Escape Pod
The Original Science Fiction Podcast
By Vylar Kaftan
Read by Mur Lafferty
Simultaneously appearing in Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 1, June 1, 2010.

I knew you loved me, of course. It was written in your eyes when you looked at me, a physics problem with no clear answer. If an irresistible force meets an immovable object, what happens then?
They meet. That’s all we know.

Relative to each other, they are in contact. From within the object or the force, there is no way to tell if you're in motion.


Rated PG-13
: for sexual description.

Show Notes:
  • Thanks to John Joseph Adams and Lightspeed Magazine for the opportunity to run this fantastic story at the same time as their launch. Go check out their magazine and subscribe!
  • Enter the Escape Pod Flash Contest! It runs June 1- July 4, stories must be under 500 words. More information at the link.
Next week... we begin our annual Hugo short stories rundown, with five weeks of award-nominated stories! I'm taking a 4-week break from hosting, but I'll see you in July!
Direct download: EP243_Im_Alive_I_Love_You.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:47pm EDT

By Robert T. Jeschonek
Read by John Cmar.
First appeared in Space and Time Magazine, issue 108.

For her entire adolescent and adult life up until three weeks ago, Lynda had been the queen of junk food. Aside from the briefest blips of non-junk spending due to occasional failed diets, she had purchased only the most fattening, high-cholesterol, chemical-soaked foods available from grocery stores, restaurants, vending machines, and mail order websites.


In short, she was the perfect woman.

Though she was on a diet that day, she had eaten non-nutritious foods in great quantities all her life. Though her last purchases had been salad greens and bottled water, her 250-pound body told the true story.
I knew she was just waiting for someone like me to come along.

Rated PG: for innuendo-heavy snack cake desire.

Show Notes:
  • Mur will be at Balticon this week, along with Drabblecast's Norm Sherman! Come by and say hi!
  • Enter the Escape Pod Flash Contest! It runs June 1- July 4, stories must be under 500 words. More information at the link.
Next week... the podcast comes on a special day: June 1. And it shows us that love is relative. And so is Reno.
Direct download: EP242_Love_Quest_of_Smidgen.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:57pm EDT

By Stephen Gaskell.
Read by Chris Miller of Unquiet Desperation.

Thargus thought the time right. He set the lights to full strength and flailed and gnashed and roared as he'd been practising. He felt rather silly, but the performance seemed to be working. The human, one hand steadying its spin, looked on intensely. It moved the white stick up to its mouth, breathed in, and then stabbed the stick out against the sac wall.

"Don't be afraid,"  Thargus said, meaning the opposite. He'd seen the trick on old films stored in the moss-brain when humans always said one thing and meant another like "We're safer if we split up."

The human exhaled a long stream of smoke. "I'm not," it said.

That didn't sound right. Thargus considered his response while staring at the human. It sure was ugly. A patchwork of dirty synthetics over the majority of its body, and on top of its pudgy, pink head, strand upon strand of greasy hair. Ugh!  Thargus felt sick.

"Be afraid, then," he said.

"Why, are you going to eat me?"

Thargus didn't feel comfortable telling an outright lie, but that didn't mean he needed to be too honest. "I might."

Rated F for two f-bombs.
Direct download: EP241_Thargus_and_Brian.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 8:51pm EDT

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