EP369: Passengers

Standard Podcast Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By Robert Silverberg
Read by Michael Spence
Discuss on our forums
All stories by Robert Silverberg
All stories read by Michael Spence
Rated 13 and over for sexual innuendo
Nominee for Hugo Award for Best Short Story (1970)

Passengers
By Robert Silverberg

There are only fragments of me left now. Chunks of memory have broken free and drifted away like calved glaciers. It is always 
like that when a Passenger leaves us. We can never be sure of all the things our borrowed bodies did. We have only the lingering traces, 
the imprints.

Like sand clinging to an ocean-tossed bottle. Like the throbbings of amputated legs.

I rise. I collect myself. My hair is rumpled; I comb it. My face is creased from too little sleep. There is sourness in my mouth. Has my Passenger been eating dung with my mouth? They do that. They do anything.

It is morning.

A gray, uncertain morning. I stare at it awhile, and then, shuddering, I opaque the window and confront instead the gray, uncertain surface of the inner panel. My room looks untidy. Did I have a woman here? There are ashes in the trays. Searching for butts, I find several with lipstick stains. Yes, a woman was here.

I touched the bedsheets. Still warm with shared warmth. Both 
pillows tousled. She has gone, though, and the Passenger is gone, and I am alone.

How long did it last, this time?

Flash Contest Winners Announced!

Congrats to the contest winners, whose stories will be purchased for a future EP flash episode!

In first place, Four Tickets, by Leslianne Wilder
In second place, Life Sentence, by Ben Hallert
In third place, The Future Is Set, by C. L. Perria

See the full announcement here.

And coming soon- the Editor’s Choice awards!

The Tyrant Strategy: Revenant Man by Jonathan C. Gillespie">Book Review: The Tyrant Strategy: Revenant Man by Jonathan C. Gillespie

I’m not a huge fan of military SF. But I am a fan of post-apocalyptic SF. I’m not a huge fan of augmented-humanity SF. But I am a fan of humans-aren’t-the-most-powerful-people-in-the-universe SF. So when author Jonathan C. Gillespie put out his new novel The Tyrant Strategy: Revenant Man I wasn’t sure if it was going to be my cup of post-apocalyptic, augmented humanity, military-style, humans-aren’t-so-great tea.

That’s an awfully complicated blend, by the way. Not too many people sell it.

EP368: Springtime for Deathtraps

Standard Podcast [ 36:23 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By Marjorie James
Read by Dr. John Cmar
Discuss on our forums.
An Escape Pod Original!
All stories by Marjorie James — including EP007– The Trouble With Death Traps and EP224– The Ghost In The Death Trap.
All stories read by John Cmar
Rated 13 and up for language

Springtime for Deathtraps
By Marjorie James

The building sat in a small clearing in the jungle, its stone walls
radiating solidity and the midday heat. Giant statues of warrior-gods
crushing skulls beneath their feet flanked the doorway. Xnab looked
from the ornately carved keyhole to his customer and back again.

“And the key is where, exactly?” he asked.

“In the treasure chamber,” the big man said in a small voice. “We had
just finished putting everything away and, well, it had been a long
day. I think I must have put the key down on the altar or something.
The problem is, the place locks automatically, and our entire fortune
is in there. We had a few locksmiths out to work on it, but they
didn’t get very far.”
Xnab nodded. He had already noticed the blood spatter around the keyhole.

“So that’s why we called you. Everyone said that if anybody could get
in there, it would be you.”

Xnab accepted that, not as a compliment, but a statement of fact. He
was a specialist the design and construction of booby traps, deadfalls
and other, largely fatal, security options. He was a small man, thin
and wiry, his shaved head still smooth and unwrinkled despite years of
working in the sun. Despite making a very good living, he wore a plain
tunic and no adornments at all. In his business, he considered it a
bad idea to have anything extra hanging around, and he was very good
at his business. In fact, anyone who knew anything considered Xnab the
best death trap designer alive.

Which typically would have been reason enough to turn down a job like
this, but in this case it was actually why he was there.

“How long have you owned the temple?” he asked the man, who had
introduced himself as Tuak.

“Just a couple of months, actually,” Tuak admitted. “It’s not really a
temple. I think the statues of the gods are just there for show. The
family who used to have it used it to store their treasures and they
spared no expense on the security.” He sighed heavily and stared up at
the tiers of stone vanishing into the jungle. “It seemed like a good
idea when we bought it.”

25 Days of TNG, Day 25: Where Do We Go From Here?

Wow. How do I conclude 25 articles about TNG? I’ve talked about pretty much everything, haven’t I?

The day before I wrote this conclusion, I went to a meeting at my daughter’s school and it reminded me of how, when I was still a student, a lot of chapters or books had suggestions for further reading. Thing is, I’ve already told you about the tie-in novels. But where can you go if you haven’t had your fill of TNG?

I’ve got some suggestions.

25 Days of TNG, Day 24: The Top 25 Episodes, Part 2

Before I get started on the second part here, I want to make sure I give an Honorable Mention to “Yesterday’s Enterprise” (3.15). Remember how yesterday I said I had this other list that somehow had eleven episodes on it not corresponding to my main top-25 list? And how I showed you that list a few days ago? Well, somehow “Yesterday’s Enterprise” didn’t make it on either of those lists, and the worst part is, I’m not sure why. It’s one of my favorite episodes.

So, instead of redoing everything, I’ll just give it a spot right here at the top of the article before continuing the countdown.

25 Days of TNG, Day 23: The Top 25 Episodes, Part 1

Well, this is it: my top-25 list of TNG episodes. You may not agree with them all, but that’s why this is my list — emphasis on the my. And if you’re wondering why any of the expected episodes are missing, here’s a partial explanation.

Here we go.

25 Days of TNG, Day 22: The Bottom 25 Episodes, Part 2

So, what episodes are left that could possibly be worse (or at the very least “less good”) than the 15 I listed yesterday? Let’s find out.

Submission Guidelines Changes

Not so much changes as clarifications. Also, I added a too long, didn’t read version. Highlights are below:

TL:DR Version

• We like good science fiction, preferably “fun” and humorous.
• We buy reprints and new fiction.
• We pay $.03 a word for reprints, and $.05 a word for original fiction. We are a nonexclusive audio and ebook market.
• We are a SFWA-recognized pro publication, meaning new sales with us count toward membership to the Science Fiction Writers of America.
• We do not accept: poetry, novellas, scripts, or serial fiction. And if you happen to hear any of these on Escape Pod, they were solicited from the author and not submitted.
• We do not accept attachments. Please paste plain text into your email with NO line breaks.
• We distribute under a Creative Commons license. This is non-negotiable.