Escape Pod 173: Robots Don’t Cry

Rated R. Contains profanity and some sadness.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:23 — 29.1MB)

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Robots Don’t Cry

By Mike Resnick

Every now and then we strike it rich. Usually we make a profit. Once in a while we just break even. There’s only been one world where we actually lost money; I still remember it — Greenwillow. Except that it wasn’t green, and there wasn’t a willow on the whole damned planet.

There was a robot, though. We found him, me and the Baroni, in a barn, half-hidden under a pile of ancient computer parts and self-feeders for mutated cattle. We were picking through the stuff, wondering if there was any market for it, tossing most of it aside, when the sun peeked in through the doorway and glinted off a prismatic eye.

“Hey, take a look at what we’ve got here,” I said. “Give me a hand digging it out.”

Jeffrey DeRego’s surgery and financial assistance

I’ve been in e-mail contact today with Jeffrey DeRego’s wife Cindy. She tells me that he had open heart surgery yesterday to bypass five blocked arteries. The surgery was successful and he’s expected to go home sometime next week.

If anyone cares to know for purposes of sending cards or flowers, etc., he’s at the Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, New Hampshire. You’re also welcome to send cards via us (Jeffrey DeRego, c/o Escape Artists Inc., PO Box 1538, Stone Mountain GA 30086) and I’ll see that they get forwarded to him.

I asked if any financial assistance would be useful, and without getting into overly personal details, the answer is “yes.” The DeRegos aren’t in a good position right now in terms of employment, and while they’re applying for state assistance, surgery of this magnitude is still certain to have a very harsh impact. Escape Artists will be making a contribution, and with Cindy’s permission, I’m asking the Escape Pod listenership to help out.

I’ve set up a PayPal address just for this purpose under our corporate account. If you’d like to help Jeff out, please send your contributions via PayPal to derego@escapepod.org. (I hope to have a better link on the sidebar by tonight.) We’ll cover PayPal fees, so 100% of funds donated will go to defray Jeff’s and Cindy’s medical expenses. I’ll keep that PayPal address open through September.

Please follow your conscience on whether to help. Jeff’s given us some of our favorite EP stories, and I’m happy to do whatever I can for him. If you see fit to help him out too, I’m sure he and his wife would be very grateful. Thanks for your attention.

Escape Pod 172: Union Dues: Tabula Rasa

Escape Pod 172: Union Dues: Tabula Rasa is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:41 — 28.0MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R. Contains profanity, sexual innuendo, and a bit of soap opera.

Referenced Sites:
Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty

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Union Dues: Tabula Rasa

By Jeffrey R. DeRego

I raise my hand and she stops chattering. “Just tell me who you are and where I am.”

She freezes and blinks twice. “Tell you where you are? Cap, you’re home. This is the Cleveland Pyramid. I’m Sarah Shadow. You don’t recognize me?”

“That doesn’t mean anything to me!” I stand up. Frustration washes over me like heat from a blast furnace, and worse, my stomach is rumbling. “I woke up today. The first person I saw was you, but I’ve never seen you before in my life. I figured as long as I was in the hospital, or wherever, I’d start to remember, but it’s a blank. Where am I, what is this place, what are you people?” I point at her costume. “And that, what’s that, are you part of a circus act or something?”

EP BONUS: Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty

The Escape Pod episode is still coming up later today. But by special permission of Mur Lafferty, here’s a special bonus for you: the complete text of her novel, Playing for Keeps, in PDF format. It’s officially launching August 25th, so be sure to buy it from Amazon then!

Playing for Keeps

Meetup at Dragon*Con!

First: my apologies for recent delays in getting Escape Pod out; in the last couple of weeks it’s hit the feed Friday afternoons rather than late Thursday. It’s probably going to happen again this week. Personal business lately has included me losing my day job, finding a new and much better day job in the space of a couple of weeks (I start Tuesday), and taking on some short-term obligations to fill in the gaps. Expect more on that in an upcoming metacast In the meantime I’m realizing I’m having to get much better organized with a lot of Escape Artists work, not for efficiency but for necessity. So yes, things are late; but I still don’t expect to miss any weeks, and I hope that the lateness will be short term.

Now to the news: once again, Escape Pod and Minx’s Polyamory Weekly will be hosting a joint meetup at Dragon*Con. Just like last year, we’ll be doing a group brunch on SUNDAY, AUGUST 31 AT 11:30 AM, at the Gordon Biersch Brewpub. It’s about a mile north from the hotels, but an easy walk or cab ride. This time we have the restaurant’s upper mezzanine reserved, so it’s like having the place to ourselves. Ask at the front for the Escape Pod meetup.

Generally, I expect to hit very little programming at this year’s D*C. My intent for almost the entire con is just to hang out at the bars or parties, and socialize and relax. If you’d like to join me, follow my Twitter feed to find out where I am or drop me a line to met me know where you are. And if you know where the good parties are — let me know too!

Thanks, and we’ll have the next EP up as soon as possible. (It’s a Union Dues story, if that helps with the waiting.)

Escape Pod 171: Fenneman’s Mouth

Originally appeared in Beluthahatchie and Other Stories

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:50 — 25.3MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R. Contains profanity, and real and simulated persons behaving badly.

Featured Site:
Playing for Keeps

Fenneman’s Mouth

By Andy Duncan

“Fenneman?”

The studio audience laughed loudly, as it always did when Groucho turned, in mock desperation or annoyance, to his long-suffering, hopelessly square announcer. Groucho’s voice slightly increased in pitch whenever he said Fenneman’s name, as if he were just at the edge of losing his celebrated cool. This half-squawk had been funny in the stateroom scene of A Night at the Opera (“Steward! Steward!”), and it was still funny on You Bet Your Life twenty-five years later. He was a pro, Groucho was, and I did right by him; I modulated that pitch myself.

Escape Pod 170: Pervert

First appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 2004

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:03 — 24.1MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R. Contains explicit sexual activity.

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Pervert

By Charles Coleman Finlay

When the bus reaches the corner, they climb onboard, taking seats on their side and evening out the ride so it doesn’t feel so much like we’ll tip over. We rattle along past road construction, the men working behind screens that are consecrated by the priests each morning as part of the men’s quarter, and resanctified to the women at quitting time. The sun already pelts down mercilessly and they will have to leave off working soon.

We enter the government quarter and arrive at the Children’s Center, a long concrete brick of a building with windows shielded from the sun by an open grid of deep squares made of the same material. The morning light turns it into a chessboard of glaring white and dark shadow. I don’t work with the children, who are on the lower floors and the sheltered playground of the courtyard, but toil away with records on the upper floors. Unlike Jamin or Zel, I am permitted by the job to work alongside women, but only because I completed my theological studies and am a candidate for the priesthood. My superiors do not know of the taint on my soul. Do not know yet, I should say, and when they discover it I will never be ordained or promoted.

Late notice (and a bonus file)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00:25 — 41.5MB)

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Sorry folks. I know that EP is getting to the point where it’s usually late these days, but today it’s going to be a bit later than usual. There are a few good reasons for it — some related to the content itself, and some related to things going on with me — but it would be inappropriate for me to go into all of it right this moment. We’re not skipping a week, and I’m fairly certain EP170 will be posted by noon today.

In the meantime, by way of apology and spurred by some demand for it in the forums, here’s a minor bonus for those interested: the raw, mostly unedited recording session from Dr. Bowie’s and my reading of “How I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out the People’s Justice” last week. If you enjoy knowing how the sausage gets made, this particular file is a slightly more entertaining example than most. This isn’t going into the feed, because it isn’t really an Escape Pod episode; you’ll have to either listen in the browser, or right-click on it and download it yourself if you want to hear it.

Escape Pod 169: How I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out The People’s Justice

Escape Pod 169: How I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out The People’s Justice is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:03 — 33.0MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R. Contains profanity, violence, and canine sexuality.

Referenced Sites:
CrimeWAV Crime Fiction Podcast

How I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out The People’s Justice

By Jonathon Sullivan

Q: What happened when you arrived at the address in question?

A: My Partner Lori opened my door and I jumped out. I arrested a suspect!

Q: Yes, Officer Bull. But I would like you to tell me exactly what happened, in detail, from the time you got out of the car.

A: Okay. My skulltop showed me which house, and I ran toward it. A man and three dogs ran out the door. One of them was a bitch with pretty haunches. She was in heat, and I really really really liked the way she smelled. I wanted to run after her, but I knew I should go after the man. So I did. Even though I liked the way she smelled!