger weather.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:11 — 32.4MB)

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Show Notes

Referenced sites:
Heifer International
Podsafe Music Network (Terms of Use)

Closing Music: “O Come All Ye Faithful,” performed by Twisted Sister

Citytalkers

by Mur Lafferty

Gloria blinked. “Why do the people in Cleveland love Christmas more than anywhere else?”

Toby grinned and spread his hands on the bar, unadorned fingers splayed. He stared at them, “I didn’t say Cleveland’s people loved Christmas. I said Cleveland.”

“And you’re saying Charlotte doesn’t like Christmas?”

Toby took a deep breath and let it out. “Oh, no. I’m saying Charlotte flat out hates Christmas.”

Gloria kept her voice level, the best thing to do when dealing with a crazy person. “And why do you think this?”

“I’m an urban shaman. A citytalker. I’m here to talk to Charlotte to find out why it’s unhappy.”

Escape Pod 135: Stu

Appears in The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories, from Golden Gryphon Press.

Rated G. Contains military bureaucracy, but nothing more disturbing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:30 — 28.5MB)

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Stu

by Bruce McAllister

The first time I met Stu, I was just a kid and there weren’t any lights hovering over his house. The last time I saw him, when I was grown and we both knew what life could be if you let it, there were. That’s the best way to start, I guess.

That first time, our dad piled us into our old Chevy wagon–the kind you took to drive-in movies with sheets on the seats and your kids in pajamas–and drove us to the north county, saying only, “Stu is an inventor. He’ll never see any royalties from his inventions because the Navy owns them, but he’s an inventor, the kind that made America great.”

How had he first met Stu? How does anyone in the Navy get to know a wide-eyed, crazy-haired inventor who wasn’t at all “strack,” who shouldn’t have been anywhere near the military but somehow was? On a Secret Project, of course. My brother and I–who were 10 and 6 at the time–were sure of it. Our dad and Stu had to be working on a Secret Project together.

Escape Pod 132: Sparks in a Cold War

First appeared in Future Wars, ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff.

Rated PG. Contains violence, mayhem, and politics.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:30 — 32.0MB)

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Show Notes

Referenced Sites:
SFF Audio

Sparks in a Cold War

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

“We’re all committing a crime,” Audra said, leaning back and closing her eyes. “That’s part of what we’re paying you for.”

Technically, she was right. Extreme Safaris took their clients to unsanctioned or dangerous worlds, trips which could result in serious fines or, in Bryer’s case, the loss of his ship’s clearance for those areas. So far, Bryer had managed to avoid the fines simply by having his clients sign a document that said they had insisted on a trip to the unsanctioned area. He had never had his clearance removed, but he figured it wouldn’t be a serious problem. He could always charter another ship.

“You shot a sentient being,” he said. “You didn’t pay for that right.”

“Oh?” She tilted her head toward him. “Is there a higher fee for that?”

Escape Pod 131: Hesperia and Glory

First appeared in Subterranean Magazine #4.

Rated G. Contains classic Martian action/adventure and potentially hazardous philosophy.

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

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Hesperia and Glory

by Ann Leckie

Escape Pod 130: What We Learned From This Morning’s Newspaper

First appeared in Unfamiliar Territory, 1973.

Rated G. It’s slightly safer to listen to than the New York Times.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:45 — 25.3MB)

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What We Learned From This Morning’s Newspaper

by Robert Silverberg

I got home from the office as usual at 6:47 this evening and discovered that our peaceful street has been in some sort of crazy uproar all day. The newsboy it seems came by today and delivered the New York Times for Wednesday December 1 to every house on Redbud Crescent. Since today is Monday November 22 it follows therefore that Wednesday December 1 is the middle of next week. I said to my wife are you sure that this really happened? Because I looked at the newspaper myself before I went off to work this morning and it seemed quite all right to me.

At breakfast time the newspaper could be printed in Albanian and it would seem quite all right to you my wife replied. Here look at this. And she took the newspaper from the hall closet and handed it all folded up to me. It looked just like any other edition of the New York Times but I saw what I had failed to notice at breakfast time, that it said Wednesday December 1.

Is today the 22nd of November I asked? Monday?

It certainly is my wife told me. Yesterday was Sunday and tomorrow is going to be Tuesday and we haven’t even come to Thanksgiving yet. Bill what are we going to do about this?

Escape Pod 128: Union Dues: Send in the Clowns

Escape Pod 128: Union Dues: Send in the Clowns is an Escape Pod original.

Rated PG. Contains superhero violence and organizational politics.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:00 — 28.9MB)

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Union Dues: Send in the Clowns

by Jeffrey R. DeRego

Tina tugs on Kindred’s bullet-tattered red cape. “What kinda tricks do you do?”

Kindred shakes her head as if bewildered by the question. “Tricks?” She glances back at Megaton, who now juggles three Jersey barriers about a hundred meters out in the devastation.

“Let it go Kindred. We’ve been through a lot.”

“Well that’s good. So now you’re free to put on a carnival. Get everyone together and onto the jet now. And I mean now!” Her voice is so loud it draws everyone’s attention away from the show.

Megaton drops the Jersey barriers and the ground shakes.

Kindred lowers herself to one knee beside the little girl. “My trick is special,” she says, “I can make the whole circus disappear. Abracadabra…”

Escape Pod 127: Results

First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 2000.

Rated PG. Contains serious themes involving family planning and childbearing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:33 — 21.0MB)

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Show Notes

Special closing music: “Faithful” by The Shillas.

Results

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

She should have called her folks last night. They paged her three separate times after the test. But she wanted to wait until she had results, until she had something new to say instead of going over the same old arguments. She’s twenty-five, old enough to make her own choices. Old enough to make her own mistakes.

Her parents thought the testing was mistake number one. It certainly was expensive enough, but the doctor said he advised it for any couple about to get married. If they’re genetically incompatible, he’d said, they have the choice of terminating the relationship, planning for an expensive future, or tying tubes — practicing irreversible infertility, as one of her friends called it.

Options. That’s what her parents don’t get. It’s all about options.

And results.

Escape Pod 124: Save Me Plz

First appeared in Realms of Fantasy, October 2007.

Contains sexual innuendo, some mild language, and fantasy violence.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:55 — 28.1MB)

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Show Notes

Referenced Sites:
Geek Fu Action Grip
This Day in Alternate History

Blog of the Week:
Ogre Marco’s LiveJournal
(receives Carnal Knowledge by Charles Hodgson)

Save Me Plz

by David Barr Kirtley

Meg hadn’t heard from Devon in four months, and she realized that she missed him. So on a whim she tossed her sword and scabbard into the trunk of her car and drove over to campus to visit him.

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