Posts Tagged ‘Mike Resnick’

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Escape Pod 743: Flash From the Vault

Paul Bunyan and the Photocopier first appeared on Escape Pod on June 24, 2006.

Beachcomber first appeared in Baen’s Universe, October 2008, and on Escape Pod on March 23, 2009.

Semi-Autonomous or ‘For Whom The Warranty Tolls’ first appeared on Escape Pod on April 27, 2009.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:57 — 44.3MB)

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Flash From the Vault

Hello and welcome to Escape Pod Summer School, where we post some of our favorite episodes from the vault with a new perspective. I’m your assistant editor and teacher for this class, Benjamin C. Kinney, and I’ve got three flash episodes from long, long ago. We bring you “Paul Bunyan and the Photocopier” by Larry Hammer, “Beachcomber” by Mike Resnick, and “Semi-Autonomous: or, For Whom the Warranty Tolls” by Jim Kling. (Continue Reading…)

Escape Pod 344: The Homecoming

Originally appeared in Asimov’s

Rated 10 and up

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:06 — 32.4MB)

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The Homecoming

By Mike Resnick

I don’t know which bothers me more, my lumbago or my arthritis. One day it’s one, one day it’s the other. They can cure cancer and transplant every damned organ in your body; you’d think they could find some way to get rid of aches and pains. Let me tell you, growing old isn’t for sissies.

I remember that I was having a typical dream. Well, typical for me, anyway. I was climbing the four steps to my front porch, only when I got to the third step there were six more, so I climbed them and then there were ten more, and it went on and on. I’d probably still be climbing them if the creature hadn’t woke me up.

It stood next to my bed, staring down at me. I blinked a couple of times, trying to focus my eyes, and stared back, sure this was just an extension of my dream.

It was maybe six feet tall, its skin a glistening, almost metallic silver, with multi-faceted bright red eyes like an insect. Its ears were pointed and batlike, and moved independently of its head and each other. Its mouth jutted out a couple of inches like some kind of tube, and looked like it was only good for sucking fluids. Its arms were slender, with no hint of the muscles required to move them, and its fingers were thin and incredibly elongated. It was as weird a nightmare figure as I’d dreamed up in years.

Finally it spoke, in a voice that sounded more like a set of chimes than anything else.

“Hello, Dad,” it said.

That’s when I knew I was awake.
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Genres:

Escape Pod 307: Soulmates

First appeared in September, 2009 Asimov’s

Rated appropriate for teens and up due to language, alcohol dependence, and discussing death of loved ones

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00:48 — 41.8MB)

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Soulmates

By Mike Resnick and Lezli Robyn

Have you ever killed someone you love – I mean, really love?

I did.

I did it as surely as if I’d fired a bullet into her brain, and the fact that it was perfectly legal, that everyone at the hospital told me I’d done a humane thing by giving them permission to pull the plug, didn’t make me feel any better. I’d lived with Kathy for twenty-six years, been married to her for all but the first ten months. We’d been through a lot together: two miscarriages, a bankruptcy, a trial separation twelve years ago – and then the car crash. They said she’d be a vegetable, that she’d never think or walk or even move again. I let her hang on for almost two months, until the insurance started running out, and then I killed her.

(Continue Reading…)

Escape Pod 246: Bride of Frankenstein

Originally published in: Asimov’s — Download and read the text

Rated PG: for spousal annoyances

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:15 — 27.7MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes:

  • The Escape Pod Flash Contest ends soon! It runs June 1- July 4, stories must be under 500 words. More information at the link.
  • Editor’s note: Thanks so much to Dave Thompson and Peter Wood for taking on this project of securing all five Hugo stories during the hiatus of Escape Pod. Most of the work was done before I joined, and this wouldn’t have happened without them stepping up.

Next week… Another Hugo-nominated story!

Bride of Frankenstein

By Mike Resnick

Victor can be so annoying. He constantly whistles this tuneless song, and when I complain he apologizes and then starts humming it instead. He never stands up to that ill-mannered little hunchback that he’s always sending out on errands. And he’s a coward. He can never just come to me and say “I need money again.” Oh, no, not Victor. Instead he sends that ugly little toady who’s rude to me and always smells like he hasn’t washed.

And when I ask what the money’s for this time, he tells me to ask Victor, and Victor just mumbles and stammers and never gets around to answering.

 

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 Flash: Beachcomber

First appeared in Baen’s Universe, October 2008.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:05 — 8.3MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG. Contains hopes that will never be fulfilled.

Beachcomber

By Mike Resnick

Arlo didn’t look much like a man. (Not all robots do, you know.) The problem was that he didn’t act all that much like a robot.

Escape Pod 173: Robots Don’t Cry

Rated R. Contains profanity and some sadness.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:23 — 29.1MB)

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Robots Don’t Cry

By Mike Resnick

Every now and then we strike it rich. Usually we make a profit. Once in a while we just break even. There’s only been one world where we actually lost money; I still remember it — Greenwillow. Except that it wasn’t green, and there wasn’t a willow on the whole damned planet.

There was a robot, though. We found him, me and the Baroni, in a barn, half-hidden under a pile of ancient computer parts and self-feeders for mutated cattle. We were picking through the stuff, wondering if there was any market for it, tossing most of it aside, when the sun peeked in through the doorway and glinted off a prismatic eye.

“Hey, take a look at what we’ve got here,” I said. “Give me a hand digging it out.”

Escape Pod 156: Distant Replay

First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May 2007

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:00 — 24.1MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG. Contains mature themes and wistfulness.

Referenced Sites:
2008 Hugo Awards
“First of May” by Jonathan Coulton (Not work-safe)

Distant Replay

By Mike Resnick

“Let me show you,” I said, pulling out my wallet. I took my Deirdre’s photo out and handed it to her.

“It’s uncanny,” she said, studying the picture. “We even sort of wear our hair the same way. When was this taken?”

“Forty-seven years ago.”

“Is she dead?”

I nodded.

Escape Pod 152: The Big Guy

First appeared in Jim Baen’s Universe, June 2007

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:30 — 26.5MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R. Contains strong language and testosterone.

Today’s Sponsor:
Infected by Scott Sigler

Referenced Events:
Penguicon: April 18-20, 2008
Sex 2.0: April 12, 2008

The Big Guy

By Mike Resnick

“Okay,” said Fishbait. He tossed a ball to the Big Guy.
“Let’s try a little one-on-one. Ralph, let’s see what you can do
against Jacko here.”

The Big Guy took a look at me, his face totally expressionless. I moved forward to lean on him a little, just enough to make contact and see which way he was going to move when he began his drive to the basket, but before I got close enough to touch him he’d already raced by me and stuffed the ball through the hoop.

“Again,” said Fishbait.

Escape Pod 134: Me and My Shadow

First appeared in Unauthorized Autobiographies and Other Curiosities, 1984.

Rated R. Contains violent crime, violent imagery, and themes of violence.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:00 — 25.4MB)

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Me and My Shadow

by Mike Resnick

Of course, even if we had met before, they couldn’t recognize me now. I know. I’ve spent almost three years trying to find out who I was before I got Erased — but along with what they did to my brain, they gave me a new face and wiped my fingerprints clean. I’m a brand new man: two years, eleven months, and seventeen days old. I am (fanfare and trumpets, please!) William Jordan. Not a real catchy name, I’ll admit, but it’s the only one I’ve got these days.

I had another name once. They told me not to worry about it, that all my memories had been expunged and that I couldn’t dredge up a single fact no matter how hard I tried, not even if I took a little Sodium-P from a hypnotist, and after a few weeks I had to agree with them–which didn’t mean that I stopped trying.

Erasures never stop trying.

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