Archive for 10 and Up

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Escape Pod 928: Zebulon Vance Sings the Alphabet Songs of Love (Flashback Friday)

Originally published in Apex Magazine, February 2013, and was previously published in Escape Pod 404 (July 2013).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:26 — 40.9MB)

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Zebulon Vance Sings the Alphabet Songs of Love

by Merrie Haskell

I am Robot!Ophelia. I will not die for love tonight.

The noon show is the three-hour 1858 Booth production. The most fashionable historical war remains the First American Civil. Whenever FACfans discover that Lincoln’s assassin played Horatio, they simply must come and gawk at this titillating replica of their favorite villain playing no one’s favorite character.

FACfans love authenticity. To the delight of Robot!Hamlet, today’s clients insist that Edwin Booth stride the stage beside his more famous brother. Most performances, Robot!Hamlet remains unused in the charging closet, for the first law in our business is Everybody Wants to Play the Dane.

Today, Robot!Hamlet is afire with Edwin Booth’s mad vigor, and runs his improv algorithms at full throttle; he kisses me dreamily, and rips my bodice in a way that would never have been allowed in Victorian America. The FACfans don’t look hyperpleased about this; it tarnishes their precious authenticity.

Robot!Horatio also loves the 1858 Booth. It’s the only time anyone comes to a performance for him alone. But what about the rest of us, the remainder of the AutoGlobe’s incantation of robots? We bear with it, as we bear with all the other iterations of our native play.

The FACfans barely notice me when either Booth is on stage. I clutch my ripped bodice; exit Robot!Ophelia. I get me to a nunnery.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 924: The T-4200 (Part 2 of 2)

The  T-4200 originally appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine on March 15, 2017.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:07 — 39.8MB)

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Show Notes

Theater of the Midnight SunThis episode is sponsored by The Theater of the Midnight Sun (TOTMS) podcast, an anthology series of sci-fi/fantasy audio dramas. It’s a bubbly cocktail of fantasy, mystery, and sci-fi adventure, with a splash of comedy. And it’s all ad-free.

Praise from Listeners:

“Great (5 stars). Awesome show.”

– Shadarko

“The first season of TOTMS is beyond brilliant. Fabulously well done.”

– Zeus Legion

“Excellent series (5 stars). The disclaimer is that the performers have never acted before. Don’t believe it! These are original entertaining stories with professional production values.”

– DigitalBeat

“Some of the best quality audio fiction I have ever encountered. High praise particularly for ‘Uniform’ and ‘Bluebirds and Dead Canaries.’”

– rsnider

“Very Entertaining! (5 stars) The stories blend a superb mix of fantasy with old-time radio mystery.”

– waitwhat?

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

The T-4200 (Part 2 of 2)

By J. R. Johnson

(…Continued from Part 1)

Carl scrambled to follow Mango past the loading dock to the parking corral. Her T was an early model with a lot of light-years on it, but its shell still shone and its maxillae were well-filed.

He stepped gingerly up onto one forelimb and squeezed between Mango and a delivery box.

“So,” she asked over her shoulder, “why do you need to get to the Core bad enough to spend a couple days’ pay on the trip?”

He snorted. “Try a week. I work for the government.”

Her eyes widened.

“No, it’s cool, I like my job. Second Assistant Director for Core Planning and Development.”

She didn’t respond, a familiar reaction when he talked about his job. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 923: The T-4200 (Part 1 of 2)

The  T-4200 originally appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine on March 15, 2017.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:37 — 43.5MB)

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The T-4200 (Part 1 of 2)

By J. R. Johnson

Carleton T. Lowengren, low-level civil servant, single twenty-something and refugee from the war-torn Outer Rim, woke to the remnants of a gaming binge and a killer headache courtesy of his interface. The implant had been trying to wake him for some time.

He rolled off the couch. Another day, another commute from his nondescript apartment to the center of the Galaxy, trying to do the one thing his mother said he never would: make a difference.

The walk-in wardrobe straightened his collar as he registered the time. Carl sprinted past the pre-programmed bowl of cereal to the garage door.

“Leo? Where are you, boy?”

Carl’s ride was usually parked in the garage on a mat of sweet-grass and clover. It was nowhere to be seen. And it’s not like he could overlook a car-sized dimension-hopping tortoise. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 922: The Last Oracle of Atlantic City

Escape Pod 922: The Last Oracle of Atlantic City is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:56 — 53.9MB)

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Show Notes

Theater of the Midnight SunThis episode is sponsored by The Theater of the Midnight Sun podcast: sci-fi/fantasy audio dramas that showcase tales of adventure, fun, and – alas – the occasional untimely death!

With stories like the comic “Left Field,” where a playboy finds that the attentions of a mysterious “secret admirer” may not only spell the end of him – but maybe everything everywhere…

The satire “Big Business,” where a well-meaning working stiff convinces Beelzebub to take a break from the fire & brimstone and find a new line of work…

And the sci-fi mystery “Bluebirds and Dead Canaries” in which a reluctant detective investigates
a bizarre fatality involving a most unusual everyday item. (Yup, that “untimely death” thing.)

Check out The Theater of the Midnight Sun at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and and other directories. Ad-free.

Praise from Listeners:

“The Best (5 stars). This is an unbelievably good podcast.”

“I sincerely hope podcasters everywhere will strain to meet the bar set by the excellent Theater
of the Midnight Sun. Each episode is a true delight… and in conception, it is superior to anything
TV or movies have to offer.”

The Last Oracle of Atlantic City

by C. H. Irons

Even without the AI chattering in the back of his mind, Baz can tell his customer is upset.

It isn’t that hard to figure out as she glares daggers at him over the plastic folding table. The tools of his trade are spread out in front of her: three decks of scattered tarot cards, an empty mug crusted with tea leaves, assorted imitation crystals, some ceremonial knives, and one bowl filled with still-smoldering chicken bones.

To be fair, he just predicted her fiancé is going to leave her.

“Give me something else,” she snaps. Her head is wreathed in pungent incense, swirling in the late afternoon sunlight.

Baz tries to remember her name. Rosalyn sounds about right, but he wasn’t paying attention when she told him.

“It’s Rebeccah,” AyGee offers, its silent, staticky machine voice tickling his frontal lobe.

He nods, just barely, in acknowledgment, though he doubts AyGee expects thanks. “I’m sorry, Rebeccah, but I’m all out. That was my last deck.”

“Bullshit.”

“Look, don’t shoot the messenger.” Baz holds up his hands, the tapestries behind him rustling in an ocean breeze coming off the boardwalk. “If it’s not in the cards, it’s not in the cards.”

(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 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 911: Driftwood in the Sea of Time

Escape Pod 911: Driftwood in the Sea of Time is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:22 — 46.3MB)

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Driftwood in the Sea of Time

By Wendy Nikel

They’d warned us about the paradoxes, but humanity has always had a way of ignoring the things we don’t want to think about and disregarding the parts that don’t align with how we want the world to operate.

One minute, you’re a self-assured time traveler from the twenty-first century, flashing up and down along the timeline with your TimeBand™ on your wrist, and the next, you’re stuck here, bobbing among the driftwood. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 909: Murder or a Duck (Flashback Friday)

This story originally aired as an Escape Pod Original in Escape Pod 545 (October 2016)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:56 — 42.9MB)

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Murder or a Duck

By Beth Goder

George called out, “Mrs. Whitman, you have a visitor.”

Mrs. Whitman strode from her workroom, her white hair skipping out of its hairpins. She straightened her work skirt, massaged her bad knee, then hurried down the hall.

“George, what’s happened to the lamp with the blue shade?”

“To which lamp are you referring?” George smoothed down a cravat embroidered with tiny trombones. Improper attire for a butler, but George had never been entirely proper.

Mrs. Whitman examined the sitting room in further depth. The blue lamp was gone, as were the doilies, thank goodness. An elegant table sat between the armchair and green sofa, which was infused with the stuffy smell of potpourri. Behind the sofa hung The Roses of Wiltshire, a painting that Mrs. Whitman had never cared for, despite its lush purples and pinks and reds. And the ficus was there, too, of course.

Mrs. Whitman pulled out a battered notebook. George’s trombone cravat indicated she was in a timeline where he was courting Sonia. A good sign, indeed. Perhaps, after six hundred and two tries, she’d finally landed in a timeline where Mr. Whitman would return home safely.

Consulting her charts, she circled some continuities and crossed out others, referring often to an appendix at the back. The notebook was worn, its blue cover faded. And it was the twelfth one she’d had since starting the project. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 904: Itoro fe Queen

“Itoro fe Queen” was originally published in The Sunday Morning Transport, May 2022

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:34 — 35.6MB)

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Itoro fe Queen

by Maurice Broaddus

“It’s all gone.” The ethereal voice whispered—almost robotic and clearly distant—its desperate lament choked off with a gasp, which tugged Itoro back from unconsciousness. Sprawled on her back, dazed and in shock, she sat up along the cavern floor. Through one of the station’s viewport the greeting holo read:

Welcome to Oyigiyigi:
Muungano’s portal to the space-mining industry

Her memories still a jumble of images, when the first (first?) explosion happened, the force of the blast slammed her against a console. A juncture collapsed, burying her under a shower of debris. The venting pumps reduced to a scorching mound of embers. Itoro shifted the beam from her. She attempted to stand, but as soon as she tried to put weight on her leg, she cried out and fell back onto the ground. Her left leg was broken, though she couldn’t tell the extent of the damage through her phase suit.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” the voice muttered.

“Mack?”

Mack Johnson was the chief mechanic from Original Earth (OE). Oyigiyigi was originally conceived as Muungano’s joint venture with OE’s provisional government, the Liberation Investment Support Cooperative (LISC). They hoped to develop platforms to explore and extract off-world resources. Things were not going well.

(Continue Reading…)

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