Genres: Classic S-F
Escape Pod 490: Flowers for Algernon
Flowers for Algernon
by Daniel Keyes
[EDITOR: We don’t have the rights to post the text of this story, but it’s widely available online by searching.]
Posts Tagged ‘Alasdair Stuart’
Genres: Multiverse
Escape Pod 488: In Another Life
In Another Life
by Kelly Sandoval
Waking after a night spent slipping, I reach for Louisa automatically, rolling into the empty space where she belongs. I lick the memory of her from my lips, languid with sex. The alarm shrieks from my bedside table but I’ve gotten good at ignoring it.
We went skating. Louisa wore a purple sweater and, giggling and unsteady, clung to my arm. We kissed on the ice and she pressed herself against me, her frozen fingers sneaking under my coat to stroke my back. It’s her laughter I cling to. These days, I only hear her low, honeyed laugh when I’m slipping. I miss the warmth of it.
But it fades. Even the taste of her fades.
I tell myself it’s all right. That it’s necessary. I’ve got an appointment with my therapist at noon. If I’m still clinging to the night’s slip, he’ll know I haven’t been taking my medication.
No help for it. I drag myself out of bed and hit the alarm. My head pounds and the world blurs along the edges. I’ve slipped for three nights straight and ice skating with Louisa is nothing like sleeping. If I don’t take a day off soon, it’ll start to get dangerous.
My therapist would say it’s already dangerous. But he doesn’t understand what I’ve lost.
I’ve got four houses to show before my appointment, and a lot of coffee to drink to be ready for them. He’ll make a thing of it, if I’m late. He always does.
The hours dribble past, hazy and distant. It’s like I left a shard of myself in my alter and can’t quite get back in step with my timeline. When the charming young couple at house two asks me about financing I try to answer, only to be distracted by the ghost of a red-headed boy rushing past in pursuit of a large gray bunny. The woman selling the house wears her red curls pulled back in a tight bun. She’s childless, though abandoned rabbit hutches sit moldering in the back yard, lowering her property values.
Does she slip, stealing moments with this laughing, clumsy boy?
Genres: Apocalyptic
Escape Pod 478: People of the Shell
People of the Shell
by Brian Trent
Egypt’s rolling ice-dunes were suddenly peppered by a new ashstorm, as if a bowl of soot had overturned in the heavens. King Cyrus held up his fist and the war drummer ceased his rhythmic pounding, the oarsmen relaxed, and the sandship ground to a halt in the slush. The ash sprinkled Cyrus’ cloak and collected in his beard. He leaned against the deck rails and stared.
“Do you see that?” Cyrus asked his daughter, lowering his facemask around his smile. “Look!”
The girl squinted. “Are those the pyramids, father?”
“As I promised you.”
Three fires danced high in the darkness. In a world of never-ending night, the Egyptians alone had devised a brilliant defiance. The Giza pyramids were like magical lighthouses, capstones removed, their vast bodies filled with pitch, and red fires lit to smolder like desperate offerings to the vanished sun.
Standing on the sandship deck alongside his king, the Magus Jamshid said, “May they welcome us warmly. We are in no condition to fight.”
“I did not need a fight to take Babylon,” Cyrus reminded him.
“That was before the Hammerstrike, my lord.”
But the king waved his hand dismissively. “I will go to them and look in their eyes, and speak to them as friends, and trust that generosity has not perished with the trees.”
The withered magus grunted derisively. He was bearded and ancient, his skin like the patina of old scrolls. Jamshid wore a dark blue turban, facemask, and a scintillating black robe the same color as his pitched eyebrows. His gaze smoked like hot iron.
The Season
It’s a new year! Celebrations and congratulations all around, as we have successfully survived, both as a species and as individuals (presuming you are reading this text from a computer and not, like, Valhalla). That means, however, a new awards season is coming. If you want to support Escape Pod, then please, feel free to nominate us for awards such as the Hugos, the Nebulas, or the Parsecs. Escape Pod publishes both text and audio, so that gives some flexibility in how you nominate us. For example, with the Hugos we are eligible for Best Fancast and Best Semi-Pro-Zine.
We’d also love to see some of the authors we publish see their own work highlighted. The stories are, after all, the whole point of the exercise. With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of the award-eligible fiction we ran in 2014.
The following short stories were originally published in EscapePod in 2014:
“That Other Sea,” by William Ledbetter
“Kumara,” by Seth Dickinson
“An Understanding,” by Holly Heisey
“To Waste,” by Luke Pebler
“Rockwork,” by R. M. Graves
“The Sky is Blue, and Bright, and Full of Stars,” by Edward Ashton
“Checkmate,” by Brian Trent
“Trash,” by Marie Vibbert
“Inseparable,” by Liz Heldmann
“Shared Faces,” by Anaea Lay
“The Mercy of Theseus,” by Rachael K. Jones
“Soft Currency,” by Seth Gordon
“The Golden Glass” by Gary Kloster
The following stories were originally published somewhere else in 2014, but reprinted in Escape Pod that same year. (If you want to nominate any of these, please do so naming the original venue, even if you heard them first with us.):
“The Transdimensional Horsemaster Rabbis of Mpumalanga Province,” by Sarah Pinsker, originally published in Asimov’s
“A Struggle Between Rivals Ends Surprisingly,” by Oliver Buckram, originally published in F&SF
“Repo,” by Aaron Gallagher, originally published in Analog
“Enjoy the Moment,” by Jack McDevitt, originally published in the anthology “The End is Nigh”
“This is as I Wish to Be Restored” by Christie Yant, originally published in Analog
Hat tip to datameister David Steffen of Diabolical Plots for volunteering to help put this list together!
Escape Pod 475: Homegrown Tomatoes
Show Notes
Mentioned in Alisdair’s commentary: KT Tunstall “Black Horse”
Homegrown Tomatoes
by Lara Elena Donnelly
When I pick Louisa up from school, All Things Considered is on the radio, playing a round table discussion about the virus. One person believes that the disease ravaging the corn belt is a government experiment gone awry. The reporter reminds the audience: botanists speculate it was brought to the U.S. by an invasive species of beetle. I recognize a few of the interviewees—I studied their research back when I was still pursuing my doctorate. Before I met Ann, before we had Louisa. It’s strange, thinking I could have been on NPR some day, if I had finished my degree.
I turn the radio off before Louisa is buckled in. The virus has been the only thing on the news for a week. Louisa’s teacher talked about it with her class a little bit, but I don’t want Louisa to get worried, so Ann and I don’t mention it much at home.
“Daddy,” she says, buckling herself in. “Can we plant my tomatoes when we get home?”
Louisa’s tomatoes started out as a kindergarten project last spring, but quickly escalated into a backyard plot sized right for a small-town farmers’ market. Ann and I thought she would forget about them this year, but in February she asked if we could plant tomatoes again.
“Sure, cookie. But you have to do your homework first.”
She shakes her head. “Mommy said she would help with my homework.”
I sigh. Ann won’t be home until Louisa is in bed. She called at lunch today and said her boss wanted a story on the virus before she left the office—it’s starting to appear outside the Midwest now, affecting fields in New England. There are signs that it might be spreading to wheat and other grasses.
Genres: Robot
Escape Pod 471: Shared Faces
Shared Faces
by Anaea Lay
Dora’s favorite thing about Justin was that he liked to talk during sex. A good conversation turned him on, and he’d keep it up until the breathless, incoherent stage right before the end. They weren’t at that stage quite yet. Soon. At the moment she was nibbling the flesh at the very top of his thigh.
What’s the spot for the sexbot to spot the spot of the plot damn spot
You’ll never get it out
The music fell from the speakers in a manic rush and Dora shifted her pace to match it. Her skin tingled in response to his arousal, her body automatically configuring itself to comply with the program they’d designed together before starting.
“Ugh, I hate this song,” Justin said.
Dora tightened her hand around him as she let go with her teeth. The conversation kept her mind engaged, prevented her from slipping completely into brain-dead-Bot mode. “Really? I like it. It’s catchy.”
“It’s awful,” Justin said. “Haven’t you seen the video?”
She had, and he was right, it was awful. A Sex Bot got jealous of her primary client’s human lover and attacked her. As if the heart-break of watching the client defend the lover weren’t enough, the video went on to lovingly depict the brutal punishment and dismantling of the offending bot. Dora’s skin went clammy-cold when she’d watched it.
“Yeah, but the nastiness isn’t in the actual lyrics, and it is really catchy.” (Continue Reading…)
Escape Pod 470: The Transdimensional Horsemaster Rabbis of Mpumalanga Province
The Transdimensional Horsemaster Rabbis of Mpumalanga Province
by Sarah Pinsker
I. Options for an Imagined Pictorial Eulogy of Oliver Haifetz-Perec
IMAGE 1: The photograph depicts an unmade bed covered in gear and clothing. A military-style duffel, half filled, dominates the shot. A camera bag sits next to it, cameras and lenses and lens cleaners laid out neatly alongside.
IMAGE 2: Shot from the center of the bed. A shirtless man reaches for something high in the closet. He has the too-thin build of an endurance runner, his bare back lanky and muscled. There is a permanent notch in his left shoulder, from where his camera bag rests. A furrow across his back tells of a bullet graze in Afghanistan. The contrast of his skin and his faded jeans plays well in black and white. A mirror on the dresser catches Yona Haifetz-Perec in the act of snapping the picture, her face obscured but her inclusion clearly deliberate. Multiple subjects, multiple stories.
IMAGE 3: This photograph does not actually exist. A third person in the room might have taken an intimate portrait of the two alone in their Tel Aviv apartment, photographers once again becoming subjects. A third person might have depicted the way her freckled arms wrapped around his torso, tender but not possessive. It might have shown the serious looks on both of their faces, the way each tried to mask anxiety, showing concern to the room, but not each other. They have the same career. They accept the inherent risks. They don’t look into each other’s faces, but merely press closer. It would have been the last photograph of the two together. Eleven days later, he is beaten to death in Uganda. His press credentials, his passport, his cameras, his memory cards, and cash are all found with his body; it isn’t a robbery. Since the third option doesn’t exist, the last picture of Yona and Oliver is the one that she took from the bed: his strong back, her camera’s eye.
IMAGE 4: A Ugandan journalist sent Yona a clipping about Oliver’s death. A photo accompanies the article. It shows a body, Oliver’s body, lying in the street. Yona doesn’t know why anyone would think she would want to see that photograph. She does; she doesn’t. She could include it, make people face his death head on.
Instead she opts for
IMAGE 5: in which Oliver plays football with some children in Kampala, his dreadlocks flying, his smile unguarded (photographer unknown), and IMAGE 6.
Escape Pod 462: Women of Our Occupation
Show Notes
Recorded live at LonCon3.
Women of Our Occupation
by Kameron Hurley
[EDITOR: We don’t have the rights to post the text of this story.]
Escape Pod 460: The Ink Readers of Doi Saket
Show Notes
This story has been nominated for a Hugo Award.
Please, also remember our friend P.G. Holyfield and donate to his fund if at all possible.
The Ink Readers of Doi Saket
by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
[EDITOR: We don’t have the rights to post the text of this story.]
Escape Pod 459: The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere
Show Notes
This story has been nominated for a Hugo Award. (Edited to add: Winner of the 2014 Hugo Award for best short story!)
Please, also remember our friend P.G. Holyfield and donate to his fund if at all possible.
The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere
by John Chu
[EDITOR: We don’t have the rights to post the text of this story.]