PodCastle 119: Bespoke
Show Notes
Rated PG: Contains Butterflies and Hurricanes. Happy Birthday, Ray!
Bespoke
by Genevieve Valentine
Martin Spatz, the actor, had gone Vagabonding in 8,000 BC and killed a wild dog that was about to attack him. (It was a blatant violation of the rules–you had to be prepared to die in the past, that was the first thing you signed on the contract. He went to jail over it. They trimmed two years off because he used a stick, and not the pistol he’d brought with him.)
No one could find a direct connection between the dog and the mice, but people speculated. People were still speculating, even though the mice were long dead.
Everything went, sooner or later; the small animals tended to last longer than the large ones, but eventually all that was left were some particularly hardy plants, and the butterflies. By the next year the butterflies were swarming enough to block out the summer sun, and Disease Control began to intervene.
About the Author
Genevieve Valentine
Genevieve Valentine is the author of Two Graves, alongside artists Ming Doyle and Annie Wu. Her novels include Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, Persona, and Icon; she is the recipient of the Crawford Award for best first novel, and has been shortlisted for the Nebula, Locus, Shirley Jackson, and World Fantasy awards. Her comics work includes Catwoman, Ghost in the Shell, and Batman and Robin Eternal. Her short stories have appeared in over a dozen Best of the Year anthologies, including Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her cultural criticism has appeared at http://NPR.org , The AV Club, LA Review of Books, Vice, Vox, and The New York Times, among others.
About the Narrator
Tina Connolly
Tina Connolly’s books include the Ironskin and Seriously Wicked series, and the collection On the Eyeball Floor. She has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Norton, and World Fantasy awards. She co-hosts Escape Pod, runs Toasted Cake, and is at tinaconnolly.com.
