PodCastle logo

PodCastle 148: State Change

Originally appeared in Polyphony 4.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:16 — 29.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS

Show Notes

Rated PG

State Change

by Ken Liu

When Rina’s soul finally materialized, the nurse in charge of watching the afterbirth almost missed it. All of a sudden, there, in the stainless steel pan, was an ice cube, the sort you would find clinking around in glasses at cocktail parties. A pool of water was already forming around it. The edges of the ice cube were becoming rounded, indistinct.

An emergency refrigeration unit was rushed in, and the ice cube was packed away.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said to Rina’s mother, who looked into the serene face of her baby daughter. No matter how careful they were, how long could they keep the ice cube from melting? It wasn’t as if they could just keep it in a freezer somewhere and forget about it. The soul had to be pretty close to the body; otherwise the body would die.

Nobody in the room said anything. The air around the baby was awkward, still, silent. Words froze in their throats.

PodCastle logo

PodCastle 147: Card Sharp

Originally appeared in the anthology Way of the Wizard edited by John Joseph Adams.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:07 — 21.4MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS

Show Notes

Rated PG

Card Sharp

by Rajan Khanna

He reached into his pocket and withdrew the Seven of Diamonds. The card flared like phosphorous in his hand, then disappeared in a wisp of smoke. He felt an ephemeral film coat his body. He moved from his hiding place behind some trees and moved down the walkway and to the ramp leading up to the riverboat.

He could feel the stares of the riverboat guards on him, even though he knew they could not see him. Using the Seven of Diamonds might have been overkill, but better safe than sorry. Still, his neck hair prickled at the idea that at the moment, their rifles could be trained on him, preparing to fire.

He made for a small washroom near the center of the main deck. As he approached it, the riverboat’s great paddlewheel began to move, churning the water in a great roar. With a lurch, the riverboat began to move, taking Roland Ketterly and his men down the Mississippi.

Quentin slipped through the washroom door, taking care to close it quietly and minimize his noise. Whatever concealment the first card had provided was visual alone.

PodCastle logo

Narrator Drive Update

Hey all – Dave Thompson here again.

First, I wanted to say a very Big THANK YOU to everyone who Signal Boosted our call for narrators. We’ve had a pretty decent amount of narrators send in their auditions, and I’ve listened to just about all of them.

To those of you who have sent in an audition: THANK YOU. I’m kind of astounded by how good you all sound, and I’ll be with you shortly – hopefully in the next few days, if not sooner.

If you are still planning on sending in a narration: awesome. We can’t wait to hear you!

Finally, we’re still looking for African American readers, and specifically for a guy who can do a passable Lousiana/Creole accent. (Although that’s not a dealbreaker.) So if you’re up for the challenge, please email us at editor@podcastle.org.

Thanks again!

PodCastle logo

PodCastle 146: The Surgeon’s Tale (Giant Episode)

Originally appeared in Subterranean Press. Read the text here!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (66.8MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS

Show Notes

Rated R

The Surgeon’s Tale

by Cat Rambo and Jeff VanderMeer

Down by the docks, you can smell the tide going out–surging from rotted fish, filth, and the briny sargassum that turns the pilings a mixture of purple and green. I don’t mind the smell; it reminds me of my youth. From the bungalow on the bay’s edge, I emerge most days to go beach-combing in the sands beneath the rotted piers. Soft crab skeletons and ghostly sausage wrappers mostly, but a coin or two as well.

Sometimes I see an old man when I’m hunting, a gangly fellow whose clothes hang loose. As though his limbs were sticks of chalk, wired together with ulnar ligaments of seaweed, pillowing bursae formed from the sacs of decaying anemones that clutter on the underside of the pier’s planking.

I worry that the sticks will snap if he steps too far too fast, and he will become past repair, past preservation, right in front of me. I draw diagrams in the sand flats to show him how he can safeguard himself with casings over his fragile limbs, the glyphs he should draw on his cuffs to strengthen his wrists. A thousand things I’ve learned here and at sea. But I don’t talk to him–he will have to figure it out from my scrawls when he comes upon them. If the sea doesn’t touch them first.

He seems haunted, like a mirror or a window that shows some landscape it’s never known. I’m as old as he is. I wonder if I look like him. If he too has trouble sleeping at night. And why he chose this patch of sand to pace and wander.

I will not talk to him. That would be like talking to myself: the surest path to madness.

PodCastle logo

PodCastle Miniature 59: Rainmaker

PodCastle Miniature 59: Rainmaker is a PodCastle original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:31 — 3.1MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS

Show Notes

Rated G

Rainmaker

by Benjamin Thomas

I was eight then, which made her eleven. We lay on a grassy knoll. The earth dampened my flesh: buttocks, shoulders, elbows, and heels. It was late spring, and a light breeze chilled me in pleasant contrast to the tingling warmth of May sun on skin.

“I see a peacock,” I said. It didn’t look like a peacock, a bird, or even a fan. Clouds never really looked like anything, unless you squint just right.

“That one looks like,” Arida furrowed her brow, crinkling up her glass smooth face, “a circus.” The wind gusted.

“It does not,” I protested. “It doesn’t even look like a …” my voice caught. The panorama shifted subtly yet suddenly. I saw the circus; her circus.

The center formed an enormous tent. Crowds milled around it. They moved in less than real time, but at a steady pace. One person spit fire, another juggled. A bear balanced speckled ball in front of the main entrance. In those days, I had seen a few paintings, and none compared to this monochrome play in the clouds.

PodCastle logo

PodCastle Wants You!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:06 — 1.4MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS

PodCastle wants you! We’re continually looking for volunteers of all backgrounds and ethnicities to read the cool stories we’ve bought. So if you’re listening to this, and you’ve ever wanted to read for PodCastle, or any of the Escape Artists podcasts, and you have recording equipment, we’d love for you to send us an audition.

Here’s what you do: Record a sample of you reading something, an excerpt from a story or a book, preferably under five minutes, just so we can get a feel for how you sound. If you can do accents – Creole, Spanish, Southern, Irish, Turkish, French, Japanese – please include that in your audition, and mention it in your email. Then drop us a line at editor@podcastle.org with your audition attached. .wav, .mp3, .aif attachments are preferred. Please mention “audition” in the subject line.

As I said, we’re looking for readers of all backgrounds and ethnicities, but what’s driving this casting call is an urgent need for a story featuring an African American man in Louisiana. Here at PodCastle, we’ve always prided ourselves in bringing you a selection of diverse stories, and we’d love to have more people of color read these stories for you.

If you have any questions, please post on our forum, or email us at editor@podcastle.org. Thanks for listening, and we look forward to hearing from you.

PodCastle logo

PodCastle 145: Hart and Boot

Originally appeared in Polyphony 4.

Rated R for: sexuality, language.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:18 — 33.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS

Hart and Boot

by Tim Pratt

“You have any money?” Pearl said. She didn’t have any more bullets, but she could hit him on the head with her gun, if he had something worth stealing.

“I don’t think so.”

She sighed. “Get out of that hole. I’m getting a crick in my neck, looking down at you.”

He climbed out and stood before her, covered in dirt from head to toe, naked except for a pair of better-than-average boots. Hardly standard uniform for a miner, but she didn’t get flustered. She’d seen her share of naked men during her eighteen years on earth, and she had to admit he was one of the nicest she’d seen, dirt and all, with those broad shoulders. Back in Canada (after seeing the Wild West show, but before deciding to leave her husband) she’d had several dreams about a tall, faceless man coming toward her bed, naked except for cowboy boots.

Apart from the dirt, and the lack of a bed, and her not being asleep and all, this was just like the dream.

PodCastle logo

PodCastle 144: To Ride Beyond the Wide World’s End

Originally appeared at BookView Cafe. This story is a prequel to a novel: House of the Star (Tor, November 2010).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:08 — 19.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS

Show Notes

Rated G

To Ride Beyond the Wide World’s End

by Caitlin Brennan

“Those verses of yours,” old Coel said as the fire died and the hall subsided into a sort of rollicking quiet, “they’re clever. Especially your description of that son of a swine down the valley–how did you know he’s wall-eyed and has a distinct left hook to his private member?”

“Well,” said Madog, “the eye’s easy to see when you’re singing in front of him. As to the other — let’s say it’s a trade secret.”

Old Coel’s bushy white brow arched; he laughed. “Caught him in the jakes, did you?”

Madog shrugged and smiled. Sometimes it was safer to let the patron decide how the story went.

Coel thumped him on the shoulder, and grinned when he barely swayed. Madog was light and wiry as horsemen often are, but he was strong as they often are, too. “Gofannwy won’t thank you for the things you sang of him, but I’ll be warming my evil old heart for days with the thought of them. I owe you a debt for that; I’d like to pay it, for my honor and your pleasure. You’re a horseman, you say? And yet you walked through my gate.”

Madog nodded. His throat still tightened when he thought of his beautiful mare down and gasping in the snow, so far gone with pain that she could not even will to move. He had cut her throat for mercy, and wept for hours after.

Old Coel saw the tears that brimmed in his eyes, and nodded. He was a horseman, too. “In the morning,” he said, “we’ll go out to the fields and see what’s minded to follow you on your travels.”

PodCastle logo

Happy Valentine’s Day! The Curandero and the Swede: A Tale from the 1001 American Nights

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:02:02 — 42.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS

Happy Valentine’s Day from PodCastle!

Long time listeners may remember that about a year and a half ago, PodCastle published Daniel Abraham’s “The Curandero and the Swede: A Tale from the 1001 American Nights.” Unfortunately, there were some technical difficulties, and the sound quality was extremely poor. We’d hoped to get back together with Kip Manley, who originally recorded it, but that never worked out. However, with Mr. Abraham’s blessing, we’ve re-recorded his fantastic story for all of you, and are happy to bring it to you this Valentine’s Day.

We’ve both replaced the original file, and put the new recording up in this post for your convenience. Enjoy!

ETA: Well, this is humiliating. It turns out that there were some blips – repeated lines, etc. in the narration. If you haven’t listened yet, you should probably late until the corrected version gets posted. Apologies to everyone, especially to Mr. Abraham. We’ll have it fixed as soon as possible.

ETA 2: Thanks to everyone for your patience. The audio has been corrected.

PodCastle logo

PodCastle 143: Hurt Me

Originally Published in Songs of Love and Death

Rated R: Contains Violence, Including Sexual Assault, Sex, Language

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:20 — 38.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS

Hurt Me

by M.L.N. Hanover

“It’s a good, solid house,” he said, nodding as a trick to make her nod along with him.

“It is,” she said.  “The price seems low.”

“Motivated seller,” he said with a wink.

“By what?”  She opened and closed the kitchen cabinets.

“Excuse me?”

“Motivated by what?” she said.

“Well, you know how it is,” he said, grinning.  “Kids grow up, move on.  Families change.  A place maybe fits in one part of your life, and then you move on.”

She smiled as if he’d said something funny.

“I don’t know, actually,” she said.  “The seller moved out because she got tired of the place?”

The realtor shrugged expansively, his mental gears whirring.  The question felt like a trap.  He wondered how much the woman had heard about the house.  He couldn’t afford to get caught in an outright lie.