You can find out more about Justin on his websites www.thebeandom.com/spaceturtle and www.thespaceturtle.com.

Today’s story is PG13 for language and adult topics

You can find out more about today’s author at his website www.robertreedwriter.com

Everyone is an unmitigated failure.

And then success comes, or it doesn’t. When I was still an unpublished author, I wrote a long story about an average fellow wandering through his relentlessly unremarkable life.  His world wasn’t particularly different from mine, ecept for being set in some down-the-road future. The plot was minimal, the sf ideas scarse.  Yet something about the narrative….

We do apologize for this story being late, the next one will most likely also be late. Details as to why, are given in this episode.

This story is rated r for language.

Episode 26 is part of our Dog Appreciation Month at Clonepod in honor of our new puppy, WallE and our dog, Hazel, who has welcomed WallE into the family.

Scott Bradfield has worked in Hollywood writing scripts for Sony, Universal, Working Title and Roger Corman’s Concorde Films.  He has written two books entitled Hot Animal Love and Good Girl Wants it Bad.  Recent work has appeared in Bookforum, thefanzine.com and the New York Ghost.

Dazzle found his first script conference a lot less painful than he expected.

“I see a dog with severe personality disorders,” envisioned Syd Fleishman of Sony Tristar, seated in his overstuffed leather armchair with a plastic liter of Evian propped between his knees. “I see a dog with closeness issues, and issues about his dad…..

audio engineering by Bruce McDonald

Music by Robert Farmer

Happy New Year from everyone at clonepod.  Today we are releasing the promised Flash Fiction piece that we had intended to release for Christmas before we knew we could run the wonderful steampunk story, Cold Duty for Christmas.  

The author of today’s story, Jonathan Lowe, has a website that includes interviews and reviews of audio books.  We recommend checking his work out at Justsaynoway.com.

 I was in the air en route to Jamaica once when the guy next to me said:  “We aliens like to fly first class.”
         I looked at him, closely.  He winked.  Twice.  On the second wink I spewed the gin and tonic I’d been sipping all over him.  Luckily, the old folks sitting across from us were asleep, precluding embarrassment.  Although I did have a good excuse for it.  After all, the guy doing the winking had two eyelids, the second resembling an icky green jelly-like membrane.  Other than this rather minor oversight he could have passed for any insurance salesman.

read by Leslie Ann Moore

music by Robert Farmer

Parental Guidance recommended.  Suggestive Language

How to Deal With Your Daughter and Her Crabs was previously published in 2005 in Alien Skin magazine.  Brian Salyard’s work also appears in Alien Skin and in the Redjack Books anthology Anathema.

Charles sat at a dinner table much too large for just himself and his wife, chewing his lip with rapidly increasing annoyance.  Jaycee was now thirty-five minutes late.      

     It was bad enough she hadn’t let him pick her up from the airport; now he watched the sedentary Tofurky® harden and become fouler by the second.  A fly crouched on it, rubbing its legs with delight, and perhaps confusing it for its usual meal of choice.  Charles was not inclined to shoo it.  As a retired entomology professor, he was often more comfortable around the six-legged than the two

Audio engineering by Bruce McDonald

Music by Robert Farmer

Leslie Ann Moore works in the healing profession and is the author of Griffin’s Daughter.  She is part of the clonepod team as an editor and a frequent narrator for clonepod’s stories.  You can listen to the podcast of her exciting book at http://leslieann.podomatic.com.

Invisible explores a world so obsessed by youth that people literally become invisble when they age…

Audio Engineering by Bruce McDonald

Music by Robert Farmer

Ending Song  ”Re: Your Brains” by Johnathan Coulton

Parental Guidance Strongly Suggested

No tricks today, only a treat – a new Union Dues story!  Also included is a Halloween Song which we love and hope you will too.

Most of our listeners are familiar with Jeffrey DeRego’s Union Dues series both on escapepod and now his new series of the Team Shikaragaki on our podcast.  If you haven’t yet been infected with the Union Dues bug, you will have the joy of getting to go back into our archives and escapepod’s Union Dues archives to catch up with the stories

I’m on my second Martini when I feel Miss Jennifer enter the Jumpin’ Catfish Lounge: Home of the Buck-Fifty Draft. The bar is attached to a seedy little candlepin bowling alley wedged between an abandoned church, Baptist I think, and a dirt parking lot stuffed with pickup trucks. The walls are papered with posters for low-rent country cover bands, amateur wrestling, and The World Famous Solomon Brothers Traveling Circus. A wagon wheel chandelier throws enough light that I can’t even blend into the shadows so she’s sure to see me.

I’ve got an ear-worm and the gin is dulling it some but not chasing it away. This isn’t a regular ear-worm, you know, like the first two bars of a TV theme song that perpetually cycle through your head like some supernatural torture. No, this is a stray thought.

Audio Engineering by Bruce McDonald

No one ever caught me eating hair before — and this dude wasn’t shy.  He shouted, “What are you doing!”

I’d just begun styling a natural blonde, a wonderfully plump little thing whose body was all curves.  She looked around and I nearly hacked open her jugular.

“Careful.”  I palmed my scissors and used both hands to size out her bangs, pretending I didn’t realize the dude meant me, hoping he’d go away.  But he was a Watch.  I’d already spotted the pin-point cameras tucked behind his ears, as if his puffy  wolfman curls, shaped to conceal, weren’t indication enough.

The good news was that he probably wasn’t live on-line.

Audio Engineering by Bruce McDonald

Old Folk’s Homewas originally published in the Jim Baen’s Universe.  Mr Kratman’s fiction has also appeared in Aeon Speculative Fiction, Dark Recesses Press, and many other markets.

Bobby Cullivan finished entering the staff schedules and leaned back in his chair, doing his best to ignore the arthritic twinge in his hip.  It was nice to be calling the shots again.

His son, Joe, did a decent job managing the retirement station, but Bobby missed being in charge.  Joe went down to Earth once every three months for a few weeks of high gravity and Bobby looked forward to his son’s time away.

audio engineering by Bruce McDonald

Illustration by the author, Liz Mierzejewski

Liz Mierzejewski is a middle school science teacher from Connecticut.  She is an avid (some would say obsessive) sf reader and uses it extensively in her science classes.  Her work has appeared in the online zine Toasted Cheese and in the magazine Motherverse. Liz is also a panelist on the popular Battlestar Galactica Roundtable podcast.  Look for it on Itunes!

Looking at that empty box covered with photographs and flowers that morning, I still held out hope.

“Is she dead?” they would ask me.  Some would pull me by my elbow, being discreet in the company of Maggie’s family, but it was always the same question.  “Do you think she’s dead?”

With as much discretion, I would whisper.  I had to whisper, my voice shot to hell from screaming her name in the endless caverns.  “I don’t know.”  I want to believe she’s alive, but even using that word right now seems ludicrous, considering the circumstances.

Audio Engineering by Bruce McDonald

Matthew Johnson has published stories in markets such as Asimov’s Science Fiction and Strange Horizons as well as anthologies including Best New Fantasy 2 and Fantasy: The Best of the Year (2007 and 2008 editions.) ‘Outside Chance’ was first published in the Summer 2006 issue of On Spec.

       Jacob watched the future fade from view as he triggered the relay. He was not sad to see it go; it was a bad one, like a Beckett play come to life. It wasn’t hard to imagine Vladimir and Estragon bickering in this wasteland, or Hamm and Clov playing tug-of-war at the end of the world.

      Outlines were like that, often as not. It was his job to find out how they got that way, what chain of events had led to the particular doom each future embodied, and to bring back anything that might help ensure the survival of the present. He did not, as much as possible, talk to the people. They didn’t really exist, after all; that is to say, they wouldn’t.

audio engineering by Bruce McDonald

Inside Every Successful Man was first published in the semi-pro webzine Hub last October.  Mr Jones has also been published in Murky Depths and Cosmos, among others, and recently had a story accepted by Nature magazine

The sound of  galloping hooves getting closer intruded on the quiet, muggy air of the lounge.  Jav groaned and slouched further back into the cosy embrace of his favourite armchair.  He put the glass of whisky down guiltily, but there was no hiding it from the black-clad rider who reigned in his horse and dismounted with the ease of someone who has ridden all his young life.  Jav closed his eyes wishfully, but horse and rider were still there, superimposed in his middle vision by the nanites linked to his optical nerve.   

“What ya’ drinkin’?”  The cowboy asked, knowingly

Asleep in the Forest of the Tall Cats was originally published in 2004 in the Writers of the Future anthology. Ken Brady’s publications include: Analog, Writers of the Future, Strange Horizons, Talebones, Ideomancer, Darker Matter, Fortean Bureau, Weird Tales, Frequency, Rosebud, The William and Mary Review, and a variety of anthologies and foreign markets.

People descended in gleaming metal, fire burning bright across the cloud-streaked sky.  They touched down and they stayed.  They built, they charted, they named names, they changed the composition of the air.  They explored with sensors and unmanned aircraft.  When they found the planet safe, they bred.  The first child, Pietor, was a test.

We are fortunate to have another Union Dues story upcoming.  We will release as soon as we can do it justice and again ask our listeners to help out an author who has given so much enjoyment.

Manny the Mailmobile was first published in the Jan/Feb 2002 issue of Cicada and was reprinted in Greek in issue 2 of Ennea in Feb 2005.

Eugie Foster has many credits to her name such as stories in the Realms of Fantasy, The Third Alternative, Cricket, Orson Scott Card’s InterGalctic Medicine Show, and anthologies Best New Fantasy (Wildside Press), Heroes in Training (Daw Books), and Magic in the Mirrorstone (Wizards of the Coast/Mirrorstone Books).  Her work has been translated into Greek, Hungarian, Polish and French.

I am a Mark VII Mail Assistant Navigation Instrument, although everyone calls me Manny for short.  My life at Amlgig Inc. was comfortable, if a little humdrum.  My route was programmed in so I wouldn’t get lost or tumble down the stairs by mistake — don’t laugh, it happened to one of the prototypes.  The only thing I had to watch out for were the stray peds lurking around corners.  That wasn’t even a real problem; once I scanned them with my sensors, a few good beeps usually scattered them from my path.

Audio Engineering by Chris Moody

Parental Guidance Suggested

Most of our listeners are familiar with Heffery DeRego’s Union Dues series both on escapepod and now his new series of the Team Shikaragaki on our podcast.  If you haven’t yet been infected with the Union Dues bug, you will have the joy of getting to go back into our archives and escapepod’s Union Dues archives to catch up with the stories.

The smell of greasy hamburgers and the sound of calliope music sneaks into the small dark dressing room off the main stage of the Missouri State Fair.

Kitty and TK are already in costume, Johnny Toruko is in the back getting dressed, and Miss Jennifer is alternating between looking at her watch and glaring at us for not being quicker.

“Five minutes,” she says.

“Almost ready Miss Jennifer,” we answer in sing-song voice.

I’ve barely got my last white glove on before the Team Shikaragaki Go! theme music starts.

Kitty is out first. She handsprings across the center stage then leaps up and crouches on the light rig.

TK walks out next, waving and smiling. Her yellow tights catch the early Saturday afternoon sunlight and almost glow.

Some kids are waving drawings of us on homemade signs.

Johnny goes out next. He stops and makes a “bang-bang” motion with his hands until bolts of flickering blue/white lightning snake up his arms. He flashes each hand down and blasts the lightning into a grounded steel plate in the stage floor.

The fans, especially the young girls, scream so loud it vibrates the dressing room.

I was supposed to wait until our theme music hits the second bridge before taking the stage but all I can hear is the carousel, all I can smell is the food, and I come out early.

Music by Robert Farmer

Forget Me Not is Mary E Lowd’s first publication and we are very excited to be presenting it.  It has already appeared in Northwest Passages: A Cascadian Anthology and in a Greek magazine, Ennea, which translates to “9″.

His confidence drew him to her.  The gleam in his eye said, “I can take on the world,” and she believed it.  She was fascinated, and her fascination endeared him to her.

Michael introduced them, but neither Joan nor Leeland bestowed a second glance at Leeland all night.  Their eyes and conversation were reserved for each other.

Music by Robert Farmer

Audio Engineering by Bruce McDonald

Yes, the story really is by the Neil Gaiman!  Neil Gaiman works magic in all fields of speculative fiction.  He has won many awards.  He has written Coraline, American Gods and Anansi Boys.  Most recently he has released a short fiction collection titled Fragile Things.  M is for Magic is a new collection coming out soon.

“Come on,” said Vic.  “It’ll be great.”

“No it won’t,” I said, although I’d lost this fight hours ago, and I knew it.

“It’ll be brilliant,” said Vic, for the hundredth time. “Girls! Girls! Girls” He grinned with white teeth.

Music by Robert Farmer

Illustration by Lorraine Schleter

Walter Jon Williams began his writing career in the 80′s and he has been a very prolific writer eversince.  His first SF novel was Ambassador of Preogress, followed by Hardwired, Aristoi, Metropolitan, City on Fire, The Rift and his Dread Empire’s Fall series.  He won a Nebula for “Daddy’s World” and “The Green Leopard Plague.”  His short fiction is colected in Facets and Frankenstein’s and Foreign Devils.  His most recent novel is Implied Spaces which the clonepod team can’t wait to read.

This coming of age story is PG because it is a coming of age story where not every child gets to become an adult.  Younger children may be frightened, but parents should decide for themselves.

It’s your understanding and wisdom that makes me want to talk to you, Doctor Sam.  About how Fritz met the Blue Lady, and what happened with Janis, and why her mother decided to kill her, and what became of all that.  I need to get it sorted out, and for that I need a real friend.  Which is you.

Janis is always making fun of me because I talk to an imaginary person.  She makes even more fun of me because my imaginary friend is an English guy who died hundreds of years ago.

If you have a blog or podcast and would like to play this one, please do!

Thanks for listening!

Music by Robert Farmer

Audio Engineering by Bruce McDonald

Nicholas Ozment teaches English at Winona State University. By night he is an sf writer of stories and poetry for publications such as Weird Tales, Mythic Delirium, SUSURRUS: THE LITERATURE OF MADNESS, MYTHIC CIRCLE, AFTERBURN SF, and RAVEN ELECTRICK. Two of his stories have been podcast on PSEUDOPOD. He reviews books and movies at DOWN IN THE CELLAR and MANNING’S MANLY MOVIES. He lives in Minnesota with his wife and a strange black dog.

by Nicholas Ozment

Marigold was bending over to pick a morel mushroom when she heard something crashing through the woods. It grew louder, coming towards her. Her heart jumped and she stood up straight, hoping it was only a spooked deer. She grasped the handle of the knife she carried beneath her cape, fearing it might be a far less pleasant denizen of the forest—a wolf or a boar or a bear. Not that the small knife would do the young girl much good against boar tusk or bear claw. It was more handy for whittling pocket-sized boars and bears out of sticks.

Then it—or rather he—burst from the trees not forty yards from her, running at full tilt. He came leaping over brambles and branches and bushes, his great long legs taking huge strides so that in the span of a heartbeat he was already nearly upon her. He was a gaunt, wiry giant of a man.

He didn’t notice Marigold until he nearly ran her over. Then his gangly body, all waving limbs like a daddy-longlegs spider, came to an abrupt halt. He towered over her, glaring down with gray, owl-like eyes

The story today is not for young children. It is PG13 for language, mature topics and violence

Read by Abby Kim

Music by Robert Farmer

Audio Engineering by Chris Moody

Jeffrey DeRego’s fiction has appeared at Escape Pod and Tales of the Zombie War. He also contributes funny commentaries about writing to The Writing Show (www.writingshow.com) and has appeared on both SciFi Dig, and The Eclectic Word.
 

So, we’re like in this mall in Wisconsin or Michigan or some other place I can’t find on a map, roped off and on a little stage. And, all I can concentrate on is how good an Orange Frosty from the food court would taste right now. Do I notice that a couple of hundred kids, mostly girls around between five and fifteen are screaming questions and snapping pictures? Sure, but that isn’t anyway near as interesting as how they mix orange juice, coconut milk, and soda water with a chopped banana.

Read by Bruce McDonald

Music by Robert Farmer

Audio Engineering by Bruce McDonald

The Invisible Man is Innocent was originally published at McSweeneys.net

He has had other humor pieces published at McSweeneys
Online Tendency, The Big Jewel, MonkeyBicycle, The
Morning News, Weird Tales, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination and
Talebones.  You can find Mr. Gamelli at http://webpagewithlinks.blogspot.com/

Regarding today’s front-page story:  I’m surely just one of
thousands dismayed to read that Mayor Pendleton’s pants slipped
down around his ankles during last night’s address at City Hall.
However, while I think we can all agree it was unfortunate (and
no doubt humiliating), I must take issue with your reporter,
Alan Hendale, who went out of his way to label the incident
“suspicious.”

We all know what he was implying.

PG-13 – not for young children!

Read by Leslie Ann Moore

Music by Robert Farmer

Audio Engineering by Bruce McDonald

 Ms Kelly received my MFA from Pacific University in 2006, and since leaving school, she has taught composition and fiction writing at Pacific. She has a short story appearing this summer in The Rose & Thorn. She was a finalist in a Glimmer Train short story contest in 2006, and in 2007 she won an artist residency at Caldera. In 1998 she was a writer in residence at Hedgebrook in Washington state, and in 1999, her short story “Scorched” was selected by Stephen King for his On Writing contest.

      After the cat died, time began to creep up on me.

      One day I set out to water and prune the tomato plants, and the next thing I knew I’d spent most of the day going through old clothes, shaking out the wrinkles and remembering when I last wore this dress, that blouse.

      In the trunk I also found a notebook. I don’t know how it got there, maybe scooped up in my last frenzy of packing. We are taught never to write anything down, not even directions or lists. I’ve obeyed this rule so well that I had to teach myself to hold a pen.

      You see, that was one way the cat helped. I wouldn’t have lasted a month out here without her, in the beginning.

Music by Robert Farmer

Audio Engineering by Bruce McDonald

A special thanks to Chris Moody of Podiomedia Chat for web design assistance.

Alien Hunt is the story of a Men in Black style “agent” looking for aliens on earth who is given a hit and run case.

Our author this week is James Hartley who is a retired computer programmer. He has published a fantasy novel, “Teen Angel,” and stories in many ezines. He is currently working on a second novel, “The Ghost of Grover’s Ridge.

It was just another hit-and-run. Beat up green Chevy, drunk driver, careless pedestrian. The cops got the driver later in the day–witnesses not only got the license number, but were able to identify the “Stop DWI” bumper sticker–and he’s now in jail, but that didn’t help the pedestrian any. He was dead before he hit the sidewalk. Only on thing was unusual, he wasn’t human. And that’s how I got involved.

Read by Rufus Nagel

Tannis is a standalone short story, but also forms the
bulk of the opening chapter of the young adult SF
novel Generations. Tannis is currently in production
as a short animated movie by a student filmmaker in
South Africa. The story previously appeared in the UK
small press magazine Xenos Issue 5 1993.

William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with
seven novels published in the States and over 150
short story credits in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland,
Saudi Arabia, Greece, India and Romania.

The autumn sun drifted through the trees dappling the ground around him in soft shades of yellow and gold and green. But Tom didn’t notice. All his attention was on the pond in front of him.

He’d been stalking the newt all morning –

by Leslie Ann Moore

Haunting Clues was first published at www.TheTownDrunk.org in March 2007.  This story is a light-hearted ghost story.  This story is also available at www.AnthologyBuilder.com.   Maria Schneider work can also be found at www.CoyoteWildMag.com in the January 2008 issue and in
Toil, Trouble and Rot at www.CoyoteWildMag.com  (forthcoming issue)

 When he walked into my detective agency, I was suspicious. No one hired me these days, not since the elves moved into the building across the street with their big sign, “We Can Find… Anything!” Semi-nude fairies peered out between the letters.

      “I need your help,” he said, swinging his keys around on one finger. He was bald, fortyish, and covering it well. I almost didn’t catch the hair transplant, but the black replacement on the top of his head was thicker than the flatter, thin strands at the sides.

      “Why don’t you hire the elves?” I asked, jerking my thumb towards the window.

If you play the most recent episodes using the flash player on the page, you’ll be hearing Chipmunks. They do play properly in other players and if you download it to play on your computer it should be fine.

We are aware of the problem and are working to fix it.

Thanks for you patience.

Read by Leslie Ann Moore, author of Griffin’s Daughter

Mathew Spence’s work has appeared in Black Satellite, Brew City Magazine, Cyber Oasis, Down in the Cellar, and Sciencefictionfantasyhorror.com.

I look through the glass wall that separates their world from mine and see them as they must see me-as curiosities; creatures that are clever enough but which lack true sentience. I know now that is a false impression, for I have seen more of their world than the others of my kind have.

 Warning PG13 for violence and suggestive language

Illustration is by Rikki Niehaus. You can find more of her work at http://rikkiniehaus.com.

Read by Leslie Ann Moore, author of Griffin’s Daughter

“I Have a Daughter”, was first published by Earlyworks Press in the high fantasy anthology, “The Sleepless Sands.” Ms. Edmunds is an English poet, novelist and short story writer, with many works in various anthologies, as well as one published novel.  Catherine Edminds’ recent poetry book can be found at our site’s bookstore.

“I have a daughter.”

      My father’s deep tones rang out, commanding silence, and the moment I’d been dreading since I turned sixteen finally arrived. I clutched Shull’s fur and watched intently from behind the grill that had helped keep me invisible all these years.

      The tall warrior’s eyes lit up. These were the first words of a ritual, and barbarian or no, he knew them well, but had never expected to hear them himself. None in the hall would have known of my existence; the fact that my father had a daughter. There was a murmuring of surprise, then a hushing to silence.

      “I have a daughter,” my father repeated, softly this time, and this time the warrior responded. The ritualistic words were spoken harshly, his voice cracking with the strain of sudden unexpected hope.

      “I have need of a wife.”

Illustration by Steve Cartwright.  Y ou can find more of his work at www.angelfire.com/sc2/cartoonsbycartwright.

Read by Rufus Nagel

Now that I’m a Robot was originally published online at Science Creative
Quarterly in November, 2006.
He has had other humor pieces published at McSweeneys
Online Tendency, The Big Jewel, MonkeyBicycle, The
Morning News, Weird Tales, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination and
Talebones.  You can find Mr. Gamelli at http://webpagewithlinks.blogspot.com/ 

Illustration by Phil Eggerding. His website can be found at http://www.wilderhom.com/mindex.htm

Read by Bruce McDonald

PG for low level violence

You can read more about Jig the goblin in Jim C. Hines’ books Goblin Quest, Goblin Hero and Goblin War. You can purchase these books through an Amazon Bookstore link on our site.

You can find Jim Hines and his goblins at www.jimchines.com

Jig had muck duty again. His shoulder ached from hauling the muck pot around as he scooped gobs of green sludge into shallow indentations in the stone floor. So far, he had made it through his duties without splashing himself. Even the unlit muck blistered skin in a matter of seconds. When burning, the yellow and green flames were almost impossible to extinguish, which was why the goblins used the stuff in the first place. Unlike most muck-workers, Jig had survived several years with his skin and lungs intact.

Illustration by Kayngi – www.kayngi.deviantart.com

Read by Bruce McDonald

PG for low level violence

Originally appeared in Fantasy Gone Wrong edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Brittiany A. Koren

You can find out more about the author at http://freespace.virgin.net/diri.gini/brian.htm

WORLD’S EDGE 4 miles said the relevant arm of the signpost. At least, that’s what it said now. The 4 replaced a scratched-out 5, which had replaced a scratched-out six, and so on to 10. There had been other numbers before that, but someone had repainted the sign some years ago to make way for a new set….

PG for low level language

Forget Me Not is about a young scientist’s bid to become famous.

A warning to the faint hearted, Forget Me Not does contain an instant of extreme but not explicit violence.

Illustration is from the Wikipedia article Forget Me Not picture released into the Public Domain by Jonas Bergsten

The illustration for Spooklights was created by Marc Sandroni. Our clonepod illustration was also completed by Marc.

The illustration for Spooklights was created by Marc Sandroni. Our clonepod illustration was also completed by Marc.