Escape Pod

By Escape Artists FoundationFiction Drama Science Fiction

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31st
on Science Fiction
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167
Followers
Typical duration
41 min
per episode

Based on Podcast App listening data

Escape Pod episodes

May 26, 2016 EP531: Bend Back the Shadows
by Michael Reid narrated by Summer Brooks This story has not been previously published. Mentioned by Alasdair: https://weightlessbooks.com/category/format/subscription/mothership-zeta/ Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page Thank you for visiting us on Facebook and Twitter about the author… I am a 2015 graduate of the Clarion Workshop, but I have no other […]
41 min
May 11, 2016 Escape Pod 530: City in the Wound
City in the Wound
By Michael Buckley

In the middle of the night Eztli decides to burn The Mothers. He’s a block down and they’re visible through a sliver of space between two corners, drapes of light kelping back and forth slow in the darkness.

Eztli runs, safe for the moment ‘cause it’s his street, Da is watching, but then off his block, out into the middle of the road.

A brick flies past him. He hears shouting in the rooms above The Mothers, but their boys and girls don’t make it out in time. Now it’s just him standing in front of The Mothers. There’s three in a row, their dresses shimmering and lovely, and they stare down at him, so kind and gentle. The one in front is actually crying as Eztli sprays stolen gasoline in a wide arc across them. Eztli hates her for it. He could burn her a thousand times.

The lit match hits the wall and The Mothers go up. The children scream from the second floor. Feet bang on the stairs. Eztli runs, the warmth of the fire behind him, listening to the other screams, the ones coming from beneath the flames.

That night he sleeps next to Da, the composites moving about slowly behind him, lulling. And he doesn’t dream at all.
56 min
May 11, 2016 EP530: City in the Wound
by Michael Buckley narrated by Barry Haworth This story has not been previously published. This episode also featured an excerpt from Ecko: Endgame by Danie Ware which you can get more info about on her website: http://danieware.com/tag/ecko-endgame/ and you can tweet her @danacea Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable […]
56 min
May 03, 2016 Escape Pod 529: Of Blessed Servitude
Of Blessed Servitude
By A. Merc Rustad

The sacrificial cross threw a long shadow across the road at Bishop's dust-caked boots. He halted sharp at the sight of it. Wind hummed through wildseed bushes strung along the ditch, yellow buds as bright as radiation seals. Bishop clenched his jaw and looked along the shadow to the cross itself. It gleamed in the sunset, a steel post with a fused crossbeam, packed dirt the color of old blood at its base. And the cross wasn't empty.

Well, shit.

The offering was a pretty one—young, work-muscled body, a day's stubble scuffing his jaw. He'd been shackled naked to the cross, arms spread against the top beam. The dusty wind tugged unkempt hair across his eyes.

Bishop slapped the film of red dirt from his duster, his shoulders tense, and checked his knives from habit. He knew he shouldn't have traveled past Providence Circle. If chokevine hadn't overrun the only bridge across Unrepentant's Canyon, he'd never have come near this territory. He’d never have come within sight of the town of Blessed Servitude.

He hadn't been home in ten years.

"You should get off the road, stranger."

"Mighty courteous of you to warn a man," Bishop said. He shouldn't look at the man chained against steel, shouldn't stir up old memories. He never saved the offerings, and he didn't try.
29 min
May 03, 2016 EP529: Of Blessed Servitude
by A. Merc Rustad narrated by Trendane Sparks This story was originally published in Fictionvale in 2013. This is a story set in the same world as “To the Knife-Cold Stars,” which ran in Escape Pod in February 2015. Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia […]
29 min
April 25, 2016 Escape Pod 528: Divided By Zero
Divided By Zero
by Samantha Murray

As a child I already knew that there were different kinds of infinity.

When I asked my mother whom she loved the most--me or my brother--she would pause and then say she loved the both of us.

How much did she love us? I wanted to know. And she’d say she loved me an infinite amount and my brother an infinite amount too.

From this I knew implicitly that two infinities did not have to be the same size.

As a child I knew this although I had no words for it. It was what drove me to ask the question. I knew also that I was waiting for her not to pause.

She always did. Every time.

Secure in his answer, my brother never asked the question. I was the lesser infinity; that of whole numbers perhaps, while his was of real and irrational numbers, which could be complex, and transcendental.

My brother won awards and prizes, was tall and athletic while I could not use my legs, but this is not why his infinity was infinitely bigger and infinitely better than mine. I’m sure people wondered how anyone could fail to love my brother when he was so brave and shining--but I think they have the causality backwards. Everybody loved him and he took all of that love inside himself until he could not help but glow like a nebula pinpricked with stars.
15 min
April 25, 2016 EP528: Divided By Zero
by Samantha Murray narrated by Ibba Armancas This story has not been previously published. Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page Thank you for visiting us on Facebook and Twitter about the author… Samantha Murray is a writer, actor, mathematician and mother. Not particularly in that order. […]
15 min
April 17, 2016 Escape Pod 527: Plural
Plural
by Lia Swope Mitchell

The aliens come in peace, as they always do, bearing gifts and a banner printed with hopeful messages. Universal understanding, sharing and collaboration, the usual thing: three-hundred-year-old language cribbed from the Bebo time capsule. We install them in the quarantine tank and let them alone. We’re still processing the previous group.

The predecessors were large, their plump thigh muscles well marbled with fat. We’re dressing them in herbs and slow-roasting them, and the flavor is good, rich and unctuous, the fibers softened by their long voyage in low-G. The rest we’re making into sausage, confit, and stock. We’ve been lucky this year, with three groups since spring. Sometimes we go a long time without meat; at least real meat, better than the crawlers and birds, tiny dust-flavored things full of bones.

These new ones aren’t impressive, as aliens go. Maybe reptilian: small and sweet-fleshed. Ten forlorn figures in blue smocks, they sit on the sterile-sheeted beds and do not speak or gesture much, exchange only occasional glances. From this we conclude that they communicate telepathically. After a few hours, though, one falls ill, probably from some unfamiliar bacteria. Greenish saliva drips from its mouth onto a pillow. Soon enough they might all be infected, and already this is no great harvest.
33 min
April 17, 2016 EP527: Plural
by Lia Swope Mitchell narrated by Amanda Ching This story was originally published in the February/March 2015 issue of Cosmos Magazine Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page Thank you for visiting us on Facebook and Twitter about the author… Lia Ardith Swope Mitchell is a writer of literary […]
33 min
April 04, 2016 Escape Pod: Metacast April 2016
We wanted to give you a quick update of the goings-on at Escape Pod. It’s the first of what we expect to be many positive developments in 2016, so hold onto your socks!
9 min