Escape Pod 117: Reggie vs. Kaiju Storm Chimera Wolf
Show Notes
Referenced Sites:
Knitwitch’s Sci-Fi & Fantasy Zone on Talkshoe
Reggie vs. Kaiju Storm Chimera Wolf
by Matthew Wayne Selznick
Yarborough led them through the impromptu village of broad white tents, rows of outhouses, sensor towers, and heavy weapons installations that had obliterated the turf of the athletic field. They stopped at the fence on the edge of the hilltop.
“You can get a pretty good look at the swath, here.”
On a day without monsters, it would have been a nice view. You could see most of the town center, and all the way to Pacific Coast Highway the misty ocean beyond. A wide, flat, smoking scar of ruin cut from the water to a shopping center half a mile inland.
Genres: Medical
Escape Pod 116: Ej-Es
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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!”