http://escapepod.org The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine. Each week Escape Pod delivers science fiction short stories from today's best authors. Listen today, and hear the new sound of science fiction! Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:05:07 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=6140 2005-2011 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0 editor@escapepod.org (Mur Lafferty) editor@escapepod.org (Mur Lafferty) science fiction 1440 science fiction, sf, stories, audiobooks, storytelling, fiction, short fiction, short story The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine. Each week Escape Pod delivers science fiction short stories from todayapos;s best authors. Listen today, and hear the new sound of science fiction! Mur Lafferty Mur Lafferty editor@escapepod.org No no http://escapepod.org/wp-content/images/pod-org-icon300.jpg http://escapepod.org 144 144 http://escapepod.org/2012/02/09/ep331-devour/ http://escapepod.org/2012/02/09/ep331-devour/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:09:29 +0000 Mur Lafferty http://escapepod.org/?p=3147 http://escapepod.org/2012/02/09/ep331-devour/feed/ 0 00:01:01 By Ferrett Steinmetz Read by Dave Thompson Discuss on our forums. An Escape Pod Original! All stories by Ferrett Steinmetz All stories read by Dave Thompson Rated 15 and up ... By Ferrett Steinmetz Read by Dave Thompson Discuss on our forums. An Escape Pod Original! All stories by Ferrett Steinmetz All stories read by Dave Thompson Rated 15 and up for language, brief sexual imagery, brief violent imagery Devour By Ferrett Steinmetz "I want some water," Sergio says. nbsp;The bicycle chains clank as he strains to put his feet on the floor. Sergio designed his own restraints. nbsp;He had at least fifteen plumbers on his payroll who could have installed the chains - but Sergio's never trusted anything he didn't build with his own hands. nbsp;So he deep-drilled gear mounts into our guest room's floral wallpaper, leaving me to string greased roller chains through the cast-iron curlicues of the canopy bed. "You're doing well, Bruce," he lied, trying to smile - but his lips were already desiccated, pulled too tight at the edges. nbsp;Not his lips at all. I slowed him down; I had soft lawyer's hands, more used to keyboards than Allen wrenches. nbsp;Yet we both knew it would be the last time we could touch each other. nbsp;So I asked for help I didn't need, and he took my hands in his to guide the chains through what he referred to as "the marionette mounts." Then he sat on the bed and held out his wrists while I snapped the manacles on - the chamois lining was my idea - and we kissed. nbsp;It was a long, slow kiss that needed to summarize thirty-two years of marriage. And it should have been comforting, but his mouth was a betrayal. nbsp;His lips had resorbed from their lush plumpness. nbsp;His tongue had withdrawn to a stub. His kiss still sent flutters down my spine. I pressed my hands against his back, moving towards making love, but Sergio pushed me away. nbsp;"We don't know how transmissible this is," he said. nbsp;Then he tugged on the chains to verify he could lie down and sit up, but not leave the bed. I pressed the keys into his palm, trying to burn the feeling of his skin into mine forever. nbsp;He snipped the keys in half with a bolt-cutter, then flung it all into the corner. "That's that," he said, and rolled away from me to cry. nbsp;My arms ached - still ache - from not being able to hold him. Six days later, I'm still here. nbsp;And Sergio is still leaving. "I want some water," he repeats now. nbsp;Louder, more insistent. nbsp;Too angry to be really Sergio. "You never wanted water before," I say, keeping a careful distance from the bed. nbsp;"You like orange juice." Sergio tries to put his head in his hands. nbsp;The chains pull him short. "For Christ's sake, Bruce," he says. nbsp;"I'm dying. nbsp;There are going to be changes." "Yes," I say guardedly. nbsp;"There are." "And it's apple cider I like. nbsp;In a chilled glass. nbsp;From the local guao yan, no, orchard - and not that sugared crap you like. nbsp;Don't try to trick me, okay? nbsp;It's just insulting to." He almost says to us, but then shudders. "I'm not going to do anything crazy with water," he begs. nbsp;"I can't turn it into. what's the word? nbsp;Flamethrowers. nbsp;It's water. nbsp;I'm just. thirsty. I'll fight with you about the things that matter, but. "Just get me some damn water!" he barks. nbsp;I stare at him, knowing the old Sergio never yelled, wondering how much is left. Because I can see the traces of a young Sergio within the thing trapped in the four-poster right now. nbsp;Sergio always had that perfect, youthful mix of good cheekbones and lean muscle. nbsp;Now, his thighs and biceps are swollen like a hormone-stuffed steer - but aside from that, Sergio would be the envy of any plastic surgeon. nbsp;His crow's feet have been pulled from his skin, his collagen replenished. nbsp;His hair, once a brilliant mane of salt-and-pepper curls, has turned a lank black at the roots. nbsp;It looks like some horrid dye job grown out, all that silver dangling from ends of Patient Zero's flat, dark strands. It makes me fe... 13,and,Up,,EP,Original,,Podcasts Ferrett Steinmetz no No http://escapepod.org/2012/01/26/ep329-pairs/ http://escapepod.org/2012/01/26/ep329-pairs/#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:55:13 +0000 Mur Lafferty http://escapepod.org/?p=3075 http://escapepod.org/2012/01/26/ep329-pairs/feed/ 0 00:01:01 By Zachary Jernigan Read by Matt Franklin of Fly Reckless Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in Asimov's, April 2011 All stories by Zachary Jernigan All stories read by ... By Zachary Jernigan Read by Matt Franklin of Fly Reckless Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in Asimov's, April 2011 All stories by Zachary Jernigan All stories read by Matt Franklin Rated 17-and-up for violence, language, and sexual imagery. Pairs by Zachary Jernigan I had been practicing turning myself into a knife. Between star systems I gathered and focused my particles into a triangle, a sharp shape. Hurling myself against the diamond-hard walls of my small ship, the point of the weapon hardened. I honed myself. You see, I had decided to murder my employer. I had studied his weaknesses and come to believe myself capable of the act. I did not know when and where, nor did I know what would trigger it. I simply knew it had to happen. On that day I would either die or buy myself a measure of freedom. Originally, this was the extent of my plan: To serve myself. My name is Arihant. I am one of two humans still inhabiting a physical form, diminished though it is. Outside the walls of my ship, I am in form a faintly translucent white specter, strong and powerfully builtmdash;an artistrsquo;s anatomical model. Over the years it has become difficult to remember what my face looked like, and thus my features are only approximately human, my head bare. My eyes glow the color of Earthrsquo;s sun. I am quite beautiful, Louca tells me. On more than one occasion she has run her hands over the ghostly contours of my body. ldquo;I wish you were solid,rdquo; she once said. ldquo;Oh, Ari. The things I would do to you.rdquo; Louca is the one I am forced to follow and observe. Her name means crazymdash;an appropriate name. She is the second human possessing a body. Technically, her body is a black, whale-shaped ship one hundred meters long, but her avatars take the forms of anything she imagines. Very rarely, she is human, and never the same person twice. More often, she wears the bodies of flying animals. She dreams of flying, which is appropriate. Our profession is transport. For three centuries we have hauled the disembodied souls of Earthmdash;each stored in a projection cubemdash;from star to star to be sold. They are quite expensive, I am told, but I have no understanding of the means of exchange. Nearly everything is hidden from me, and Louca sees nothing. The reason souls are bought varies. Often they are kept as curios. Sometimes they are used to attract customers to the buyerrsquo;s business. My employer used to goad me on these points: ldquo;Is it not wonderful to know your people are put to such good use? Imagine how happy it must make them!rdquo; But I know the truth. Even without physical bodies, men become lonely. They despair and I feel it. Surely Louca feels it; she goes crazier and crazier in such close proximity to ghosts. Before the events of this story, only the luckiest souls were bought in pairs or groups, a rare occurrence. Now, because of Louca and I, it is the rule that souls must be sold in pairs. It is my one accomplishment, making men marginally less alone. Still, I arrange nothingmdash;I have no power over the situation. I follow Louca from a distance of one hundred thousand kilometers, never any closer, and report anything unusual. I need not watch very closely. Loucarsquo;s duty is to dream violent dreams, to defend and deliver her payload. Hopefully, her capacity for violence will never be tested. She is categorically insanemdash;a fact that, my employer insists, makes her uniquely suited to the job of protector. Employer. Job. The terms are ridiculous, for Louca and I are not paid. Our terms of service are not negotiable. I am no onersquo;s employee, but I prefer not to use the word slave. Or master. I cling to life. I value it, though what value it has is measured in a mere handful of molecule... 17,and,Up,,Podcasts Zachary Jernigan no No http://escapepod.org/2011/09/22/ep311-the-faithful-soldier-prompted/ http://escapepod.org/2011/09/22/ep311-the-faithful-soldier-prompted/#comments Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:31:07 +0000 Mur Lafferty http://escapepod.org/?p=2672 http://escapepod.org/2011/09/22/ep311-the-faithful-soldier-prompted/feed/ 0 00:01:01 By Saladin Ahmed Read by Rajan Khanna Discuss on our forums. First appeared in Apex Magazine All stories by Saladin Ahmed All stories read by Rajan Khanna Special thanks to ... By Saladin Ahmed Read by Rajan Khanna Discuss on our forums. First appeared in Apex Magazine All stories by Saladin Ahmed All stories read by Rajan Khanna Special thanks to Hugo award winning Starship Sofa for allowing us to use Rajan Khanna's narration that originally ran November 17, 2010. Rated appropriate for 15 and older due to language. The Faithful Soldier, Prompted by Saladin Ahmed If I die on this piece-of-shit road, Lubnarsquo;s chances die with me. Ali leveled his shotgun at the growling tiger. In the name of God, who needs no credit rating, let me live! Even when hersquo;d been a soldier, Ali hadnrsquo;t been very religious. But facing death brought the old invocations to mind. The sway of culture, educated Lubna would have called it. If she were here. If she could speak. The creature stood still on the split cement, watching Ali. Nanohanced tigers had been more or less wiped out in the great hunts before the Global Credit Crusade, or so Ali had heard. I guess this is the shit end of ldquo;more or less.rdquo; More proof, as if he needed it, that traveling the Old Cairo Road on foot was as good as asking to die. He almost thought he could hear the creaturersquo;s targeting system whir, but of course he couldnrsquo;t any more than the tiger could read the vestigial OS prompt that flashed across Alirsquo;s supposedly deactivated retscreens. God willing, Faithful Soldier, you will report for uniform inspection at 0500 hours. Ali ignored the out-of-date message, kept his gun trained on the creature. The tiger crouched to spring. Ali squeezed the trigger, shouted ldquo;God is greater than credit!rdquo; The cry of a younger man, from the days when hersquo;d let stupid causes use him. The days before hersquo;d met Lubna. A sputtering spurt of shot sprayed the creature. The tiger roared, bled, and fled. For a moment Ali just stood there panting. ldquo;Praise be to God,rdquo; he finally said to no one in particular. Irsquo;m coming, beloved. Irsquo;m going to get you your serum, and then Irsquo;m coming home. A day later, Ali still walked the Old Cairo Road alone, the wind whipping stinging sand at him, making a mockery of his old army-issued sandmask. As he walked he thought of homendash;of Free Beirut and his humble house behind the jade-and-grey-marble fountain. At home a medbed hummed quietly, keeping Lubna alive even though she lay dying from the Green Devil, which one side or the otherrsquo;s hover-dustings had infected her with during the GCC. At home Lubna breathed shallowly while Alirsquo;s ex-squadmate Fatman Fahrad, the only man in the world he still trusted, stood watch over her. Yet Ali had left on this madmanrsquo;s errandndash;left the woman who mattered more to him than anything on Earthrsquo;s scorched surface. Serum was her only hope. But serum was devastatingly expensive, and Ali was broke. Every bit of money he had made working the hover-docks or doing security for shops had gone to prepay days on Lubnarsquo;s medbed. And there was less and less work to be had. Hersquo;d begun having dreams that made him wake up crying. Dreams of shutting down Lubnarsquo;s medbed. Of killing himself. And then the first strange message had appeared behind his eyes. Like God-alone-knew how many vets, Alirsquo;s ostensibly inactive OS still garbled forth a glitchy old prompt from time to time God willing, Faithful Soldier, you will pick up your new field ablution kit after your debriefing today. God willing, Faithful Soldier, you will spend your leave-time dinars wiselyndash;at Honest Majoudirsquo;s! But this new message had been unlike anything Ali had ever seen. Blood-freezingly current in its subject matter. God willing, Faithful Soldier, you will go to the charity-yard of the Western Mosque in Old Cairo. She will live. Alirsquo;s attention snapped back to the present as the wind picked up and the air grew thick with san... 13,and,Up,,Podcasts Saladin Ahmed no No http://escapepod.org/2011/08/03/soundproof-10/ http://escapepod.org/2011/08/03/soundproof-10/#comments Wed, 03 Aug 2011 04:16:12 +0000 Bill Peters http://escapepod.org/?p=2497 http://escapepod.org/2011/08/03/soundproof-10/feed/ 0 00:01:01 Download the ePub version here. Hey folksmdash; Short editorrsquo;s note this month to make sure this goes out reasonably on time to all you faithful listeners. Er, ... Download the ePub version here. Hey folksmdash; Short editorrsquo;s note this month to make sure this goes out reasonably on time to all you faithful listeners. Er, readers. Last month saw a bit of mopping-up action on the various nominees with Stone Wall Truth, which got nominated in the novella category for the Nebula, and the space-piratical Leech Run. But most importantly, we hit Episode 300 of the podcast that Steve built with Tim Prattrsquo;s We Go Back. Who Escape Pod goes pretty far back with. His stories are episodes 8, 31 (with Greg van Eekhout), 67, 105, 142, 190, 239, 251 and 276. Hersquo;s probably far and away the Escape Pod fan favorite, and Impossible Dreams is still the story I usually recommend as the entry point for new Escape Pod listeners. Itrsquo;s been a little over a year since Mur took over and I snuck in through an open side Escape Pod airlock (for closed values of open). Wersquo;re still adrift in space, same as it ever was, floating along scanning for the next story, and eventually a planet to set down on. Like many fiction journeys, the path laid out at the beginning is not the path you end up going down, because that would be boring. Until the next, mdash;Bill Uncategorized Mur Lafferty no No http://escapepod.org/2011/07/14/ep301-stone-wall-truth/ http://escapepod.org/2011/07/14/ep301-stone-wall-truth/#comments Fri, 15 Jul 2011 02:51:55 +0000 Mur Lafferty http://escapepod.org/?p=2441 http://escapepod.org/2011/07/14/ep301-stone-wall-truth/feed/ 0 00:01:01 By Caroline Yoachim Read by: Heather Welliver Originally appearing in Asimov's Discuss on our forums. All stories by Caroline Yoachim All stories read by Heather Welliver Nominated for the Hugo Nebula ... By Caroline Yoachim Read by: Heather Welliver Originally appearing in Asimov's Discuss on our forums. All stories by Caroline Yoachim All stories read by Heather Welliver Nominated for the Hugo Nebula Award for Novelette, 2011 Rated appropriate for older teens and up for adult imagery. Stone Wall Truth by Caroline M. Yoachim Njeri sewed the woman together with hairs from a zebra tail. Her deer-bone needle dipped under the womanrsquo;s skin and bobbed back out. The contrast of the white seams against her dark skin was striking. ldquo;The center seam makes a straight line,rdquo; Njeri told her apprentice, ldquo;but the others flow with the natural curves of the body, just as the Enshai River follows the curve of the landscape.rdquo; Odion leaned in to examine her work, his breath warm on the back of her neck. Foolish boy, wasting his attention on her. Njeri set her needle on the table and stood up to stretch. The job was nearly done -- shersquo;d repositioned the womanrsquo;s organs, reconstructed her muscles, sewn her body back together. Only the face was still open, facial muscles splayed out in all directions from the womanrsquo;s skull like an exotic flower in full bloom. ldquo;Why sew them back together, after the wall?rdquo; Odion asked. ldquo;Why not let them die?rdquo; Njeri sighed. The boy had steady hands and a sharp mind, but his heart was unforgiving. He had been eager to learn about the cutting, about the delicate art of preparing a patient to hang from the wall. What he questioned was the sewing, the part of the work that had drawn Njeri to this calling. She studied the woman on the table -- the last surviving grandchild of Radmalende, who had been king when the country was ruled by kings instead of warlords. The two of them had come of age the same spring, and had taken their adulthood rites together. That had been many years ago, but it was hard for Njeri not to think of her childhood friend by name. ldquo;You think I should leave her to die?rdquo; ldquo;Her bones were black as obsidian.rdquo; He traced the center seam with his finger. Njeri said nothing. She admired the woman for her strength; she hadnrsquo;t cried or protested or made excuses. Few women were put on the wall, but this one had faced it as bravely as any man, braver than some. And her shadowself had been like nothing Njeri had ever seen. Dark, of course, but a tightly controlled blackness, an army of ants marching out from her heart and along her bones. A constantly shifting shadow that never rested too long in any one place. ldquo;She made a play for the throne. Killed six Maiwatu guardsmen in the process. Her attack has opened the way for the Upyatu. I heard a rumor today the capitol is still under siege.rdquo; Odion masked the worry in his voice, but Njeri knew he was concerned. He had many friends in the upper echelons of the ruling class -- it was how he came to be apprenticed to the highest ranking surgeon at the longest stretch of wall. ldquo;There is always unrest in the capitol.rdquo; Njeri didnrsquo;t add that this woman had a stronger claim to the citrine throne than most. ldquo;Besides, itrsquo;s not our place to say what people deserve. General Bahtir pays us to take people apart and put them back together, not to judge them.rdquo; Njeri nudged Odion aside. She settled back into her stool, and he went outside to set some water boiling for tea. He didnrsquo;t appreciate being pushed away, didnrsquo;t understand why she didnrsquo;t want him the way he wanted her. She wanted to tell the boy to find someone his own age, someone who liked boys, but Odion wouldnrsquo;t listen. Njeri returned to her work. The womanrsquo;s jawbone hung slack below her skull, but her mouth still closed around the clear stone that held her mind while Njeri patched her body together. The womanrsquo;s eyes stared up at the thatched straw roof, empty, with nothing but bone surround... 13,and,Up,,Podcasts Caroline Yoachim no No http://escapepod.org/2011/07/07/ep300-we-go-back/ http://escapepod.org/2011/07/07/ep300-we-go-back/#comments Thu, 07 Jul 2011 14:59:38 +0000 Mur Lafferty http://escapepod.org/?p=2400 http://escapepod.org/2011/07/07/ep300-we-go-back/feed/ 0 44:29 By Tim Pratt Read by: Mur Lafferty An Escape Pod original! Discuss on our forums. All stories by Tim Pratt All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated appropriate for younger teens ... By Tim Pratt Read by: Mur Lafferty An Escape Pod original! Discuss on our forums. All stories by Tim Pratt All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated appropriate for younger teens and up - occasional adult language. Episode 300! Wow! We Go Back Tim Pratt My best friend Jenny Kay climbed in through my window and nearly stepped on my head. If I'd been sleeping a foot closer to the wall, I would've gotten a face full of her boot, but instead I just snapped awake and said "What who what now?" and blinked a lot. "Oh damn," Jenny said in a loudish whisper. "When did you move your bed under the window?" "Last week," I said, sitting up in bed. "I wanted a change." If you can't rearrange your life, you can at least rearrange yourself, and if your mom won't let you dye your hair blue, you can make do with rearranging your rooms. Jenny Kay dropped from standing to sitting in one motion, making my mattress bounce, and landed cross-legged and totally comfortable. "Hey," she said. "So I need to borrow your ring." I couldn't read her expression in the dim moonlight from the window. I looked at my right hand, where a thin silver ring looped my index finger, catching what light there was in the room and giving back twinkles. The metal grew cold against my skin and tightened a fraction, almost a friendly little squeeze. The ring -- which wasn't really a ring -- could tell when I was thinking about it. "Uh," I said. Jenny nodded vigorously, a motion I felt in the jostling of the mattress more than I saw. "I know! I know. But I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. I mean, you've had the thing for more than a year, and I've never asked once if I could use it, right?" I glanced at my closed door -- no glow under the crack at the bottom, which meant my parents had gone to their separate beds and turned out the hall light -- and switched on my bedside lamp. Jenny was dressed in jeans and a sweater, all in dark grays and blacks, not her usual aggressively flamboyant colorful mishmash style at all. Good for sneaking into people's windows, I guessed. I sat up against the headboard, because when you're about to annoy your best friend, it's better not to be flat on your back at the time. "I wish I could," I said -- not one hundred percent true, but Jenny was a fourteen-year-old genius, not a human lie detector. "But it's, like... part of me. You know? I'm part of the mechanism. I can't just take it off. It's linked into my, what's it called, socratic nervous system?" "Somatic," Jenny said gloomily. She was almost as good at biology as she was at math. "The part of your nervous system that controls movement, which sort of halfway makes sense, I guess." I shrugged. "So, there you go. The ring's not something I wear. It's something that wears me. Or we wear each other. What did you want it for?" She looked away. "Nothing. An errand." I sighed. "Tell me, Jay Kay. Maybe I can help. Is it about a boy?" Jenny just bit her lip. Good enough. The past few months it's pretty much always been about a boy. I took her hand. Me and Jenny go way back, and whenever I say that, older people laugh, because I'm fifteen and she's fourteen, and they're like, you're too young to even have a "way back." But I've known Jenny since she skipped first grade and ended up in my second-grade class, which means I've been her best friend for about half my life, and how many of you old people have a friendship with that kind of percentage? She used to hide me in her basement when things got too bad and I ran away from home, and she's the reason I've never failed a math or science class. I owe her. I'm not saying I'd kill for her or anything, but I mean, I like to think I'd help her bury the bodies. "Okay," I said. "I'll help. Where are we going?" "I don't want to get you into any trouble," she said. "It's my problem, I should really deal with it myself." I shrugged. "Mom stopped doing the middle-of-the-night spot checks mo 10,and,Up,,OK,for,Kids,,Podcasts Tim Pratt no No http://escapepod.org/2011/06/23/ep298-the-things/ http://escapepod.org/2011/06/23/ep298-the-things/#comments Fri, 24 Jun 2011 02:21:46 +0000 Mur Lafferty http://escapepod.org/?p=2367 http://escapepod.org/2011/06/23/ep298-the-things/feed/ 0 56:11 By Peter Watts Read by: Kate Baker (Thanks to Kate and Clarkesworld for the audio!) Originally appearing in Clarkesworld Discuss on our forums. All stories by Peter Watts All stories ... By Peter Watts Read by: Kate Baker (Thanks to Kate and Clarkesworld for the audio!) Originally appearing in Clarkesworld Discuss on our forums. All stories by Peter Watts All stories read by Kate Baker Nominated for the Hugo Award for Short Story, 2011 Rated appropriate for older teens and up for language and disturbing imagery. The Things By Peter Watts I am being Blair. I escape out the back as the world comes in through the front. I am being Copper. I am rising from the dead. I am being Childs. I am guarding the main entrance. The names don't matter. They are placeholders, nothing more; all biomass is interchangeable. What matters is that these are all that is left of me. The world has burned everything else. I see myself through the window, loping through the storm, wearing Blair. nbsp;MacReady has told me to burn Blair if he comes back alone, but MacReady still thinks I am one of him. I am not: I am being Blair, and I am at the door. I am being Childs, and I let myself in. I take brief communion, tendrils writhing forth from my faces, intertwining: I am BlairChilds, exchanging news of the world. The world has found me out. It has discovered my burrow beneath the tool shed, the half-finished lifeboat cannibalized from the viscera of dead helicopters. The world is busy destroying my means of escape. Then it will come back for me. There is only one option left. I disintegrate. Being Blair, I go to share the plan with Copper and to feed on the rotting biomass once called Clarke ; so many changes in so short a time have dangerously depleted my reserves. Being Childs, I have already consumed what was left of Fuchs and am replenished for the next phase. nbsp;I sling the flamethrower onto my back and head outside, into the long Antarctic night. I will go into the storm, and never come back. # I was so much more, before the crash. I was an explorer, an ambassador, a missionary. I spread across the cosmos, met countless worlds, took communion: the fit reshaped the unfit and the whole universe bootstrapped upwards in joyful, infinitesimal increments. I was a soldier, at war with entropy itself. I was the very hand by which Creation perfects itself. So much wisdom I had. So much experience. Now I cannot remember all the things I knew. I can only remember that I once knew them. I remember the crash, though. It killed most of this offshoot outright, but a little crawled from the wreckage: a few trillion cells, a soul too weak to keep them in check. Mutinous biomass sloughed off despite my most desperate attempts to hold myself together: panic-stricken little clots of meat, instinctively growing whatever limbs they could remember and fleeing across the burning ice. By the time I'd regained control of what was left the fires had died and the cold was closing back in. I barely managed to grow enough antifreeze to keep my cells from bursting before the ice took me. I remember my reawakening, too: dull stirrings of sensation in real time, the first embers of cognition, the slow blooming warmth of awareness as body and soul embraced after their long sleep. I remember the biped offshoots surrounding me, the strange chittering sounds they made, the odd uniformity of their body plans. How ill-adapted they looked! How inefficient their morphology! Even disabled, I could see so many things to fix. So I reached out. I took communion. I tasted the flesh of the worldmdash; mdash;and the world attacked me. It attacked me. I left that place in ruins. It was on the other side of the mountainsmdash;the Norwegian camp , it is called heremdash;and I could never have crossed that distance in a biped skin. Fortunately there was another shape to choose from, smaller than the biped but better adapted to the local climate. I hid within it while the rest of me fought off the attack. I fled into the night on four legs, and let the rising flames cover my escape. I did not stop running until I... 17,and,Up,,Podcasts Peter Watts no No http://escapepod.org/2011/06/01/promo-for-the-alphabet-quartet/ http://escapepod.org/2011/06/01/promo-for-the-alphabet-quartet/#comments Wed, 01 Jun 2011 19:10:11 +0000 Mur Lafferty http://escapepod.org/?p=2250 http://escapepod.org/2011/06/01/promo-for-the-alphabet-quartet/feed/ 0 11:45 From Dave Thompson, the co-editor at our sister podcast, Podcastle: In late 2007, I took a trip down to San Diego's Conjecture convention. I'd been listening ... From Dave Thompson, the co-editor at our sister podcast, Podcastle: In late 2007, I took a trip down to San Diego's Conjecture convention. I'd been listening to Escape Pod for a couple of years (PodCastle hadn't even started yet) and so I was thrilled that the very first panel I got to see featured Tim Pratt, Heather Shaw, and Greg van Eekhout. Tim had just won a Hugo for his story "Impossible Dreams" (which I first heard at Escape Pod, yo!) and proceeded to do a collaborative reading of ABC flash fiction. Essentially, they divvied up the alphabet, wrote flash fiction stories for each letter, such as "E is for Excrement" and "N is for Nevermore Nevermore Land." It was a fantastic reading - hilarious, poignant, thrilling, and most of all - they knew how to have fun. I left the convention knowing, just knowing, that one day - this ABC book was going to be big. But nothing happened. Several years passed, and still - nothing happened. And then, toward the end of last year - I realized, I'm at Escape Artists, co-editing PodCastle, and that awesome book I remember? Is out there still, and nobody's heard it. So, I talked to Ben Phillips, and then I talked to Tim, Heather, Greg, and Jenn Reese - who came aboard to help them finish up the collection - and we came up with a plan. I decided it'd be awesome to send the Alphabet Quartet out to listeners who'd been kind enough to sign up as paid subscribers or make a one-time donation to us of $50 or more since January 1, 2011. Times are tough, we know, and not everyone can donate, so all the Escape Artists podcasts are going to be sharing a few of these stories with everyone who wants them (and also at the Drabblecast). Additionally, all the stories are available to read there for free at Daily Science Fiction, a great new online magazine that emails you free SF/F stories daily, so everyone wins. Thanks for listening, and we hope you enjoy the extra stories. Bonus,,Podcasts,,SF/F,News Mur Lafferty no No http://escapepod.org/2011/04/28/ep290-tom-the-universe/ http://escapepod.org/2011/04/28/ep290-tom-the-universe/#comments Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:50:52 +0000 Mur Lafferty http://escapepod.org/?p=2135 http://escapepod.org/2011/04/28/ep290-tom-the-universe/feed/ 0 34:17 By Larry Hodges Read by: Mat Weller An Escape Pod original! Discuss on our forums. All stories by Larry Hodges All stories read by Mat Weller Rated PG-13: sexual situations Tom the ... By Larry Hodges Read by: Mat Weller An Escape Pod original! Discuss on our forums. All stories by Larry Hodges All stories read by Mat Weller Rated PG-13: sexual situations Tom the Universe by Larry Hodges I permeate this universe, which I've named Tom, and guard against its destruction. If someone had done that for the universe I came from, then Mary, my sweet Mary, would still be alive, and I wouldn't have killed her and everyone else when I accidentally destroyed that universe. And now I'm on the verge of destroying much more. Read More... My name is also Tom. I was an undergrad in neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore that January in 2040 when I made the discovery that doomed us all. My field of study was cognitive science, the study of human consciousness. What makes us aware of ourselves? Is it just the biomechanical workings of the brain, or something else? Sherlock Holmes said, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." I spent countless hours in the lab eliminating the impossible, and there didn't seem to be anything left, improbable or not. The interconnectivity required for human consciousness to exist was just too many levels beyond what was possible. By all rights, we should all be unconscious blobs of matter mechanically going about our business as directed by electronic impulses from the brain, with no more consciousness than a calculator. I suffered brain cramps in the lab trying to figure out what improbables were left. When I could think of nothing else to try, it was time to relax and let my subconscious figure it out. So I got out the Frisbee and called my lab partners. Mary, Joey, and I--Tommy, as they called me--called ourselves the "ees." I'd only met Mary when we'd started college, and adored how she laughed when I explained my love for her in neurological terms, with dopamine and neurotransmitters. We did everything together, or so I thought; classes and labs, movies, and late-night bull sessions with pizza and ice cream, usually followed by pints of morning coffee. Our future together was assured; as soon as we graduated, we would get married. I'd even convinced her we should wear purity rings--I had special ones made up with a brain emblem. Joey and I grew up together on the same street, playing stickball and videogames. He and I were going to be buddies for life. Professor Wilson, our adviser, reluctantly let the three of us be lab partners even though he said it's best not to put friends together. Amazingly, we got a lot done when we weren't reading the neurology cartoons taped to the walls or playing with Catzilla, the lab's iguana-bodied, cat-brained hybrid mascot. And then came that morning when we went outside the lab on Charles Street to toss the Frisbee around among the oak trees by the front steps. The fresh air was an escape from the antiseptic stench of the lab. "You throw like a girl!" Joey said when my toss to him banged against the ground, way off line. He stood half a head taller than me, with that eternal mischievous grin I'd known for twenty years. He was the only person in the world who could get away with a ponytailed bouffant, which I would yank every chance. "Like a girl, huh?" Mary said, throwing the Frisbee as hard as she could at Joey, who barely blocked it. Mary grabbed the rebound and faked another throw while Joey cringed. "Want some more?" She was my sweet pixie, five feet of tiger and spice, never still, never silent. Recently she'd taken to tying her long blond hair in a ponytail like Joey, giving me a second target to yank. I was the smart one, with a crew cut. "Okay," Joey said, "you win. You both throw like girls!" Mary smacked him with the frisbee again. As we tossed it around, I became aware of my awareness of the Frisbee's location at any given moment. Somehow my mind tracked this and so many other thi 17,and,Up,,Podcasts Larry Hodges no No http://escapepod.org/2007/05/10/ep105-impossible-dreams/ http://escapepod.org/2007/05/10/ep105-impossible-dreams/#comments Thu, 10 May 2007 09:26:33 +0000 SFEley http://escapepod.org/?p=215 http://escapepod.org/2007/05/10/ep105-impossible-dreams/feed/ 101 47:15 2007 Hugo Nominee! By Tim Pratt. Read by Matthew Wayne Selznick (of Brave Men Run and Writers Talking). First appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, July 2006. All stories by ... 2007 Hugo Nominee! By Tim Pratt. Read by Matthew Wayne Selznick (of Brave Men Run and Writers Talking). First appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, July 2006. All stories by Tim Pratt. All stories read by Stephen Eley. He went to the Sci-Fi shelfsbquo;Auml;icirc;and had another shock. I, Robot was there, but not the forgettable action movie with Will Smithsbquo;Auml;icirc;this was older, and the credits said "written by Harlan Ellison." But Ellison's adaptation of the Isaac Asimov book had never been produced, though it had been published in book form. "Must be some bootleg student production," he muttered, and he didn't recognize the name of the production company. Butsbquo;Auml;icirc;butsbquo;Auml;icirc;it said "winner of the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay." That had to be a student director's little joke, straight-facedly absurd box copy, as if this were a film from some alternate reality. Worth watching, certainly, though again, he couldn't imagine how he'd never heard of this. Maybe it had been done by someone local. He took it to the counter and offered his credit card. She looked at the card dubiously. "Visa? Sorry, we only take Weber and FosterCard." Rated G. Contains excessive movie trivia; some of it true. Today's Sponsor: Referenced Sites: Balticon 2007 For,Kids,,Hugo,Awards,,OK,for,Kids,,Podcasts Mur Lafferty no No