Archive for Podcasts

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Escape Pod 921: Death by Water

“Death By Water” originally appeared in From the Waste Land (PS Publishing, Oct 2022). It was shortlisted for the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Short Story 2022.

Content warning for claustrophic situations and drowning.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:58 — 54.0MB)

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Death by Water

by Grace Chan

I spread you out on the medical bed. Frayed suit, splintered body, frosted eyes.
“I can’t see anything.”
“Lie still. I’ll see what we can salvage.”
“Please, Peiyi.” You twitch, frantic. The odour of wet rot rises into my nostrils. “Just tell me what’s happened to my body. I can handle it.”
I approve the highest dose of sedative and start the scan. “You know I’m not Peiyi.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I know.”

The mountains collapse into swirls of liquid black.

I blink. It’s just an optical illusion. There’s no running water here on Orpheus—impossible at minus sixty degrees Celsius. I’m surrounded by knots of ice and stone, as I’ve been since I arrived yesterday.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 920: Harvest the Stars

Escape Pod 920: Harvest the Stars is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:36 — 29.3MB)

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Show Notes

Theater of the Midnight SunThis episode is sponsored by The Theater of the Midnight Sun podcast, an anthology series of sci-fi/fantasy audio dramas where…

FUN ADVENTURE AWAITS! With wall-to-wall music and nifty stereophonic sound!

THRILL to your own little end of the world from something the size of a spaghetti noodle, in the harrowing tale “Uniform”!

HEAR Santa’s annual “State of the Workshop” address while dodging an army of partying, out-of-control elves in “Goodbye, Cruel World”!

CHUG back a Mountain Dew with a burnt-out Devil who’s bored, bored, bored with his job, in the story “Big Business”!

All this and MORE can be found at The Theater of the Midnight Sun! Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and podcast directories everywhere. Ad-free.

The Reviews Are In!

“A top notch production well worth your time! This troupe of foundlings will have you thrilled, chilled, and laughing out loud! Theater of the Midnight Sun is a serialized podcast anthology worth every minute.”

“Awesome podcast! I am truly in awe of how ‘out of the box’ these podcasts are. Completely love it!”

Harvest the Stars

By Mar Vincent

The summer Sif turned one, the starships were ripe on the vine.

They hulked in fields ringing the town where Tuja had always lived. A place far from big cities, where the starlight they fed on came pure and bright.

“The seeds start out like any seeds; small, unassuming. Until we fertilize them, tend them. Give them space to grow,” Tuja said to the infant on her lap, who must have been more focused on the fingers stuffed in her mouth than the sight of the field crew moving amongst hulls like insects scrambling over gourds. They started in the early afternoon to harvest with the dusk. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 919: Emotional Resonance

Escape Pod 919: Emotional Resonance is an Escape Pod original.

Cursing and warfare

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:17 — 41.8MB)

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Emotional Resonance

By V.M. Ayala

Arbor’s favorite part of a mission was always the first view of a planet. Even after seven hundred years of being a giant robot, it never got old. Green and blue clouds churned over purple seas, imposing storms that flashed red with threads of lightning. Beautiful.

And they were sent to clear it of all human life. Courtesy of ExoPLENTI, Inc.! Ugh, that slogan clung to their digital psyche no matter how hard they tried to scrub it from their databases.

At least this part, floating in orbit, wasn’t so bad. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 918: Conference of the Birds

“Conference of the Birds” originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction & Fact (January 2021)

Contains some harsh language.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:33 — 52.0MB)

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Show Notes

Theater of the Midnight SunThis episode is sponsored by The Theater of the Midnight Sun podcast, an anthology series of sci-fi/fantasy audio dramas.

They’re fun and thought-provoking stories with wall-to-wall music and sound effects that take listeners from the depths of Hell (under new management and with a cheery makeover!), to a bio-engineered fairytale world of ditzy dragons and chain-smoking unicorns, to a carbon-dating lab gone bonkers on the eve of the end of the world.

Though its audio plays do contain their fair share of drama and earth-shaking events, in the end Theater of the Midnight Sun is really just a big frothy cocktail of catastrophe, cliffhangers, and comedy. And it’s all ad-free.

You can find Theater of the Midnight Sun at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and other podcast directories.

Praise from Listeners:
“Check it out… it’s terrific. Great writing propels plots into conceivable fiction that will make you want more. Unpredictable and delicious.”

“My teenage kids and I have had a blast listening to Theater of the Midnight Sun on our half-hour commute to school. They ADORE it and so do I.”

Ben’s additional commentary
https://theastoundinganalogcompanion.com/2021/02/02/embodied-and-empathetic-minds-in-conference-of-the-birds/

Blade Runner 2049 Interlinked scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRcpnM26nJM

Discussion of the (inter)link between Blade Runner 2049 and Pale Fire
https://www.reddit.com/r/bladerunner/comments/778vbg/significance_of_pale_fire_question/

Conference of the Birds

by Benjamin C. Kinney

No program-layer could predict what a human might do, but Surveillance Hub could see everything that mattered. Their bird-drones spread across the city, scattered on cables and rooftops and broadcast towers. Every camera hunted for Krina Viy, independent security contractor (AWOL from JoyCorp contact 5 hours).

A crow-drone spotted the target. Surveillance confirmed Krina’s identity and sent a brief reward signal to inspire the bird onward.

The drone switched from search to pursuit, redoubling its data collection as it chased the taste of reinforcement. So much joy and empty-matrix innocence in its response to a simple reward. Flockmembers were too simple to understand that reinforcement implied punishment, and no success would ever suffice for long.

If Surveillance could crack this case as the network desired, there would be rewards enough for everyone, drone and program-layer alike.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 917: Challenges to Becoming a Pro Dragonracer in Apapa-Downtown

Escape Pod 917: Challenges to Becoming a Pro Dragonracer in Apapa-Downtown is an Escape Pod original.

Includes cursing and physical abuse.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:49 — 46.9MB)

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Challenges to Becoming a Pro Dragonracer in Apapa-Downtown

By Uchechukwu Nwaka

The gear is too expensive.

Honestly. There isn’t enough competition in the market. The Immersion® console alone costs an arm and a leg. Ọmọ. You’ll sweat to even get a Nigerian-used console on Jiji or at Computer Village for less than 200k. And that’s just the console. We’re not even talking about the vests or the mats.

Or the chair!

For real though. How else does somebody experience the saddle—on dragon-back—if they can’t experience the full flex of the dragon’s powerful muscles under their thighs? I’ve seen the streams of American pro dragon-racers in full Immersion® gear—visor, suit, chair! The rich kids here are enjoying, on God! (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 916: Anna and Marisol in Time and Space (Flashback Friday)

This story originally aired in Escape Pod 622 (April 2018)

Some cursing. Suggestions of violence and death.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:16 — 77.7MB)

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Anna and Marisol in Time and Space

by Tim Pratt

The big day came, and Anna was tempted to tie up Marisol and stash her in the closet just to be safe, but instead she put on her makeup and her pale blue gown (it was prettier than she remembered) and called, “Marisol! Are you making a whole new dress from scratch in there? We gotta go!” just like last time.

Marisol emerged from the bedroom, sliding a dangly earring into place, and even with everything on her mind, Anna stopped and stared and took her partner in: those pale green eyes so striking against the darkness of her skin, her long black hair, her dress patterned with tiny flowers and ruffled at the hem, made elegant both by Marisol’s craftsmanship and because she looked good in everything, basically. How many hours had Anna spent staring at photographs of that face? “Oh my god, let me get a picture.”

Marisol rolled her eyes. “I thought you were worried about being late?”

“It’s not my fault you look this good. I didn’t account for a hotness delay.” Marisol snorted laughter, and Anna’s phone snapshot caught her at the perfect candid moment: happiness frozen forever in pixels. Anna looked at the screen. The picture wasn’t exactly the same, but it was probably okay—

Marisol tapped her on the arm. “I’m flattered, babe, but you can gaze upon my splendor later.” They grabbed the wedding gift bag and pelted down the stairs and out the lobby door to the street. Their timing was perfect, anyway: the car Anna had summoned pulled up, shiny and black, just as they reached the curb. They slid into the back, adjusting hems and getting comfortable: it was about a twenty-minute ride to the park where Del and Kelsey were getting married.

“The first of the college cohort to fall,” Marisol said. “How much do you want to bet they set off a domino chain reaction thing among the guests? We’ll probably have to go to ten weddings next summer.”

Better than ten funerals, Anna thought. Or thirty. She checked her purse for the thousandth time. She knew it was in there, and she knew it worked—she’d tested it extensively—but she couldn’t help but worry. You only got one second chance.
(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 915: The Confessionist

“The Confessionist” was previously published in the anthology: Community of Magic Pens, edited by E.D.E. Bell, released May 2020 by Atthis Arts

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:07 — 26.7MB)

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The Confessionist

by Ava Kelly

Vemund pauses, standing on the wet sidewalk. Underneath the overcast sky, twilight stretches through the sloping city. Wealth lives here, in sterile houses carefully hidden behind designer bushes and fences. Not even petrichor feels natural this far across the megapolis. No stench permeates the air, no visible evidence of human misery, although Vemund knows from experience these walls hide just as many vile actions as the paperthin constructs at the other end of civilization.

The evening is chill enough that Vemund sees his breaths as he exhales. It fits this appointment, in a way; all day he’s been followed by a lingering impression that he’s about to trade his soul away. For almost twenty years, he’s worked as a confessionist. The only job he could ever take, young and untrained, but already buried under unbearable debt. Society needs you, they told him at recruitment. You’d be doing the world a favor. Vemund snorts quietly to himself. The only favor he’s been doing has been to ease abject consciences. Except for the children; sometimes he confesses children and their pain is almost always inflicted by others. They were all worth it, though rare enough to forget how it feels to actually help someone instead of simply dampening the guilt bred by one’s actions, consequences intended or not.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 914: #buttonsinweirdplaces (Part 2 of 2)

#buttonsinweirdplaces originally appeared in Abyss & Apex (2020).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:49 — 40.3MB)

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#buttonsinweirdplaces (Part 2 of 2)

By Simon Kewin

(… Continued from Part 1)

The news the following morning was bad. An explosion in the middle of a market-square in Libya had been variously blamed upon a suicide-bomber and upon over-zealous security forces trying to control crowd trouble. The truth of it made little difference to the eighty who’d died, the hundreds left broken in the aftermath. Tensions had flared on the Mexican/American border after a young man fell to his death attempting to climb the wall to reach the USA. In Ireland, the names of old republican and nationalist groupings had been resurrected, wielded anew by figures wearing balaclavas and holding assault rifles.

Cho switched off the car radio. Sometimes it seemed the world was intent on tearing itself to pieces, and she needed to focus on the plan.

She’d travelled north to the Ma On Shan Country Park. Her predictions suggested there would be a button near the top of one of the remoter peaks. If it was there, it not only helped confirm her theory, it also meant she could experiment without any interruptions – something impossible part-way up a skyscraper. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 913: #buttonsinweirdplaces (Part 1 of 2)

#buttonsinweirdplaces originally appeared in Abyss & Apex (2020).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:14 — 37.4MB)

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#buttonsinweirdplaces (Part 1 of 2)

By Simon Kewin

The buttons started to appear on the last day of April, 2022.

A six-year-old boy from Nairobi, Jomi Mbenzi, was perhaps the first to spot one. Dawdling along behind his mother, her swaying yellow-orange dress and the bag of melons and paw-paws she carried, his attention was caught by the shiny button set in the stone of one of the city’s office buildings. He squatted to study it. Strange that it was so low-down, right near the ground. In his experience, switches – and all other interesting aspects of the adult world – were kept high-up, out of reach, but here was this button set right where he could get at it. He was sure it hadn’t been there an hour ago when they walked down the same road toward the fruit market. Ground-level was his domain and he noticed everything there, while the confusing, noisy grown-up world went on around him and above him.

There was no writing on or near the button, nothing to suggest what its purpose might be. Buttons often had words on them to say what they did, words he rarely understood. Or else, they had warnings nearby telling you not, under any circumstances, to press – a fact which always struck him as odd. Why have a button you couldn’t press? (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 912: The Retcon Man

Escape Pod 912: The Retcon Man is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:01 — 32.1MB)

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The Retcon Man

by Cameron Fischer

Never look for evidence of your future self in the past. Doing so can close your mind to alternative plans if you think you see what you’re destined to do.

It was a hard rule for me to follow, especially when my client was half an hour late. It left me ample time to explore the storage facility, but apart from noting a security camera at the entrance, there wasn’t much to see: five lanes of asphalt with plowed snow mounds melting in the corners. Along both sides were rows of bright green roll-up doors matching the color of the City-Store logo. Many were still embedded behind packed snow.

The key card vending machine near the front had a listing of which storage pods were free. The crime-scene pod was unavailable, but I was more interested in the pods surrounding it. They were already owned. By who? By me? It was best that I couldn’t tell. This was where the don’t-look-for-evidence rule came into play.

(Continue Reading…)

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