Genres:

Escape Pod 307: Soulmates

First appeared in September, 2009 Asimov’s

Rated appropriate for teens and up due to language, alcohol dependence, and discussing death of loved ones

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00:48 — 41.8MB)

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Soulmates

By Mike Resnick and Lezli Robyn

Have you ever killed someone you love – I mean, really love?

I did.

I did it as surely as if I’d fired a bullet into her brain, and the fact that it was perfectly legal, that everyone at the hospital told me I’d done a humane thing by giving them permission to pull the plug, didn’t make me feel any better. I’d lived with Kathy for twenty-six years, been married to her for all but the first ten months. We’d been through a lot together: two miscarriages, a bankruptcy, a trial separation twelve years ago – and then the car crash. They said she’d be a vegetable, that she’d never think or walk or even move again. I let her hang on for almost two months, until the insurance started running out, and then I killed her.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 239: A Programmatic Approach to Perfect Happiness

Originally published in: Futurismic, April 2009.

Opening poem: “Scientific Romance”

Rated R. Contains mature sexual situations and adult themes. (And robot themes.)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:30 — 18.9MB)

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A Programmatic Approach to Perfect Happiness

By Tim Pratt

My step-daughter Wynter, who is regrettably prejudiced against robots and those who love us, comes floating through the door in a metaphorical cloud of glitter instead of her customary figurative cloud of gloom. She enters the kitchen, rises up on the toes of her black spike-heeled boots, wraps her leather-braceleted arms around my neck, and places a kiss on my cheek, leaving behind a smear of black lipstick on my artificial skin and a whiff of white make-up in my artificial nose.

“Hi Kirby,” she says, voice all bubbles and light, when normally she would never deign to utter my personal designation.

“Is Moms around? Haven’t talked to her in a million.”

I know right away that Wynter has been infected.

Genres:

Escape Pod 209: On the Eyeball Floor

Escape Pod 209: On the Eyeball Floor is an Escape Pod original.

Rated PG for for angry awakening sentience and some swearing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:38 — 25.8MB)

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Show Notes

Closing song by Andrew Richardson

On the Eyeball Floor

by Tina Connolly

We’ve got robotic arms to put the eyeballs in. Metal clamps to pulldown the eyelids. Tony, on Four, keeps the grease vats filled. Oil squirts nineteen times a minute to keep the eye sockets from squeaking. Tiny slick needles stitch on the lashes, while millions of different irises get stamped in magenta and yellow and cyan, so no two will ever be alike, just like us.

All that, and they can’t engineer anything—or anyone—to take over my job. People in Organs go home coated with grease and vinegar; people in Bones have lost fingers to the machines, and still nobody wants the job where a hundred half-live cyborgs line up in rows, twitching when your back is turned. Waiting for someone to talk to them, feel for them. Transcend them to life.

There are safety signs around the factory. “Scrub Up.” “Know Thyself.” “Don’t Blink.” That last is the best piece of advice, here on the eyeball floor.

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.

Genres:

Escape Pod 31: Robots and Falling Hearts

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:06 — 35.1MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG. Contains slight profanity, long flirtations, and excessive Zen. Watch for falling metaphors.

Referenced sites:
Child’s Play
Hooting Yard

Robots and Falling Hearts

By Tim Pratt and Greg van Eekhout

I paused to tie a loose shoelace and a squat robot, like a dirty white trashcan on tank-treads, trundled out of an alley toward me. A red light on top of its domelike top blinked erratically. It said, in a high-pitched voice, “Klaatu barada nikto.” A small panel slid open in its front, and a pole with a cup on the end telescoped out. There were a few coins in the cup, mostly pennies and nickels, and the robot jingled the cup significantly.

“Take me to your leader,” I said, wishing it could be that simple, knowing that these things are never that simple. The robot beeped at me and jingled its cup harder, the coins rattling.

“It won’t go away unless you give it some change,” said a woman standing on the corner. “It followed me all the way to work one day, and hung around outside the door like a dog for hours.”

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