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.
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.
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.
A duplicate post to trick iTunes into re-fetching this file
Here’s the fixed part five of the podcast of my story “I, Robot.”
Sorry — I uploaded a truncated version of this file. I’ve updated it with a complete version. My apologies -Cory
Another interlude: I was part of a panel in London last night on “open content,” care of the Open Knowledge Forum Network; the Flashing12 podcast has just posted the audio so I’ve folded it into the podcast stream. I’ll be back in a day or two with the conclusion of I, Robot.
Here’s part four of the podcast of my story “I, Robot.”
Here’s part three of the podcast of my story “I, Robot.”
Here’s part two of the podcast of my story “I, Robot.”
This is the commencement of the podcasting of a new story, I, Robot, which was originally published in The Infinite Matrix, is slated for reprint in several of the Year’s Best anthologies, and is a finalist for the British Science Fiction Award and the Locus Award for Best Novelette. It’s a riff on Asimov’s robots stories, in which only one kind of robot is allowed — I tried to use this to show how such a world would be one of universal, totalitarian Broadcast Flags, technology mandates that restrict innovation and liberty.
Arturo Icaza de Arana-Goldberg, Police Detective Third Grade, United North American Trading Sphere, Third District, Fourth Prefecture, Second Division (Parkdale) had had many adventures in his distinguished career, running crooks to ground with an unbeatable combination of instinct and unstinting devotion to duty.
He’d been decorated on three separate occasions by his commander and by the Regional Manager for Social Harmony, and his mother kept a small shrine dedicated to his press clippings and commendations that occupied most of the cramped sitting-room of her flat off Steeles Avenue.
No amount of policeman’s devotion and skill availed him when it came to making his twelve-year-old get ready for school, though.
“Haul ass, young lady – out of bed, on your feet, shit-shower-shave, or I swear to God, I will beat you purple and shove you out the door jaybird naked. Capeesh?”
The mound beneath the covers groaned and hissed. “You are a terrible father,” it said. “And I never loved you.” The voice was indistinct and muffled by the pillow.
“Boo hoo,” Arturo said, examining his nails. “You’ll regret that when I’m dead of cancer.”
The mound – whose name was Ada Trouble Icaza de Arana-Goldberg – threw her covers off and sat bolt upright. “You’re dying of cancer? is it testicle cancer?” Ada clapped her hands and squealed. “Can I have your stuff?”
