Part two of my podcast of my story Shadow of the Mothaship initially published in Amazing Stories magazine, Winter 2000, reprinted in A Place So Foreign and Eight More, Four Walls Eight Windows Press 2003. A strange, stylised Scientology/Alien-Invasion/Oedipus story.
All About:
Podcast
My Podcast is a regular feed in which I read from one of my stories for a few minutes at least once a week, from whatever friend’s house, airport, hotel, conference, treaty negotiation or what-have-you that I’m currently at. Here’s the podcast feed.
Part one of the podcast of Cory Doctorow’s story “Shadow of the Mothaship,” initially published in Amazing Stories magazine, Winter 2000, reprinted in A Place So Foreign and Eight More, Four Walls Eight Windows Press 2003. A strange, stylised Scientology/Alien-Invasion/Oedipus story.
Here’s part three of my podcast of Nimby and the D-Hoppers, a story that was originally published in Asimov’s in 2003 and reprinted in a Year’s Best, then translated into Russian, Chinese, French and Hebrew. Nimby is the story of a deep-green alternate future that is being invaded by gun-totin’ yahoos from alternate planes of reality.
Here’s part two of my podcast of Nimby and the D-Hoppers, a story that was originally published in Asimov’s in 2003 and reprinted in a Year’s Best, then translated into Russian, Chinese, French and Hebrew. Nimby is the story of a deep-green alternate future that is being invaded by gun-totin’ yahoos from alternate planes of reality.
Here’s part one of my podcast of Nimby and the D-Hoppers, a story that was originally published in Asimov’s in 2003 and reprinted in a Year’s Best, then translated into Russian, Chinese and French. Nimby is the story of a deep-green alternate future that is being invaded by gun-totin’ yahoos from alternate planes of reality:
Don’t get me wrong — I _like_ unspoiled wilderness. I _like_ my sky clear and blue and my city free of the thunder of cars and jackhammers. I’m no technocrat. But goddamit, who wouldn’t want a fully automatic, laser-guided, armor-piercing, self-replenishing personal sidearm?
Nice turn of phrase, huh? I finally memorized it one night, from one of the hoppers, as he stood in my bedroom, pointing his hand-cannon at another hopper, enumerating its many charms: “This is a laser-guided blah blah blah. Throw down your arms and lace your fingers behind your head, blah blah blah.” I’d heard the same dialog nearly every day that month, whenever the dimension-hoppers catapaulted into my home, shot it up, smashed my window, dived into the street, and chased one another through my poor little shtetl, wreaking havoc, maiming bystanders, and then gateing out to another poor dimension to carry on there.
Here’s the audio of my speech last month at Olin College, a small, elite engineering school outside of Boston. The students there were really sharp — some of the wisest and most incisive I’ve met, and the faculty I met with were very bright and inspiring indeed. Not to mention the totally awesome library and its equally awesome librarians, who run a 24/7 library that students admit themselves to with a swipe-card, and check their own books out of using a scanner. Plus: free photocopying!
Here’s part four of a four-part podcast of another story, “Return to Pleasure Island,” a dark and mean fantasy story that was originally published in Realms of Fantasy in 2000, and reprinted in my 2003 short story collection A Place So Foreign and Eight More.
My next podcast will commence in a few days: a three-part reading of Nimby and the Dimension-Hoppers.
Here’s part three of a four-part podcast of another story, “Return to Pleasure Island,” a dark and mean fantasy story that was originally published in Realms of Fantasy in 2000, and reprinted in my 2003 short story collection A Place So Foreign and Eight More.
Here’s part two of a four-part podcast of another story, “Return to Pleasure Island,” a dark and mean fantasy story that was originally published in Realms of Fantasy in 2000, and reprinted in my 2003 short story collection A Place So Foreign and Eight More.
Here’s part one of a four-part podcast of another story, “Return to Pleasure Island,” a dark and mean fantasy story that was originally published in Realms of Fantasy in 2000, and reprinted in my 2003 short story collection A Place So Foreign and Eight More.
George twiddled his thumbs in his booth and watched how the brown, clayey knuckles danced overtop of one another. Not as supple as they had once been, his thumbs — no longer the texture of wet clay on a potter’s wheel; more like clay after it had been worked to exhausted crackling and brittleness. He reached into the swirling vortex of the cotton-candy machine with his strong right hand and caught the stainless-steel sweep-arm. The engines whined and he felt them strain against his strong right arm, like a live thing struggling to escape a trap. Still strong, he thought, still strong, and he released the sweep-arm to go back to spinning sugar into floss.
A pack of boys sauntered down the midway, laughing and calling, bouncing high on sugar and g-stresses. One of them peeled off from the group and ran to his booth, still laughing at some cruelty. He put his palms on George’s counter and pushed against it, using them to lever his little body in a high-speed pogo. “Hey, mister,” he said, “how about some three-color swirl, with sprinkles?”
George smiled and knocked the rack of paper cones with his strong right elbow, jostled it so one cone spun high in the air, and he caught it in his quick left hand. “Coming _riiiiiight_ up,” he sang, and flipped the cone into the floss-machine. He spun a beehive of pink, then layered it with stripes of blue and green. He reached for the nipple that dispensed the sprinkles, but before he turned its spigot, he said, “Are you sure you don’t want a dip, too? Fudge? Butterscotch? Strawberry?”
The boy bounced even higher, so that he was nearly vaulting the counter. “All three! All three!” he said.
George expertly spiraled the floss through the dips, then applied a thick crust of sprinkles. “Open your mouth, kid!” he shouted, with realistic glee.
The boy opened his mouth wide, so that the twinkling lights of the midway reflected off his back molars and the pool of saliva on his tongue. George’s quick, clever left hand dipped a long-handled spoon into the hot fudge, then flipped the sticky gob on a high arc that terminated perfectly in the boy’s open mouth. The boy swallowed and laughed gooely. George handed over the dripping confection in his strong right hand, and the boy plunged his face into it. When he whirled and ran to rejoin his friends, George saw that his ears were already getting longer, and his delighted laugh had sounded a little like a bray. A job well done, he thought, and watched the rain spatter the spongy rubber cobbles of the midway.
