Escape Pod 154: Union Dues: Freedom With a Small f

Escape Pod 154: Union Dues: Freedom With a Small f is an Escape Pod original.

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Show Notes

Closing Music: “Juzt Mizunderztood” by Norm Sherman.

Rated R. Contains sordid occupations, drug use, and violence. Welcome to the city.

Referenced Sites:

The Union Dues Series

Tales of the Zombie War

SciFiDig interview with Jeffrey DeRego

The DrabbleCast

Union Dues – Freedom With a Small f

By Jeffrey R. DeRego

My head throbs. I think about the mess in the fridge, the heaps of crap in the flat while I force the clumps of wet clothes into the dryers.

As far as I know I am the only Union member who works outside the system, the only one tasked specifically with fighting crime, secretly, of course. Darksider put the program together with one of the Luminaries as a way to explore expanding our role in the maintenance of Normal society. He chose me specifically because I am the only super-agile who is also an orphan. Therefore, I won’t be tempted to throw my costume in a dumpster and make a break for mom and dad.

Communication with the Union ended seven months ago. Darksider was supposed to make sure that a stipend was deposited into a bank account under my phony name every month. But that stopped too. I don’t know why. I tried everything to make contact short of walking up to the Boston Pyramid and knocking. Not that it would have done any good since none of the regular Union knows I even exist.

Escape Pod 153: Schwartz Between the Galaxies

Escape Pod 153: Schwartz Between the Galaxies is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:16 — 38.7MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R. Contains some sex, some drug use. It’s a Silverberg story.

Audible.com Promotion!
Receive your free audiobook at: http://audiblepodcast.com/escapepod

Referenced Sites:
GeekLabel

Schwartz Between the Galaxies

by Robert Silverberg

This much is reality: Schwartz sits comfortably cocooned — passive, suspended — in a first-class passenger rack aboard a Japan Air Lines rocket, nine kilometers above the Coral Sea. And this much is fantasy: the same Schwartz has passage on a shining starship gliding silkily through the interstellar depths, en route at nine times the velocity of light from Betelgeuse IX to Rigel XXI, or maybe from Andromeda to the Lesser Magellanic.

Escape Pod 152: The Big Guy

First appeared in Jim Baen’s Universe, June 2007

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:30 — 26.5MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R. Contains strong language and testosterone.

Today’s Sponsor:
Infected by Scott Sigler

Referenced Events:
Penguicon: April 18-20, 2008
Sex 2.0: April 12, 2008

The Big Guy

By Mike Resnick

“Okay,” said Fishbait. He tossed a ball to the Big Guy.
“Let’s try a little one-on-one. Ralph, let’s see what you can do
against Jacko here.”

The Big Guy took a look at me, his face totally expressionless. I moved forward to lean on him a little, just enough to make contact and see which way he was going to move when he began his drive to the basket, but before I got close enough to touch him he’d already raced by me and stuffed the ball through the hoop.

“Again,” said Fishbait.

EP BONUS: PodCastle 001: Come Lady Death

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:20 — 28.4MB)

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PodCastle, our fantasy fiction podcast, has finally launched with its first episode. Rachel and company are presenting “Come Lady Death,” one of the earliest and strongest stories by legendary fantasy writer Peter S. Beagle.

You should go straight over to PodCastle.org and follow the subscription links — but just to let you know what you’re missing if you don’t, we’re posting the full episode on the Escape Pod feed. We’ll only do this once or twice, so if you want your fantasy fix, subscribe today!

Escape Pod 151: Behind the Rules

First appeared in Forgotten Worlds, July 2006

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:35 — 21.0MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R. Contains strong language and relationship drama.

Today’s Sponsor:
Infected by Scott Sigler

Closing music: “I Feel Fantastic” by Jonathan Coulton.

Behind the Rules

By Stephanie Burgis

The first Jacqui wrote me out a list of instructions thirty pages long. It contained all her history with Robert, in detail. It gave me a list of all the things to say and do when he’s hurt, or angry, or depressed. I think she was the perfect wife. When I think about how hard it is to measure up to her, my stomach feels twitchy.

I’d been doing this job for three months. It was supposed to get easier with time, not harder.

Escape Pod 150: This, My Body

Explicit sexual material

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:01:00 — 41.9MB)

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Show Notes

Rated X. Contains graphic sexual and culinary scenes.

Today’s Sponsor:
Infected by Scott Sigler

This, My Body

By Jeremiah Tolbert

I am the lover. I am the chef. I am the preterite priest.

I am the secret, unknowable ingredient. You may taste me a thousand times, but never hold my essence on your tongue or capture it in your memory.

I am the flavor of ecstasy. Taste me and know God.
–Prayer of the Assaisonnement Saints

Escape Pod 149: Union Dues: All That We Leave Behind

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:30 — 27.8MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R. Contains profanity and violence.

Today’s Sponsor:

Infected by Scott Sigler

Referenced Sites:

The Union Dues Series

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

Union Dues: All That We Leave Behind

by Jeffrey R. DeRego

If I just lay here they will get tired and leave. They can’t hurt me all that much; my body is too hard now, too strong. But I can’t let on that their kicks and punches don’t bother me or who knows what they’ll do next. So I’ll lay here, curled up in the grass like some lump of igneous rock cast from a far away volcano.

“You fat assed son of a bitch! Talk to Loreen again and I’ll kill you! You understand me? I’ll beat your fat lazy ass to death!”

I bet his foot is starting to ache. My stomach is big, but it’s not soft. Not anymore. Not since last month when the change happened. We don’t have a lot of money so my wardrobe is still designed for a three hundred pound teenager, the kind with an almost unnatural love for pizza and potato chips. I still sort of look the same. But I am different, I can feel it. The rolls of flab that once encircled my belly and back are nearly gone, replaced by rippling muscle. My arms and legs are like tree trunks. I could rip Scott’s arms and legs off and beat his torso like a kettledrum. Well, if I wasn’t terrified.

Escape Pod 148: Homecoming at the Borderlands Café

First appeared in Jigsaw Nation, ed. Edward J. McFadden III and E. Sedia.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:26 — 21.6MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG. Contains heavy racial and political themes.

Referenced Sites:
Decoder Ring Theatre

Homecoming at the Borderlands Café

By Carole McDonnell

We don’t see a lot of mixed couples around here, and we’re not like some of the other states in the Confederate United Republic. It’s not like they’re gonna get killed or lynched or nothing. But it’s tough just the same. And although it’s weird enough that they’re an interracial couple, it seems to me that they’re arguing about something bigger than merely coming into this café.

I don’t know any Blacks. You got to go to Laramie, or Cheyenne to see them. But I watch Cosby when it’s on. The Confederacy ain’t as bad as the folks in Columbia might think. Sure everyone’s segregated, but it’s all equal and the Platte County school district is pretty good about African-American History Month.