Escape Pod 211: Carthago Delenda Est
Carthago Delenda Est
By Genevieve Valentine
Wren Hex-Yemenni woke early. They had to teach her everything from scratch, and there wasn’t time for her to learn anything new before she hit fifty and had to be expired.
“Watch it,” the other techs told me when I was starting out. “You don’t want a Hex on your hands.”
By then we were monitoring Wren Hepta-Yemenni. She fell into bed with Dorado ambassador 214, though I don’t know what he did to deserve it and she didn’t even seem sad when he expired. When they torched him she went over with the rest of the delegates, and they bowed or closed their eyes or pressed their tentacles to the floors of their glass cases, and afterwards they toasted him with champagne or liquid nitrogen.
Before we expired Hepta, later that year, she smiled at me. “Make sure Octa’s not ugly, okay? Just in case—for 215.”
Wren Octa-Yemenni hates him, so it’s not like it matters.
About the Author
Genevieve Valentine
Genevieve Valentine has written Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti (2012 Crawford Award), The Girls at the Kingfisher Club. Persona, and Icon. She has written CATWOMAN for DC Comics, and XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS for Dynamite. She has written more than sixty short stories, which have been nominated for the World Fantasy Award and the Shirley Jackson Award, and have appeared in over a dozen Best of the Year anthologies, including Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Her cultural criticism has appeared at NPR.org, The AV Club, Strange Horizons, LA Review of Books, Vice, Vox, and The New York Times, among others.
About the Narrator
Kate Baker
Kate Baker is the Podcast Director and Non-fiction Editor for Clarkesworld Magazine. She has been very privileged to narrate over 400 short stories/poems by some of the biggest names in Science Fiction and Fantasy.
She has been nominated for a Parsec Award, and a World Fantasy Award. Kate won the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine in 2011 and 2013, the British Fantasy Award for Best Magazine in 2014 and the World Fantasy Award for Special Award: Non Professional in 2014 alongside the wonderfully talented editorial staff of Clarkesworld Magazine.
Kate is also currently lending her voice to The Dark Magazine podcast and has also read for various other audio venues such as Cast of Wonders, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Podcastle, StarShipSofa, Escape Pod, Nightmare Magazine, Mash Stories, and The Drabblecast.
She has completed a few audiobooks too, all of which can be found on her narrations page.
Kate is also a professional SFF genre writer. You can find her short stories at various venues. Check out the writing tab for links.
Kate is currently situated in Northern Connecticut with her first fans; her wonderful children. She is currently working as the Executive Director for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
