Rated R. Contains graphic violence and disturbing images.
“Piper,” I screamed, fumbling in my purse. Too late. He brought his pipe to his lips and blew a note that almost made my eyeglasses shatter. Over at the sandbox, Nathan rose to his feet. He started moving towards the man. All the children did.
Rated PG. Contains sexual situations and, unrelated, the loss of innocence.
So, the Godmother. She takes ragged, smudged things and turns them into beautiful Princesses. Why, I don’t know. A hobby? A calling? An obsession? Is she righting the wrongs done to her when she was young?
When I first started here, I had a fantasy. That the Godmother would pluck me out of the row of humpbacked, squinting Seamstresses and make me, too, a beautiful Princess. With a gown sewn by…well, by the poor wenches too old or ugly to catch the Godmother’s eye.
If you live in the New York area, you’ll get not one, but two (count ’em!) chances to hear about Escape Pod on the radio Friday night.
At 11:30 PM, WUSB on Long Island will be airing Destinies: The Voice of Science Fiction. Chris DeFilippis will be featuring us in his “De Flip Side” segment.
Then, at 5 AM on WBAI, Escape Pod narrator Deborah Green will be on Hour of the Wolf with Jim Freund. She’ll be reading from her novel Soulbound, so if you love Deb’s voice this is your chance to hear more of it.
Both radio stations offer streaming from their Web sites (and WBAI has archived streaming of recent shows) so if you’re not in New York you’ll still be able to catch these. Enjoy!
Rated PG. Contains graphic food-based sensuality and soulless marketing.
They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, so I suppose it’s no wonder that the twice-cooked pork the beautiful chef placed in that depressing buffet line kicked me in the mouth like a South American soccer superstar with bad aim. There was never twice-cooked pork like the twice-cooked pork I tasted that snowy day at the Cheerful Panda.
A video game by Keita Takahashi.
Reviewed by Stephen Eley.
Rated R. Contains strong religious themes, graphic violence, and aggressive Zen.
It was Christmas Eve and that nasty, strung-out feeling of anticipation clotted the air like a cheap deodorizer. I hate Christmas the most–all that insincere, pious yap about “peace on
earth, goodwill towards men.” I was cruising down the expressway, on my way back from dismantling an illegal manger scene someone had erected at the river park, keeping an eye out
for graffiti, you know–“Where will _you_ spend eternity?” or “Buddha lives!”–that kind of crap, spray-painted on underpasses right where impressionable schoolchildren could see it. The last rays of the setting sun were painting the highway a faint rose when I spotted a broken-down van with the metal outline of a stylized fish just above the back bumper. The short hairs crawled up the back of my neck. Them fish guys have been some of my worst busts.
This seems to be the week for annoying problems:
Rated PG. Contains violence, alcohol, and gratuitous time travel.
“‘He was the most skillful gambler, and the nerviest, fastest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever saw.’ Do you know who said that, Doctor?”
He coughed politely and sat in a nearby chair. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, I’d be more interested in who they were talking about.”
She laughed softly, and seemed to turn her attention to him fully for the first time. “Wyatt Earp said those words about you, Doctor. At your funeral, I suspect, though I don’t know for sure.”
Brodie approached the line of scrimmage and both sides of the field erupted. The red-robed fans in the visitor’s stands surged like a crimson wave, swaying in unison as they began the Rite of Interception. They stamped their feet against the aluminum bleachers, chanting as they drew gleaming blades across the bellies of countless doomed rattlesnakes. Their blood spilled, the snakes were then hurled onto the field. The rain of reptiles sounded like bacon burning in a skillet as the animals protested their own sacrifice.
A film by Michael Bay.
Reviewed by Jonathon Sullivan.
