Escape Pod 259: The Lady or the Tiger
Show Notes
Show Notes:
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- Feedback for Episode 251: Unexpected Outcomes.
Next week… How fast can dreams run?
The Lady or the Tiger
By J. M. McDermott
The only thing I could think of to take my mind off of Sheila, and the crash, was asking my brother about Guj Sarwar, the tiger on the back of the great and mighty lizard, Samarkand. When I was a boy, I didn’t understand why it was the only other thing I could think about, like something was on the tip of my tongue.
And, Jiri knew everything there was to know about the wastes of the far west, the lizards, and the tigers. He was fifteen years old. Next year, he’d be driving cattle up the highway to Io Town in a flyer all by himself. I was only ten. I didn’t even have my own computer terminal yet. I had to share his when he wasn’t using it. Everything I knew about the wastes had been from the computer, and from Jiri.
“On the wastes, Simsa,” said my brother, “you can’t walk on the ground. The sand is all quicksand. It sucks you up and swallows you. You have to ride on the back of giant lizards as big as walking mountains. There’re only twenty-five lizards. They have names.”
About the Author
J. M. McDermott
J. M. McDermott’s first novel was plucked from a slush pile and went on to be #6 on Amazon.com’s Year’s Best SF/F of 2008, shortlisted for a Crawford Prize, and on Locus Magazine’s Recommended Reading List for Debuts. His short fiction has appeared in Weird Tales Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, Apex Magazine, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, among other places. He has a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston, and an MFA in Popular Fiction from the Stonecoast program of the University of Southern Maine.
By night, he wanders a maze of bookshelves and empty coffee cups, and by day he wanders the streets of San Antonio, where he lives and works.
He tries to write in between.
About the Narrator
Grant Baciocco
Grant Baciocco is a content creator and performer on the forefront of all things new media. He then went on to work for the Jim Henson Company as the creator, producer and host of the Henson.com Podcast. His comedy music act, Throwing Toasters, has toured clubs and colleges across the country, played a sold-out show at the Tokyo Dome in Japan, had several #1 hits on the Dr. Demento show and opened for “Weird Al” Yankovic. For 5 years he served as an associate producer on Joel Hodgson’s Cinematic Titanic. He can also be seen weekly as a ringside interviewer on Championship Wrestling from Hollywood. He is also the creator/owner of Saturday Morning Media, a trans-media company focused on creating quality family friendly content.
