Archive for OK for Kids

Escape Pod 197: From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled…

First appeared in Asimov’s Feb 2008

Rated PG. Contains the destruction of cities, a lack of trust, and sentient suits.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:00 — 40.5MB)

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From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled…

By Michael Swanwick

Imagine a cross between Byzantium and a termite mound. Imagine a jeweled mountain, slender as an icicle, rising out of the steam jungles and disappearing into the dazzling pearl-grey skies of Gehenna. Imagine that Gaudí—he of the Segrada Familia and other biomorphic architectural whimsies—had been commissioned by a nightmare race of giant black millipedes to recreate Barcelona at the height of its glory, along with touches of the Forbidden City in the eighteenth century and Tokyo in the twenty-second, all within a single miles-high structure. Hold every bit of that in your mind at once, multiply by a thousand, and you’ve got only the faintest ghost of a notion of the splendor that was Babel.

Now imagine being inside Babel when it fell.

Genres:

Escape Pod 196: Evil Robot Monkey

First appeared in the Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, vol. 2 edited by George Mann.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:10 — 13.8MB)

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Show Notes

Special closing monkey music by George Hrab

Evil Robot Monkey

By Mary Robinette Kowal

Sliding his hands over the clay, Sly relished the moisture oozing around his fingers. The clay matted down the hair on the back of his hands making them look almost human. He turned the potter’s wheel with his prehensile feet as he shaped the vase. Pinching the clay between his fingers he lifted the wall of the vase, spinning it higher.

Someone banged on the window of his pen. Sly jumped and then screamed as the vase collapsed under its own weight. He spun and hurled it at the picture window like feces. The clay spattered against the Plexiglas, sliding down the window.

Escape Pod 195: 26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss

First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 2008.

Rated PG. Contains 26 monkeys. Also, the abyss.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:41 — 22.5MB)

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Show Notes

Narration first appeared at and produced by Starship Sofa. Special thanks to Tony Smith and Diane Severson for their kind permission to resyndicate this award nominee.

26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss

By Kij Johnson

She sets a stepladder next to it. She claps her hands and the 26 monkeys onstage run up the ladder one after the other and jump into the bathtub. The bathtub shakes as each monkey thuds in among the others. The audience can see heads, legs, tails; but eventually every monkey settles and the bathtub is still again. Zeb is always the last monkey up the ladder. As he climbs into the bathtub, he makes a humming boom deep in his chest. It fills the stage.

And then there’s a flash of light, two of the chains fall off, and the bathtub swings down to expose its interior.

Empty.

Escape Pod 194: Exhalation

First appeared in Eclipse 2, ed. Jonathan Strahan.

Rated PG. Contains entropy, eschatology, and empirical evisceration.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:24 — 35.3MB)

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Show Notes

2009 Hugo Nominee Winner!


Narration first appeared at and produced by Starship Sofa. Special thanks to Tony Smith and Ray Sizemore for their kind permission to resyndicate this award nominee.

Exhalation

by Ted Chiang

But in the normal course of life, our need for air is far from our thoughts, and indeed many would say that satisfying that need is the least important part of going to the filling stations. For the filling stations are the primary venue for social conversation, the places from which we draw emotional sustenance as well as physical. We all keep spare sets of full lungs in our homes, but when one is alone, the act of opening one’s chest and replacing one’s lungs can seem little better than a chore. In the company of others, however, it becomes a communal activity, a shared pleasure.

Escape Pod 193: Article of Faith

First appeared in Baen’s Universe, October 2008.

Rated PG. Contains religious themes and some violence.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:41 — 28.6MB)

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Article of Faith

By Mike Resnick

“I’m sure,” I said. “Somehow, lunch seems pretty trivial after you’ve been thinking about God all morning.”

“God, sir?”

“The Creator of all things,” I explained.

“My creator is Stanley Kalinovsky, sir,” said Jackson. “I was not aware that he created everything in the world, nor that his preferred name was God.”

I couldn’t repress a smile.

Escape Pod 192: Sumo21

First appeared in Abyss & Apex, 2005

Rated PG. Contains death, betrayal, hauntings, and a challenging amount of Japanese.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:00 — 36.4MB)

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Sumo21

By Daniel Braum

“Oh great Emperor,” the gyoji said, continuing the ritual. “These two honorable warriors can not agree who will step aside, and who will join the sacred battle to return you to us. We would gladly send all our sons, but the Council of Infinite Japans says there may be only twenty-one. So now they must fight to decide.”

“May the best warrior join the fight,” the crowd answered in unison with the gyoji.

The gyoji stepped back. Asashoryu stared into Takanasuro’s expressionless brown eyes. The match would begin upon a tacit agreement between them. He kept Takanasuro’s mid section in his field of vision while focusing on keeping his own face blank. He knew the beginner’s lesson as if it were part of him; faces deceive and betray, but all movement starts at the hips.

Genres:

Escape Pod 191: This Is How It Feels

First appeared in Asimov’s, March 2008

Rated PG. Contains themes of death and child endangerment.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:38 — 25.9MB)

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This Is How It Feels

By Ian Creasey

Nathan’s eyes stung as he remembered how Jenny used to do just that: the same jump down the stairs, the same windmilling of her arms as she landed…. The grief swept over him like a palpable wave, making him stagger backward.

“Dad?” Christopher kicked his backpack down the hall to the door. “You all right?”

“It’s nothing,” said Nathan. He rubbed the implant-port behind his right ear. It’s nothing. It’s not real.

But it felt real.

Escape Pod 190: Origin Story

Escape Pod 190: Origin Story is an Escape Pod original.

Rated PG. Contains sibling rivalry and comic book deconstruction.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:58 — 23.3MB)

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Show Notes

Special closing music: “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton.

Origin Story

By Tim Pratt

He didn’t call himself The Aerialist at first. The newspapers came up with that later. He called himself Kid Kangaroo of all things, because of the jumping from rooftop to rooftop, even though I made fun of him, called him “Joey,” made jokes about dingoes. Nobody knows his secret identity but me, and I only found out because I snuck into the treehouse one night to smoke a cigarette and found him changing out of his leotard and tights and domino mask. He was only fifteen. I still remember what he said: “Don’t tell anyone — if my identity is discovered, you and mom and dad could be used against me.”

Escape Pod 189: The Botox School of Acting

Escape Pod 189: The Botox School of Acting is an Escape Pod original.

Rated PG. Contains profanity and shallow motivations.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:26 — 21.6MB)

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The Botox School of Acting

By Liz Shannon Miller

Only the best gain acceptance. Harry cannot be bought. Twice a year, he attends the fashion shows, looking for an unknown to transform, but most of the time they come to him — the beautiful, the elegant, the desperate. They plead with him, their eyes containing all the emotion their faces cannot show. The beauties who want to be brilliant, who want to move beyond the limitations of their appearance. Who want to act.

“Boxtresses”, people call his students, and Harry doesn’t bother to correct the gender assumption, because his class for actors is still ostensibly secret. No one wants to believe that action heroes need to avoid aging. It’s their love interests who need to stay fresh.

Escape Pod 186: Chrysalis

Originally appeared in Aoife’s Kiss (2008)

Rated G. Contains alien emotional drama.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:11 — 18.7MB)

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Show Notes

Sponsored by CONTAGIOUS, by Scott Sigler.

Chrysalis

By Mary Robinette Kowal

People ask me if I ever get involved with the subjects of my documentaries. I have a difficult time imagining that they would ask my male colleagues the same question, but they seem to expect women to be more emotional. In response, I tend to grit my teeth and answer very patiently with another question. How could I do my job if I were part of the story? Only by maintaining a sacred distance could I have any hope of understanding someone’s life. A documentarian records, but does not participate.

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