Bears

“Bears” by Leah Bobet opens with one of those sweeping statements that just beg to be justified:
Ninety-eight percent of all fictional deaths are directly attributable to being eaten by bears.
Bullshit, you say? What about those shooting and stabbings and drownings and beatings and death by Doomed Gay Manlove?
Well, it’s not my problem if you can’t [...]

Love and Death in the Time of Monsters

I have mixed feelings about “Love and Death in the Time of Monsters,” by Frank Wu. It has a great title. The presentation on  Escape Pod is fun. But I have to say I preferred the realistic elements to the scifi elements.

Family Values

In a wonderful example of graceful worldbuilding,”Family Values“, by Sara Genge plunges you into an alien society without stopping to explain. An alien society where females gain power by bearing children and keeping house, and teachers are high status? That’s different. An alien society where males aim to ingratiate themselves with breeding females? That’s familiar. [...]

The Something-Dreaming Game

The first third of “The Something-Dreaming Game,” by Elizabeth Bear is utterly frank about how young people seek unusual sensations, enough that I can see why some people might be uncomfortable listening to it on Escape Pod. The narrator’s daughter, Tara, developed RSD, after breaking her arm. She gets an implant that keeps the [...]

Conversations With and About My Electric Toothbrush

The weirdest thing about going to the dentist and getting my teeth cleaned is, well, my teeth are clean afterward. For the next few weeks, every time I brush, I’m going to stare at my teeth and think, Where are the coffee stains? What is this alien whiteness?
What I really need to keep that whiteness [...]

The Last Stand of the Elephant Man

“Captive Girl” may have creeped me out, but when a story gets under my skin like that, there’s a writer who knows what’s she doing. So I went looking for other works by Jennifer Pelland, and was glad to find “The Last Stand of the Elephant Man“. Joseph Merrick (once known as the “Elephant Man” [...]

Wikihistory

After struggling to like some of these Nebula-worthy stories, it came as a relief to stumble on a story that just plain made laugh.
“Wikihistory” by Desmond Warzel is an amusing short about time travelers maintaining the wiki of the world’s timeline.Part of its charm comes from the way it turns Godwin’s Law on its head. [...]