The Last Stellar Death Metal Opera By Elly Bangs Raya eases power into the singularity engine and all her senses sharpen with the glorious, brutal reality of the moment: dead ahead there’s the blackli…

Points of Origin by Marissa Lingen Most people who have reached their eighties without raising children have every right to believe that they will go on not raising them, and Judith and I were no diff…

A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide By Sarah Pinsker Andy tattooed his left forearm with Lori’s name on a drunken night in his seventeenth year. “Lori & Andy Forever and Ever” was the full text, all i…

Martian Chronicles by Cory Doctorow They say you can’t smell anything through a launch-hood, but I still smelled the pove in the next seat as the space-attendants strapped us into our acceleration cou…

A Cure for Homesickness By S. L. Scott Krem was dead. Well, not exactly, yet, but he knew death when he saw it, and the scavenger holding a plasma shotgun three feet from his face sure looked like death. The Torqu might have exoskeletons strong enough to keep hardened steel from piercing, but that wouldn’t […]

Blender whirred with sympathy. “I did,” said Toaster, “and everything seems to be working. It was like my settings had been changed. I guess they had. It’s not my fault if Owner gives me the wrong settings.” via Pocket

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 …

Inheritance By Elise Stephens Carmen would have expected a gold necklace or tarnished antique, maybe some money or a secret family recipe card, but she’d never dreamed her grandmother would try to imm…

Martian Chronicles by Cory Doctorow I didn’t go back to the Junior Colonists’ Lounge for a whole week. Instead, I spent the time with my dad, who seemed pleasantly surprised that his son wanted to han…

This Is As I Wish To Be Restored By Christie Yant Every night I come home and I drink. I trade away the hope, the guilt, the fear, even the love–I think it’s love, crazy as it seems. I trade them for …

The Homunculi’s Guide to Resurrecting Your Loved One From Their Electronic Ghosts by Kara Lee 0. Confession If you are reading this, your Loved One has died. We are sorry for your loss. If you are rea…

Man of Straw By Russell Nichols I pissed my PJs when I saw that scarecrow. It was the middle of the night and everybody was knocked out. Marcus, my big brother who died the week before last, had his door cracked. I heard him snoring under the hum of the refrigerator. The carpet creaked under my …

Ulissa by Craig DeLancey The old woman they called Ulissa pointed south. “There’s the ship.” Edoardo raised the binoculars. “Mio dio, it’s huge,” he said. “It is grande,” Ulissa said, nodding at the giant on the horizon that plowed Westward. The stacked containers on its deck looked like a city of pastel buildings that walled …

Valedictorian by N. K. Jemisin There are three things Zinhle decides, when she is old enough to understand. The first is that she will never, ever, give less than her best to anything she tries to do. The second is that she will not live in fear. The third, which is perhaps meaningless given the …

Lucky Shot By Gerri Leen The fire crackles, and Sirella watches as Kai lies with his eyes closed, pretending to sleep. She knows he’s pretending because his breathing is too soft. She’s heard his almost snores since the second night, when they’d both finally relaxed enough to sleep. She heard them and registered the strange, …

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 […]

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: 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 […]

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 […]

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 …