“I was head chef for Parliament once - before that bastard Berlusconi, anyhow. “You are willing to follow a recipe? So many chefs of your caliber think themselves above the direction of others.” She lifted her chin. He set this on the table - carefully, Franca noted. “What sort of challenge?” “A very special one.” He slipped a hand into his coat like an old-fashioned pistolero, but before Franca could worry he pulled out a bulging sack made of what looked like deerhide. She did not particularly care whether he paid it wasn’t her inn. Read by Paul Tevis (of Have Games, Will Travel). Referenced sites: Child’s Play Hooting Yardīy N.K. Contains slight profanity, long flirtations, and excessive Zen. “It followed me all the way to work one day, and hung around outside the door like a dog for hours.” Rated PG. “It won’t go away unless you give it some change,” said a woman standing on the corner. The robot beeped at me and jingled its cup harder, the coins rattling. “Take me to your leader,” I said, wishing it could be that simple, knowing that these things are never that simple. There were a few coins in the cup, mostly pennies and nickels, and the robot jingled the cup significantly. It said, in a high-pitched voice, “Klaatu barada nikto.” A small panel slid open in its front, and a pole with a cup on the end telescoped out.
A red light on top of its domelike top blinked erratically. I paused to tie a loose shoelace and a squat robot, like a dirty white trashcan on tank-treads, trundled out of an alley toward me. Read by Alex Wilson (of Telltale Weekly). Referenced sites: The Sci-Fi Podcast Network Geek Fu Action Grip I Should Be Writing The Secrets Slice of Sci-Fi Skepticality Alien Ethos The Signal Earthcore Ancestor Moreviīy Tim Pratt and Greg van Eekhout. Contains drug use, some profanity, and codependent creatures of darkness. I’d seen Goths there before and he wasn’t Goth, he was Gothic–dark and looming, faintly chivalrous in manner, seemingly possessed of a great, tragic secret. Not like those kids who hang out at Hot Topic and think wearing black nail polish expresses their inner turmoil, their eternal angst. The audience is always a motley sort–faculty and spouses, local musicians and artists, music students and jocks who have to attend so many of these things to get credit for required courses, waitresses and office workers desperate for some culture, their school-age children (alternately awed and bored to tears), homeless folks who need a warm place to sleep for a couple of hours, mentally and physically handicapped folks hauled out as someone’s idea of a good deed, and, of course, recreational drug users with nothing better to do. That might seem funny to those who’ve ever bothered to attend these performances, to say that someone didn’t belong. Referenced sites: Eyes of Ligeia Amphigory K9Castīy Lisa M. Contains dark imagery and terrifying fruit. I vowed that I would coax him into my backyard, and I set out in the manner of a learned man to discover how I might do this.
My neighbors were understandably skeptical after all, not once had this superbeing ever chosen to grace my pumpkin patch or any other place in our town. I also evangelized him in the community, relating the tale of how, every year on Hallowmas Eve, the day when the spiritual most strongly encroaches on the substantial, this mightiest of gourds would rise to revel across the world with the most sincere of his adorers. For him, I cultivated an annual pumpkin patch. Mine was a comfortable and happy childhood, and I spent much of it in the devoted service of the Great Old Pumpkin.
As you are no doubt aware, I am the issue of solid Dutch stock-the prosperous Van Pelt family of St. Referenced sites: Short-Short Stories Podiobooksīy John Aegard.
(No, not that kind.) Download this week’s Escape Pod. Contains death rituals with possible disturbing imagery, and numerous pot references. Thank the Virgin, we don’t do anything like that. They say that the sacrificial blood covered the sun pyramids from top to bottom. Those were bloody and terrible times, the times of the Mejica. And it’s true, as is sometimes whispered, that we have restored certain other practices from the past. But don’t be fooled by what you may hear in Malpasa or in Palpan de Baranda.
We don’t have our own priest, or even our own church, so someone has to drive in a pickup truck to get the priest from El Puentecito. As if I had cotton in my ears, I heard the voice of don Leandro saying to my wife, “Dona Susana, I think it is time to fetch the priest,” and I thought, yes, it’s time. On that last morning, anyone who came to visit me could see that I was dying.