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The Prize Beyond Gold |
Ian Creasey |
In an age of performance enhancing drugs and extreme body transformations (like modifying the body so it can fly), a sprinter aims to break a “natural” human world record. Temptation to deviate is everywhere, but the pressure to remain “pure” is greater.
Such dedication to one cause will bring him greatness, but it limits his choices in life. To be a master at anything one must fore go breadth of knowledge, skill, and experience. The sprinter realizes that success will free him from his self-imposed restrictions. Choice is a greater reward to him than acclaim. |
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44 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around November 2011
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
The Prize Beyond Gold |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 2/4/2012 12:01:18 PM |
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Advertising at the End of the World |
Keffy R. M. Kehrli |
What will our world look like after are gone? The infrastructure of civilization is unnatural. How will it all fit in when it is no longer used by its human creators? How long will it take to crumble and die. How will it look to the few humans that remain? Will it be useful? Or will it serve as a haunting reminder of what is lost?
In this story Marie is trying to live out the post-apocalypse in a cabin in Montana. She is surrounded not by roads or electrical poles, but walking human advertisements. The ads do not provide any companionship. Some even reminder her of her deceased husband. Like crumbling roads and falling buildings they too break down, ending the last vestiges of human civilization. |
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31 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around December 2010
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
Advertising at the End of the World |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 2/4/2012 11:58:01 AM |
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Eros, Philia, Agape |
Rachel Swirsky |
Adriana purchases a robot, Lucian, as a lover. His brain starts as a virtual blank slate, but he learns from her actions. Lucian acts as Adriana’s father never did, caring for her and later their adopted daughter. Mistakes and misinterpretations are comical and heart warming. Through them he learns how to be human. They marry. Adriana fights for android rights. Feeling that he has all the rights of a human, she gives Lucian a chemical code that lets him control his own development.
Lucian realizes that he is not a human though. Adriana’s reactions towards him ever so slightly resemble her towards her pet bird. She loves him, but she owned him once. She has innocently dictated the development of his brain. Finally he leaves. He shuts down his brain and walks into the dessert to be reborn. |
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75 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around July 2010
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
Eros, Philia, Agape |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 2/4/2012 11:55:08 AM |
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Eugene |
Jacob Sager Weinstein |
A dog-man hybrid tells a story about a day at his job on the police force. The dog is loyal to his partner like a human or dog would be, but the partner also acts like an owner. Francisco directs Eugene, scolds him, and tempers his excitement like an owner would. The hybridization augments Eugene’s abilities as a police officer. (It’s not clear if he was a human with dog traits, a dog with human traits, or truly physically blended. I suspect the latter as he mentions that people are sometimes fearful of his appearance.) He has an excellent sense of smell as well as the ability to sense emotion. And like any good dog, he is fiercely protective of children. Fransisco helps him with interacting with members of the force as a human police officer would. It was interesting to hear the story from the dog’s perspective rather than the human’s. |
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23 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around August 2010
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
Eugene |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 2/4/2012 11:53:43 AM |
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Billion-Dollar View |
Ray Tabler |
A team of two mines rocks in deep space. They fall in love with each other and the vast “billion dollar view” of space. All goes well until another small-scale mining ship has an accident and they decide to rescue the young (now parentless) survivors. This is a straight adventure story that accents the unforgiving nature of space. |
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24 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around August 2010
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
Billion-Dollar View |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 2/4/2012 11:51:02 AM |
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Little M@tch Girl |
Heather Shaw |
A girl starts off taking designer “match” drugs and going to clubs, but hard economic times force her into “jacking” - taking drugs to improve performance at work. She then takes a hallucinogenic drug that reacts adversely with her “jacking” drugs, keeping her in her hallucinogenic state forever.
Little M@tch Girl asks what the difference between illegal substances and the legal ones we use to get through the day - caffeine for work, alcohol for fun, vicodin for pain. I also thought it was interesting to see Em in her hallucinogenic state given the description of the “tweekers” she saw at the start of the story. On the outside these people look completely destroyed by drug use, thrashing around violently in the street without any recognition of their surroundings. With Em though we see that to the tweeker that state is an amazing experience, even if it is forever. What does that say about those with mental illness who can’t communicate the way healthy people do? How do they experience their illnesses? Is it the hell we imagine or do they experience in some incomprehensible way? |
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25 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around July 2010
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
Little M@tch Girl |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 2/2/2012 8:10:56 PM |
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The Lady or the Tiger |
J M McDermott |
A crash on a distant planet leaves a boy and his older brother stranded and a pilot dead. The pilot can be saved if her head is frozen. An accident leaves his brother incapacitated so the boy must choose between the (older) woman he (secretly) loves and his brother. The latter is a rebel who once modified his body into a human-tiger hybrid to fight against the opening of their planet, Io, to galactic trade. In a fascinating, but brief, back story his army of human-tiger hybrid battled against the creation of a space elevator and an ansible. The crash is his fault. The story ends with the boy's choice of who to save left unrevealed. |
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29 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around September 2010
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
The Lady or the Tiger |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 2/2/2012 8:07:36 PM |
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Mermaids Singing Each to Each |
Cat Rambo |
A woman is raped at 13 years old by her uncle aboard his salvage boat. She gets gender removal surgery in response. When he dies he wills her the boat. It is not only the scene of the crime but a witness as the boat is outfitted with a ship-wide AI. Before the ship did not protect her, but on a trip to a large salvage opportunity it warns her of one of her partner's intentions.
In this world of body modifications there are also mermaids - a concept not often covered by science fiction. At first they were modified people, but when those people laid eggs real non-human mermaids were born in the toxic, lonely sea. The concept is interestingly played, as the mermaids are nasty creatures, nothing like Disney's Ariel. |
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56 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around September 2010
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
Mermaids Singing Each to Each |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 2/2/2012 8:04:05 PM |
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A Talent for Vanessa |
David W. Goldman |
Vanessa goes to Marv's special talent agency to see how she can pick up a special talent. Marv, seeing how his clients have retracted socially because of their abilities, tries to talk her out of it. She'll be seen as a novelty or a sideshow, and that's if the brain surgery works and has no negative side effects.
The twist is that Vanessa is researching Marv to see if he picked up any abilities naturally as a result of being around special talent. I kept waiting for a final twist that would make the story more interesting but nothing came. |
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40 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around August 2010
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
A Talent for Vanessa |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 2/2/2012 8:02:10 PM |
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Unexpected Outcomes |
Tim Pratt |
The world stops the moment before the 9/11 terrorists were to crash into the Twin Towers. Tim and Heather's world is a simulation of our world meant to understand the age of terrorism that about after the attacks. Now it's over, but the scientists think it's unethical to delete their simulated, yet sentient, beings. So they turn off some natural processes - eating, aging, weather, the cosmos.
Humanity must deal with the fact that not only is life purposeless but it will not continue after the current generation dies out. The story is like the second half of Childhood's End in that many people simply give up, while a few contineu to live and explore their universe. Jan Rodricks tags along with the Overlords in Clarke's classic, while Dawson in this story literally digs a hole in the simulation. Rodricks learns about the Overmind, the being that controls the next level of evolution for species throughout the galaxy. Dawson informs Tim that maybe the controller of their universe might not be done with experiment. |
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35 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around July 2010
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
Unexpected Outcomes |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 2/2/2012 7:59:36 PM |
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Variations on a Theme |
William Meikle |
Plants secretly take over the bodies of high school students in a "pod people"-like scenario. A biology teacher is the only one to notice. The plant people are trying to learn from him biological concepts so they might become the dominant species on Earth. That biology teacher is the only one with enough knowledge to stop them as well. |
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22 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around August 2010
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
Variations on a Theme |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 1/25/2012 11:48:25 PM |
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Chicken Noodle Gravity |
J. Daniel Sawyer |
A man stands by Stephen, his cancer-stricken husband. They smoke pot, watch Dr. Who, and eat chicken soup - the only thing the latter can stomach - as the cancer drains the life from Stephen and eats away at their finances. A can of soup bought at a pawn shop happens to have a black hole singularity in it. The couple agrees to put Stephen inside then open the bottom and let him out years later when a cure is found. |
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32 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around December 2011
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
Chicken Noodle Gravity |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 1/19/2012 9:59:00 PM |
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Honor Killing |
Ray Tabler |
A reluctant human space ship captain agrees to perform an honor killing of a native to get his ship released. Honor killings are oddly welcomed on this planet, though killing the dishonored passes the dishonor to the killer. The intended victim's relative contracted the human because humans are considered a violent and already dishonored species. |
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19 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around December 2011
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
Honor Killing |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 1/19/2012 9:57:28 PM |
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Thanksgiving Day |
Jay Werkheiser |
Human colonists must survive on an alien planet where plant and animal food sources poison to them. White collar and blue collar workers clash. Both groups are given equal rations but the latter needs more energy for their manual labor. The colony scientists are racing to find a food supply before everyone starves. Thanksgiving Day is thick with biology and the solution is a clever idea. Plants and animals on the planet are actually the same species, but their "skin" (skin for animals, bark or leaves for plants) and "flesh" (muscle for animals, wood and fruit for plants) have different compositions. Eaten together skin and flesh are poisonous; separated they are edible.
Given the story's title, the theme of two sides - workers/techs, plant/animal - is a reference to the tradtional American Thanksgiving story involving pilgrims and Native Americans. |
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46 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around November 2011
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around November 2011 |
| More:
Thanksgiving Day |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 1/19/2012 9:55:23 PM |
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Driving X |
Gwendolyn Clare |
Reproduction is controlled by the government in a post-apocalyptic United States. Women with an "XDXD" chromosonal abnormality are banned from having children because the chromosone makes it impossible for a Y chromosone to be passed on. In a reversal of most post-apocalyptic fiction, men are in short supply in this world. The ones that exist are powerless. If found they are thrown in government reproduction centers.
Carmella, stigmatized by her genes, happens upon a young teenager in the desolate Southwest. Without a child of her own she cautiously looks out for Shannon. Only when she lets go of her past does she fully commit to helping the child. |
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32 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around November 2011
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
Driving X |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 1/19/2012 9:53:02 PM |
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Clockwork Fagin |
Cory Doctorow |
Kids take over an orphanage from its brutal caretaker in this Dickensian steam punk story. Bits in this world are flipped mechanically rather than electronically. Many of the boys are disabled or lost their fathers from computer machine accidents, as if they were machines in Industrial Revolution-era factories. But as a result of their work they can build rudimentary machines and networks. The former allows them to build a replica of their deceased caretaker so as to avoid criminal prosecution.
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75 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around October 2011
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
Clockwork Fagin |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 1/19/2012 9:48:13 PM |
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On a Clear Day You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy |
Desmond Warzel |
A radio talk show and its sarcastic host are inundated with calls about weird jet trails over the skies of Cleveland. As the story unfolds three callers claiming to be aliens from different races explain the odd occurrence as a vestige of an intergalactic struggle. Like in any conspiracy the powerful actor wishes to keep it hidden from the public. |
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33 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around March 2011
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
On a Clear Day You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 1/18/2012 12:49:07 PM |
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The Mist |
Frank Darabont |
There's something fun about the beginning of a horror film. It's the dramatic irony. It's peaceful, even if it's not. And you know it won’t last. It’s like the death row inmate’s last meal. You get to see people as they were before it all goes to hell. How will that personality react to conflict?
Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) is a god-fearing woman so she sees the mist that rolls into town killing people as a sign from an angry god. Brent Norton (played by one of my favorites, Andre Braugher) is a big shot lawyer from the city. He applies cold reason to the situation. In between blind faith and cynical reason resides the film's core group - David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his son Billy (Nathan Gamble), older characters Dan Miller (Jeffrey DeMunn) and Irene Reppler (Frances Sternhagen), supermarket employees Bud Brown (Robert Treveiler), Ollie Weeks (Toby Jones), Sally (Alexa Davalos), and Norm (Chris Owen), the younger Amanda Dumfries (Laurie Holden), mechanics Jim Grondin (William Sadler) and Myron LaFleur (David Jensen), a biker (Brian Libby), and three soldiers (the main character played by Samuel Witwer). They’re slightly more moderate, more intelligent, more cautious, more caring, and more scared. They not only must fight monsters but the extremes of human nature.
Carmody dooms them because she doesn’t believe in humanity, Norton because he doesn’t believe in the threat. They are the annoying, but sadly realistic, post-apocalyptic trope: people can survive the monsters but can they survive themselves? It is the group that works together that escapes the supermarket, while we assume the extremes get what’s due to them to the delight of the audience.
The film plays a little with roles - the hick mechanics are cowards, the weasley little supermarket employee (Ollie) is pretty bad ass as is the old school teacher (Irene), the three soldiers are worthless, the lone biker gives himself up for the group, the crazy guy running from the mist at the beginning (Dan Miller) is actually pretty levelheaded.
But David Drayton is clearly our stock strong male character. He’s the hero. Follow him for your best chance of survival. But The Mist plays with that a little too. What if our hero makes all the wrong decisions? He can’t save the bag boy (Norm). He gets violent trying to convince the logical Norton about the danger, ending any chance of him helping. He can’t rally the faithful or the enlightened. The lights he sets up in the store attract some bug monsters. His trip to the pharmacy only gets more people killed. Later we find out that (spoilers) if he left when the mist first arrived he might have survived like the woman played by Melissa Suzanne McBride (the third of the cast along with Laurie Holden and Jeffrey DeMunn to show up later in director Frank Darabont’s The Walking Dead). Also notice it’s not Drayton who holds the gun. And with his final decision The Mist does not let him - or the audience - off the hook for his miscalculations.
Early on I liked the tension the mist created. By the time Mrs. Carmody started gaining converts in the supermarket I was getting tired of the film. Where was the (apparently well intentioned) military to blast these things back to the 5th dimension? But the ending, like it or not, is worth the wait. |
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126 minutes |
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This product was released around November 2007
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I consumed this around December 2011 |
| More:
The Mist |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 1/14/2012 5:39:01 PM |
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Night Bird Soaring |
T. L. Morganfield |
Night Bird Soaring exists in an alternate history where instead of being conquered by Spanish conquistadors the Aztecs chopped Hernando Cortes' head off when he landed in Mexico. The nation that survived that invasion became the most powerful in the "One World". But evolving from early Aztecs means remnants of that early culture will exist in modern times. In this case the Aztecs still practice human sacrifice. This state sanctioned act is what the people believe gives them their good fortune.
Totyoalli was chosen at birth to be sacrificed at the age of 29. Though death is supposedly a great honor Totyoalli would rather explore space with the woman he loves, Zaniyo. He does not believe in the Gods, nor does he care for the honor death bestows. While arguing for the right to explore the heavens he finds the secret to the Aztec's ancient glory and is given a new - and long - lease on life. |
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48 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around September 2011
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around October 2011 |
| More:
Night Bird Soaring |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 1/14/2012 11:25:51 AM |
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Playing Doctor |
Robert T. Jeschonek |
Mad scientist Dr. Hildegarde Medic is falling apart. No longer does the world fear or respect evil genius. Professional failures, relationship problems, and personal health issues have lead her to give up. It is up to her assistant, Glugor, to save her. Having been too afraid to speak of his lifelong love for her, he decides to create happiness for her as the next thing to being with her. |
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34 minutes |
| none |
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This product was released around October 2011
by Escape Pod
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I consumed this around October 2011 |
| More:
Playing Doctor |
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Posted by: Jeff Egnaczyk at: 1/13/2012 9:20:57 PM |
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