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PseudoPod 440: Octavius Bound

PseudoPod 440: Octavius Bound is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:58 — 27.5MB)

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Show Notes

“Although the events in this story are fictional, the Octavius itself is somewhat less so. Legends of this ship’s disappearance have existed for centuries, and nothing conclusive about its existence has been documented either way.”

Octavius Bound

by Nathan Ehret

Sept 17, 1762

Five Months now we have been at Sea, tho’ it seems but half a Week since the _Octavius_ embarked from Peking and the Orient. I have decided to eschew the Horn & attempt a Course through the New World for our return Journey. If, by God’s Grace, the Weather is clear & we maintain our current Heading, we should find Passage eastward through the Arctic within the next Fortnight.

June 1, 2014

Saw my first iceberg today. Not sure when we can expect pack ice, but everyone just tells me, ‘relax, we’re on an icebreaker’. Kinda takes the excitement out of sailing into the Great White North to chase down a ghost ship, but hey–at least we’ll be safer than the _Octavius_.

It’s funny–we really don’t know much more about the _HMS Octavius_ than what anyone’s grandma could find on Google. It was last seen in 1775, some thirteen years after its disappearance, by the _Herald_, an English whaling ship. When the whalers went on board, they discovered the entire crew of the _Octavius_ frozen dead at their stations. The captain, William Perington, was still at his desk, pen in hand, along with a woman and small child. I guess the whole ‘freezing-to-death-at-your-post’ business kinda freaked the hell out of the whalers, and they legged it pretty quick. But not before purloining the captain’s log book from right under his stiff, dead hand…

Course it was all basically hearsay until good ol’ Robert came across the log book in an auction for maritime memorabilia. It was vetted by a dozen historians, and it seems to be legit. Turns out the coordinates for the _Octavius’_ last known location were in the book. Also turns out that Yours Truly is Robert’s favourite student of maritime archaeology, hence my place aboard the _Liberator_! Sweet deal.

(OK, cards on the table–Robert knows about what happened with Dylan, and maybe he figures this trip will help me get over things? Yeah, right. But it’ll be a good voyage nevertheless. Right? Of course it will.)

_And why, O Wise and Lovely Amelia Finley, are you writing in a diary?_ My distinguished advisor, Prof Robert Winston, thinks it will actually help organize my thoughts when it comes to writing my thesis. Huzzah.

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PseudoPod 439: Comparison of Efficacy Rates for Seven Antipathetics as Employed Against Lycanthropes

“Comparison of Efficacy Rates for Seven Antipathetics as Employed Against Lycanthropes” was published in RUNNING WITH THE PACK (ed. Ekaterina Sedia), in 2010, and reprinted in MAD SCIENCE CAFE (ed. Deborah J. Ross) in 2013.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:19 — 23.0MB)

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Show Notes

“The story was directly inspired by a set of online essays written by Michael Briggs, husband of the urban fantasy author Patricia Briggs, in which he attempted to make silver bullets and discovered that it’s insanely hard to do.”

Comparison of Efficacy Rates for Seven Antipathetics as Employed Against Lycanthropes

by Marie Brennan

_Abstract_

This study seeks to establish a hierarchy of efficacy for various antipathetic materials and delivery mechanisms thereof as used in the extermination of lycanthropes. Pre-existing data on this issue consists solely of folkloric narratives and unsubstantiated anecdotes on Internet communities, neither of which are based upon suitable experimental trials. It is hoped that this study will be only the beginning of a proper body of scientific literature, which might be expanded to include hyena men, were-jaguars, and other therianthropes.

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PseudoPod 438: Baby Weight

“Baby Weight” was first published on Bogleech.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:52 — 17.9MB)

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Show Notes

“Baby Weight started out as a story about eating and about the way disorders can hide themselves under other names. It turned into something all its own, but the thoughts that gave birth to it are still in there”

Baby Weight

by Sarah Benkin

narrated by Eve

7:00am – Glass of room temperature lemon water with cayenne pepper

8:00am – Steamed, purred carrot, half. Eaten at desk

10:00am – 1/2 cup coconut milk. No added sugar. Four bites porridge.

I watch the women from the phone bank while they eat. One is nibbling on a small, grey puck of a breakfast sandwich. The kind that you buy, store, microwave and eat out of a white paper wrapper. I can’t look away. I watch while she’s pushing bite after bite of the thing through her greasy, lipsticked mouth.

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PseudoPod 437: Fog

PseudoPod 437: Fog is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:56 — 14.5MB)

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Show Notes

“This story didn’t just come out of thin air. It really did come out of the fog. While waiting for fog to clear at the Colorado Springs airport so my plane could take off, I went to the bathroom. There, just walking around, was a woman with no pants. It was one of the oddest, out-of-context sights I had ever seen, and knew I had to create a story around it. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you enjoy ‘Fog.'”

Fog

by Kristin Luna

Outside, there was only gray, diffused light. Hints of airplanes sat lifelessly at their gates. The fog drifted and stroked the windows.

Just as the businessman turned to make conversation with the old man to his left, his gaze caught on a woman walking out of the bathroom. “Will you look at that?”

The security cameras in the terminal jerked into position to watch the woman, except for the one camera trained on the crowd of onlookers. The crowd turned their heads to look.

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PseudoPod 436: Flash On The Borderlands XXV: Simulacra

PseudoPod 436: Flash On The Borderlands XXV: Simulacra is a PseudoPod original.

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Show Notes

“Worm Within” was originally printed in “Clarkesworld” 2008.

“Lullabies For A Clockwork Child” is a PseudoPod Original.

“Used” is a PseudoPod Original and was reprinted in For Mortal Things Unsung.

“The strategic problem is, of course, that simulacra are reassuring only when viewed from outside. They do not provide an existential model for how to be in the world. One can appreciate the brilliance of the embalmer’s work, but one would not want to be its object.”

“Decadent Naturalism” by Charles Bernheimer; introduction to A HAVEN by J.K. Huysmans in THE DECADENT READER.

Sounds in this episodes:

“Ticks” for “Worm Within” can be found here.
“Static” for “Worm Within” can be found here
“Interstitial Clockwork” for “Lullabies For A Clockwork Child” can be found here

Worm Within

by Cat Rambo

The LED bug kicks feebly, trying to push itself away from the wall. Its wings are rounds of mica, and the hole in its carapace where someone has tacked it to the graying boards reveals cogs and gears, almost microscopic in their dimension. The light from its underside is the cobalt of distress. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 435: Raw Appetite

“Raw Appetite” first appeared in the August 2014 “Kitchen Sink” issue of Fictionvale

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:03 — 24.9MB)

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Show Notes

“I suppose that I want people to think about the intersection of honing a craft, and obsession as well as mentorship.”

Raw Appetite

by Christa Pagliei

As a commis I worked under the rest of the Chefs de Partie. The first two months were a slog of relentless hazing and trouble. I never flinched, just kept moving forward. I knew I was the lowest man on the totem pole and I’d simply have to wait out the abuse.

In my sixth month when Chef first asked me to keep his knives sharp I was taken aback. I didn’t even know that he knew my name. He’d certainly never spoken directly to me before. Chef Catalan never let anyone even touch his knives, but to trust some aspect of their care to a mere commise… It was unusual to say the least.

The hazing stopped, but now I was only spoken to in a professional capacity. I became an automaton to them, a tool, no more worth socializing with than a ladle or a whisk. I never let any emotion show as a rule, but I certainly never showed them how much their silence pleased me. The more I could streamline my existence. The more I could eliminate every superfluous thing, person, and interaction, the more I could dedicate myself to my craft. It only took two weeks to get the knives as he wanted, or at least get past the point of a daily critique of my sharpening technique. When dealing with Chef Catalan, two weeks to anything resembling pleasure is a triumph.

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PseudoPod Bonus Flash (434B): The Discussion of Mimes

PseudoPod Bonus Flash (434B): The Discussion of Mimes is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:08 — 7.7MB)

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Show Notes

“Why are so many people afraid of clowns and amused by mimes?”

The Discussion of Mimes

by Michael Payne

Following careful overanalysis, I decided to treat myself for a change. I’d spent the last three years working during the day and attending school at night. You can understand why I thought I was entitled to some frivolity.

I settled on mime classes. I’d never even thought about miming, which is part of what drew me to it. I’d been living a drab, bookish life, so I wanted to go as far in the other direction as possible.

An Internet search found fewer mime classes than I anticipated. I figured in NYC there was enough interest in every artistic pursuit to support a small army of participants. Miming appeared to be the exception. If they rebranded it “mime yoga” perhaps it’d be different.

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PseudoPod 434: Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes

“Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes” first appeared in Nyctalops #17, 1982.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:18 — 22.3MB)

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Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes

by Thomas Ligotti

‘Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen,’ I say when the lights come back on and the meager applause dies entirely. ‘I hope my beautiful assistant and I haven’t bored you too much this evening. You do look a little sleepy, as if you’ve been lulled into a trance yourselves. Which is not such a bad feeling, is it? Sinking deep into a downy darkness, resting your souls on pillows stuffed with soft shadows. But our host informs me that things will liven up very soon. Certainly you will awake when a little chime commands you to do so. Remember, it’s wake-up time when you hear the chime.’

I repeat. ‘And now I believe we can prosecute this evening’s festivities.’