The State of Escape Pod, and a Message From Steve

A message from Steve, posted on the forums:

Hi all,

This’ll be a short message, with a longer one later.  First things first: I am alive.  Family’s doing well, including Harper:

There’s been a lot going on, but that’s a lousy excuse to be radio silent for this long.  I’m sorry about that.  This doesn’t justify it, but it’s symptomatic of one thing: I’ve been managing my energy poorly.  I’m being stretched too thin.

That warrants more explanation, and I’ll say more soon.  What I want you to know right now is that I’m going to be resigning from Escape Pod.  This isn’t actually a negative, although it probably sounds that way.  It’s the right thing to do for myself and it’s the right thing to do for the podcast.  There’s a plan in the works to bring new energy in — one or more people who will do better by you than I have lately.

Escape Pod won’t be going away.  I really do think the podcast matters.  The stories matter, and the audience matters.  And I’m not going to say you’ll never hear my voice again.  But I won’t be trying to keep everything on my shoulders.  That worked for a few years, and I felt I needed to keep coming back to it.  But I think you deserve better.  And we’re going to work to make sure you get it.

Whew.

So.  How’s things with you?

Escape Pod will be back up and running May 12 (which, incidentally, is our 5 year anniversary/birthday/thingie). Also, we will be closed to submissions until July 1. If you do not hear from us by then, feel free to resubmit.

We’ll be announcing the new editor shortly, until then, thank you for your patience, your support, and your concern.

Genres:

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 238: Wind From a Dying Star

First appeared in Bones of the World, ed. Bruce Holland Rogers.

Rated PG. Contains sacrifice and space battles. Of a sort.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:01 — 29.6MB)

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Wind From a Dying Star

By David D. Levine

After a time she found a small patch of zeren. She spread across it, taking a little solace from its sparkling sweetness. “Zero-point energy” was what Old John called it, but to Gunai and the rest of her tribe it was zeren, delicious and rare. Gunai recalled a time when zeren was something you could almost ignore — a constant crackling thrum beneath the surface of perception — but now there were just a few thin patches here and there.

These days the tribe subsisted mostly on a thin diet of starlight, and even that was growing cold. Soon they would be forced to move on again. Yeoshi had told her the foraging was better in the direction of the galactic core, but it was so far…

Escape Pod 237: Roadside Rescue

First appeared in Omni, July 1985.

Rated R. Contains profanity and mature (if alien) themes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:30 — 14.1MB)

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Roadside Rescue

By Pat Cadigan

“That’s a long time to wait.” The navigator’s smile widened. He was very attractive, holo-star kind of handsome. People who work for aliens, Etan thought. “Perhaps you’d care to wait in my employer’s transport. For that matter, I can probably repair your vehicle, which will save you time and money. Roadside rescue fees are exorbitant.”

“That’s very kind,” Etan said, “but I have called, and I don’t want to impose—“

“It was my employer’s idea to stop, sir. I agreed, of course. My employer is quite fond of people. In fact, my employer loves people. And I’m sure you would be rewarded in some way.”

Escape Pod 236: Still On the Road

First appeared in Asimov’s, December 2008.

Rated PG. Contains a little profanity and a lot of beat.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:01 — 7.6MB)

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Still On the Road

By Geoffrey A. Landis

Turns out, you know, that old dharma bum never made it off the wheel of karma. He had too many attachments, to the road, to words; and if you love the things of the world of Mara too much you fall back into the world, like gravity pulling back a rocket that doesn’t reach escape velocity. Two, three thousand years later, he’s still on the road. Really, nothing’s changed. And Neal, that old prankster, Neal never really did want to transcend, he loved to see it all streaming past the window, a constant moving circus disappearing in the rear-view mirror, loved to talk, loved it all.

Escape Pod 235: On the Human Plan

First appeared in Lone Star Stories, February 2009.

Rated PG. Contains entropy and age. A lot of it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:31 — 20.3MB)

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On the Human Plan

By Jay Lake

I am called Dog the Digger. I am not mighty, neither am I fearsome. Should you require bravos, there are muscle-boys aplenty among the rat-bars of any lowtown on this raddled world. If it is a wizard you want, follow the powder-trails of crushed silicon and wolf’s blood to their dark and winking lairs. Scholars can be found in their libraries, taikonauts in their launch bunkers and ship foundries, priests amid the tallow-gleaming depths of their bone-ribbed cathedrals.

What I do is dig. For bodies, for treasure, for the rust-pocked hulks of history, for the sheer pleasure of moving what cannot be moved and finding what rots beneath. You may hire me for an afternoon or a month or the entire turning of the year. It makes me no mind whatsoever.

As for you, I know what you want. You want a story.

Escape Pod 234: The Secret Protocols of the Elders of Zion

First appeared in The West Pier Gazette & Other Stories, 2008.

Rated R. Contains some violence and a plot heavily focused on drug use. If you’re good with that, there’s not much else likely to be problematic for younger audiences.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:41 — 31.4MB)

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The Secret Protocols of the Elders of Zion

By Lavie Tidhar

It was afternoon, after school has ended for the day. Sash has been working in the hydroponics gardens, helping the adults with the delicate work of picking the buds. It was flowering time, and the ganja plants were at the end of their cycle.

It was then, with her hands sticky with resin and her skin tingling pleasantly from the work and the heat, with Mama Kingston’s deep, melodious voice saying ‘a good harvest, child, a good harvest’ with a throaty chuckle, when Sash felt about herself the presence of Jah in everything she did and was profoundly happy: it was then that Sash discovered, for the first time, the existence of the Secret.

Escape Pod 233: Union Dues: The Threnody of Johnny Toruko

Escape Pod 233: Union Dues: The Threnody of Johnny Toruko is an Escape Pod original.

Rated PG. Contains mature themes, violence, and some profanity. You know. Teenage stuff.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:20 — 30.5MB)

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Show Notes

Referenced Sites:

Official Union Dues Web Site

Union Dues on Twitter

Clonepod – Previous Team Shikaragaki stories

Union Dues: The Threnody of Johnny Toruko

By Jeffrey R. DeRego

I duck through the door behind her. The place is jammed with customers. “You have any money? I didn’t think to ask Miss Jennifer for any.”

TK answers, “don’t worry, just tell me what you want.”

“Large with extra sugar and cream.”

TK grins and focuses her attention on the line of people stretching from the entrance down to the counter. They all sidestep and she walks unimpeded front of the pack. “One large black, and one large with extra sugar and cream.”

The barrista, a girl of about 18, repeats the order in a flat monotone.

“And these are on the house. Everyone gets free coffee for the next two hours.”

“Free for everyone,” the clerk answers then puts our order together.

TK snickers and hands the coffee over.

Escape Pod 232: Flash Special

Alloy First appeared in Nature, September 2007.

My Grandfather’s River first appeared in Nature, August 2006.

Rated PG. Can get a bit sad in places.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:54 — 18.5MB)

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Show Notes

Referenced Sites:
Cybrosis — A podcast novel by P.C. Haring

This week Escape Pod presents three flash stories:

Alloy

By Marissa Lingen
Read by Electra Allenton

Flare

By Kyle Deas
Read by Stephen Eley

My Grandfather’s River

By Brenda Cooper
Read by Anna Eley

Escape Pod 231: Solitary as an Oyster

Escape Pod 231: Solitary as an Oyster is an Escape Pod original.

Rated PG. Contains ghostly visitations. Film at 11.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:46 — 35.7MB)

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Show Notes

Special Closing Music: “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” by Twisted Sister.

Solitary as an Oyster

By Mur Lafferty

“Who’s there?” the voice asked, rough and unpleasant. Robert and Lydia glanced at each other.

“The Paranormalists, Mr. Scrooge. You called us a couple of hours ago,” Robert said.

“Took you long enough,” the voice said. The door clicked as Scrooge unlocked several locks, and finally it slid open a couple of centimeters. Scrooge peered out, the heavy chain still on the door. Jenny flipped the night vision off her camera to get a clear view of him in the foyer’s dim light. He was much smaller than his voice implied, a diminutive man who was probably a bear in the conference room, but a pussycat when in thin pajamas and a robe.

Well, not a pussycat. Something more like a weasel.