Server Move - Comments Off

Published by SFEley on 25 Aug 2008 at 1:20 pm. Comments Off.
Filed under Site News.

In the interests of improving site stability, we’re changing our hosting providers one more time. (I.e., I found a VPS that sucks less.) This site’s already been copied to the new place and switched over. However, domain name changes take a while to trickle around the Internet, and so for 24-48 hours, some people might still see the old site. That’s this one.

In order to prevent synchronization problems and lost comments, I’ve turned commenting off here at the old location. Nothing is broken, and you don’t need to do anything — at some point today or tomorrow your ISP will notice that the location of escapepod.org was changed, and it’ll start pointing to the new place. When you no longer see this message and when you can leave comments again, you’ll know you’re good to go.

If you have any problems, please e-mail editor@escapepod.org and let me know. I’ll do anything I can to help. Thanks!

EP172: Union Dues - Tabula Rasa

Published by SFEley on 22 Aug 2008 at 6:00 pm. 3 Comments.
Filed under Podcasts, Rated R.

By Jeffrey R. DeRego.
Read by Stephen Eley.

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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 mean anything to me!” I stand up. Frustration washes over me like heat from a blast furnace, and worse, my stomach is rumbling. “I woke up today. The first person I saw was you, but I’ve never seen you before in my life. I figured as long as I was in the hospital, or wherever, I’d start to remember, but it’s a blank. Where am I, what is this place, what are you people?” I point at her costume. “And that, what’s that, are you part of a circus act or something?”

Rated R. Contains profanity, sexual innuendo, and a bit of soap opera.

Referenced Sites: Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty

 
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EP BONUS: Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty

Published by SFEley on 22 Aug 2008 at 8:33 am. 5 Comments.
Filed under Bonus, Podcasts.

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!

Playing for Keeps

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Meetup at Dragon*Con!

Published by SFEley on 21 Aug 2008 at 5:26 pm. No Comments.
Filed under Rambling, Site News.

First: my apologies for recent delays in getting Escape Pod out; in the last couple of weeks it’s hit the feed Friday afternoons rather than late Thursday. It’s probably going to happen again this week. Personal business lately has included me losing my day job, finding a new and much better day job in the space of a couple of weeks (I start Tuesday), and taking on some short-term obligations to fill in the gaps. Expect more on that in an upcoming metacast In the meantime I’m realizing I’m having to get much better organized with a lot of Escape Artists work, not for efficiency but for necessity. So yes, things are late; but I still don’t expect to miss any weeks, and I hope that the lateness will be short term.

Now to the news: once again, Escape Pod and Minx’s Polyamory Weekly will be hosting a joint meetup at Dragon*Con. Just like last year, we’ll be doing a group brunch on SUNDAY, AUGUST 31 AT 11:30 AM, at the Gordon Biersch Brewpub. It’s about a mile north from the hotels, but an easy walk or cab ride. This time we have the restaurant’s upper mezzanine reserved, so it’s like having the place to ourselves. Ask at the front for the Escape Pod meetup.

Generally, I expect to hit very little programming at this year’s D*C. My intent for almost the entire con is just to hang out at the bars or parties, and socialize and relax. If you’d like to join me, follow my Twitter feed to find out where I am or drop me a line to met me know where you are. And if you know where the good parties are — let me know too!

Thanks, and we’ll have the next EP up as soon as possible. (It’s a Union Dues story, if that helps with the waiting.)

EP171: Fenneman’s Mouth

Published by SFEley on 15 Aug 2008 at 6:30 pm. 17 Comments.
Filed under Podcasts, Rated R.

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 of losing his celebrated cool. This half-squawk had been funny in the stateroom scene of A Night at the Opera (”Steward! Steward!”), and it was still funny on You Bet Your Life twenty-five years later. He was a pro, Groucho was, and I did right by him; I modulated that pitch myself.

Rated R. Contains profanity, and real and simulated persons behaving badly.

Featured Site:
Playing for Keeps

 
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EP170: Pervert

Published by SFEley on 8 Aug 2008 at 3:45 pm. 42 Comments.
Filed under Podcasts, Rated R.

By Charles Coleman Finlay.
Read by Stephen Eley.
First appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 2004.

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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 men working behind screens that are consecrated by the priests each morning as part of the men’s quarter, and resanctified to the women at quitting time. The sun already pelts down mercilessly and they will have to leave off working soon.

We enter the government quarter and arrive at the Children’s Center, a long concrete brick of a building with windows shielded from the sun by an open grid of deep squares made of the same material. The morning light turns it into a chessboard of glaring white and dark shadow. I don’t work with the children, who are on the lower floors and the sheltered playground of the courtyard, but toil away with records on the upper floors. Unlike Jamin or Zel, I am permitted by the job to work alongside women, but only because I completed my theological studies and am a candidate for the priesthood. My superiors do not know of the taint on my soul. Do not know yet, I should say, and when they discover it I will never be ordained or promoted.

Rated R. Contains explicit sexual activity.

 
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Late notice (and a bonus file)

Published by SFEley on 8 Aug 2008 at 3:50 am. 17 Comments.
Filed under Bonus, Site News.

Sorry folks. I know that EP is getting to the point where it’s usually late these days, but today it’s going to be a bit later than usual. There are a few good reasons for it — some related to the content itself, and some related to things going on with me — but it would be inappropriate for me to go into all of it right this moment. We’re not skipping a week, and I’m fairly certain EP170 will be posted by noon today.

In the meantime, by way of apology and spurred by some demand for it in the forums, here’s a minor bonus for those interested: the raw, mostly unedited recording session from Dr. Bowie’s and my reading of “How I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out the People’s Justice” last week. If you enjoy knowing how the sausage gets made, this particular file is a slightly more entertaining example than most. This isn’t going into the feed, because it isn’t really an Escape Pod episode; you’ll have to either listen in the browser, or right-click on it and download it yourself if you want to hear it.

 
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EP169: How I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out The People’s Justice

Published by SFEley on 1 Aug 2008 at 4:00 am. 80 Comments.
Filed under Podcasts, Rated R.

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 you got out of the car.

A: Okay. My skulltop showed me which house, and I ran toward it. A man and three dogs ran out the door. One of them was a bitch with pretty haunches. She was in heat, and I really really really liked the way she smelled. I wanted to run after her, but I knew I should go after the man. So I did. Even though I liked the way she smelled!

Rated R. Contains profanity, violence, and canine sexuality.

Referenced Sites:
CrimeWAV Crime Fiction Podcast

 
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EP Review: Wall-E

Published by Sullydog on 29 Jul 2008 at 2:00 am. 8 Comments.
Filed under Podcasts, Rated G, Reviews.

Wall-E

A film by Andrew Stanton

Reviewed by Ryan Nichols

 
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EP168: Family Values

Published by SFEley on 25 Jul 2008 at 5:00 am. 26 Comments.
Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.

By Sara Genge.
Read by Alasdair Stuart (of Pseudopod).
First appeared in Cosmos, August/September 2007.

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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 with genetic material, and Senator Wu wasn’t prepared to funnel the heat donations of her two crèche mates to bring another man’s child to the World. She acidified the pores in her tentacle and waved it around, letting the current carry away the dead spores. She smiled at Twing and a wave of blue burst from his centre and radiated towards the thin membranes that rippled on the edge of his disc-shaped body.

He didn’t look bad, but he wasn’t as comely as Senator Wu. Her body was an almost perfect sphere, and she was well aware of it. Wherever she went, she took care to rotate every few minutes, lest gravity pull on her too long in any one direction and tug her gelatinous figure out of shape.

Rated PG. Contains alien reproduction, politics, and other sordid topics.

Referenced Sites:
The Daily Cabal

 
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