Clarkesworld Podcast May 2013: Soulcatcher (James Patrick Kelly)

Right. Back on the horse.

Soulcatcher (James Patrick Kelly)

The text version can be found here.

Read by Kate Baker

A woman's effort to rescue her sister from a seductive alien is complicated by the presence of said sister.

This seemed like an awfully convoluted plan. Might make a good opera.


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Clarkesworld Podcast May 2013: Tachy Psyche (Andy Dudak)

Tachy Psyche (Andy Dudak)

The text version can be found here.

Read by Kate Baker

An attempt to create super spy leaves its victim as a man trapped between two wildly fluctuating time rates and a prisoner of the enemy. Worst, the effect is only mental and so when someone finally tracks him down to discharge a pistol at him, he is forced to stand there and watch the projectile crawl towards him.

I think the comic book someone refers to in the comments on the Clarkesworld site was Hero Alliance; it actually came to mind when I listened to this. Which is kind of sad because it wasn't a great comic and I could have used the brain cells better.


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Escape: Confidential Agent (Graham Green)

Confidential Agent (Graham Green)

A man from a carefully unnamed nation now fighting the Nazis makes his way to the United Kingdom, where he hopes to buy industrial diamonds for the war effort. There he finds his enemies have preceded him and worse, he cannot be sure his British ally - a young woman he met on the way - is not also an enemy agent.

The protagonist is a pretty crappy spy but I suppose he had no training for it all.

Escape: When the Man Comes, Follow Him (Ralph Bates)

When the Man Comes, Follow Him (Ralph Bates)

Following the cryptic clues left by a dying man, four gangsters venture into an unforgiving desert in search of the Lost Dutchman Mine. Nature is bad enough but worse is simple human greed and the inability of people to trust each other.

I am pretty sure if I was dying of a gunshot wound, I wouldn't manage to get out such a long list of clues so coherently.

There's a certain Jack London element to some of this.

Now that the snow banks are melting

I can see something tunneled into one of the bigger banks to construct a sizable burrow. Big enough for a rabbit, although I doubt that was what it was.

The Science Fiction Book Club Reviews Revisited: May 2001

Lists courtesy of Andrew Wheeler.

Contents for anthologies and omnibuses from the Locus Index
to Science Fiction www.locusmag.com/index/

( Read more... )

SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET

ROME IN THE TIME OF MARCUS AURELIUS WAS NOT THE WORLD'S ONLY SUPERPOWER.

Clarkesworld Podcast May 2013: (R + D) /I = M (E. Catherine Tobler)

(R + D) /I = M (E. Catherine Tobler))

The text version can be found here.

Read by Kate Baker

First contact between humans and martians does not go entirely well.

Reminded me a bit of a Bradbury, although much less portentous.

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Escape: The General Died at Dawn (Charles Booth)

The General Died at Dawn (Charles Booth)

A burned out adventurer decides to take on one last job, one that should net him a third share of a half million dollars, plus a pretty dame to call his own. Circumstances and a very annoyed Chinese general will get in the way.

Wow, this was kind of rapey. Also, I am afraid I will always think of this one as "that one where the good guy got away by convincing his dying captor to prove how sincere his body guards are are by ordering them to commit mass suicide."

This was a movie. I did not see the movie. I hope it had a better ending.

Question

Could we duplicate this effect with mutagenic pollution or a sufficiently dirty nuclear war?