Escape Pod

By Escape Artists FoundationFiction Drama Science Fiction

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Typical duration
41 min
per episode

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Escape Pod episodes

May 04, 2017 Editorial Changes At The Pod
It’s with mixed emotions that we announce our news: S.B. Divya and Mur Lafferty are the new co-editors of Escape Pod. Our beloved Norm Sherman has stepped down from the big chair due to a variety of personal reasons. Benjamin C. Kinney has taken the role of assistant editor. Norm has been a force of […]
5 min
April 27, 2017 Escape Pod 573: Whatever Tower, However High
Whatever Tower, However High
By Julia K. Patt

It is my 567th day inside. But I’m not really counting.

Outside, Leo and Maurizio sit by the front steps of the house playing 3D chess. Not far from them, Antonia tinkers with her latest project, which looks for all the world like a wheelchair with exhaust pipes. Our landlady, Miss Penny, hunkers on the stoop with a cigarette in one hand and her morning coffee in the other, trading talk with whoever passes by and calling out the morning news and crossword clues in a jumble. I’m not sure if the Prime Minister of New Slovakia is a headline or the answer to five across.

More than a year and a half ago, I passed a similar scene as I exited the cab with my duffle of possessions. The last time any of them saw my face, even though I have seen theirs most days since then. I have eyes and ears all over the city, but unlike most people, my neighbors know I’m watching.
38 min
April 27, 2017 EP573: Whatever Tower, However High
Author : Julia K. Patt Narrator : Logan Waterman Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Discuss on Forums EP573: Whatever Tower, However High is an Escape Pod original. Whatever Tower, However High By Julia K. Patt It is my 567th day inside. But I’m not really counting. Outside, Leo and Maurizio sit by […]
38 min
April 21, 2017 Escape Pod 572: Nothing to See Here
Nothing to See Here
By Arthur Doweyko

There is a comfort in the strength of love;
’Twill make a thing endurable, which else
Would overset the brain, or break the heart.
~William Wordsworth

I heard a squawk—kind of like the goose call that comes out of a police cruiser. Blinking red and blue lights danced on the window shade, so I figured they must have nabbed somebody. The trouble was, they were behind my house, in my cornfield.

I peeled back the shade, and what did I see but a crap-load of state police parked sort of in a big circle. The ground mist was so thick, I barely made out the cut corn stalks. The rows led to the police who looked like scarecrows poking up out of the fog—all facing in, staring at the same something. Whoever they got cornered was out-of-luck, that’s for sure.

Funny thing though—nobody was moving. They just stood at their cruisers. My eye drifted back over the rows. Something itched up the back of my mind, and then the sun peeped up over the tree line on the far side.
27 min
April 21, 2017 EP572: Nothing to See Here
Author : Arthur Doweyko Narrator : Patrick Bazile Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Discuss on Forums Nothing to See Here was an Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. Nothing to See Here By Arthur Doweyko There is a comfort in the strength of love; ’Twill make a […]
27 min
April 13, 2017 Escape Pod 571: Beetle-Cleaned Skulls
Beetle-Cleaned Skulls
By J. E. Bates

Fine amber dust infiltrated everything in the Preserve. Each morning, I vacuumed it away with my ventral hose prior to opening my kiosk. I paid particular care to my curios: the fossils, the bismuth crystals, and the beetle-cleaned skulls. Forebears, especially the children, delighted in receiving my curios as gifts. Each successful transaction gave me a burst of surplus energy, expressed as pride.

The mineral specimens I gathered from the talus behind the kiosk. I polished them right in the kiosk according to aesthetic principles. But I prepared the skulls in the subterranean machine rooms. They were created from deceased rhuka, a species of domesticated bovine. No other kiosk attendant created such skulls, and Forebears traveled great distances to receive one. They used them to decorate their caves.
33 min
April 13, 2017 EP571: Beetle-Cleaned Skulls
Author : J. E. Bates Narrator : Trendane Sparks Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Discuss on Forums EP571: Beetle-Cleaned Skulls is an Escape Pod original. Beetle-Cleaned Skulls By J. E. Bates Fine amber dust infiltrated everything in the Preserve. Each morning, I vacuumed it away with my ventral hose prior to opening […]
33 min
April 06, 2017 Escape Pod 570: What Good is a Glass Warrior?
What Good is a Glass Warrior?
By Scott Huggins

Like falling through rings of intermittent diamonds;
White laser-circles of moon.

Kinhang Chan Tzu chose those words to describe being me. Given that he was Earth’s poet laureate, and I am only my parents’ daughter, who am I to argue? I have never seen any of those things – he might be right. How can I know? Colors remind me of swimming. Like water, they surround you, but give you nothing to hold on to.

I hold the release lever to the airlock in my hand. The inner door stands open behind me. I say a brief prayer. I pull the lever down.

The soft wind of Langstrand rushes into the colony ship, smelling of forest and beach. Behind me, bulkheads close with soft bangs. All except the ones I’ve cut out of the circuit. No alarms sound. No lights flash. Quickly, I jog back to Cargo Bay One.

Now there is only waiting.

I crouch in a swirl of blue and black wind, and my polyfiber spear is a shaft of warmth in the ocean of air, heated by my fingers. Wind flaps against my father’s too-big combat jacket, making listening difficult. The only breathing is Uncle Jimmy’s, strapped in the gurney.

“You there, Unk?” I whisper.

“Lass? Where are you? It’s dark.”

“Yes, Unk, it’s dark. What do you see? Anything?”

“Too dark to see. Too dark for the Glass Lass. You should be in bed. Where are Don and Amy?”

“They’re safe, Unk.” As safe as sickbay can make them, anyway.
34 min
April 06, 2017 EP570: What Good is a Glass Warrior?
Author : G. Scott Huggins Narrator : Jen Rhodes Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Discuss on Forums EP570: What Good is a Glass Warrior? is an Escape Pod original. What Good is a Glass Warrior? By Scott Huggins Like falling through rings of intermittent diamonds; White laser-circles of moon. Kinhang Chan Tzu […]
34 min
March 31, 2017 Escape Pod 569: Safe Harbour (Artemis Rising)
Safe Harbour
by Kristene Perron

It begins with breath.

In. Wrap my hand around the handle at the bow of the kayak. Out. Drag the boat across the rocks. In and out, in time with the low moan of the fog horn in the distance. I welcome the grey of dawn though my muscles ache from the damp and cold.

Ten years since I set foot on the shores of Barclay Sound, since I smelled the salty sweet decay of the open Pacific. The blood pulses in my veins and no matter how hard I fight it a single word rises from the depths like a corpse: home.

My foot hits a patch of kelp, slippery as oil. There’s nothing to grab but, as I fall, my hands grope anyway. Knee hits rock, followed by hand, and a stab of pain—physical, for a change—pierces right through me.

“Shit!” I say. Sound swallowed by the mist and the water.

Shit, I hear echoing back inside my brain. No, not hear, feel. Sense? See? I’ve never known how to describe it. Whatever it is, it comes as both a question and an accusation and a warning.
48 min