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EP083: Ulla

Posted on 2006.12.23 at 20:56
Current Mood: mellow
Tags: ,
By Daniel Schwabauer.


Read by Jared Axelrod (of The Voice of Free Planet X) and J.R. Blackwell (of Voices of Tomorrow).


The world we now occupy is red, fourth from its sun, and extreme in its temperature. The atmosphere is lethal. Without our shelters we would die. But we will not be here long. Already the attack-cylinders, loaded with machinery and the weapons of destruction, stand ready in the firing tubes. Soon I shall be sending you thoughts from the third planet.

I have loved you.

Rated PG. Contains violence, chemical warfare, and heavy moral themes.


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EP082: Travels With My Cats

Posted on 2006.12.23 at 20:54
Current Mood: calm
Tags: ,
2005 Hugo Winner!

By Mike Resnick.

Read by Stephen Eley.

That night I was faced with a major decision. I didn’t want
to read a book called Travels With My Cats by a woman called
Miss, but I’d spent my last nickel on it — well, the last until
my allowance came due again next week — and I’d read all my other
books so often you could almost see the eyetracks all over them.


So I picked it up without much enthusiasm, and read the first
page, and then the next — and suddenly I was transported to Kenya
Colony and Siam and the Amazon. Miss Priscilla Wallace had a
way of describing things that made me wish I was there, and when I
finished a section I felt like I’d been there.


Rated PG. This product may be too disillusioning for young children.


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Referenced sites:
PodDisc.com
DragonHearth Productions (by Tracy and Laura Hickman)

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EP079: Mountain, Man

Posted on 2006.11.16 at 11:05
Tags: ,
By Heather Shaw.
Read by Stephen Eley.

"Look, miss, I'm going to have to cut your hair to do this. Is that all right?"

She smiled at him from her upside-down, bent-over position, so he took that as a yes. He found an old pair of garden shears and took a hunk of her hair, gathered it into a rough ponytail, and hacked it off.

A pair of mountain bluebirds flew out from where the nest of hair had been.

Rated PG. Contains non-explicit sex, accidental assault, and geological scatology.


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EP078: The Shoulders of Giants

Posted on 2006.11.06 at 15:41
Tags: ,
By Robert J. Sawyer.
Read by Stephen Eley.

The Pioneer Spirit was a colonization ship; it wasn’t intended as a diplomatic vessel. When it had left Earth, it had seemed important to get at least some humans off the mother world. Two small-scale nuclear wars—Nuke I and Nuke II, as the media had dubbed them—had already been fought, one in southern Asia, the other in South America. It appeared to be only a matter of time before Nuke III, and that one might be the big one.

SETI had detected nothing from Tau Ceti, at least not by 2051. But Earth itself had only been broadcasting for a century and a half at that point; Tau Ceti might have had a thriving civilization then that hadn’t yet started using radio. But now it was twelve hundred years later. Who knew how advanced the Tau Cetians might be?


Rated PG. Contains minor profanity, and very tame references to populating new worlds. Hey, someone's got to.


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EP Interview: Worldcon Survey

Posted on 2006.09.14 at 11:36
Tags: , ,
Interviewed by Stephen Eley.

A random sampling of people in the Worldcon dealer's room on Saturday, August 26. The question: "What first inspired you to become passionate about science fiction?"


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EP066: The King's Tail

Posted on 2006.08.10 at 14:23
Current Mood: satisfied
Tags: ,
By Constance Cooper.
Read by The Knitwitch (of Knitwitch's SciFi/Fantasy Zone).

On one occasion-he flinched to remember it-the invaders had brought him Cthara eggs. Warm, fertilized eggs, likely ripped just that day from the hatching burrow of some poor herder family. It had been the greatest challenge the Creator had ever sent him. His fangs had unfolded without his conscious will, and only a lifetime of piety and self-control had kept him from sinking them into the small bodies of the terrified guards.

His venom had dripped onto the filthy floor, and after the guards left he had lain shuddering in the dampness, feeling the leathery eggs by his flank gradually cool and die. Over and over he repeated the litany of the Prophet: "People shall not sink fang into other speaking people. People shall not eat the flesh of other speaking people. People shall not make war..."

Rated PG. Contains slavery, heavy moral themes, and some violence.


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Referenced sites:
Invasion: The Complete Series on DVD
Gradients of Sight
Dragon*Con: Atlanta, GA, September 1-4
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EP065: A Green Thumb

Posted on 2006.08.10 at 14:12
Current Mood: busy
Tags: ,
By Tobias S. Buckell.
Read by Matthew Wayne Selznick (of Brave Men Run).

When Jerry walked out across his lawn to catch the morning bus to Effendale High, he stopped to admire the new car Mr. Atkinson had growing in his lawn. Jerry could see the doors stretching up towards the roof, small branches of metal trying to reach their stringy edges up and around the rough frame. It looked like a regular car had melted, but in reverse. Every day Jerry stepped out, he could see more of the car’s gray paneling filling in around the rough frame. Mr. Atkinson tended towards planting larger luxury cars, like any other retired old man. The half-finished Caddilac sat in between the rose bushes and posies that Mrs. Atkinson cared for. Both car and bushes glinted with a fresh coating of morning dew.

Rated PG. Contains profanity and adolescence. (Wait, that's redundant.)


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Referenced sites:
Escape Pod on Wikipedia
Worldcon: Anaheim, CA, August 23-27
Dragon*Con: Atlanta, GA, September 1-4
Podcast & Portable Media Expo: Ontario, CA, September 29-30
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EP064: Head of State

Posted on 2006.07.27 at 10:25
Current Mood: complacent
Tags: ,
By Ed W. Marsh.
Read and Produced by Wichita Rutherford (of 5 Minutes With Wichita).

"There's a reason we don't use nano to cut the President-Chairman's hair. You know about the assassination attempt three years ago?"

Everyone did. "I thought he was fully recovered."

"What's left of him. Yes. All of that civilian nano would interfere with crucial signals sent and received by the nano in use by the MedTechs. Can't risk it. That bomb was nasty. What I'm telling you is classified, obviously. We have no intention of presenting Arrington to the world as less than the man he deserves to be."

Rated PG. Contains one instance of profanity, heavy politics, and split ends.


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Referenced sites:
Worldcon: Anaheim, CA, August 23-27
Bring Sigler's Ancestor to Sci Fi!
Wil Wheaton
EP061: I Look Forward To Remembering You
EP055: Down Memory Lane
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EP Flash: Stuck in an Elevator with Mandy Patinkin

Posted on 2006.07.06 at 15:26
Current Mood: busy
Tags: , ,
By Kitty Myers.
Read by Mur Lafferty (of Geek Fu Action Grip).

“Aren’t you Rube, the Grim Reaper in Dead Like Me?”

As he turned to look at me, an expression of amusement spread over his face like a wave of sunshine over a cloudy field. “I’m not a grim reaper in real life,” he mimicked, “but I do play one on TV!”

Rated PG. Contains references to drugs, claustrophobia, and canceled Showtime programming.


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EP060: Creature for Hire

Posted on 2006.07.06 at 15:25
Current Mood: busy
Tags: ,
By Paul E. Martens.
Read by Mark Forman (of Getting A Leg Up and The Ex-Wife files).

"But, Morty, I'm an alien. Christ, I'm The Alien, the only one on the whole damned planet. There's got to be something." It occurred to me that my apartment was too big. It seemed to be getting bigger every day. And when I considered the rent vis a vis my bank account balance, the place was huge.

"The novelty's worn off, kiddo. I'm surprised it lasted for four movies. And that last one didn't really count, just a walk-on in a dream sequence. The point is, people aren't going to keep paying to see something they've already seen, even if he is an alien. I mean, it's not like you do anything. You're just there, you know?"

Rated PG. Contains minor innuendo, minor swearing, and some grotesque imagery. No livestock were harmed in the making of this podcast.


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EP059: Anyone Can Whistle

Posted on 2006.06.23 at 13:51
Current Mood: complacent
Tags: ,
By David Walton.
Read by J.R. Blackwell (of 365 Tomorrows and Voices of Tomorrow).

In the center of the room, on a platform, was our Dokja-not the humanoid body she took in VR, but a blue mass of flesh with dry fish-like skin that pulsated as she breathed. She had no definitive shape, no arms or legs or tentacles, or even a face. Her only prominent feature was a taut membrane stretched tightly over an opening at the top of her body. One section of that membrane was covered over with an elaborate breathing apparatus, and the familiar array of VR electrodes were attached to what must have been her central nervous system.

I felt ill just looking at her. But I knew therapy would readjust my feelings.

Rated PG. Contains innuendo and some violence.


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Referenced sites:
Guild Wars
John W. Campbell Award
Chronigma (David Walton’s puzzles)
2006 Podcast Awards
Podcast Awards Promo (MP3)
Podcast Awards Promo (AIFF)
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EP054: Tk’tk’tk

Posted on 2006.05.19 at 15:26
Current Mood: busy
Tags: , ,
Published on 18 May 2006 at 8:00 am.
Rated PG.
By David D. Levine.
Read by Paul Tevis (of Have Games Will Travel).

Shkthh pth kstphst, the shopkeeper said, and Walkers hypno-implanted vocabulary provided a translation: What a delightful object. Chitinous fingers picked up the recorder, scrabbling against the aluminum case with a sound that Walker found deeply disturbing. What does it do?

It took him a moment to formulate a reply. Even with hypno, Thfshpfth was a formidably complex language. It listens and repeats, he said. You talk all day, it remembers all. Earth technology. Nothing like it for light-years. The word for light-year was hkshkhthskht, difficult to pronounce. He hoped hed gotten it right.
Rated PG. Contains scatology and crimes against pronunciation.


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Referenced sites:
2006 Hugo Nominees
Shelley the Republican
CAP Alert System
Bento Fanzine
National PTA
Rescuing Recess

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