BYBS: Escape Artists

Escape Pod and its siblings, Podcastle and Pseudopod are podcast sites that deal in various fiction short stories.

A podcast is like a radio show or a book on tape in a form that you can download and play on your computer, an MP3 player or an iPod (hence the name). Much to my surprise, I've never blogged about podcasts before, but that just means that I now have all my BYBS entries written for the next 6 weeks.

Escape Pod deals in podcasts about science fiction, while Pseudopod deals in horror stories and Podcastle has essentially everything else. I've tried listening to fiction podcasts before and, though there have been exceptions, I've come to believe very strongly in what Theodore Sturgeon meant when he said "90% of everything is crap."

I was therefore more than a little surprised when I stumbled onto these guys. The stories are very interesting and original, and most are read by good performers. Incidentally, if you don't think that voice talent should make a difference, go over to librivox.org to hear some person suck the soul out of Charles Dickens.

I don't want to babble on about all the good stories I've heard there (read: topic for weeks of BYBS entries), but here are a few:

• Episode 212: Skinhorse Goes to Mars by Mike Boris - a Mars overrun by zombies holds the key to a terraforming experiment gone horribly wrong.
• Episode 210: The Hastillan Weed by Ian Creasey - you know about all the nasty plants that have been imported to other climates and wrought havoc? Ever wonder what a plant from another planet might do?
• Episode 209: On the Eyeball Floor by Norm Sherman - a story about love and jealousy in a not quite human way

And that's just from the science fiction podcast! Get yourself an iPod and check em out.