Escape Pod Flash: Standards
Show Notes
Rated G. Contains proven impossibilities.
Statement from Rachel Swirsky:
Richard K. Lyon died on November 21. When I contacted him last month to ask if he still wanted this piece to run on our podcast, he said that the doctors didn’t give him long, but that he hoped this would give the world “one last laugh.”
Escape Artists dedicates this production to his memory. We wish the best to him, and to his family.
Standards
By Richard K. Lyon
After careful examination of your manuscript no 113785, Corbamite, An Insulator Against Gravity, the editors of Review of Physics have concluded that it is not suitable for publication in this journal. This decision is final and further correspondence on this subject will serve no useful purpose.
Since the above may seem somewhat harsh, let me say what I can to mitigate it. The editors do appreciate that you are working under difficult circumstances: when the senior author of a paper is deceased, it is always hard for the junior author to complete the work in an appropriate manner. Also let us assure you that we do believe you. You have told us that with his dying breath Professor Steinhardt handed you his notebook and said, “Have this published in Review of Physics.” Such an action would be completely in character for Steinhardt since he was a true scientist.
As for your claim that Professor Steinhardt made this statement as he was expiring from disintegrator rays wounds suffered during your escape from the City of Disembodied Brains on Altair IV, our believing that is a somewhat different matter but we need to go into that.
About the Author
Richard K. Lyon
Richard K. Lyon was by profession a semiretired research scientist, in chemical kinetics applied to air pollution problems. By avocation he was a second generation science fiction fan and first generation writer. On his own he sold quite a few stories to Analog, etc. With Andy Offutt he did three Tiana books (DEMON IN THE MIRROR, EYES OF SARSIS, WEB OF THE SPIDER) all for Pocket Books, and a novel that was serialized in Analog, RAILS ACROSS THE GALAXY.
About the Narrator
Frank Key
Frank Key was a British writer, blogger and broadcaster best known for his self-published short-story collections and his long-running radio series Hooting Yard on the Air, which was broadcast weekly on Resonance FM from April 2004 to September 2019, when he passed away. Frank co-founded the Malice Aforethought Press with Max Décharné and published the fiction of Ellis Sharp.
