And Yet A. T. Greenblatt Only idiots go back to the haunted houses of their childhood. And yet. Here you are. Standing on the sagging, weed-strangled front porch that hasn’t changed in twenty years. Every dip in the floorboards, every peeling strip of paint is exactly as you remember it. Time seems to have ricocheted …

Optimizing the Verified Good by Effie Seiberg The little cleanerbot whirrs as it crisscrosses the arena, sucking up the robot dust with the vacuum chute on its right and picking up strewn robot parts with the multi-hinged arm on its front. The arm is strong – it can pick up parts that are larger than […]

AUTHOR: Effie Seiberg HOST & NARRATOR: Tina Connolly RedChip BlueChip was originally published in Crossed Genres (June 2015 issue). 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… Effie Seiberg is a science fiction and fantasy writer living in San Francisco. Her […]

AUTHOR: M. Bennardo NARRATOR: Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali HOST: Norm Sherman Water Finds Its Level was originally published in Lightspeed Magazine. (May 2013) 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… Matthew Bennardo lives in Ohio. He co-edited the science-fiction anthology Machine of Death, […]

Octonet By Keyan Bowes Sometimes at night when my mind is calm, I think I hear the octopuses. Around the world, the great network of molluscan philosophers. I had many reasons for moving to the Pacific Northwest – weather, closeness to potential clients and my big brother Rav, distance from a very ex ex. Slimy cephalopods […]

On a Clear Day You can See All the Way to Conspiracy By Desmond Warzel You’re listening to the Mike Colavito Show on Cleveland’s home for straight talk, WCUY 1200. The opinions expressed on this program do not reflect those of WCUY, its management, or its sponsors. Fair warning; I’m in a mood today, folks. …

AUTHOR: Caroline M. Yoachim NARRATOR: Nicola Seaton-Clark HOST: Tina Connolly This story was originally published by Lightspeed. 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… Caroline M. Yoachim lives in Seattle and loves cold cloudy weather. Her fiction has […]

AUTHOR: Michael Glyde NARRATOR: Joe Williams HOST: Alasdair Stuart This story has not been published previously. 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… M. Glyde recently moved 1813 miles from Pittsburgh, PA to El Paso, TX, …

AUTHOR: Kristin Janz NARRATOR: Ibba Armancas HOST: Tina Connolly This story has not been published previously. 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… Kristin Janz is a Canadian speculative fiction writer who has lived in the […]

AUTHOR: James Miller NARRATOR: Adam Pracht HOST: Alasdair Stuart This story was first published in Unidentified Funny Objects 3 in 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… During the day, James A. Miller works on […]

AUTHOR: Gareth D Jones NARRATOR: Andrew Clarke HOST: Norm Sherman This story 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 Thank you for visiting us on Facebook and Twitter about the author… I’m an environmental scientist, writer and father of 5. My stories have […]

STORY: EP538: The Starsmith AUTHOR: Jonathan Edelstein NARRATOR: James Odcombe HOST: Tina Connolly This story has not been previously published, but is set in the same universe as “First Do No Harm,” which appeared in Strange Horizons. Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page Thank you …

RELEASED 10.August.2016 AUTHOR: Erin Cashier NARRATOR: Johnathan Danz HOST: Norm Sherman WARNING: some sexual imagery This story first appeared in Upgraded. Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page Thank you for visiting us on Facebook and Twitter about the author… Erin Cashier is fond of the unreliable […]

RELEASED 3.August.2016 AUTHOR: Bethany Edwards NARRATOR: George Hrab HOST: Tina Connolly WARNING: profane language and violence This story 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 Thank you for visiting us on Facebook and Twitter about the author… Mystery! about the narrator… Multi-instrumentalist, singer, […]

She Knits the Universe a Pink Angora Sweater by Bo Balder Aulis shuts out the frenetic buzz of the arena where she’s competing for an Oikotekt placement in the space navy. Only an Oikotekt, a person of powerful imagination, can hold onto a picture of the universe as it is supposed to be against the […]

And Then There Were (N-One), Part 3 by Sarah Pinsker Back in the hallway, I dug in my bag for a pen. I’d normally have taken notes while she talked, but I’d had a feeling it would have shut her up. Instead of a pen, I came up with the dinner roll I’d taken earlier. …

The Big So-So By Erika Satifka We’re both sitting on the rotting front porch one muggy July day when Dorcas asks me if I want to break into Paradise with her. I lace up my sneakers and we do the old huff-and-puff up Negley Avenue to the big Cygnian compound on the hill. It’s dark, which …

Beatrix Released By Shaenon K. Garrity The lichen in the cupboard has at last begun to sing. It sings in two-part harmony, bel canto, essaying a faultless duet with itself. What a strange and lovely fairy! I am convinced more and more that my earlier theory was correct, that the lichen is a bipartite organism …

Subtle Ways Each Time By Y.M. Pang A man loses a woman. It’s happened a thousand times before and it’s phrased like this nine hundred times. A man loses a woman. As if she were car keys, an umbrella, a scraggly doll in the arms of a child. A literal and grammatical object to be …

Some Things I Probably Should Have Mentioned Earlier By Laura Pearlman Dear Kevin, I’m sorry I waited so long to tell you this, but I really hate your vacation cabin. Everything about it creeps me out. The sound of crickets at night makes my skin crawl. They sound like impending doom: like a critical piece …

Caesura by Hayley Stone Priya begins by striking the words love, hate, heart, and feel from the computer’s vocabulary, and blocks the internet. It isn’t with malicious intent. She does it on a whim, as with most things: fixing herself tacos at eleven o’clock at night, taking a right instead of a left turn against …

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, …

The Harmonic Resonance of Ejiro Anaborhi by Wole Talabi The spindly, sleek ship hurtled forward at hyperliminal speed, blurring its own intricately patterned design in six dimensions and wrecking the fabric of space–time in its wake. Its captain adjusted the dial on the control panel, accelerating the ship three thousand lightspeed units faster in Planck …

The Scent of Lions by Tara Campbell “Congratulations, Mrs. Costa,” chirped the young Life Center nurse. “You’re ready to go home! Here’s your shield.” Maria raised the infant in her arms high enough for the nurse to slip the slim, silver band around her waist. “Let’s check the charge.” The nurse stepped back and smiled, […]

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, …

The Harmonic Resonance of Ejiro Anaborhi by Wole Talabi The spindly, sleek ship hurtled forward at hyperliminal speed, blurring its own intricately patterned design in six dimensions and wrecking the fabric of space–time in its wake. Its captain adjusted the dial on the control panel, accelerating the ship three thousand lightspeed units faster in Planck …

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. …