tor.com / category / tordotstories

Tor.com Podcast: “The Great Defense of Layosah” by Peter Orullian

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 22:03:21 +0000

This week on the Tor.com Original Fiction Podcast, we have Peter Orullian reading his story “The Great Defense of Layosah”:

Layosah Reyal sat at her kitchen table across from the two visitors, and ignored them. In her arms, her baby started to cry. She whispered softly to Audra to soothe her, as the two soldiers from the Recityv army patiently waited. The closer man balled a fist, his leather glove creaking in the stillness. Layosah had noticed her callers’ clean cloaks and polished blades when they entered her home—these were no men-at-arms, but a special envoy.

Check it out on the story page, in iTunes, or at the TorDotStories RSS feed. Happy listening!

Read the full article

Tor.com Podcast: “Beauty Belongs to the Flowers” by Matthew Sanborn Smith

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 21:05:01 +0000

This week on the Tor.com Original Fiction Podcast, we have Matthew Sanborn Smith reading his story “Beauty Belongs to the Flowers”:

Matsumoto Miho had seen ten thousand hospital rooms on the feeds, and not one had looked like this. The room did look clean—no cup or chair was out of place—but a proper hospital room, an American hospital room, contained one patient, not four. The patients, even in the Chinese and Indian feeds, did not look like these men. Proper patients were muscular, bandaged or form-fleshed, unblemished save for a few cuts and, most importantly, attractive.

Check it out on the story page, in iTunes, or at the TorDotStories RSS feed. Happy listening!

Read the full article

Tor.com Podcast: “Sweetheart” by Abbey Mei Otis

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:48:44 +0000

This week on the Tor.com Original Fiction Podcast, we have Rachel Pincus reading Abbey Mei Otis's story “Sweetheart”:

Paxton is your baby boy, born just after you got out of the army, your peacetime child. He turned six last month but already he’s got a sweetheart who lives next door. He makes her crowns out of dandelions and shares his FruitBlaster cups with her. She brings him marbles that hum and lets him position her antennae into funny shapes.

Check it out on the story page, in iTunes, or at the TorDotStories RSS feed. Happy listening!

Read the full article

Tor.com Podcast: “The Man with the Knives”

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:34:57 +0000

This week on the Tor.com Original Fiction Podcast, we have Ellen Kushner's story “The Man with the Knives,” set in the world of her classic novel Swordspoint. It tells the story of how the Mad Duke, who left Riverside with his swordsman lover, returned with a foreign wife, a healer named Sophia:

The man on the doorstep could barely breathe, let alone talk. She was used to sick villagers turning up at odd hours, but this one she didn’t recognize. He was not young. His face was grey, and he was soaked and shivering. He couldn’t hurt her.

“Come in,” she said.

The story was originally published in 2010 by Temporary Culture as a limited edition chapbook with original art by Thomas Canty; a few dozen copies are still available for sale. The audio was originally recorded by Jim Freund at the New York Review of Science Fiction reading on December 8, 2009, and features both Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman. Check it out on the story page, in iTunes, or at the TorDotStories RSS feed. Happy listening!

Read the full article

Tor.com Podcast: “Lightbringers and Rainmakers”

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:57:46 +0000

This week on the Tor.com Original Fiction Podcast, we have Felix Gilman's story “Lightbringers and Rainmakers,” set in the world of his novel The Half-Made World:

Hello May.
I haven’t written in a while and maybe it seems I only write when there’s bad news. Well, this is not the exception that proves the rule, if you know what I mean....

The story is read by special guest Chris Scheer and I recommend it highly; he does voices! Check it out on the story page, in iTunes, or at the TorDotStories RSS feed. Happy listening!

Read the full article

Tor.com Podcast: “Ponies”

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 21:40:57 +0000

This week on the Tor.com Original Fiction Podcast, we have Kij Johnson reading her story “Ponies”:

The invitation card has a Western theme. Along its margins, cartoon girls in cowboy hats chase a herd of wild Ponies. The Ponies are no taller than the girls, bright as butterflies, fat, with short round-tipped unicorn horns and small fluffy wings. At the bottom of the card, newly caught Ponies mill about in a corral. The girls have lassoed a pink-and-white Pony. Its eyes and mouth are surprised round Os. There is an exclamation mark over its head.
The little girls are cutting off its horn with curved knives. Its wings are already removed, part of a pile beside the corral.

Check it out on the story page, in iTunes, or at the TorDotStories RSS feed. Happy listening!

Read the full article

Tor.com Podcast: “Sacrifice of the First Sheason”

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:20:31 +0000

This week on the Tor.com Original Fiction Podcast, we have Peter Orullian reading his story “Sacrifice of the First Sheason,” an introduction to the world that he will explore in his forthcoming novel The Unremembered:

Deep in the Divide Mountains, wind and thunder shook conifers that towered a hundred strides tall. Rain fell hard, battering the village of Estem Salo and leaving it awash in the sound of rushing waters. Lightning struck every few moments, flashing the world beyond Palamon Dal Solaas’ window in stark, momentary relief before darkness reclaimed the heights around his home.

You can listen in iTunes or at the TorDotStories RSS feed. Happy listening!

Read the full article

Tor Story Podcast 020 - “Firstborn” by Brandon Sanderson

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Mon, 03 May 2010 21:48:19 +0000

Dennison stepped into the hologram, walking until he stood directly behind his ships. There were about two dozen of them—not a large force, by Fleet standards, but bigger than he deserved. He glanced to the side. Non-commissioned aides and lesser officers had paused in their duties, eyes turned toward their youthful commander. Though they offered no obvious disrespect, Dennison could see their true feelings in their eyes. They did not expect him to win.
Well, Dennison thought, wouldn’t want to disappoint the good folks.

We have another archived story for you this week: “Firstborn” by Brandon Sanderson.

[Dinner with Father after the cut]

Read the full article

Tor Story Podcast 019 - “Four Horsemen, at Their Leisure” by Richard Parks

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:17:08 +0000

After the Apocalypse the Horsemen rode off in separate directions. We met up now and then over the centuries, stayed together for awhile as the mood took us, broke apart again. The last time we were together we had a grand old time. War turned his back for a moment, and Pestilence tried to give him a cold. War chopped Pestilence’s head off and kicked it like a soccer ball. It was a good kick. Three hundred yards across the blighted landscape, easily. By the time Pestilence’s headless body managed, scrabbling across the dust and debris, to feel its way to where the head had rolled, we were pretty sure he wouldn’t try that again. A pity, really. I hadn’t laughed so hard since the Apocalypse.
After that we separated again, which was why I happened to be alone, riding along on a manifestation of a horse that I’d named Patience, brooding as is my habit, and almost didn’t notice when I came across the impossible.
A pine seedling.

Sorry for the delay, folks, the producer was sick last week. So this week we bring you last week’s new story, “Four Horsemen, at Their Leisure,” by Richard Parks.

[Death, War, Pestilence, Famine, and none of them brought a trowel after the cut.]

Read the full article

Tor Story Podcast 018 - “First Flight" by Mary Robinette Kowal

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:41:59 +0000

Eleanor Louise Jackson stood inside the plain steel box of the time machine. It was about the size of an outhouse, but without a bench or windows. She clutched her cane with one hand and her handbag with the other. It felt like the scan was taking far too long, but she was fairly certain that was her nerves talking.
Her corset made her ribs creak with every breath. She’d expected to hate wearing the thing, but there was a certain comfort from having something to support her back and give her a shape more like a woman than a sack of potatoes.

We have another archived story for you this week: “First Flight” by Mary Robinette Kowal.

Promo: Merciless Storytellers

[Time travel back to 1905 after the cut]

Read the full article

Tor Story Podcast 017 - “The Film-makers of Mars" by Geoff Ryman

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:12:00 +0000

Remember the first time you saw Nosferatu, and the vampire looked like a crossbreed between a human and a rat? Well Santa’s Elves looked like little Nosferatus, only they were three feet high and deranged. One of them was licking a child’s doll between her legs. You could hear the whole audience go Ew!
Rat teeth stuck out; fingernails curled in lumps like fungus. One of them snarled at Santa, and the old guy cuffed it pretty smartly about its pointed ears, then knocked it to the ground and gave it two smart kicks to the groin.
Then the reel ended.
Amy looked at me, her face seesawing between wonder and disgust. “That was a children’s film?”
The festival director bounced up to a lectern, trying to look spry. He joked about the movie. “It was called The Secret Life of Santa Claus and I think that must be the first X-rated Santa feature.”

We have another archived story for you this week: “The Film-makers of Mars” by Geoff Ryman.

[More movies after the cut]

Read the full article

Tor Story Podcast 016 - “Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction” by Jo Walton

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 17:32:06 +0000

In the Papers (1)
NATIONAL GUARD MOVES AGAINST STRIKERS
In the seventh week of the mining strike in West Virginia, armed skirmishes and running “guerrilla battles” in the hills have led to the Governor calling in
GET AN ADVANCED DEGREE BY CORRESPONDENCE
You can reap the benefits with no need to leave the safety of your house or go among unruly college students! Only from
EX-PRESIDENT LINDBERGH REPROACHES MINERS
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION
April issue on newsstands now! All new stories by Poul Anderson, Anson MacDonald and H. Beam Piper! Only 35 cents.

We have another archived story for you this week: “Escape to Other Worlds With Science Fiction” by Jo Walton. We have some bonus content this week, Carla Ulbrich's song “Duet with a Klingon.”

Promo: The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd

[A little more coffee after the cut]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 015 - “Errata” by Jeff VanderMeer

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:51:40 +0000

Dear Jeremy: I am writing this sitting in the waterlogged lobby of a rotting, half-finished condominium complex. I am surrounded by cavorting freshwater seals and have two pearl-handled revolvers in my lap, a bottle of vodka in my right hand, a human body in the freezer in the kitchens behind me, and a rather large displaced rockhopper penguin staring me in the face. Upstairs, on the second floor, is the room I’ve made my headquarters. It has a bidet but no bath. The toilet seat refuses to stay up. The wallpaper has succumbed in places to a grainy black fungus, despite the moderate climate. I smell mold everywhere. (Would you believe fish have appeared in the lobby on occasion?) Sometimes the electricity works, but mostly I hope it doesn’t because I’m convinced that with all the water everywhere I’m likely to be electrocuted, perhaps even while I sleep.

We have another archived story for you this week: “Errata” by Jeff VanderMeer.

[Letters and more after the cut]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 014 - “The Next Invasion” by Robert Reed

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:51:56 +0000

The assistant is a thin, plain woman named Molly. She has big eyes and a tiny crooked mouth and an elegant, ill-suited nose that isn’t quite three years old. Tattoos of black anchors cover her body, each anchor dipped in blood. Her forearms are sprinkled with burn scars. What might have been a bullet hole forms a crease on her long neck. Everyone who knows Molly has a favorite story about her wild past, but even the true stories fail to capture the magnificent awfulness of her first thirty years. The last four have been better, if only by comparison. Her present employer is a difficult, arrogant man who loves making impossible requests, and while she hasn’t done her present job cheerfully or perfectly, she’s proven a neurotic capacity to try almost anything to make her boss smile.

We have two treats for you this week: a new story, “The Next Invasion” by Robert Reed, and an interview with short fiction editor Ellen Datlow about her upcoming anthology, Darkness.

Promo: The Empress Sword by Paulette Jaxton

[Hitchhikers ahead after the cut]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 013 - “Eros, Philia, Agape” by Rachel Swirsky

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:47:08 +0000

Adriana shrugged. “They’re all beautiful, right?”
“We’ll need specifications.”
“I don’t have specifications.”
The salesman frowned anxiously. He shifted his weight as if it could help him regain his metaphorical footing. Adriana took pity. She dug through her purse.
“There,” she said, placing a snapshot of her father on one of the display tables. “Make it look nothing like him.”

This week’s story is from our archives, and it’s the questing love story “Eros, Philia, Agape” by Rachel Swirsky.

Promo: Harvey by Phil Rossi

[silent robots and heartbroken birds behind the cut.]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 012 - “The Final Now” by Gregory Benford

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:18:26 +0000

How long now, since the Beginning? He wondered. The question did not actually have deep meaning, He saw, because in the early stages space and time were so entwined, feeding each other. Duration did not endure, after all.
Still, the end of all this was sharp, clear. The accelerating expansion had calmed, died, and the great coolness descended. Time coiled now, in the final, languid waltz between space and time.
She nodded at the firmament around them, saying, “Let us have Others again.” —and brilliant acrid displays frothed, with ruby scents, soft gliding pleasures and deep bass rolls, all blending with the views. They swam in coasting galactic clusters, amid simmering amber stars, and worlds and variety beyond measure—or at least, measures that He and She now cared about. In the long past times, near the very start of all this, they had needed to be more careful. Not now.

This week we bring you a new story: “The Final Now” by Gregory Benford. Illustration by Rick Berry.

Promo: Trickster Moon Podcast

[Defining Eternity after the cut]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 011: “Down on the Farm” by Charles Stross

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:34:18 +0000

Ah, the joy of summer: here in the south-east of England it’s the season of mosquitoes, sunburn, and water shortages. I’m a city boy, so you can add stifling pollution to the list as a million outwardly mobile families start their Chelsea tractors and race to their holiday camps. And that’s before we consider the hellish environs of the Tube (far more literally hellish than anyone realizes, unless they’ve looked at a Transport for London journey planner and recognized the recondite geometry underlying the superimposed sigils of the underground map).

This week we have a story from the archives: “Down on the Farm” by Charles Stross. Illustration by Craig Phillips.

Promo: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin

[Never volunteer to read more.]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 010: “Tourists” by Sean Craven

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:03:25 +0000

They pushed me out of the portal, dumped me into the sage and manzanita. The great orb’s pastel colors glowed against the clear night sky. As I backed away she rocked, then lifted into the air, the only sounds a scrape and rattle as dirt and pebbles rolled into the hollow she’d left. I saw the sparkle of distant flashbulbs from the perimeter of the landing site, like stars on waves.
I wondered if it was my fault the aliens had stolen my grandmother.

This week we bring you a new story: “Tourists” by Sean Craven. Illustration by Goni Montes.

Promo: The Immortals by Tracy Hickman

[We hate the tourists but we love their money after the cut]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 009: “The City Quiet as Death” By Steven Utley and Michael Bishop

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:21:32 +0000

This week we offer you a story from the archives, “The City Quiet as Death” By Steven Utley and Michael Bishop.

Promo: Beware the Hairy Mango

[Shhhh after the cut]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 008: “Vilcabamba” by Harry Turtledove

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:16:53 +0000

This week we offer you a new story, a tale of weighing risks and taking stands: “Vilcabamba,” by Harry Turtledove.

Promo: Adventures in SciFi Publishing

[Chew some snarfar and join us after the cut.]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 007: “Catch 'Em in the Act” by Terry Bisson

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:56:14 +0000

Another story from the archives this week: Catch ’Em in the Act by Terry Bisson!

[Crime videos after the cut]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 006: “The Cat Who Walked A Thousand Miles” by Kij Johnson

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:31:16 +0000

This week's story is from our archive, the story “The Cat Who Walked A Thousand Miles,” by Kij Johnson. Read the story here.

Promo: Audio Market List

[Cats and stories after the cut...]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 005 - "The Starship Mechanic" and "Looking For Truth In the Wild Blue Yonder" by Ken Scholes and Jay Lake

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:11:19 +0000

This week we bring you two stories from the minds of Jay Lake and Ken Scholes: “The Starship Mechanic” and “Looking for Truth in a Wild Blue Yonder.” You can see the story of how these stories happened on this post by Shannon Page.

[More audio x2]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 004 - “Bugs in the Arroyo” by Steven Gould

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:54:08 +0000

This week we bring a story to you from our archives: “Bugs in the Arroyo” by Steven Gould. Gould blogs at Eat Our Brains. Read the story here.

Promo: Nina Kimberly the Merciless by Christiana Ellis

[Bugs! Bugs! More bugs after the cut!]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 003 - “Farewell Performance" by Nick Mamatas

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:00:00 +0000

Our final story for 2009 will be another new one, the Lovecraftian-themed “Farewell Performance” by Nick Mamatas. Read the original story here. Have a safe and happy new year, and we’ll see you again on Jan. 5!

[Audio beyond the cut]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 002 - “Overtime” by Charles Stross

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:00:00 +0000

Happy holidays! For your Christmas treat, we bring you Charles Stross’ “Overtime,” and don’t forget to check the rest of the blog for more news and discussions. Read the story here.

[Audio and show notes beyond the cut]

Read the full article

Tor.com Story Podcast 001 - “After the Coup” by John Scalzi

tordotcom@gmail.com (Tor.com) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:47:56 +0000

For over a year, Tor.com has brought you excellent short fiction on our site, but now we’re making the audio of these stories available to you in podcast form. We’ll be bringing you both new fiction and our archived stories, so don’t worry if you’ve missed anything archived on the site. The podcast will also include mention of the recent topics on the Tor.com blog, convention reports, and interviews from time to time. We hope you enjoy it and we welcome your comments.

We’re starting out with one of our classics, John Scalzi’s “After the Coup.” Read the original story here.

[Podcast beyond the cut]

Read the full article