This Wine-Dark Feeling That Isn’t The Blues by José Pablo Iriarte The Odyssey contains over three hundred mentions of color. Black. White. Red. Not a single blue though. Even the ocean is not described as blue, but as “wine-dark.” Likewise with the Koran and ancient Hebrew scripture: no blues, anywhere. This is what I focus …

The Best We Can By Carrie Vaughn In the end, the discovery of evidence of extraterrestrial life, and not just life, but intelligence, got hopelessly mucked up because no one wanted to take responsibility for confirming the findings, and no one could decide who ultimately had the authority—the obligation—to do so. We submitted the paper, …

Craphound By Cory Doctorow (Excerpt) Craphound beat me out the door, as usual. His exoskeleton is programmable, so he can record little scripts for it like: move left arm to door handle, pop it, swing legs out to running-board, jump to ground, close door, move forward. Meanwhile, I’m still making sure I’ve switched off the …

By Peter Watts Read by: Kate Baker (Thanks to Kate and Clarkesworld for the audio!) Originally appearing in Clarkesworld Discuss on our forums. All stories by Peter Watts All stories read by Kate Baker Nominated for the Hugo Award for Short Story, 2011 Rated appropriate for older teens and up for language and disturbing imagery. …

Hello everyone, Alasdair here. We tend to do a metacast every year around this time, and this year we’ve done something a bit different. This one was recorded LIVE at WorldCon in Spokane in August 2015! In the past, you’ve let us know our metacasts are too long, so we’ve split this one into three parts: …

AUTHOR: Nancy Fulda NARRATOR: Trendane Sparks HOST: Alasdair Stuart Recollection originally appeared in CARBIDE-TIPPED PENS, an anthology edited by Eric Choi and Ben Bova, TOR Books, December 2014. Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our Wikia Thank you for visiting us on Facebook and Twitter about the author… Nancy Fulda is […]

By Eugie Foster. Read by the Word Whore (of Air Out My Shorts). I don’t know how it happened. I’m the last person I’d go to if I were a zombie; I’m not into the occult thing at all. But I was the only friend Mandy had in this city, so she came to me …

By Eugie Foster. Read by Mur Lafferty (of Geek Fu Action Grip). Penguin listened raptly to the new voice. He knew this was his guardian angel, she who would guard and protect him forever. Sure enough, the Creator set him gently into his angel’s hand. Her hands, much smaller than the Creator’s–which was fitting since …

By Eugie Foster. Read by cunning minx (of Polyamory Weekly). First appeared in Cricket magazine, February 2007. When I was a little girl, I thought my mother’s name was Yuki, which means snow. That was part of her name, but I didn’t learn the rest of it until the night my father died. My mother …

by Eugie Foster Narrated by Lawrence Santoro Each morning is a decision. Should I put on the brown mask or the blue? Should I be a tradesman or an assassin today? Whatever the queen demands, of course, I am. But so often she ignores me, and I am left to figure out for myself who …

By Eugie Foster Read by: Jason Adams First appeared in Anaisdotmfk Discuss on our forums. All stories by Eugie Foster All stories read by Jason Adams “A takeover of your company with the state your market shares are in is not unreasonable.” Although Soaces was right, there’d be precious little profit, even after he’d liquidated …

By Eugie Foster Read by Mur Lafferty Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page Trixie and the Pandas of Dread by Eugie Foster Trixie got out of her cherry-red godmobile and waved away the flitting cherubim waiting to bear her to her sedan …

by Madeline Ashby read by Tina Connolly Violet snapped three photos of herself from various angles, sent them, and waited for her boyfriend’s response. He rang her up—a slow vibrating purr, unlike the staccato door-knocking of her mother’s ringvibe—and said: “Me likey. Now take it off.” Violet frowned. “You were _supposed_ to dig up the …

The Zombee Project 3.0 By Allison Mulder Jensen brought the job offer to each of them in person, like no one did anymore. She poached them from the best labs and the best apiaries, all over the world. Put everything she knew on the table, in out-of-the-way cafés and fine-but-nothing-fancy hotel rooms and home kitchens …

Trusted Messenger By Kevin Wabaunsee Dr. Thaddeus Begay had been expecting a dying child in the exam room, but no one had said anything about a woman half-dead from starvation. He stepped inside and muscled the door shut—like the rest of the clinic, it was made from metal reclaimed from the original dropship, and like everything …

By Tobias S. Buckell. Read by Matthew Wayne Selznick (of Brave Men Run). When Jerry walked out across his lawn to catch the morning bus to Effendale High, he stopped to admire the new car Mr. Atkinson had growing in his lawn. Jerry could see the doors stretching up towards the roof, small branches of …

by Andrea Phillips read by Mur Lafferty This story is an Escape Pod original, it 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 about the author… Andrea Phillips is an award-winning transmedia writer, game designer and author. Her book, A Creator’s […]

Holding the Ghosts By Gwendolyn Clare Abby was in control of the body the first time a glitch occurred. She was “home from college for the long weekend”—that’s what the imprinted memories showed, at least—and her mother was pouring dollops of blueberry pancake batter onto the sizzling cast-iron griddle. Her father had found an excuse to …

By Nancy Fulda Read by Marguerite Kenner Discuss on our forums. First appeared in Asimov’s March 2011 issue All stories by Nancy Fulda All stories read by Marguerite Kenner Movement By Nancy Fulda It is sunset. The sky is splendid through the panes of my bedroom window; billowing layers of cumulous blazing with refracted oranges …

By Tobias S. Buckell. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Seeds of Change, ed. John Joseph Adams Audible.com Metatropolis Promotion! Download the first story from Metatropolis free at: http://audible.com/metapod The man opened the pack all the way to reveal a small arsenal of guns, grenades, explosives, and — oddly — knives. Very large knives. …

By Charles Coleman Finlay. Read by Stephen Eley. First appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 2004. Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff When the bus reaches the corner, they climb onboard, taking seats on their side and evening out the ride so it doesn’t feel so much like we’ll tip over. We …

By Heather Lindsley. Read by The Word Whore (of Air Out My Shorts). First appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 2006. “What do you see?” he asks. I want to say a menace, but instead I tap the delivery barrel and give the context-appropriate answer. “Unused ad space.” Suddenly he’s a …

By Jeremiah Tolbert. Read by Philippa Ballantine (of Chasing the Bard). First appeared in Seeds of Change, ed. John Joseph Adams Audible.com Promotion! Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff Nobody went home to their Elderfolk while we waited for Niles to come back. That was a rule. If Niles never came back, then we wouldn’t …

Two Steps Forward By Holly Schofield I eased myself down off the running board of the ’28 Hudson sedan then laid a hand on the hood in mute sympathy for its overheated pistons. A quick buttoning-up of my topcoat and a tug on my fedora and I felt ready to approach the farmhouse. The old …

Baro Porrajmos, or Love in the Vardo By Eileen Gunnell Lee The day we left the Static was the best day of our lives. The Static had been squalid—a cold concrete building with perpetually wet floors sloping toward the drains. There had been too many of us in there, even without the men. We celebrated …

What Good is a Glass Warrior? By Scott Huggins Like falling through rings of intermittent diamonds; White laser-circles of moon. Kinhang Chan Tzu chose those words to describe being me. Given that he was Earth’s poet laureate, and I am only my parents’ daughter, who am I to argue? I have never seen any of those […]

Dr. Mbalu and the Butcher’s Daughter By Megan Chaudhuri With a raspy pop, the cell sprayer in Rebecca’s hand sputtered one last drop of fur progenitor cells. Ignoring her stiff back, she leaned over the culture vat and daubed the cells onto the pink, gel-sculpted contours of a cheetah’s back muscles. The gel rippled; Rebecca held …

Honey and Bone By Mads Alvey With each step she took, the girl’s leg hissed. Thump, hiss, thump, hiss, thump, hiss. Whenever she lifted her leg, the knee joint extended. Her thigh and shin pulled apart unsettlingly, reminiscent of something deeply broken. Her gait was slow, round, loping. She didn’t move with any expedience. It […]

Safe Harbour By Kristene Perron It begins with breath. In. Wrap my hand around the handle at the bow of the kayak. Out. Drag the boat across the rocks. In and out, in time with the low moan of the fog horn in the distance. I welcome the grey of dawn though my muscles ache from …

Meltwater By Benjamin C. Kinney My beloved waits for me in the flooded church. She’s died one time too many, and I can’t get her back without her help. At least, at last, it gives me a reason to see her again. The church lies at the edge of the Mediterranean fracture, below cliffs barely eight …