Escape Pod 08: Lachrymose and the Golden Egg

Show Notes

Rated PG. Contains slight profanity, drug use, and violence against were-ape ninjas.


Lachrymose and the Golden Egg

By Tim Pratt

“Foul temptress?” I said, stepping back, clanking in my armor. A suit of plate mail often appears when I’m startled. I wished the armor away and replaced it with soft green leggings and a deerskin shirt. “Wily seductress?”

“Damsel in distress.” She leaned against a tree, hands clasped before her.

I clutched my stick and looked around. “Immediate distress, or general distress?” I worried about ogres, or killbots. They often menace damsels, and when the wind’s wrong, you can’t smell them coming, neither rotten meat nor engine oil. It’s hard to hurt an ogre or a killbot with a staff, but I’m useless with a sword. I used a blade on my first few outings, but after chopping off my feet six times, I switched to a stick.

About the Author

Tim Pratt

Tim Pratt

Tim Pratt is the author of over 20 novels, most recently Philip K. Dick Award finalist The Wrong Stars. As T.A. Pratt he wrote ten novels in the Marla Mason urban fantasy series. His stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Year’s Best Fantasy, and other nice places. He’s a Hugo Award winner for short fiction, and has been a finalist for World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Stoker, Mythopoeic, and Nebula Awards, among others. He’s a senior editor at Locus magazine, and lives in Berkeley CA with his family. Every month he writes a new story for his Patreon supporters at www.patreon.com/timpratt.

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About the Narrator

Serah Eley

Serah Eley is a chaos spirit who first appeared in 2013, from the right cerebral hemisphere of a former podcaster named Steve Eley. Best known as the founding editor and host of Escape Pod, with the famous signoff “Have Fun,” Steve realized he was having more fun as Serah and gave her the body for transition and general mayhem.  Now much prettier than Steve and at least seventy percent weirder, Serah lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her spouse Sadi and collects stories too fantastic to be fiction. If you ask nicely she may even tell some of them. Very nicely.

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