Rated PG. Contains minor profanity, explicit bodily functions, and people being very, very mean..
She said, “What the project needs is for you to come back and work on the same small area you did originally. Looking for something–anything–you might have missed in the protein-coded instructions to successive generations of nanoassemblers.”
“No,” I said.
Rated PG. Contains non-explicit sex, accidental assault, and geological scatology.
“Look, miss, I’m going to have to cut your hair to do this. Is that all right?”
She smiled at him from her upside-down, bent-over position, so he took that as a yes. He found an old pair of garden shears and took a hunk of her hair, gathered it into a rough ponytail, and hacked it off.
A pair of mountain bluebirds flew out from where the nest of hair had been.
Rated PG. Contains minor profanity, and very tame references to populating new worlds. Hey, someone’s got to.
The Pioneer Spirit was a colonization ship; it wasn’t intended as a diplomatic vessel. When it had left Earth, it had seemed important to get at least some humans off the mother world. Two small-scale nuclear wars–Nuke I and Nuke II, as the media had dubbed them–had already been fought, one in southern Asia, the other in South America. It appeared to be only a matter of time before Nuke III, and that one might be the big one.
SETI had detected nothing from Tau Ceti, at least not by 2051. But Earth itself had only been broadcasting for a century and a half at that point; Tau Ceti might have had a thriving civilization then that hadn’t yet started using radio. But now it was twelve hundred years later. Who knew how advanced the Tau Cetians might be?
Rated PG. Contains slavery, heavy moral themes, and some violence.
Referenced sites:
Invasion: The Complete Series on DVD
Gradients of Sight
Dragon*Con: Atlanta, GA, September 1–4
On one occasion–he flinched to remember it–the invaders had brought him Cthara eggs. Warm, fertilized eggs, likely ripped just that day from the hatching burrow of some poor herder family. It had been the greatest challenge the Creator had ever sent him. His fangs had unfolded without his conscious will, and only a lifetime of piety and self-control had kept him from sinking them into the small bodies of the terrified guards.
His venom had dripped onto the filthy floor, and after the guards left he had lain shuddering in the dampness, feeling the leathery eggs by his flank gradually cool and die. Over and over he repeated the litany of the Prophet: “People shall not sink fang into other speaking people. People shall not eat the flesh of other speaking people. People shall not make war…”
Rated PG. Contains profanity and adolescence. (Wait, that’s redundant.)
Referenced sites:
Escape Pod on Wikipedia
Worldcon: Anaheim, CA, August 23–27
Dragon*Con: Atlanta, GA, September 1–4
Podcast & Portable Media Expo: Ontario, CA, September 29–30
When Jerry walked out across his lawn to catch the morning bus to Effendale High, he stopped to admire the new car Mr. Atkinson had growing in his lawn. Jerry could see the doors stretching up towards the roof, small branches of metal trying to reach their stringy edges up and around the rough frame. It looked like a regular car had melted, but in reverse. Every day Jerry stepped out, he could see more of the car’s gray paneling filling in around the rough frame. Mr. Atkinson tended towards planting larger luxury cars, like any other retired old man. The half-finished Caddilac sat in between the rose bushes and posies that Mrs. Atkinson cared for. Both car and bushes glinted with a fresh coating of morning dew.
Rated PG. Contains implications of violence, heavy politics, and split ends.
Referenced sites:
Worldcon: Anaheim, CA, August 23–27
Bring Sigler’s Ancestor to Sci Fi!
Wil Wheaton
EP036: Connie, Maybe
EP061: I Look Forward To Remembering You
EP055: Down Memory Lane
“There’s a reason we don’t use nano to cut the President-Chairman’s hair. You know about the assassination attempt three years ago?”
Everyone did. “I thought he was fully recovered.”
“What’s left of him. Yes. All of that civilian nano would interfere with crucial signals sent and received by the nano in use by the MedTechs. Can’t risk it. That bomb was nasty. What I’m telling you is classified, obviously. We have no intention of presenting Arrington to the world as less than the man he deserves to be.”
Rated PG. Contains references to drugs, claustrophobia, and canceled Showtime programming.
“Aren’t you Rube, the Grim Reaper in Dead Like Me?”
As he turned to look at me, an expression of amusement spread over his face like a wave of sunshine over a cloudy field. “I’m not a grim reaper in real life,” he mimicked, “but I do play one on TV!”
Genres: Aliens
Rated PG. Contains minor innuendo, minor swearing, and some grotesque imagery. No livestock were harmed in the making of this podcast.
“But, Morty, I’m an alien. Christ, I’m The Alien, the only one on the whole damned planet. There’s got to be something.” It occurred to me that my apartment was too big. It seemed to be
getting bigger every day. And when I considered the rent vis a vis my bank account balance, the place was huge.
“The novelty’s worn off, kiddo. I’m surprised it lasted for four movies. And that last one didn’t really count, just a walk-on in a dream sequence. The point is, people aren’t going to keep paying to see something they’ve already seen, even if he is an alien. I mean, it’s not like you do anything. You’re just there, you know?”
Rated PG. Contains innuendo and some violence.
Referenced sites:
Guild Wars
John W. Campbell Award
Chronigma (David Walton’s puzzles)
2006 Podcast Awards
(Technical Note: Argh. I got feedback today that the iTunes feed was grabbing the wrong file — and sure enough, it was. It worked fine when I tested it, but Feedburner must have changed something at some later point. I’m sorry for the confusion two weeks in a row, and my apologies if you get this story twice.)
In the center of the room, on a platform, was our Dokja–not the humanoid body she took in VR, but a blue mass of flesh with dry fish-like skin that pulsated as she breathed. She had no definitive shape, no arms or legs or tentacles, or even a face. Her only prominent feature was a taut membrane stretched tightly over an opening at the top of her body. One section of that membrane was covered over with an elaborate breathing apparatus, and the familiar array of VR electrodes were attached to what must have been her central nervous system.
I felt ill just looking at her. But I knew therapy would readjust my feelings.
Rated G.
Referenced sites:
2006 Hugo Nominees
World Science Fiction Convention
L.A.Con IV
TellTale Weekly — Clarion Foundation Fundraiser
Hooting Yard Benevolent Fund for Distressed Out of Print Pamphleteers
I don’t know where I was when Kennedy was shot. I don’t know what I was doing when the World Trade Center collapsed under the onslaught of two jetliners. But I remember every single detail, every minute, every second, of the day we got the bad news.
“It may not be Alzheimer’s,” said Dr. Castleman. “Alzheimer’s is becoming a catchword for a variety of senile dementias. Eventually we’ll find out exactly which dementia it is, but there’s no question that Gwendolyn is suffering from one of them.”