Posts Tagged ‘Mur Lafferty’

Escape Pod 260: The Speed of Dreams

First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction

Rated PG: For mild drug use.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:08 — 14.5MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • Sponsored by Audible – get a free book today when you sign up for your free trial!
  • Feedback for Episode 252: Billion-Dollar View.

Next week… Love, the viral kind.

The Speed of Dreams

By Will Ludwigsen

Paige Sumner

8th Grade Science Fair Paper Draft

Introduction

It happens all the time: you’re sitting in class, listening the best you can while Mister Waters goes on and on about atoms or sound waves or whatever, when suddenly you fall asleep. Your head lolls against your shoulder and some drool oozes from the side of your mouth. Luckily, Missy Woo kicks you in the knee to wake you up before someone notices, like Mister Waters or–worse–Austin.

What’s weird is that in those few minutes of sleeping, you dream like hours of stuff. You’re all hanging out or playing basketball or walking the mall while everybody else is slowly raising their hands and taking notes. They all get twenty four hours that day, but you get a little extra.

But how much extra?

Genres:

Escape Pod 258: Raising Jenny

First appeared in the anthology Not Of Woman Born

Rated G: Not for kids, but nothing to worry about if you listen around the kids.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:43 — 34.8MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • Congrats on the Hugo winners and the Parsec winners!
  • We announce the winners of the flash contest.
  • Feedback for Episode 250: Eros, Philia, Agape.

Next week… Difficult decisions, ladies, and tigers.

Raising Jenny

By Janni Lee Simner

“I know I can’t do anything about this–” she gestured toward the tangled blankets, the hospital bed, the pale walls. “But I’ve asked the doctors to take some cells–I still have a few healthy ones left, you know, and they’ll keep for some time–“

I could guess the rest. But Susan, ever the biologist, had her lecture after all. “It doesn’t work like that.” Her voice was gentle, as if she were speaking to one of her two sons, not to Mom. “A clone isn’t the same as the original. Your clone would be no more like you than–than one identical twin is like another. It wouldn’t be–” Susan’s voice caught. “It wouldn’t be you.”

“You don’t know,” Mom said. “None of the clones are old enough to ask yet. They’re just babies.”

Escape Pod 250: Eros, Philia, Agape

Originally published in: Tor.com

Rated PG for marital strife and implied child abuse.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:53 — 48.1MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • This is a long one, we’re bringing occasional novelettes to Escape Pod now, and what better to launch the effort than a Hugo nominee?

Next week… Escape Pod looks at an alternate history with alternate aliens.

Eros, Philia, Agape

By Rachel Swirsky

The objects belonged to them both, but Adriana waved her hand bitterly when Lucian began packing. “Take whatever you want,” she said, snapping her book shut. She waited by the door, watching Lucian with sad and angry eyes.

Their daughter, Rose, followed Lucian around the house. “Are you going to take that, Daddy? Do you want that?” Wordlessly, Lucian held her hand. He guided her up the stairs and across the uneven floorboards where she sometimes tripped. Rose stopped by the picture window in the master bedroom, staring past the palm fronds and swimming pools, out to the vivid cerulean swath of the ocean. Lucian relished the hot, tender feel of Rose’s hand. I love you, he would have whispered, but he’d surrendered the ability to speak.

Escape Pod 249: Little M@tch Girl

Originally published in: Tumbarumba

 

Rated R for one sexual scene and drug use.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:22 — 17.5MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • We’re back, we hope you liked our Hugo offering! Be sure to vote before July 31!

Next week… Escape Pod ventures into the world of novellas.

Little M@tch Girl

By Heather Shaw

It wasn’t that Em disapproved of drug use, you just had to be savvy about which drugs you took. Back before she had to get a day job, she was a M@tch girl, much to the delight of the guys on the club scene. M@tch wasn’t a wimpy drug, but it didn’t turn you into a murderous street zombie either. It was also expensive — a designer “where it’s @!” drug — that the Tweakers couldn’t afford anyway.

Escape Pod Special: Solitary as an Oyster (re-record)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:04 — 30.3MB)

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Many people have asked for the edit of one of our Christmas stories, Solitary as an Oyster, which suffered some technical difficulty. Sadly, with all the editorial changeover this spring, it ended up on the back burner. But now, six months from Christmas, we give you a treat in the heat of summer (norther hemisphere, anyway): Solitary as an Oyster by Mur Lafferty.

Escape Pod 243: I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno

Simultaneously appearing in Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 1, June 1, 2010.

Rated PG-13: for sexual description.

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:56 — 21.9MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • Thanks to John Joseph Adams and Lightspeed Magazine for the opportunity to run this fantastic story at the same time as their launch. Go check out their magazine and subscribe!
  • Enter the Escape Pod Flash Contest! It runs June 1- July 4, stories must be under 500 words. More information at the link.

Next week… we begin our annual Hugo short stories rundown, with five weeks of award-nominated stories! I’m taking a 4-week break from hosting, but I’ll see you in July!

I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno

By Vylar Kaftan

I knew you loved me, of course. It was written in your eyes when you looked at me, a physics problem with no clear answer. If an irresistible force meets an immovable object, what happens then?

They meet. That’s all we know. Relative to each other, they are in contact. From within the object or the force, there is no way to tell if you’re in motion.

Escape Pod 231: Solitary as an Oyster

Escape Pod 231: Solitary as an Oyster is an Escape Pod original.

Rated PG. Contains ghostly visitations. Film at 11.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:46 — 35.7MB)

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Show Notes

Special Closing Music: “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” by Twisted Sister.

Solitary as an Oyster

By Mur Lafferty

“Who’s there?” the voice asked, rough and unpleasant. Robert and Lydia glanced at each other.

“The Paranormalists, Mr. Scrooge. You called us a couple of hours ago,” Robert said.

“Took you long enough,” the voice said. The door clicked as Scrooge unlocked several locks, and finally it slid open a couple of centimeters. Scrooge peered out, the heavy chain still on the door. Jenny flipped the night vision off her camera to get a clear view of him in the foyer’s dim light. He was much smaller than his voice implied, a diminutive man who was probably a bear in the conference room, but a pussycat when in thin pajamas and a robe.

Well, not a pussycat. Something more like a weasel.

Escape Pod 184: As Dry Leaves That Before the Wild Hurricane Fly

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:20 — 34.6MB)

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Show Notes

Rated G. Contains Santa revisionism and aerial combat.

Special Closing Music: “Chiron Beta Prime,” by Jonathan Coulton.

As Dry Leaves That Before the Wild Hurricane Fly

By Mur Lafferty

Comet and Cupid were fifteen, and took after their father, both spending the most time in the workshop tinkering with Father’s tools. Christmas was coming soon and they were preparing their yearly trip to the same orphanage that had cared for them. With nine children to raise on his own, Claus could no longer adopt, but he still found it very important to care for the children in any way he could. So he took a load of toys to the children every year, with his children helping him distribute.

Their siblings sat around their great sitting room, some crowding on sofas, some sitting on chair cushions or arms, and Rudolph, the baby at eleven, sat at his father’s feet. He was an imposing man with a barrel chest and wild white hair and beard. When he would get excited about a project, his blue eyes would twinkle and he’d look like a madman.

Escape Pod 166: The Something-Dreaming Game

First appeared in Fast Forward 1, ed. Lou Anders

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:03 — 26.8MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R. Contains children engaging in extremely dangerous practices. Parental guidance STRONGLY recommended.

Referenced Sites:
Brave Men Run: A Novel of the Sovereign Era

The Something-Dreaming Game

By Elizabeth Bear

First, there’s the pressure.

A special kind of pressure, high under Tara’s chin, that makes her feel heavy and light all at once. She kneels by the chair and leans across the edge, because if she faints, the chair will roll away and she won’t choke. She’s always careful.

After the pressure she gets dizzy, and her vision gets kind of… narrow, dark around the edges. It’s hard to breathe, and it feels like there’s something stuck in her throat. Prickles run up and down her back, down her arms where the pain used to be, and a warm fluid kind of feeling sloshes around inside her. She slides down, as things get dark, and then she starts to dream.

But not like night time dreams. These are special.

Escape Pod 137: Citytalkers

Escape Pod 137: Citytalkers is an Escape Pod original.

Rated PG. Contains moderate violence and stronger weather.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:11 — 32.4MB)

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Show Notes

Referenced sites:
Heifer International
Podsafe Music Network (Terms of Use)

Closing Music: “O Come All Ye Faithful,” performed by Twisted Sister

Citytalkers

by Mur Lafferty

Gloria blinked. “Why do the people in Cleveland love Christmas more than anywhere else?”

Toby grinned and spread his hands on the bar, unadorned fingers splayed. He stared at them, “I didn’t say Cleveland’s people loved Christmas. I said Cleveland.”

“And you’re saying Charlotte doesn’t like Christmas?”

Toby took a deep breath and let it out. “Oh, no. I’m saying Charlotte flat out hates Christmas.”

Gloria kept her voice level, the best thing to do when dealing with a crazy person. “And why do you think this?”

“I’m an urban shaman. A citytalker. I’m here to talk to Charlotte to find out why it’s unhappy.”

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