From the Podosphere: April 2008

The highlight of April’s podcast short fiction must be the long-awaited launch of PodCastle, the latest offering from Escape Artists, bringing their output up to three podcasts and completing the main genres of speculative fiction: SF, horror, and now fantasy. I was privileged to narrate PodCastle’s inaugural story myself, Peter S. Beagle’s “Come Lady Death” so I’ll say no more about it and pass on to the first of PodCastle’s flash pieces (known as “miniatures”).

“Stone Borne” by Loreen Heneghan (read by Sam Ferree) is a concise evocation of a child’s perspective. Ten-year-old Mark is the child of a broken marriage, but he knows that Brenda, his only remaining traveling companion on the school bus, also comes from a broken home. Brenda shows him a way of looking at things that makes them appear not so bad. This story seems more like horror than fantasy—depending on whether you take Mark’s perception at face value or construe it as symptomatic of something else.

In “For Fear of Dragons” by Carrie Vaughn, what starts out as a traditional dragon-sacrifice story takes on a satisfying new turn in its closing moments. It’s well written and well read by Cunning Minx.

“Run of the Fiery Horse” by Hilary Moon Murphy (read by Rachel Swirsky) is a long story taking a Chinese astrological tradition and running with it to develop a forceful main character who knows what she wants. The fantasy elements—involving entities that appear only in dreams or otherwise non-corporeally—tend to stretch credulity. Not knowing the limits of the antagonist, a large, snakelike creature, and being unfamiliar with the “laws” governing this particular fantasy milieu, I lacked sympathy for the protagonist’s ill-defined problem. The story is, however, extremely well written, conjuring a distinct setting.

“Giant” by Stephanie Burgis is this month’s second PodCastle Miniature, in which a giant has kidnapped a princess who seems to have come around to the idea of being his princess. But can he trust her? Remarkably concise and well read by Jonathon Sullivan.

“Goosegirl” by Margaret Ronald (read by Mary Robinette Kowal) is a moving example of traditional fantasy, ostensibly concerning mental illness. The goosegirl of the title thinks she was once a princess, though sometimes she believes this to be imagination, and that she is in fact a witch. Told entirely within her point of view, the narrative suggests that things are not how they appear, at the same time delivering a powerful portrait of someone trying to make sense of the world despite a broken memory.

Benjamin Rosenbaum’s “The Ant King: A California Fairy Tale” (read by Stephen Eley) is a surreal tale of corporate finance, computer gaming, and insect life. Any further attempt at description would likely spoil it, though the plot is linear, following the parallel threads of a man and his girlfriend after they split up. It’s a fun listen, full of references to modern geek life.

The first Pseudopod story of April, Amanda Spikol’s “The Sons of Carbon County,” is about zombies in a mine—what more is there to say? It’s a hackneyed horror sub-genre that you either like or you don’t. It seems a given in zombie stories that the reason there are zombies remains mysterious. This story is well written, but I found Cheyenne Wright’s narration off-putting; whether it was the curious accents or his mostly flat delivery, I’m not sure. Flat can be good, but for this story, I would have preferred something more lively.

“Living in Sepia” by D. Richard Pearce is insanity horror—not my cup of tea, I admit, but an excellent reading by Cat Rambo, unfortunately marred by clicks and background noise. As for the story: Is the protagonist’s father really dead set against her second husband? Or is she just mad? Who cares?

“The Wild Y” by Teej Grant (read by Ben Phillips) is SF horror, well written and well read, with an ending that I had to hear three times before I got it. An alcoholic ex-comedy-actor is picked up by the secret service because, apparently, his chromosomes are very special.

Matt Wallace’s “A Place of Snow Angels” (read by Elie Hirschman) seems like a post-ice-age tale of depleted populations spread thinly over the globe but with considerable advances in biotechnology. Joshua is some kind of messiah-in-waiting, brought up by a couple (not his parents—did he even have parents?) who appear to have his best interests at heart, though they may possibly be deluded. There’s not a great deal of plot but plenty of character, and to me, this seemed more like SF than horror.

Very much like SF—even to the point of cliché—are stories about emotionally immature robots. Escape Pod’s first story of April, Mike Resnick’s “The Big Guy” (read by Stephen Eley), explores such robotic implications against the background of basketball. The mechanics of producing superhuman artificial basketball players are glossed over in favor of portraying the story from the viewpoint of one of the human players. There’s a lot more to be said about free will, but not in a story of this concision.

In Robert Silverberg’s “Schwartz Between the Galaxies” (read by Stephen Eley), an anthropologist regrets the homogenizing effect globalization has had on the subject of his study, and while traveling between speaking engagements, he fantasizes about the abundance of source material he would find on planets in other galaxies. Whether his fantasy is fueled by narcotics or some kind of mental breakdown is really what this personal story is about.

A grim addition to the “Union Dues” superhero series, Jeffrey R. DeRego’s “Freedom With a Small f” features an undercover superhero who seems to have been abandoned by the Union. She nevertheless remains true to her calling, despite having to work as a lap dancer to make ends meet—though she might be better off if she gave up the drugs and the booze. Well read by Nuri, it’s a well-written piece with a realistically depressing theme.

“Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear (read by Stephen Eley) is the first of Escape Pod’s run of Hugo-nominated short stories for 2008. It’s a tale of a worn-out war machine carrying out its final task. Such is the obsessive programming of this mechanical intelligence, its final task is to honor its fellow platoon members—all dead—by collecting gemstones and other glittery or interesting objects from the beach in order to make commemorative necklaces. But there’s someone else on the beach, watching, and curious to know what this robot is up to. The idea of a fighting machine so dedicated to its comrades-in-arms is fascinating, and this story explores how such an intelligence might see farther than its immediate programming.

I’ve not had much time to keep up with short fiction podcasts outside of the Escape Artists output, but I did manage to catch Kage Baker’s “Likely Lad,” given an enthusiastic (if verging on camp) reading on StarshipSofa by Martin of MCL Studios. The story is set in a near-future Britain, with a plethora of deliberately clichéd British aspects, as strangely tall and uniquely privileged 14-year-old Alec and his hacked holographic pirate minder embark on a scheme to make pots of money. Lots of fun, well written, and engagingly narrated.