Genres:

Escape Pod 116: Ej-Es

First appeared in Stars: Stories Based On Janis Ian Songs, ed. Janis Ian & Mike Resnick.

Rated PG. Contains passing sexual references and graphic medical description.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:00 — 37.1MB)

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Show Notes

Blog of the Week:
Three Laws Unsafe

Ej-Es

by Nancy Kress

Mia didn’t reply. Her attention was riveted to Esefeb. The girl flung herself up the stairs and sat up in bed, facing the wall. What Mia had see before could hardly be called a smile compared to the light, the sheer joy, that illuminated Esefeb’s face now. Esefeb shuddered in ecstasy, crooning to the empty wall.

“Ej-es. Ej-es. Aaahhhh, Ej-es!”

Mia turned away. She was a medician, but Esefeb’s emotion seemed too private to witness. It was the ecstasy of orgasm, or religious transfiguration, or madness.

“Mia,” her wrister said, “I need an image of that girl’s brain.”

Escape Pod 115: Conversations With and About My Electric Toothbrush

Escape Pod 115: Conversations With and About My Electric Toothbrush is an Escape Pod original.

Rated G. Contains a very mild reference to vibrating appliances.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:30 — 15.5MB)

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Show Notes

Referenced Sites:
U.S.S. Mariner
Senses Five Press

Conversations With and About My Electric Toothbrush

by Derek Zumsteg

“I read an interesting forum post last night,” my electric toothbrush told me over its low burr.

“Thiff ouff thew be thood,” I said through my mouth of foam.

“It was!” he replied. “Using readily available components, Monkeymonkey turned his Intellibrush into a milk frother.”

I spit into the sink and set my toothbrush in its white ceramic charger. “What would I do with a milk frother?”

“Make cappucinos,” my toothbrush said, with a hint of resignation, as I rinsed and spit again.

“I don’t drink cappucinos,” I said.

“You could start!”

Escape Pod 114: Cloud Dragon Skies

First appeared in Strange Horizons, August 2005.

Rated PG. Contains passing nudity and apocalyptic themes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:15 — 25.6MB)

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Show Notes

Referenced Sites:
Superior Audio Works
Serve It Cold

Closing music: “The Fall,” by Red Hunter.

Cloud Dragon Skies

by N. K. Jemisin

I was a child when the sky changed. I can still remember days when it was endlessly blue, the clouds passive and gentle. The change occurred without warning: one morning we awoke and the sky was a pale, blushing rose. We began to see intention in the slow, ceaseless movements of the clouds. Instead of floating, they swam spirals in the sky. They gathered in knots, trailing wisps like feet and tails. We felt them watching us.

We adapted. We had never taken more than we needed from the land, and we always kept our animals far from water. Now we moistened wild cotton and stretched this across our smoke holes as filters. Sometimes the clouds would gather over fires that were out in the open. A tendril would stretch down, weaving like a snake’s head, opening delicate mist jaws to nip the plume of smoke. Even the bravest warriors would quickly put such fires out.

Escape Pod 113: Ishmael in Love

First appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1970.

Rated R. Contains explicit anatomical description and non-human sexual activity.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:30 — 27.1MB)

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Show Notes

Related Links:
Steve’s LiveJournal (cleaning updates)

Ishmael in Love

by Robert Silverberg

I am a lonely mammalian organism who has committed acts of heroism on behalf of your species and wishes only the reward of a more intimate relationship [“love”] with Miss Lisabeth Calkins. I beseech compassionate members of H. sapiens to speak favorably of me to her. I am loyal, trustworthy, reliable, devoted, and extremely intelligent. I would endeavor to give her stimulating companionship and emotional fulfillment [“happiness”] in all respects within my power.

Permit me to explain the pertinent circumstances.

Escape Pod 112: The Giving Plague

First appeared in Interzone #23, 1988.

Rated PG. Contains intended violence, epidemics, and deep technical dialogue.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:30 — 36.1MB)

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Show Notes

Referenced Sites:
Geek Fu Action Grip
Heinlein Society Blood Drives

The Giving Plague

by David Brin

Yeah, you viruses need vectors, don’t you. I mean, if you kill a guy, you’ve got to have a life raft, so you can desert the ship you’ve sunk, so you can cross over to some new hapless victim. Same applies if the host proves tough, and fights you off — gotta move on. Always movin’ on.

Hell, even if you’ve made peace with a human body, like Les suggested, you still want to spread, don’t you? Big-time colonizers, you tiny beasties.

Oh, I know. It’s just natural selection. Those bugs that accidentally find a good vector spread. Those that don’t, don’t. But it’s so eerie. Sometimes it sure feels purposeful…

Escape Pod 111: Mayfly

First appeared in Strange Horizons, September 2006.

Rated R. Contains sexual scenes and other deep biological imperatives.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:25 — 19.5MB)

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Mayfly

by Heather Lindsley

The reflection of what appears to be a girl of eleven looks back at me from the full-length mirror in the bedroom that was my mother’s. Together we spit out yet another baby tooth, which reminds me I need to drink another calcium-enriched protein shake. Either that, or eat what remains of my mother.

She’s the pile of coarse dust scattered across the bedsheets. Some of my kind swear by mother dust, the way certain factions among the rest of the population swear by breast feeding. And there are benefits, whether you’re still a kid with growing bones or an adult woman facing osteoporosis by the end of the week.

But my mother is not strawberry-flavored, so I opt for the shake.

Escape Pod 110: Frankie the Spook

First appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 1990.

Rated PG. Contains some coarse language and imagery, and potentially offensive literary theories.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:40 — 23.8MB)

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Frankie the Spook

by Mike Resnick

Marvin leaned forward and squinted at Bacon’s image on his computer screen. “Will you do it?”

“Will the greatest writer in the history of the human race ghostwrite your pitiful little novel?” sneered Bacon. “Absolutely not.”

“But you ghosted for Shakespeare!” protested Marvin. “That’s why I had my computer assemble you.”

“Marvin, go write limpware and leave me alone.”

“It’s called software.”

Escape Pod 109: Squonk the Apprentice

Escape Pod 109: Squonk the Apprentice is an Escape Pod original.

Rated G. It’s a children’s story about a dragon raised by a bluebird. Set content expectations accordingly.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:00 — 28.9MB)

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Show Notes

Referenced Sites:
EP070: Squonk the Dragon
“How to Talk to Girls at Parties” by Neil Gaiman
2007 Hugo Nominees

Squonk the Apprentice

by P. M. Butler

“What’s a ‘prentice?”

Without thinking, Wendel answered. “An apprentice is young person who wants to be a wizard, so they find an older wizard to teach them.”

The moment the words left his mouth, Wendel’s heart stopped and his eyes went wide. If he’d known a spell that could grab those words and stuff them back down his throat, he would have cast it.

Instead, those words scampered all the way across his bedroom, as words are inclined to do, and rushed into the ears of the dragon in the window. Wendel watched in horror as the words sunk into Squonk’s brain. Squonk’s eyes grew wide, his mouth dropped open, and before Wendel could think of anything to say–

“You can learn to be a wizard?! That’s awesome! I wanna be a wizard! Lemme be your ‘prentice!”

Genres:

Escape Pod 108: Kin

First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, February 2006.

Rated PG. Contains implied violence and morally complex themes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:30 — 21.7MB)

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Show Notes

2007 Hugo Nominee!

Referenced Sites:
The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories by Bruce McAllister
Balticon 2007 Trip Report

Kin

by Bruce McAllister

The alien and the boy, who was twelve, sat in the windowless room high above the city that afternoon. The boy talked and the alien listened.

The boy was ordinary — the genes of three continents in his features, his clothes cut in the style of all boys in the vast housing project called LAX. The alien was something else, awful to behold; and though the boy knew it was rude, he did not look up as he talked.

He wanted the alien to kill a man, he said. It was that simple.

Escape Pod 107: Eight Episodes

First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, June 2006.

Rated PG. Contains some suggestive imagery, references to infidelity, and not very good television.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:00 — 22.0MB)

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Show Notes

2007 Hugo Nominee!

Referenced Sites:
World Science Fiction Society
Steve’s LiveJournal

Eight Episodes

by Robert Reed

Eighteen months later, the fledging Web network declared bankruptcy, and a small consortium acquired its assets, including Invasion of a Small World. Eager to recoup their investment, the new owners offered all eight episodes as a quick-and-dirty DVD package. When sales proved somewhat better than predicted, a new version was cobbled together, helped along by a genuine ad budget. The strongest initial sales came from the tiny pool of determined fans–young and well educated, with little preference for nationality or gender. But the scientists in several fields, astronomy and paleontology included, were the ones who created a genuine buzz that eventually put Invasion into the public eye.