PodCastle 318: The MSG Golem
Show Notes
Rated PG. Contains God, a Golem, and a Spaceship.
The MSG Golem
by Ken Liu
On the second day after the spaceship Princess of the Nebulae left Earth, God spoke to Rebecca.
“Rebecca Lau, listen to me. I need you.”
The ten-year-old girl took off her headphones. The cabin was silent save for the faint rumble of the spaceship’s engines. “Dad, did you say something?”
“It’s me, God.”
“Right.” Rebecca climbed onto a chair to examine the speakers in the ceiling. The voice did not seem to be coming out of them.
She climbed down and peered closely at her computer. “If I find out you had anything to do with this, Bobby Lee …” she muttered darkly. Bobby had been jealous when he heard that her family was going on this cruise to the vacation colony on New Haifa for winter break. It was entirely possible that he decided to play a trick on her by programming her computer.
“Bobby has nothing to do with this,” God said, slightly miffed.
About the Author
Ken Liu
Ken Liu is an author of speculative fiction, as well as a translator, lawyer, and programmer. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, he is the author of The Dandelion Dynasty, a silkpunk epic fantasy series (The Grace of Kings (2015), The Wall of Storms (2016), and a forthcoming third volume) and The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (2016), a collection. He also wrote the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker (2017).
In addition to his original fiction, Ken also translated numerous works from Chinese to English, including The Three-Body Problem (2014), by Liu Cixin, and “Folding Beijing,” by Hao Jingfang, both Hugo winners.
About the Narrator
Anaea Lay
Anaea Lay lives in Chicago, Illinois where she is engaged in a torrid love affair with the city.
She’s the fiction podcast editor for Strange Horizons, where you can hear her read a new short story nearly every week. She’s the president of the Dream Foundry, an organization dedicated to bolstering and nurturing the careers of nascent professionals working with the speculative arts.
Her fiction work has appeared in a variety of venues including Lightspeed, Apex, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Pod Castle. Her interactive novel, Gilded Rails, was released by Choice of Games in 2018. She lives online at anaealay.com where you can find a complete biography and her blog. Follow her on Twitter @anaealay.
