By Merrie Haskell. Read by Mary Robinette Kowal. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff I just swab my arm and administer the cocktail, a booster for my radiation immunization. The taste of brass fills my mouth in seconds, and I know that the cocktail has flooded my system. With this stuff burbling inside, I can stare down three sieverts without [...]

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By A.B. Goelman. Read by Stephen Eley. That’s when I see my new boss. Four feet of trouble. Brunette variety. Tear tracks cutting through the dirt on her face, wearing jeans that were already old when Molly Dolls were nothing more than molded plastic and fantasy homes. She’s no idiot, though. “I want the [...]

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By Mike Resnick. Read by Stephen Eley. 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 [...]

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By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Stephen Eley. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff I raise my hand and she stops chattering. “Just tell me who you are and where I am.” She freezes and blinks twice. “Tell you where you are? Cap, you’re home. This is the Cleveland Pyramid. I’m Sarah Shadow. You don’t recognize me?” “That doesn’t [...]

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The Escape Pod episode is still coming up later today. But by special permission of Mur Lafferty, here’s a special bonus for you: the complete text of her novel, Playing for Keeps, in PDF format. It’s officially launching August 25th, so be sure to buy it from Amazon then!

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By Andy Duncan. Read by Jared Axelrod (of The Voice of Free Planet X). “Fenneman?” The studio audience laughed loudly, as it always did when Groucho turned, in mock desperation or annoyance, to his long-suffering, hopelessly square announcer. Groucho’s voice slightly increased in pitch whenever he said Fenneman?s name, as if he were just at the edge [...]

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By Charles Coleman Finlay. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 2004. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff When the bus reaches the corner, they climb onboard, taking seats on their side and evening out the ride so it doesn’t feel so much like we’ll tip over. We rattle along past road construction, the [...]

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By Jonathon Sullivan. Read by Stephen Eley and Jennifer Bowie (of Screen Space). Q: What happened when you arrived at the address in question? A: My Partner Lori opened my door and I jumped out. I arrested a suspect! Q: Yes, Officer Bull. But I would like you to tell me exactly what happened, in detail, from the time [...]

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A film by Andrew Stanton Reviewed by Ryan Nichols

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By Sara Genge. Read by Alasdair Stuart (of Pseudopod). First appeared in Cosmos, August/September 2007. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff Senator Wu accepted Twing’s seed out of courtesy, although she had no intention of conceiving his child. Twing of Sails had thrown this party in his house in her honour, but he wasn’t as free with kilojoules as he was [...]

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By Frank Wu. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Abyss & Apex, 4th Quarter 2007. Special closing music: “Showdown in Shinjuku” and “Incognito” by Daikaiju. They try everything. Cellular toxins. DNA replication inhibitors. Anti-sense nucleic acids. Artillery. Great bolts of lightning. Nothing stops him, it only makes the monster angrier. They try mutagens, teratogens, carcinogens, neurotoxins, hemotoxins, genotoxins [...]

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By Elizabeth Bear. Read by Mur Lafferty (of The Takeover and The Murverse). First appeared in Fast Forward 1, ed. Lou Anders. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff First, there?s the pressure. A special kind of pressure, high under Tara?s chin, that makes her feel heavy and light all at once. She kneels by the chair and leans across [...]

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By David Brin. Read by Stephen and Anna Eley. “…So you want to talk about flying saucers? I was afraid of that. “This happens every damn time I’m blackmailed into babysitting you insomniacs, while Talkback Larry escapes to Bimini for a badly needed rest. I’m supposed to field call-in questions about astronomy and outer space for two weeks. [...]

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By Christian Klaver. Read by Cunning Minx (of Polyamory Weekly). Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff In the civilized places closer to Hegemony space, you don?t see many bodies in the street in the first place. When you do, they?re always swarmed with sheriffs, marshals, constables, morticians and the like. Then the body gets moved fast, so as to [...]

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By Lavie Tidhar. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Flurb #2, ed. Rudy Rucker. Special closing music: “Think For Yourself” by George Hrab. “I don’t see why you necessarily think it leads to the Chrono area,” Monty said, playing devil’s advocate. It was a month earlier, at the usual place: The Trotsky, a damp, dark watering hole in [...]

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By M.K. Hobson. Read by Christiana Ellis (of Christiana’s Shallow Thoughts). First appeared in Polyphony 6, ed. Deborah Layne and Jay Lake. Audible.com Promotion! Receive your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff “I wish to give you the opportunity to purchase a very valuable artifact from the great age of Ja’ardi civilization,” he said. “We stole it from a rival tribe, who [...]

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By Janni Lee Simner. Read by Anna Eley. First appeared in Bruce Coville’s Book of Aliens II, ed. Bruce Coville. Jenny was silent for a while. “Promise me something?” she finally asked. “If they ever come for you, promise you’ll let me know?” “Why?” I had trouble believing Jenny really wanted to leave. Maybe this was all some sort [...]

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(Updated 5/30: Corrected misspelled name in the title. Sorry, Cat.) By Cat Rambo. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, March 2008. “Sometimes we don’t realize that what we want isn’t good for us,” the man said, speaking for the first time. He stared intently at Kallakak. “Dominance rituals do not work well on me,” [...]

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By Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Read by Máia Whitaker (of KnitWitch’s SciFi/Fantasy Zone and Superior Audioworks). First appeared in Women of War, ed. Tanya Huff & Alexander Potter. I could?ve followed the sounds. The closer I get, the louder voices grow?yelling obscenities, cheering, clapping in approval. These women love fights. I used to let them do it too, without interference, [...]

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If you’re as much a fan as I am of J.C. Hutchins’s SF thriller trilogy 7th Son, you’ll be jazzed to hear about 7th Son: OBSIDIAN, the new short fiction audio anthology set in the 7th Son universe. The anthology has stories from some of the top names in podcasting, including Mur Lafferty, Scott [...]

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2008 Hugo Nominee! By Ken MacLeod. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in The New Space Opera, ed. Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan. When you’re as old as I am, you’ll find your memory’s not what it was. It’s not that you lose memories. That hasn’t happened to me or anyone else since the Paleocosmic Era, the Old Space [...]

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2008 Hugo Nominee! By Michael Swanwick. Read by Cheyenne Wright (of Arcane Times and Girl Genius). First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May 2007. That Winter, Will le Fey held down a job working for a haint politician named Salem Toussaint. Chiefly, his function was to run errands while looking conspicuously solid. He fetched tax forms for the alderman?s [...]

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2008 Hugo Nominee! By Mike Resnick. Read by Steve Anderson (of SGA Creative and Great Tales Live). First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May 2007. “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 [...]

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2008 Hugo Nominee! By Elizabeth Bear. Read by Stephen Eley. Closing Music: “The Fall” by Red Hunter. They would have called her salvage, if there were anyone left to salvage her. But she was the last of the war machines, a three-legged oblate teardrop as big as a main battle tank, two big grabs and one fine manipulator folded [...]

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By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Nuri (of CandyCorn Studios and Artist Alley). Closing Music: “Juzt Mizunderztood” by Norm Sherman. My head throbs. I think about the mess in the fridge, the heaps of crap in the flat while I force the clumps of wet clothes into the dryers. As far as I know I am the only Union [...]

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By Robert Silverberg. Read by Stephen Eley. This much is reality: Schwartz sits comfortably cocooned — passive, suspended — in a first-class passenger rack aboard a Japan Air Lines rocket, nine kilometers above the Coral Sea. And this much is fantasy: the same Schwartz has passage on a shining starship gliding silkily through the interstellar depths, [...]

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By Mike Resnick. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Jim Baen’s Universe, June 2007. “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 [...]

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PodCastle, our fantasy fiction podcast, has finally launched with its first episode. Rachel and company are presenting “Come Lady Death,” one of the earliest and strongest stories by legendary fantasy writer Peter S. Beagle. You should go straight over to PodCastle.org and follow the subscription links — but just to let you know what you’re [...]

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A Film By Stanley Kubrick. Reviewed by Jonathon Sullivan

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By Stephanie Burgis. Read by MA in PA (of Better Late Than Never). First appeared in Forgotten Worlds, July 2006. Closing music: “I Feel Fantastic” by Jonathan Coulton. The first Jacqui wrote me out a list of instructions thirty pages long. It contained all her history with Robert, in detail. It gave me a list of all the things to say and [...]

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By Jeremiah Tolbert. Read by Stephen Eley. I am the lover. I am the chef. I am the preterite priest. I am the secret, unknowable ingredient. You may taste me a thousand times, but never hold my essence on your tongue or capture it in your memory. I am the flavor of ecstasy. Taste me and [...]

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By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Stephen Eley. If I just lay here they will get tired and leave. They can’t hurt me all that much; my body is too hard now, too strong. But I can’t let on that their kicks and punches don’t bother me or who knows what they’ll do next. So I’ll lay [...]

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The third “state of the podcast” address. Full text of an earlier draft can be found on our forums. Closing music is “Ya Famous?” by George Hrab. Used with standing permission. Be sure to check out the Geologic Podcast as well.

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By Carole McDonnell. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Jigsaw Nation, ed. Edward J. McFadden III and E. Sedia. We don’t see a lot of mixed couples around here, and we’re not like some of the other states in the Confederate United Republic. It’s not like they’re gonna get killed or lynched or nothing. But it’s tough [...]

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By Jeff Carlson. Read by Graydancer (of The Ropecast). First appeared in Strange Horizons, August 2003. Closing music: “I Crush Everything” by Jonathan Coulton. I spent the longest five weeks of my life in that tank and in a deeper pool, healing, testing, practicing. My feet and toes had been augmented much like my hands, my thighs shortened [...]

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By Ken Scholes. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Talebones, Spring 2001. “Do you know what’s happened to the children?” Edward swallowed. Suddenly, he wanted to cry. “Yes. They’re…sleeping?” He hoped and hoped and hoped and hoped, grimacing as he did. He looked around. Makeshift beds lined the room. Small hands gripped blankets, small eyes stared at [...]

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By Jeremiah Tolbert. Read by Jared Axelrod (of The Voice of Free Planet X). First appeared in All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories (ed. David Moles & Jay Lake). We are somewhere among the tallest mountains of the world. When we arrived, I was locked away in a cargo hold, so I don?t know exactly where. Our home is a [...]

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