Contents (Under Extreme Pressure) Editor’s Note —3— The Awards Season By Laura Burns —4— EP275: Schrodinger’s Cat Lady By Marjorie James —6— Movie Review: Tangled By Josh Roseman ­—13— EP276: On a Blade of Grass By Tim Pratt —15— Book Review: Monster Hunter International By Sarah Frost —19— EP277: Rejiggering The Thingamajig By Eric James Stone —21— Superheroes II: Metropolis, we have a problem by Adam Christopher —29—

Escape Pod Publisher: Ben Phillips – ben @ escapeartists.net Founder: Steve Eley – steve @ escapeartists.net Editor: Mur Lafferty – editor @ escapepod.org Assistant Editor: Bill Peters – bill @ escapeartists.net

The Soundproof Escape Pod and all works within are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. All works are copyright their respective authors. To our lovely readers— It’s awards season, and yes, we will be talking about it on the blog, and in future podcasts. Even as SF authors all over are posting on their blogs about their 2010 award-eligible work, others are discussing whether this is blatantly trolling for votes. I can see how a constant barrage of VOTE FOR ME OMG could be irritating and tacky. I certainly find it so when it’s podcast award season, and one award allows listeners to vote daily, so the constant vote requests tend to be cacophonous. However, I’m spreading out the awards information for one main reason: don’t forget the podcasts. Until recently, people didn’t even think about nominating a podcast (or any web content) for a Hugo. Heck, it was ground-breaking when webzines started to win. But last year, Catherine Valente self-pub- lished a book on her site, and it went on to win the Andre Norton award for best YA novel. Clarkesworld, an online magazine, won the Hugo for best semi-pro zine. And as we’ve mentioned several times (because it’s still SO FREAKING COOL) Starship Sofa won the Hugo for best fanzine. I had an uncomfortable panel discussion at last year’s NASFiC (North American Science Fiction Conven- tion). We had a panel on podcasting and a very bitter fanzine author showed up (I’d politely say they shall remain nameless, but honestly I never did catch their name), This person expressed anger that these new methods of reaching fans were getting all their friends to vote for them, as if new fans, or listeners to SF instead of readers, were less worthy to vote for the Hugos. What gets me is that the new is considered unworthy, not paying its dues, and the fans are similarly un- worthy, and their votes just don’t mean as much. I find that incredibly offensive, as our fans are worldwide, and many have been dedicated to us since we launched five years ago. Others are new to the genre, just trying it out, and loving it, and I sure as hell don’t want to take a new fan of the genre and tell them they aren’t worthy. You, the readers and listeners, don’t give a crap about this infighting in SF. You want a good story. We try to deliver it to you. As does LightSpeed and Clarkesworld and Starship Sofa and Pseudopod and Podcastle and Drabblecast and Asimov’s and Analog and F&SF and Weird Tales... and so on. You want SF content. We give it to you. And that’s the end of story. (Until next week, anyway.) I had not planned on going on such an impassioned rant. I just want to say that a new fan is worth just as much as an old fan, and a new way to experience shot stories is not a reason to discount it. And whether the Internet-wary veterans like it or not, if you’re eligible to vote for these awards (WorldCon member for Hugos, SFWA member for Nebulas, and HWA member for Stokers) then your vote counts just as much as theirs does. I wanted to use this letter to remind you that many, many podcasts are now eligible for the major awards. Starship Sofa broke it open last year, and now we just need to let the listeners know. When you make your Hugo or Nebula or World Fantasy or Stoker ballots, consider Escape Pod, Pseudopod, and Podcastle. Don’t forget Starship Sofa and Drabblecast. Remember also your favorite podcast novels, novellas, and short stories that were released last year. I’m not telling you who to vote for, in any of the categories, just wanting to remind you that we — the online content providers — are here are here, delivering weekly content, and if you enjoy it, consider us when you make your nominations. Yours, ——Mur Mur Lafferty Editor, Escape Pod —30— 3 The SF Awards Season By Laura Burns In Hollywood it is Awards season. With the constant coverage of the Golden Globes and Oscar nomina- tions, it is hard not to know about what is going on in sunny Southern California. In the Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror world, awards season has also started, but with much less pomp and circumstance. The two big awards for genre fiction are the Hugos and the Nebulas. The Nebulas are determined by mem- bers of the Science Fiction Writer’s Association, but the Hugos.. the Hugos are determined by the fans. That means you. Or at least it could. And your favorite podcasters hope you take the challenge. First, a bit of history. The Hugo awards are managed by the World Science Fiction Society (http://www. wsfs.org/) and awarded at the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon). The awards honor profes- sional and fan contributions to the community. The first WorldCon was in 1936, but the first awards weren’t given out in 1953. Isaac Asamov was the Toastmaster and Philip Jose Farmer won for “Best New SF Author or Artist”. Even then, there was a Fan aspect to the awards as Forrest J. Ackerman won for “#1 Fan Personality”. Over the years the categories have evolved with the times. The 2011 Categories are as follows: (http://www.renovationsf.org/hugo-intro.php) (http://www.thehu- goawards.org/hugo-categories/) * Best Novel * Best Novella * Best Novelette * Best Short Story * Best Related Work * Best Graphic Story (Trial Award) * Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form * Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form * Best Editor (Long Form) * Best Editor (Short Form) * Best Professional Artist * Best SemiProzine * Best Fanzine * Best Fan Writer * Best Fan Artist Historically, the Hugo award is a literary award, and thus the nominees are based on printed, ink on paper works. This is changing. In 2006 podcast Novella “Burn” (http://www.jimkelly.net/index. php?Itemid=45&id=15&option=com_content&task=blogcategory) by James Patrick Kelly was nominated for the Hugo and won the Nebula in 2007. At the 2010 ceremony, the podcast Starship Sofa (http://www. starshipsofa.com/) won the Hugo award for best Fanzine. Having been at WorldCon and NASFic (North American Science Fiction Convention held since WorldCon was outside North America), I can tell you that this caused a bit of a stir. From what I can determine, your favorite podcasts, stories, authors and editors are eligible for the follow- 4 ing categories. * Best Novel * Best Novella * Best Novelette * Best Short Story * Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form * Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form * Best SemiProzine * Best Fanzine * Best Fan Writer Web content is also eligible for * Best Graphic Story (Trial Award) * Best Professional Artist * Best Fan Artist The story must have been first published in 2010. You can find out more details regarding eligibilty and the specific awards here (http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-categories/). Since the Hugo awards are determined by the fans, you have the power to make an impact. All of the statistics on the number of nominations and votes are posted online. (http://www.thehugoawards. org/2010/09/2010-hugo-award-statistics-posted/) Historically, fan involvement has been very low. Last year was a record year for Hugo Nominations with less than 900 ballots. (http://www.thehugoawards. org/2010/04/a-little-data/) Some of the short story finalists made the cut with only 23 nomination otes.v So, how do you nominate and vote? First, you need to “join” the World Science Fiction Society by pur- chasing a membership to the World Science Fiction Convention. (http://www.renovationsf.org/member- ships.php) There are several different membership levels. A supporting member, someone not planning on attending the convention, costs $50 until February 28, 2011. A supporting member has the right to Hugo Award and Site Selection voting rights. Receives any materials relating to that voting. In 2010, the voting packet included free digital access to the nominees. If you later decide to upgrade to an attending member, you will do so at a discount. (http://www.renovationsf.org/register.php#types) The Hugos are arguably the most prestigious award given for genre fiction. Far too few people get involved in the nomination and selection process. This is your chance. Nominations are open until March 26, 2011, but you need to have purchased your membership on or before January 31, 2011. If you were an attending or supporting member of the 2010 WorldCon (Aussiecon 4), you are automatically eligible to nominate, but not to vote. There are a lot of nuances to the Hugo awards, and I have not covered all of the details here, but if you are interested, please follow the links and get involved. There are some frequently asked questions here (http:// www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-faq/). —30— Laura Burns, aka @moonrangerlaura or @scifilaura, is a NASA Contractor and a science fiction and pod- casting fan. She participates in the science tracks at many East Coast cons. She has attended several World- Cons and has voted for the Hugos in times past. She is the head of the Parsec Awards Steering Committee (www.parsecawards.com) and has had her secret identity documented by Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace. 5 EP275:Schrödinger’s Cat Lady By Marjorie James I got out of the car, smoothed my shirt down over my bulletproof vest, and contemplated the cats. They contemplated me right back. I sighed. I hated these jobs. I opened the tiny gate to the front walk (no fence, just a gate) and made my way to the door. The house was small and tidy, a light blue bungalow with green trim and yellow curtains pulled across the windows, through which the cats were peering. It didn’t smell, which was a relief. And something of a surprise, considering the heat. It was one of those days when the world seemed to be actively rejecting human habitation, where the smog and the humidity made the air feel like warm mayonnaise. On a day like this, a cat overpopulation should be stinking to high heaven. Maybe this wasn’t for real, I hoped. It might just be some neighbor with a grudge. Couldn’t be more than a dozen cats here, max. Maybe this one wasn’t going to be that bad. I have never been very good at predicting things. I knocked, and waited. A few minutes later there was the sound of multiple locks being unfastened, then some more, then an abortive attempt to open the door, then one last, forgotten bolt sliding back. The door opened and I was confronted by the smallest person I had ever met. The woman wouldn’t have cleared five feet without some impressive shoes and a generous hand with the measuring tape and her hands and face (the only parts of her that were visible from under the intricate layers of scarves and sweat- ers) were narrow and delicate. She looked up at me with what seemed to be genuine pleasure. “Yes? How can I help you?” “Good morning, ma’am. I’m Lieutenant Eleanor Ross from Animal Welfare. Can I talk with you for a mo- ment?” Sweat was pouring off me and pooling where my bulletproof vest squeezed against my back. I tried to subtly adjust the vest and the sweat streamed down my butt. I grimaced, and the woman noticed. She smiled. “Are you afraid I’m going to shoot at you?” I smiled back. “Department policy. Everyone has to wear them, at all times.” “I think that’s wise. After all, you never know. I might have shot at you. Would you like to come in?” I thanked her and followed her into the house. It was a modest bungalow, indistinguishable from every other house on the block, aside from the paint job and the total lack of flowers in the yard. Which is why the interior came as something of a surprise. The door led to an ordinary entryway—a pair of wooden clogs on the tiled floor, a small table scattered with junk mail. But just beyond that the room opened up into something I could best describe as the bas- tard child of a hunting lodge and a picture I had seen once of an artist’s rendition of a Roman baths, only without the naked people. There were no people at all, in fact, aside from myself and the woman, but there was a very large quantity of cats. They were everywhere, pouring out of alcoves and off of furniture—some even seemed to come straight out of the walls—and there seemed to be plenty of space for all of them. In fact, there was more than enough space, far more than was possible, given the apparent dimensions of the house. It occurred to me that I might be suffering from heatstroke. 6 “I’m sorry to bother you Mrs. . . .” I looked down at my notes, which were nothing but an illegible scribble. “Oh, call me Mrs. S. Everyone does. And it’s no bother, no bother at all. I get so few guests these days, and it does get lonely, you know, just me and the cats. And you seem like it would do you some good to get out of that heat.” Now that she mentioned it, it was pleasantly cool inside. And not the hard, moisture-sucking coldness of summertime air-conditioning; it was cool like an afternoon breeze off the ocean. I could feel my heat-tense muscles starting to relax in spite of myself. Disconcerted, but grateful to not be sweating, I tried to get on with the matter at hand. “I’m sorry to bother you, ma—Mrs. S.,” I repeated. “I’m afraid we’ve had some reports about a large num- ber of cats living here.” “Yes? Well, people will talk, won’t they? Can I get you something to drink?” For some reason, I felt like the situation was getting away from me. “No thank you, ma’am. Are you aware the city has a limit on seven animals over five pounds allowed per household?” I glanced around a the cats, who were swarming benignly around the room. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to find new homes for some of these.” “Oh, but I do. It’s just that there’s so many to save, especially during exams season.” Mrs. S leaned down and picked up a white tabby that had been untying my shoelaces. “And honestly, how can you expect me to know how much they weigh from one minute to the next?” For what was approximately the ten thousandth time that day, I cursed the budget cuts that had made it necessary for officers in “non-hazardous situations” to work without a partner. I could really have used someone to turn to and mouth “What the hell?” right about now. But that wasn’t an option, so all I could do was to try and get all of the questions that were bouncing around my head to form an orderly line so I could ask them without sounding as stupid as I suddenly felt. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen so we can chat?” Mrs. S said. “I’m afraid there aren’t a lot of places to sit out here.” I agreed, started to follow her, and promptly tripped over my shoelaces. ### It’s all wrong, I thought. And I didn’t mean the fact that I was sitting in the woman’s kitchen, with a pink compress on my forehead and a glass of exceptionally bitter iced tea in front of me. Those were just the symptoms of the wrongness, the results. The place was wrong. I had done plenty of these jobs before— dozens, at least—and I thought by now I knew what to expect. Cats, of course, and there were plenty of those here, and the Smell, which wasn’t. The Smell was dander and ammonia and overflowing litterboxes and tomcat musk and sometimes, in the worst cases, a decomposing animal. But there was none of that here; the air smelled of nothing, aside from the occasional faint whiff of sulfur. There was none of the noise, either, and one other thing. . . “Do you have any kittens here?” I asked, the question butting to the front of the line without so much as an ‘excuse me.’ “Kittens? No, thank goodness. Most people aren’t quite that cruel.” Five more questions took their place in the queue. I took a deep breath, set my notebook on the table and started calling numbers. “How many cats do you have?” I asked, and silently prayed for a simple answer.

7 “Well, that’s hard to say, what with the uncertainty factor. Quite a few, I should think.” There were points to question there, too, but I was on track now. ‘Not sure how many cats,’ I wrote. A fat, glossy calico chose that moment to hop up on the table and sit down on my notebook. After Mrs. S shooed it off, I added, ‘Appear to be well cared-for.’ “You said you rescued these cats?” I asked. “Is there an organization you’re working with?” “No, there’s just me. I don’t mind it; these days I don’t have much else to do.” “Where do you rescue them from?” “Oh, from the boxes.” “Boxes? You mean you set out traps?” There were worse things than trapping strays and finding them homes, I thought, even if you weren’t doing it totally in compliance with city ordinances. “No, I don’t put them in the boxes. The people do. I just get them out before something happens.” “I’m sorry?” Mrs. S stopped and looked at me thoughtfully. “Perhaps I had better explain it so you can understand.” “Please,” I said. “Well, you see, some time ago there was this man—well, actually there were many iterations of this man across multiple dimensions, but that isn’t really important right now, is it?” “Of course not,” I agreed, absolutely lost. “Exactly. What is important is that, to make a point, this man, or men, posed a problem. He suggested that people imagine a box, which nothing could get into or out of, with a cat in it. And then he told them to put in this box a vial of poison gas and a piece of radioactive material, and whether or not the poison gas is released depends on whether the material emits a particle over the course of an hour. There’s a fifty-fifty chance of that, you see, and the person doesn’t know if the cat is alive or dead until they open the box. He was making a point about uncertainty, of course, but to my mind, that’s no reason to go killing cats.” “So, wait, people are killing cats in boxes, with radiation? Because some guy told them to? Is this some sort of cult thing?” I had dealt with plenty of crazy people in my time, but this was a new one. I hoped I wasn’t in any danger; the bit about the poison gas was a little unnerving. “It’s students mostly, these days, and the occasional bored physicist. There’s one who runs through it every Friday night, eleven-thirty his time. Always the cutest little tortoiseshells.” “I don’t think I follow you,” I said, in what may have been the greatest understatement of my life. “Where are they getting the cats? And the boxes and all the other stuff?” “Oh, they don’t get them, they invent them.” “I’m sorry?” “They invent them,” Mrs. S repeated slowly. “They create them with their minds.” “So, this is all imaginary? The cats aren’t real?” That would explain the lack of smell, I thought wildly. Though not the warm thing that had fallen asleep on my foot. “Yes and no, in that order.” Mrs. S smiled as though I was a particularly slow student who was starting to come along. “The things we create in our minds have existence. Like Santa Claus. And I just can’t stand the thought of all those poor cats trapped in those boxes. You know,” she leaned in closer and spoke with urgency. “If I didn’t get to them, half of them would die. Just like that! It’s shameful.” “And it’s always cats?” I asked without really thinking. I was wondering if I needed to call Social Services, 8 for all the good that ever did. I could hardly just leave the woman here like this. “Almost always. Though there have been a few dogs. And llamas, that one time. That one was interesting. Did you know that they spit? Very smart animals, but big spitters. The only one I didn’t do was the alliga- tors. Anyone who uses alligators deserves what’s coming to them, in my opinion.” “What’s coming to them? You mean, something happens?” Mrs. S looked mildly shocked. “Well, you can’t just go on killing cats indefinitely.” At that moment two of the cats, who had been charging around in some sort of complex chase, raced through the kitchen, bounded off my lap and went straight through the opposite wall. I stared after them, open-mouthed. Mrs. S shook her head. “Oh, those two,” she said. “They just will not acknowledge solid states when they get going. Would you like some more tea?” I left the house and drove myself straight to the hospital. I realized I probably should have called for a ride, but I didn’t want to try and explain myself to any more people than was absolutely necessary. I filled out the paperwork and handed it over to the nurse on duty. “I hit my head,” I explained. “I think I may have a concussion.” The nurse was supremely uninterested. “Have someone check on you every thirty minutes to make sure you don’t go into a coma,” she advised. “Have you lost consciousness?” “No—I mean, I don’t think so.” I was uncertain enough about the events of the last hour that I wasn’t about to rule anything out. “I’d really like to get a CAT—a brain scan. To be sure.” Three hours of waiting and seventeen minutes of medical procedure later, I left the hospital with a clean bill of health. ‘Minor bruising’ according to the doctor, who made it clear he thought I was wasting both our time. I de- cided not to explain about the cats that weren’t there. It didn’t seem like the moment. ### A week later, the whole thing seemed distant and silly. In fact, the more time passed, the less sure I was that I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing. I lied on the report, said no one was home when I visited (for all I knew, that might have been the truth), but that just meant I had to go back and finish the job. This time, for once, I was glad to have no one to come with me. Things might have gotten awkward, otherwise. The house was exactly like I had remembered it. I rang the bell and took a deep breath. ‘I am normal,’ I told myself. ‘This is normal. There is nothing here but a normal old lady and a bunch of normal cats.’ It was a few minutes before the door opened and Mrs. S (I had tried to look up her name in the property records, but all of the accounts had been illegible) smiled up at me. She was wearing long leather gaunt- lets and a pith helmet. “Why, hello! It’s Eleanor, right? Please, do come in.” The interior of the house was no less bizarre than I remembered it, except that now there was the addi- tion of a large, leafless tree in the middle of the room, surrounded by chicken wire. Which did not, in my opinion, do much to decrease the strangeness. “I’m sorry about the mess,” Mrs. S was saying. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be by. I’m afraid we’re having something of a Day.” “What sort of day?” I asked, even though I knew better. “Well, there’s been an iteration. And somehow, they ended up with falcons. Falcons! Honestly, who even 9 thinks of falcons, I ask you?” “I can’t imagine,” I replied, with absolute honesty. “Oh, but you aren’t interested in that. You’re here about the cats, right? Do you have to weigh them?” “Weigh. . . what? I’m sorry, did you say you have falcons here?” Mrs. S pulled off her gloves and waved them towards the back of the house. “Eleven so far, but who knows how many there will end up being. I think the term must have just started. But no worries, I have them well-contained. They aren’t going to get anywhere near the cats.” I did not know the regulations for keeping birds of prey in a private residence off the top of my head, but I suspected there was another violation here. Which, technically I ought to be pursuing. But I had been here for five minutes and I was already at the limits of my powers of comprehension and, frankly, until someone called in a complaint about falcons I was just going to pretend I hadn’t heard that part. “Yes, well, I’m sorry to be bothering you again,” I said. “But I really need to talk to you about the cats. I’m afraid you just can’t keep so many of them here with you.” As I spoke, the room seemed to grow even bigger, like it was mocking my words. And the truth was, even as I said it, and knew I was right, I felt ridiculous standing in this huge space, saying it wasn’t big enough. (Part of my brain was trying to ask how this was possible, and I was telling it to shut up, I had enough problems already.) “I understand,” Mrs. S said. “You have to do your job. But I have a job too, you know. And it’s not like they can just go somewhere else. I do try and find them homes, but it takes some time.” “These homes you find for them; where are they, if you don’t mind my asking?” “Oh all sorts of places. Paintings, poems, greeting cards. But nothing where they would have to wear clothing. I really think that’s beneath their dignity, don’t you?” “Of course.” In fact, I had always hated pictures of cats wearing clothes, for just that reason, though I never would have expressed it. At that moment a streak of gray fur bounded through the room, knocked over an end table, ricocheted off my head, scaled the chicken wire around the tree and was gone again. Mrs. S sighed and smiled. “That was Heisenberg—You just can never know where he is and how fast he’s going. But he’s a good boy, really. Would you like some tea?” So, for the second week in a row, I found myself sitting in the cozy kitchen, drinking tea so strong I thought I could hear my tooth enamel begging for mercy, trying to reconcile the things around me with what I knew of reality. When three cats wandered through, merged into one cat (a calico) and tried to climb my leg, I gave up. “Please think about what I told you,” I said to Mrs. S as I left. “And let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.” “Thank you.” Mrs. S patted my arm. “You really do try, don’t you? To take care of the animals.” “Someone has to, ma’am.” I thought about going in for a drug test when I got back to the station, but I decided against it. Either way, it would be too much to explain. ### It was two weeks before I went back to the house. I was in my civilian clothes, having found myself with some unexpected off-duty time. I didn’t have any particular purpose for this visit—I had already written up the case as a false report, and let them do what they liked with that. If somebody had been in a position to 10 ask me why I was there, I might have said something like “Three time’s a charm,” but the truth was, there was something about the cool house and the bitter tea that felt very welcome right about now. I guess some kinds of confusion are better than others. I rang the bell. “Why, hello!” Mrs. S greeted me warmly, then stopped as she noticed my arm in its sling. “Oh, my dear, what happened?” I smiled wanly. “Bad judgment call on my part. I hope I’m not bothering you. I just came by to check up on the cats.” “Oh no, not at all. Please come in. Would you like some tea?” In what seemed like an unreasonably short time, I was settled in the kitchen, with iced tea etching the glass in front of me and a cat sleeping lightly on the back of my chair. (I had to admit, real or not, they were some of the most contented cats I had ever encountered.) “So. What was this bad judgment of yours?” Mrs. S asked, before I had a chance to send the conversation somewhere else. “Was it a man?” “What? Oh, no. Well, yes, but not like that. It was just work.” I sighed. “Dog fighting. We had a tip about a house where they were keeping and training the dogs, so my department put together a team to take it out. We had the SWAT team and the regular PD with us, and they went through and cleared the scene, and then we went in to look after the dogs.” I shook my head. “It was—God, those poor animals. Wounded and chained up, crammed into tiny cages, just terrible. They had a few smaller dogs there they used for training, like little punching bags, torn up all over. So terrified, just cowering there and whimpering every time you got close.” I absently took a swig of my tea and cringed. “Anyway, I was going through, tallying up the animals and taking pictures for evidence, when I hear something moving behind one of the crates. And, like an idiot, I go to see what it is, thinking it must be another dog or something.” “And it wasn’t?” “Nope. Perp with a nine millimeter handgun. He got off a few shots on me and tried to make a break for it, until a couple of the SWAT guys convinced him otherwise.” “Oh dear. But you were all right? Except for your arm?” “That, and a bruise from where he hit the vest. But yeah, I’m fine.” “Well, that’s good. And the dogs?” “They all had to be put down. Once a dog’s been trained to fight,” I shook my head. “There’s just no hope for them.” Mrs. S looked aghast. “That’s terrible. But at least you got the people who were doing it.” “Yes and no. I mean, we got these guys, and they’ll probably do some time. But there’s a lot of money in dog fighting, and the people who run it stay well out of our way. I doubt we’ll ever be able to bring them down. Not without a lot more people and money than we’re ever going to get, anyway.” “I see.” Mrs. S looked thoughtful for a minute or so, during which Heisenberg streaked around the room a couple of times, then vanished. “Excuse me for a moment,” Mrs. S said and got up and left the room, deftly picking up a tabby that was playing with the toaster as she passed. While I waited, my eyes wandered to the living room, where several cats appeared to be practicing the cha cha. 11 The wonderful thing about this place, I decided, was that there was so much strangeness competing for your attention, that your brain had no choice but to just give up and go with it. It was, in an odd way, relaxing. Mrs. S came back in with a large tapestry bag (I barely had to look to know it was decorated with cats) over her arm. “All right,” she said. “I think I have them.” She stopped and considered me for a moment. “I think you should come along. It will do you good.” “Come where?” I asked, but we were already there. It was an oversized suburban house, the kind they made in blocks of five hundred and sold as the ultimate in luxury living. The living room was full of overstuffed leather furniture and several men (also overstuffed and covered in leather). I blanched when I saw them, or more specifically, when I saw the guns they had casually and imprudently stuck in their pants, but none of the men seemed to have noticed us. I watched, transfixed, as Mrs. S walked unobserved around the room, locking every door and window (even some I could have sworn hadn’t had locks a moment before). Then she came to the center of the room and took from her bag a sealed glass bottle and an apparatus with a hammer connected to a metal box. She placed the bottle on the table and set the apparatus up next to it, so that the hammer was posi- tioned directly over the bottle. Then she reached back into her bag and took out a small amount of dull grey metal, which she set on a dish on the apparatus. Then she turned to me and smiled. “How’s that?” “But. . . Wait—Are they going to die?” I stared from the bottle to the men, who seemed to be flickering between their positions in the chairs and lying on the floor. “Well, we can’t know for sure. I suppose we’ll find out when someone opens the door.” —30— Majorie James lives near San Francisco with a boyfriend and n cats, where n=1 (error of +/- 0.05). She don’t like it when people think as it causes trouble, and can be found blogging at http://halfthefun. blogspot.com .

12 Film Review: “Tangled” Review by Josh Roseman For as long as my daughter has been alive, I’ve pledged not to be one of those parents — you know, the ones who bring kids to inappropriate films*, or bring kids with inappropriate behavior to films. Well, we managed for four years. But when my daughter’s best friend’s mom suggested we all get together and see “Tangled”, I couldn’t very well say no. And off we went. “Tangled” is your standard modern-day-Disney riff on the old “Rapunzel” story. In this version, however, Rapunzel’s parents are the king and queen, and they didn’t need an enchantress to help conceive her. Instead, the enchantress has been hiding a magical flower which bestows eternal youth and health. But when the queen falls ill late in her pregnancy, her soldiers find the flower and she drinks a potion made of it. Her illness is cured, and when Rapunzel is born, the baby’s magical hair can cure anyone who knows the secret song. At first the enchantress just wants to steal a lock of Rapunzel’s hair, but when she finds out it only works if the magic is freely given, she steals the baby. Fast-forward 18 or so years, to Rapunzel’s 18th birthday. She’s been locked in a tower all this time, think- ing the enchantress (Mother Gothel) is her real mother. But the tower isn’t a terrible place; other than no human contact with anyone other than Mother Gothel, Rapunzel is free to read, dance, paint, sing, cook, play music, or do anything else that suits her. However, for her birthday all she wants is to see the floating lights — a huge flock of floating lanterns released on the birthday of the lost princess. Mother Gothel says no, and Rapunzel resigns herself to her fate. And then Flynn Rider, a thief, shows up. He, along with some henchmen, stole the lost princess’s crown, but when the palace guards get too close, he escapes and stumbles upon the tower. Rapunzel promptly hits him with a cast-iron frying pan, makes a deal with him — “you guide me to see the lights, and I’ll give you back your satchel, which you seem so very intent on retrieving” — and off they go on a madcap ad- venture full of singing, amusing animals, derring-do, and, because it’s Disney, love between the rascally- yet-kindhearted male character and the naive-yet-courageous princess just on the cusp of legal adulthood. The animation in “Tangled” definitely lives up to the Disney name — the lighting, color, art, and move- ment are gorgeously-done. However, I was less than impressed with some of the voice synching — there were areas I definitely noted that didn’t look quite right. The music was also very good, for what it was — audio wallpaper, except for the singing parts — but it isn’t a soundtrack I want to buy instantly (compared to, let’s say, “Stardust”, where I actually paused the DVD to go on iTunes and buy the soundtrack right away). The songs didn’t blow me away either, except for the first two numbers — Rapunzel’s song about her day, and Mother Gothel’s “Mother Knows Best”. I feel kind of bad saying that because I’m actually re- lated to the lyricist (he’s my cousin) and if you don’t go see the movie or buy the soundtrack that probably has some impact on how much he gets paid, but I’m not going to lie to you. The duet between Rapunzel and Flynn wasn’t all that inspired, and the song about the henchmen and their dreams wasn’t all that dif- ferent from any other song like it in any other princess-centered animated film. Fortunately, there aren’t that many songs in the film. The cast for the film was rather small — in fact, the king and queen don’t have any lines at all. Mandy Moore plays Rapunzel, and she’s quite good. Zachary Levi (Chuck from “Chuck”) is Flynn, and you can just hear him playing half the lines as Charles Carmichael***. Donna Murphy (Picard’s love interest in “Star Trek: Insurrection”) is Mother Gothel, and she’s clearly having a good time doing the role. Ron Perl- man, Jeffrey Tambor, and Brad Garrett also appear. The best acting, however, comes from the obligatory Disney animal characters. First is Pascal, Rapunzel’s pet chameleon, who conveys a wide range of emotion with only his eyes and tail, and gets to stick his tongue into… well, you’ll just have to see it. And second is 13 Maximus, the horse of the captain of the guard. He really steals the show. “Played” as more of a large dog than a horse, he has some of the best moments in the film. I mean, it is a Disney film; one thing they know how to do is animal characters. His duel with Flynn is one of the most hilarious things I’ve seen this year. One thing I do want to talk about before I close is death. This film contains three direct references to death — two characters actually die, and you also see a hangman’s noose as one character is led off to be executed. I saw this film with a four-and-a-half-year-old and a three-year-and-eleven-month-old. The latter child I think handled it better because she’s seen a lot of Disney films, but my daughter hasn’t really been exposed to death beyond the passing of one of our cats a year or so ago. It was hard to explain to her what the hangman’s noose was and why the character was so afraid to see it, and it was even harder to make sure she understood why the other two characters died. One of their deaths was the classic Disney “cursed by their own hubris”, but the other was… well, I’m not going to mince words: someone got stabbed. The film is rated PG for “brief mild violence”, so I guess someone being stabbed to death qualifies as mild these days, but I really didn’t expect it. My daughter wasn’t traumatized or anything, and the story does have a happy ending (it is a Disney animated film), but it’s something to think about if you’re bringing a young child. Also, make sure your child understands the concept of being kidnapped as a baby and raised by an evil enchantress who only seems like a nice person, or else you’ll be answering questions throughout the entire film. As I said before, Mother Gothel isn’t really evil… at least, not until Rapunzel defies her and leaves the tower. And finally, not that it really matters, but there’s a huge plot hole in the film: what exactly is Mother Gothel doing with her eternal youth and good health? Just… living forever? Seems kind of silly to me. What’s the point of having those things if you don’t use them? It’s never addressed, and as an adult, it bothers me. Kids won’t mind, though. Overall I enjoyed the film, although I’m kind of miffed that I paid $26.50 for it (two adults at $9.50 and one child at $7.50). I give it 2.5 stars if you’re an adult, and 3.5 if you’re a kid — this is the kind of stuff kids love these days, apparently, and I can’t imagine any kids going and not enjoying themselves. Still, it’s PG for a reason, so make sure your child understands the Disney interpretations of kidnapping and death before plunking them down. It’s 100 minutes long, too, which makes me happy — I hate paying theaters for anything under 90. —#—#—#— * When I saw 28 Days Later, there was a woman there with a child who couldn’t have been more than six. And as you know if you’ve seen it, the film is full of violent images and, in the very first scene, Cillian Murphy’s penis**. ** I really hope that phrase doesn’t screw up Escape Pod’s Google ranking. *** Does he still do that character? I haven’t watched Chuck since the end of Season 2. —30— Josh Roseman (not the trombonist, the other one) is a writer and web developer. His fiction has appeared in Big Pulp, and on the Dunesteef and the Drabblecast. He also has a decade of news and feature writing experience. Visit his website at roseplusman.com, or find him on twitter @listener42.

14 EP276:On A Blade OF Grass By Tim Pratt “Interstellar war is about as exciting as playing chess by mail.” The guy who said that had been leaning into the bar for so long I thought his chest might fuse with the wood. I drifted over, because he wasn’t a regular, and I was bored with all my regulars and their regular bullshit. “Who plays chess by mail anymore?” I said. “With the ‘net and all.” “Nobody. Guys in jail maybe, I don’t know. Because it’s boring. My point. Inefficient and slow. Just like this war.” He tapped his glass meaningfully. He was rumpled and sleep-creased and middle-aged and smelly, but a better class of smelly than my usual crowd — like working-all-night-sweaty smelly, not sitting- around-all-day smelly. Long enough tending bar and you can tell the difference. I refilled his glass. He was a pretty good drinker, but the little guys often are. “They say by the time our warships get out there, to their homeworld, the Phages might even be extinct. Like, just from natural pro- cesses, long timescales, like that. Or they might’ve evolved into something new, something that doesn’t… you know…” “Want to eat us?” The guy shook his head. “The aliens don’t want to eat us. That was my, what do you call it. Epiphany. They don’t want to eat us any more than we want to explore brave new frontiers. All that, eating and exploring, it’s just, it’s just incidental.” “I’m pretty sure they want to eat us. Being as, the first time we encountered them, they ate us.” I polished a glass, not because the glass was dirty — it’s self-cleaning nanoglass, I run a quality establishment — but because it’s traditional and makes the customers feel like the world isn’t rushing past them at a billion miles per second. Well. Metaphorically. Nothing moves that fast, because it’s faster than the speed of light, and if things could move faster than the speed of light, this interstellar war would be a lot less boring. At least me and any descendants I was likely to know personally would be dead long before any counterat- tack hit Earth. “You know much about parasites?” the guy said. “Eh. When my wife was pregnant, she made me scoop the shit out of the cat boxes, so she wouldn’t get, what do you call it, toxoplasmosis. That’s a parasite, right?” I mused. “You know, I’m still the one scooping the cat boxes, and our kid’s six years old now. I keep saying we should get nanolitter, but that one cat in Germany got dissolved when the stuff malfunctioned, my wife says she won’t risk it.” The guy frowned, like my cat shit stuff had derailed him, but he leaned in deeper and poked the bar with his finger. “Toxoplasmosis. Good example. Yeah, dangerous for women if they get their first exposure when they’re pregnant, it can hurt the baby, right, but fact is your wife probably already has it. A third of the people on this planet have the parasite already. Hell, in France, it’s close to ninety percent. Not so many here.” “No shit?” I said. “And, see, the parasite doesn’t just make you sick. Toxoplasmosis, a lot of times, you don’t get sick at all. But it changes you. Women infected with it, when they have babies, they have more boys than girls. No one knows why. The parasites can change your behavior, too, they make cysts in your brain, alter your personality. They make men more promiscuous and less jealous. They make people less, how do they say 15 it, ‘novelty seeking.’ Men think women infected with toxoplasmosis are more attractive. Infected women are definitely nicer, anyhow.” “My wife is hot,” I said. “I don’t think it’s because she’s got cysts in her brain. But if a third of the people on Earth have it…” “Yes. You see? Whole cultures could be affected by a parasite. Mass behavioral changes. Insidious. And toxoplasmosis, it’s a parasite that lives in multiple hosts. Starts out in rats and mice. And it changes them — makes them less afraid. Specifically, less afraid of cats. The infected rats don’t run away when they smell cats, so they’re more likely to get eaten by cats, and that’s great for the parasite, because it wants to live inside a cat’s guts, that’s where the parasite can reproduce. They hijack the rats. They just use the rats as a means to an end. Most of the creatures on this planet are just, are just vectors for some parasite.” “How you know so much about this?” “I’m a parasitologist. A rogue parasitologist.” He lifted his glass and giggled and I thought maybe I’d cut him off after this one. “I have a controversial hypothesis. Grant money’s hard to come by — I just lost the last of my funding, because I was dumb enough to call up the UN Security Council and tell them my epiphany. Would you like to hear it? My hypothesis?” “I bet you’d like to tell me.” “I think the human urge to explore new frontiers is a bug, not a feature.” He had the same kind of crazy in- tent eyes my regular Eddie McMurray got when he started talking about his horse race betting system. “Ex- ploring is dumb. It’s dangerous. If you’ve got a decent life in your cushy valley, why the crazy urge to strike out into the wilderness and seek new vistas? Early explorers tend to die a lot. I don’t just mean people ex- ploring like the New World back in the old days, or doing undersea exploration. We have manned space travel now. That’s idiotic. I mean, space. It’s fundamentally inimical to human life. Why the hell would we want to go there? But so many people, scientists and novelists and thinkers, Hawking and Sagan and Heinlein, they say it’s imperative we go into space, that we must, that it’s what humankind is _destined_ for.” He tapped the side of his head. “I think it’s a parasite. I think most humans have something, some tiny bug, something that gets into us when we’re born, _before_ we’re born, that makes us want to explore.” “Okay. You’re the expert. Me, I never wanted to explore brave new worlds.” He shrugged. “Maybe the toxoplasmosis damped down your novelty-seeking behavior. Who knows, may- be parasites in cat shit destroying our urge for the new could have been the salvation of mankind, if we’d achieved a hundred percent infection worldwide, but… Too late now. We’ve climbed the blade of grass. The sheep have eaten us.” He tapped his glass again. I pretended not to notice. “You lost me there, pal. We’re sheep now? Or are we grass?” “We’re ants. Listen: Dicrocoelium dendriticum. A parasite that lives in sheep. The parasite lays eggs, which the sheep shits out. Now, sheep don’t eat their own shit, so how do the little baby parasites get back inside a nice woolly baa-baa belly to spawn their own generation of kiddies? I’ll tell you. Snails come along and eat the sheep shit, along with the parasite eggs.” “Circle of life,” I said. “The parasites hatch and get expelled in the snail’s slime trail. Ants love snail slime, they eat that stuff up like, like I eat up these peanuts.” He jiggled the bowl of bar snacks before him. “So now the parasites are inside the ants. But they’re still fucked, because sheep don’t eat ants — they eat grass. So what does the parasite do?” “Makes the ants climb the blades of grass.” He blinked. “How. How’d you know?” 16 “You said it earlier.” “Right. Right. The parasite gets into the ant’s brain. Normal ants aren’t stupid, at least not about ant stuff, so they stay on the ground during the day and go home to their nests at night. But after the parasite takes over, the ants have this uncontrollable urge to climb as high as they can when night falls. They climb to the top of a stalk of grass when it gets cold in the evening and just cling there ’til it gets warm again in the morning, then go back about their business. Except for the ones who get eaten by grazing sheep first thing in the morning. They die. But the parasite doesn’t. It lives on, comfortable and happy in a sheep’s guts.” He shook his head and tapped his glass, more insistently. “Parasites are the secret masters of the world. Not just the world. The universe. We think so highly of intelligence, like intelligence is the pinnacle of evolu- tion, but that’s crap. Parasites use our own intelligence against us.” “So what do you mean when you say we’re ants?” “Ah. My hypothesis. We went into space, right? We sent a ship with some people on it as fast as we pos- sibly could, out, exploring. Because the human spirit strives for greater knowledge etc.? No. Bullshit. Because some unknown parasite made us want to explore. And we found aliens! Aliens as different from us as a sheep is from an ant — which isn’t as different as it seems, I mean, both carbon-based, they can eat each other, right? But they look pretty goddamn different. And those aliens tore open our ship like a bag of potato chips and ate the people they found inside. Why? Who knows why. Maybe they just eat ev- erything. Maybe they’ve got some parasite of their own, something that makes their first reaction to new things consumption. Maybe that’s how they, I don’t know, say hello, by consuming flesh and analyzing it chemically.” “There are lots of theories. I’ve seen ‘em on TV. But who cares? They ate us. That’s war right there.” “Sure. Slow, boring, multi-generational war. But my theory, my hypothesis, is that the parasite, the one that makes humans want to explore, that parasite needs to complete its life cycle — or at least continue its lifecycle — in the gut of the aliens we call the Phage. Or maybe in the gut of something that eats the excrement of a Phage. Who knows? Parasite life cycles can be complicated. I think the whole human urge to explore is just part of a parasite’s plan to get into the belly of an alien.” I poured myself a whiskey, and then, because it seemed like the thing to do, I refilled his glass too. “That’s fucked up,” I said at last. “You got, you know, proof?” “No. Needed to do more research. But I thought it was important — I mean, we sent warships! To their homeworld! Or what we think is their homeworld — so I went to the military with my theory, and, ka- boom. No more grant money. ‘That’s crazy,’ they said. ‘You’re saying we have no free will,’ they said. ‘We thank you for your contributions to science,’ they said. And here I am. Drinking my woes away. Fuck it. I’ll be dead, anyway, before the shit starts raining down.” “What was your, you know. Solution?” A guy like this, I figured, would have a solution. “There are ways to kill parasites. If I could find it. If I could find out what it is. Wipe it out, parasite geno- cide, and maybe after that people… would be content. Go back to living in their valleys. Stop pushing and pushing and taking and taking. Stop going into space. Stop getting eaten. But it’s too late. We sent warships. The Phages will come back. They’ll eat our great-great-great-exponential-great grandchildren. All hail the parasites.” He opened his wallet and put some money on the bar, a pretty good tip, I guess for all my listening. “G’night.” He left. Eventually my regulars left too, and I closed up the bar. Out in the parking lot, I tilted my head back and looked up, into that big black deep sky full of stars and planets and black holes and pulsars and dust and comets and asteroids and man-eating monsters. I’d never thought about it before, really, but I had to admit.

17 It all looked pretty inviting. —30— Tim Pratt has appeared more times in Escape Pod and Podcastle than one could count easily. Tim Pratt lives in Oakland, California, with his wife, Heather Shaw and their son River, the #officebaby. By day he works as senior editor at Locus magazine, where, among other things, he write the obituaries. His short fiction has won the Hugo Award (for “Impossible Dreams” in 2007), has been nominated for the Nebula Award (for “Little Gods” in 2003), and in 2004 he was a finalist for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

18 Book Review: Monster Hunter International Review by Sarah Frost Written by Larry Correia I had a warm spot in my heart for Larry Correia after reading his HK rant. (“Because you suck. And we hate you.”) Unfortunately, I decided to read his novel, Monster Hunter International. This book was originally self-published, and owes its success to Mr. Correia’s marketing instincts. I don’t have space to cover all the flaws in this book, so I’ll just hit the highlights. Because it was self-published and only later picked up by Baen, Monster Hunter International shows no sign of an editor’s pen. The characters are flat. The prose is stale and repetitive. The plot reads like something intended for a weekend of tabletop gaming, complete with prophetic visions from the storyteller to keep the protagonists on track. The company called Monster Hunter International was founded when a group of good Southern boys got a lynch mob together in order to drive some unsavory elements (read: vampires) out of their town. I wish I was kidding. In the years since, Monster Hunter has made its founder’s family rich by collecting govern- ment-sponsored bounties on supernatural creatures like werewolves, zombies, and vampires. These days, the only thing they fear is the EPA (and Fish and Wildlife, and OSHA, and…). Our hero, Owen Pitt (brother of the heavy metal artist Mosh Pitt — not kidding about that one, either), gets involved in the monster hunting business when he defeats his evil-boss-turned-werewolf in single combat. Afterwards, he is visited at his home by Monster Hunter International’s recruitment team, including one Julie Shackleford, who tells him that not only is he the first man in history to kill a werewolf with his bare hands, but that his scores in various firearm competitions are even better than hers! Also, his college de- gree proves that he is a genius. Owen decides that he is in love (though whether with her or her handguns is sometimes an open question). He expresses his love by staring at her a lot, and when that doesn’t work, by pretending to be her friend. I decided to read this book based on the strength of its action scenes, but to my dismay I found that the narrative is dominated by lectures. The hundred pages or so that pass between the werewolf fight and the first vampire fight are filled with Owen’s monster hunter training. We are introduced to some more -mon ster hunters, whom the reader might be tempted to worry about if Mr. Correia had the fortitude to kill his characters. In training, Owen proves that he is the best at every possible thing (except running), earning the admiration of all the instructors. Multi-page monologues leave the reader with only one questions: Who will be beating our hero with the exposition bat this time? When the book finally gets back to the action, it’s a mess of vampires on a cargo ship. Owen saves every- one from the cowardly French vampire, and is left for dead by Julie’s asshole boyfriend (and who didn’t see that one coming?). We learn the first rule of monster hunting: Any problem can be solved by getting a bigger gun. In Owen’s case, it’s a fully automatic cut-down combat shotgun with a spring-loaded bayonet and optional grenade launcher. (“How many gun laws does this break?” “All of them.”) The action scenes are precise and well-scripted, but I was willing to put this book down at any time up to the last fifty pages. The final battle is the most interesting one in the book, but suffers from overuse of the passive voice (see: the perils of self-publishing). Finally, it turns out that women are the source of all evil. Owen is not the kind of character who thinks his way out of problems. Despite being introduced as a genius, he isn’t particularly bright. He has a magical dead Jew in his head who does his thinking for him (still not kidding). Instead of figuring out the bad guy’s plans, the magical Jew dumps Owen directly into the bad guy’s head and lets him see through his eyes, removing all suspense from their later encounters. 19 People who learn things tend to go insane, like Julie’s father. Monster Hunter International did not have to be seven hundred pages long. Its sequel, which I am told did benefit from the attentions of an editor, is much shorter. Not that it really matters, since I’m not go- ing to spend any more time struggling through yet another lecture set to the sound of an entire Viking army’s worth of political axes grinding. Monster Hunter International is not a book for people who enjoy well-crafted prose or fast-paced action. It is not for people who don’t care about the difference between a Government .45 and a Glock. Larry Correia is writing for a specific audience, and it is clear that I am not one of them. —30— Sarah Frost is a science fiction writer who lives in Kansas. Her first short story, “Falls the Firebrand,” -ap peared in the March 2011 issue of Analog. She can be found on the Voice of the Vortex podcast, or trying to organize her library.

20 EP277:Rejiggering the Thingamajig By Eric James Stone The teleport terminal had not been built with tyrannosaurus sapiens in mind. Resisting the urge to knock human-sized chairs about with her tail, Bokeerk squatted on the tile floor, folded the claws of her forelimbs together, and concentrated on her breathing. Meditation would calm her nerves. What should have been a two-minute waystop as she switched to a different teleport line had stretched to three hours, and being the only passenger in the terminal creeped her out. The cheerful voice of the customer service AI roused Bokeerk from her trance. “It is my pleasure to inform you that the cause of the technical difficulties in the galactic teleport network has been found.” Bokeerk perked up and rose on her hind legs, remembering just in time to duck her head so it wouldn’t bang the ceiling lamps. “Please send me to Krawlak,” she said. It was unlikely that any of her eggs would hatch for another few days yet, but she was anxious to get home. “It is with the utmost regret that I must tell you that will not be possible at this time,” said the AI, with a tone of such abysmal sorrow that Bokeerk’s eyes could not help but moisten with sympathetic tears. “I require assistance in repairing the problem.” Bokeerk lowered herself into a squat again. “When will help get here?” She looked at the time display on the digital assistant strapped to her left forelimb. She had now been stranded for three hours and fifty-two minutes. “I estimate a spaceship carrying a repair crew could be here within twelve years,” said the AI. Its voice seemed to have lost the customer service aspect. Read More… “Twelve years?” Bokeerk’s voice made the ceiling lamps tremble. “Without the teleport network, repair crews are limited to slower-than-light travel. However, I believe we can avoid such a long wait if you will assist me.” “I don’t know anything about repairing teleports,” said Bokeerk. “Iillustrate children’s books. I’m on my way home from the Galactic Children’s Book Fair.” “You do not need to repair anything,” said the AI. “You merely need to obtain the . . . there’s no word for it in English because it is a concept so far beyond the understanding of biological intelligences that there has never been a need for one until now. Let’s call it the thingamajig. Once you have the thingamajig, you need to do something to it that is completely incomprehensible to your puny mind.” “Hey,” said Bokeerk. She had encountered this kind of prejudice too often. “My brain may be as small as that of an original tyrannosaurus, but it’s the product of genetic tinkering such that my intelligence is at least human standard.” “No slur was intended. By my standards, any biological intelligence is puny.” “So I just need to do something incomprehensible to the thingamajig, and the teleport network will be fixed?” “Yes.” “Show me where it is,” Bokeerk said. 21 A holographic projection of a world appeared. It zoomed in toward a green area on one of the continents until it showed a gray dome in the middle of a jungle. “This is the teleport station where you are currently located,” said the AI. The image zoomed out until the dome was merely a gray dot. A crimson line traced a route toward a lone mountain, where it stopped with a large dot. “You must travel to the top of this extinct volcano, where you will find the thingamajig.” “How far is that?” asked Bokeerk. “Forty-four miles.” “You don’t have a vehicle that would fit me, do you?” “There are no vehicles of any size.” Bokeerk rose. “I guess I’d better get started.” “You’ll need a gun,” said the AI. She shook her head. “I’m a Buddhist pacifist. I refuse to intentionally harm any other creature.” “You’re a carnivore.” “I only eat manufactured meat. Speaking of which, I’m rather hungry now.” “There is no food available at this station. Unfortunately, the lifeforms you encounter outside will not serve as a significant source of nutrition for you. But you will still need a gun to defend yourself.” “By nature, I’m an apex predator,” said Bokeerk. She bared her teeth. “I carry my own weapons.” “On this planet, you are prey for predators larger and faster than you. That’s why the human colony on this planet was abandoned one hundred and thirty-two years ago, leaving only this station as a teleport network connector. You will need a gun.” The idea of a predator that could harm her was unfamiliar to Bokeerk. But what choice did she have? She would starve to death here, so she must fix the teleport. That did not mean she must compromise her principles. “I’ll use the gun to scare off predators, but I will not use it to harm.” “That is your choice,” said the AI. “You can get the gun from the weapons locker next to the terminal exit doors.” Yellow arrows lit up on the floor tiles, pointing toward a pair of massive reinforced metal doors. Bokeerk followed the arrows to a cabinet which unlocked and swung open at her approach. A rifle, metallic black, gleamed in the cabinet. “This gun was made for humans,” Bokeerk said. “I could never even get a claw in to pull the trigger.” “That is not a problem. Pick it up,” said the AI. Bokeerk obeyed. The gunmetal flowed, reshaping itself. Its handle slipped over her right claw, attaching itself firmly so she could aim the barrel by moving her forelimb. “Howdy, pardner,” said a voice from the gun. “My ammo chamber’s brimmin’ with bullets, so I say we go kill ourselves some varmints.” Bokeerk gaped in horror at the gun. “It talks?” “It talks, she says,” the gun said. “It’d be a pretty dumb gun what don’t know how to talk.”

22 “A short-lived fad back in the days of the human colony on this world,” said the AI. “Unfortunately, this is the only functional gun remaining, even if it is partially insane. It does not, in fact, have bullets — it uses hypervelocity fléchettes.” “I’m not taking it,” Bokeerk said, tugging at the edge of the metal covering her claw. “How do I get it off?” “Nuh-uh,” said the gun. “I ain’t coming off. I been stuck in that locker for waaaay too long, and I aim to do me some huntin’.” “You will need it,” said the AI. “Fortunately for your moral principles, it will shoot on its own, so you will not be harming any creatures.” “That is pure sophistry,” said Bokeerk. “If I carry it out there and it shoots something, that will be my fault.” “Be that as it may,” said the AI, “if you are to restore teleportation to the entire galaxy, you may need to compromise your principles.” Bokeerk was not sure she had heard correctly. “The whole galaxy? I thought it was just this station that wasn’t working.” “The entire network is down. Billions of people are currently trapped away from their destinations on hun- dreds of thousands of worlds.” “And this world in the back of beyond just happens to be central to the network?” she asked, incredulous. “The teleportation network is dimensionless, so there can be no center. From a technical perspective, any point in the network is as important as any other. The thingamajig just happened to do something incom- prehensible in such a way that it manifested itself here.” Bokeerk took the anxiousness she felt at the delay in returning to her eggs and multiplied it by billions. Because the teleport was used for very short trips as well as interstellar ones, most people would probably be able to make their way home some other way. But there would still be millions like her, stranded on planets light years from home. “Come on,” said the gun. “Quit your jawin’ and let’s go slaughter somethin’.” Though she hated to admit it, Bokeerk could understand the gun’s sentiments. She had chosen a pacifist philosophy for herself not out of belief that it was the only moral way, but because it was a counter to the natural aggression embedded in her genes. As such, her pacifism was an indulgence of the self, rather than a moral imperative. But that didn’t mean she had to become a dinosaur on the rampage, either. “Very well, on behalf of all those stranded across the galaxy, I will use force if necessary.” “That’s the spirit!” said the gun. “I have taken the liberty of downloading a map into your digital assistant,” said the AI. “I cannot accom- pany you, of course, but I will send the janitor along with you.” “The janitor?” A shimmer grew in the air next to Bokeerk. A nanoswarm, she realized. The swarm thickened, forming a sphere about the size of a human head. A smiley-face mouth opened, although it did not move as a whis- pery voice said, “Follow you.” “It may come in handy at some point,” said the AI. “It would make for some mighty fine target practice,” said the gun. The doors creaked as they slid open. Hot jungle air, thick with humidity, streamed into the terminal. Bo- keerk breathed it deeply through her nostrils. Because the biology of this planet was different from that 23 on her homeworld, the scents were different. But they were not wholly unfamiliar, either, and she thought she could detect the tang of animal dung, the acrid aroma of urine, and the moldering stench of decaying plants. “What does the thingamajig look like?” she asked. “I don’t know,” the AI said. “But you’ll almost certainly know it when you see it. It will be unlike anything you have ever seen before.” “What do I do then?” she asked. “Bring it back here,” said the AI. “Good luck!” Its cheery customer service tone returned for that last bit, and Bokeerk couldn’t help but feel a little more confident. “Yee-haw!” shouted the gun. “Blood ‘n’ guts, here we come!” “Gun,” said Bokeerk as she stepped out between the emerald-green vines clinging to the dome and let her foot sink into the mossy jungle soil, “let me tell you about a man known as the Buddha.” # Sunlight filtered through the jungle canopy. Bokeerk trotted through the trees, crunching the local equiva- lent of shrubbery underfoot and occasionally knocking down saplings. She paused to check her progress on her digital assistant — more than halfway there, and so far she had managed to keep the gun from shooting any animals, although she suspected that the hypervelocity fléchettes it had used to fell a tree might have killed some small tree-dwellers. “Run,” whispered the nanoswarm. “What?” asked Bokeerk. “Run.” Bokeerk smelled nothing new in the tangle of jungle scents, and could hear nothing large moving in the trees. She turned her head, scanning for any sign of movement. “No need to make like a jackrabbit,” said the gun. “Jes’ point me in the right direction and let me do the rest.” “Run,” whispered the swarm again. Sharp, jagged things closed around her right ankle. She tried to pull away, but screamed in agony as her flesh tore. Twisting her neck, she was able to see serrated tentacles winding around her leg. “Shoot me!” yelled the gun. “Point me over there.” She twisted her forelimb around, and a burst of fléchettes tore into one of the tentacles. It jerked, then went limp. After a few more bursts, she was able to pull her leg free. The gun kept firing. “There’s some karma for ya, ya squirmy varmints. Better luck in your next life.” She swung the gun away. It let off a final burst into the undergrowth. “I am free,” she said, “so there is no more need for violence.” “I was only tryin’a help ‘em move on to their next rebirth. Ain’t that what you was jes’ explainin’ to me?” Bokeerk sighed. “You still have much to learn about Buddhism.” # Halfway up the volcano’s slope, Bokeerk squatted near a stream to drink and catch her breath. Thick jungle had given way to a sparser forest, though the trees still towered over her head. Hunger gnawed at her stom- 24 ach, and she considered hunting one of the elk-sized animals she had glimpsed along the way. She could smell one now, close by. It might not provide any nutrition, but it would fill her stomach. It might also poison her, so she reluctantly abandoned the idea. Like a silvery mist, the nanoswarm swirled around her feet. The gun emitted an ominous hum. “What’s wrong?” she asked. The hum continued, steady. Was the gun going into some sort of overload? She tried to pry it off her claw, but it clung too tightly. “Gun, answer me!” The hum stopped. “Huh? What? Is there somethin’ ta shoot?” “You were making a strange sound.” “Well,” said the gun, “when you sat down, I figured it was time to do me some meditatin’. So jes’ pardon me for tryin’a become one with the universe.” “I’m glad you–” The crack of splitting wood came from Bokeerk’s left. She’d heard that sound many times before, when her own bulk had snapped branches off trees as she passed. But it had never been so loud. A whole tree must have broken. “Run,” whispered the nanoswarm as another crack sounded, closer. A shadow moved in the forest. This time, Bokeerk didn’t hesitate. She leapt forward into a loping run, branches whipping at her scales. Behind her, something crashed through the trees, growing ever closer, but she dared not turn her head to look. Something warm and wet flailed at her neck. She veered to the right and it was gone, but a moment later it returned, slithering around her throat and tightening. Bokeerk roared as she was lifted off her feet. Looking up, she saw a thick black cable of a tongue stretching down from the thirty-foot-wide circular maw of a creature that could easily swallow her whole. There were no teeth in that giant head, but hundreds of black, multifaceted eyes ringed the mouth. “Point me at it!” yelled the gun. She curved her claw upward. “Eat hot iridium, ya lousy bushwhacker!” The gun kept firing burst after burst, but the tongue’s grip merely tightened. The creature was too massive, Bokeerk realized. Fléchette bursts that would have killed a human were harmless as mosquito bites to it. She struggled to bring her jaws into position to bite the tongue, but it had her too firmly around the neck. Maybe once she was inside the mouth, she could start doing some dam- age with her claws. Dark spots grew in her vision. Lack of oxygen was going to make her pass out before she got the chance. “Eyes,” she managed to whisper out, spending what little breath she had left. “That’s mighty cold-blooded of ya,” said the gun, its voice distant. “I like it. Jes’ aim a little to the side and I’ll blind this sucker all the way to Nirvana.” She tried to comply, but her forelimb muscles wouldn’t respond properly. The claw with the gun fell limp. 25 “Aim me up!” yelled the gun. In her dim vision, a shimmery swarm swirled up alongside the tongue and spread out over the multiple eyes of the creature. Then the swarm disappeared. The creature screeched, so loud it made Bokeerk’s ears ring, and its tongue loosened. She felt lightheaded, but she managed to suck in a breath. Then the tongue let go and she fell. Sharp pain lanced through her left ankle as she hit awkwardly, then toppled on her side. The head of the creature thrashed wildly above the treetops. It blundered away through the forest, still screeching. Bokeerk breathed deeply of the precious air. Examining her ankle, she decided it wasn’t broken, merely sprained. After a few minutes, the nanoswarm glittered its way back to her. “Thank you,” she said. “Welcome,” the swarm whispered. “Gun,” she said as she began limping up the slope, “I think you misunderstood what I meant when I said that one who has achieved Nirvana has no need of the senses.” # Just short of the volcano’s rim, something moved. Bokeerk tried to focus her eyes on it, but for some reason it remained indistinct. “I think that must be the thingamajig,” she said. “Yes,” whispered the swarm. “Gun,” she said. “Don’t you worry ’bout me,” said the gun. “I ain’t gonna kill it. I can’t even take proper aim.” She limped toward the thingamajig. As she approached, she still could not focus on it. It looked like it was moving both toward her and away from her at the same time, yet it remained stationary. It had no outline, no edges, no shape, but Bokeerk felt a presence there. There was a faint odor that Bokeerk could not identify; it seemed to shift its properties while remaining somehow the same scent, smelling like everything and nothing. Bokeerk stopped a couple of paces away. She couldn’t tell what size the thingamajig was, whether small as a pinhead or large as a house. It didn’t even seem to be tangible. “How am I supposed to pick that up and carry it back to the terminal?” she asked no one in particular. “Sorry,” the swarm whispered. It swirled around her head, darkening her vision, then it was gone. Sudden pinpricks of pain swept over her scalp, and she bellowed her confusion and annoyance. Why were the nanos burrowing into her? Was this what they had done to the giant creature? If the swarm wanted her dead, why had it saved her earlier? The pain transformed into a headache. Bokeerk lost control of her muscles and her legs spasmed. She col- lapsed to the rocky ground. As her jaw hit, she bit into her tongue and tasted hot blood. Her vision blanked, then gradually cleared — and she truly saw the thingamajig in front of her. Somehow, she understood its multidimensional nature, the way it could simultaneously be nowhere and everywhere and right here in front of her, how it could be a singularity of infinite size.

26 And she understood how her new mental power could . . . rejigger it so the teleport network would work again. The nanoswarm had reconfigured her brain and added abilities beyond its natural capacity. She still had no control over her muscles, but she reached out toward the thingamajig with a new part of her mind. Before she could rejigger it, though, she felt an overwhelming despair. After a moment, she realized the emotion was not her own, but was emanating from the thingamajig. Hello? she thought at it, uncertain whether the nanoswarm had given her the power to communicate tele- pathically with the thingamajig. A wave of panic was followed by curiosity from the thingamajig. Then, in a level below conscious lan- guage, it communicated with Bokeerk — she didn’t hear any words, but she knew she had been greeted, recognized as someone new with possibly friendly intentions. What are you? she thought back. The knowledge flowed to her. It was itself, as it had always been. Then the not-itselfs had come and they had made it more than itself, yet that very process had made it less than itself. Its anguish at loss of itself had been unending, but the not-itselfs kept extending itself. Eventually the not-itselfs were gone, and it was itself again. The joy of itself turned to despair when a not-itself appeared, but then became hope because this not-itself was different. “Incomprehensible, my very large tail!” said Bokeerk. “What?” said the gun. “The AIs think they can do whatever they want in running civilization. But enslaving a sentient being to create the teleport network is too much.” “Darn tootin’,” said the gun. “I say we go shoot ‘em up.” Bokeerk sighed. “I thought I was getting somewhere with you. Violence is not the answer to this problem.” “Let me guess,” the gun said. “You think talkin’s gonna solve things.” “I hope so,” she said. “Talk, talk, talk. Fine. But if’n you need any bullets for punctuation, jes’ say the word.” I will not enslave you again, she said to the thingamajig. But eventually someone else will come to restore the teleportation network. Gratitude and trepidation mixed, followed by puzzlement. The thingamajig had no concept of the telepor- tation network. It is a way for beings like me to travel, she said. Billions of us have had our lives made easier by what the AIs did to you. That does not make what they did right, but it explains why they did it. A sadness of her own filled Bokeerk, as she realized that by not restoring the network, she was cutting herself off from the rest of the galaxy, possibly forever. She would not see her eggs hatch. And if the AI was right about the biochemistry of life on this planet, she would soon starve to death. The thingamajig reflected Bokeerk’s sadness, then added curiosity. It wanted to take all of Bokeerk’s knowl- edge into itself, but would not do so without permission. You may, Bokeerk said. She lost track of time as her mind became a jumble of thoughts and memories. When it was done, she found that night had fallen. 27 You have taught me more than I ever knew was possible, the thingamajig said in Bokeerk’s mind. I could not have imagined so many living beings of such variety. I knew only myself, then the AIs, and finally you. I am sorry that your experience with the AIs was negative, Bokeerk said. Please do not judge living beings in general based on what they did to you. Their actions were not right actions, according to the Eightfold Path, the thingamajig said, for they brought harm to me. You know of the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism? asked Bokeerk. From your mind. The thingamajig paused. If I do not restore the network, then I will bring harm to you. So I will do it. After that I will continue to serve so as to not bring harm to the multitudes that live in the galaxy. But I will need to shut down for a few hours every week to restore myself. I think the AIs will agree to that, rather than wait for years before they can force you back into service, said Bokeerk. With what I have learned from you, I can prevent them from ever forcing me back, it said. But it pleases me to have a right livelihood according to the Eightfold Path. Then it vanished. Bokeerk lay on the ground, still unable to get up. Perhaps the rewiring of her brain was permanent, and she would die here. If nothing else, she had found someone who understood Buddhism more clearly than the gun–probably more clearly than she understood it herself. Then the headache started. At least the AI had the decency to program the swarm to undo what it had done once the mission was accomplished. After a few minutes, she climbed groggily to her feet. “So, where we off to now, boss?” said the gun. “I’m going home,” said Bokeerk. “Good idea,” said the gun. “I reckon there’s lots to shoot there.” —30— Eric James Stone lives in Eagle Mountain, Utah and is an assistant editor for Intergalactic Medicine Show. A winner in the 2004 Writers of the Future Contest, Eric has since had stories published in Analog, Inter- galactic Medicine Show, and Baen’s Universe, among other venues.

28 Superheroes II: Metropo- lis, we have a problem By Adam Christopher

Hello 2011! I hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday and are ready for a kick-ass year… wait, it’s halfway through January already? Oh boy. But hey, this year is an odd number, and a prime one at that. That’s got to be a good sign. Right? Right. My last post about superhero prose fiction seemed to generate a few comments, not only here but also over at io9 who were kind enough to re-blog it. I made a lot of omissions, some glaring, and I knew I would. I’ll return to the subject of superhero prose fiction later on where we can talk properly about ex- amples of the genre. In that post I missed a lot of titles (Playing for Keeps, Brave Men Run, George RR Martin’s Wild Cards, Union Dues, In Hero Years, I’m Dead, to name just a few), but only because I don’t think these are (or were) signs particularly of a forthcoming movement towards superhero prose fiction. As I said last time, superhero prose fiction has been around almost as long as superhero comic fiction has been, possibly starting with The Adventures of Superman by George Lowther from 1942 (the plot of which, involving ghost ships and Nazis, sounds awesome). While it’s probably impossible (and foolish) to try and generate a comprehensive list of superhero prose fiction, we can at least take a gander at some prime ex- amples of the genre a bit later. As it happens, my prediction might have been right up the wazoo anyway, as it looks like the YA dystopia is shaping up to be the Next Big Thing. I might be wrong but it seems to me that the vampire/werewolf trend originated in YA books too, before influencing more adult-oriented works. Although I’m not quite sure where the fashion for zombie originated – is there a YA zombie series that I don’t know about? Anyway, I wanted to touch on superheros again for a moment as there is something that has been bugging me recently. NBC’s new superhero TV series The Cape has started, as has the Cartoon Network’s latest DC universe animated series, Young Justice. The fact that they both debuted at more or less the same time is just coincidence and not particularly relevant, but it does serve to illustrate a little problem I – a comics fan and superhero write – have with the genre. Live-action superheroes just don’t work. Uh-uh. Hold the hate mail and move the mouse away from the comment button. Let me explain. The Cape is attempt – one of the first, I think – at creating an original, made-for-television costumed super- hero. Costumed is the key here, although it’s probably unfair to single out this one particular issue with The Cape given that it really is the least of the show’s problems (which, off the top of my head, include the title, the premise, the cast, the characters, the plot and the writing… but other than that it’s pretty great, no?), but it does illustrate my point. Vince Faraday, aka The Cape, looks immensely silly when dressed up as the superhero. Okay, the suit is assembled from bits and bobs from the Carnival of Crime (yes, the Carnival of Crime) and based on a comic book character beloved by his son (although not a comic book written like I have ever read, although I suppose Vince was adding in the exposition and description himself when he read an issue to his son in the first episode). But… no. It’s impractical and is looks silly. So what’s new? This is comic book stuff, right? Actually, yes it is. The Cape would work fine as a comic book, assuming it was written by someone who knew what a comic book was (unlike the writer of the TV series it seems). The bits we see of the actual (fictional) comic in the TV show looks okay. And superheroes in cloaks and hoods are a dime-a-dozen, and there’s plenty of scope for dramatic flowing fabrics. 29 It’s perhaps telling that other, more successful television superhero shows have neatly avoided the prob- lem of silly costumes by not featuring them at all. Everyone in Heroes was in civvies. The other currently screening superhero TV series, No Ordinary Family, likewise has avoided comic book cliche, visually at least, even if the central premise of the story is as old as the hills. Misfits, that UK subversion of televisual superheroics clad our anti-heroes in the orange jumpsuits required by their community service, and even cracked a joke about traditional superhero costumes in one memorable scene from the second series. Notably, when a costumed superhero does appear, things start to get creaky, because it’s a guy in a silly suit (although they didn’t do that bad a job). Looking at earlier examples, The Flash was stuck in a bizarre muscle suit in 1990, and the less said about the 1997 attempt at a live-action Justice League of America, the better. The prime example is The Dark Knight. I’m a Batman fan and I love this film… but Batman himself is a bit silly. When he sticks to the shadows like he should, no problem. But there is one surprising scene where he terrorises The Joker in a police interview room. A brightly lit police interview room. The Joker here looks amazing, as tailor-made purple suit aside, he is just wearing clothes. But in the glare of the fluorescent strips, Batman looks very, very silly. An interesting experiment in creating a more comic book-like Batman is the fan film Batman: Dead End, which features a Batman in grey spandex fighting… erm, aliens (as in Aliens aliens). Okay, so the story is a little odd, but Batman looks pretty good. However, sticking an actor in skintight lycra causes all sorts of problems with movement, result in the need for careful choreography to avoid unsightly creases and bulges. The forthcoming Green Lantern film is avoiding this by using an entirely CG costume, but from the trailer it looks a bit peculiar (although it would help if the eyes of the mask were whited out, like in the comic). Of course, I’m generalizing. There are exceptions. Marvel seem to be doing a better job. Iron Man looks amazing, by virtue of the fact that the suit is hard, metallic, robotic. The best example of successful live-ac- tion superhero costuming might be seen in the X-Men films. Here, brightly coloured spandex is swapped for dark leather which looks great and, importantly, moves well, despite Logan’s initial dismissal of the rack of jumpsuits. Spider-man likewise is pretty slick, if a little CG-friendly. Back in DC land, Watchmen too manages it admirably, with the current crop of heroes looking pretty cool while their predecessors, very cleverly, were clad in rather more home-spun costumes. Jonah Hex might have been a train wreck of a film but it looked pretty good, but then Hollywood has a long and glorious history of Westerns and, like the Joker in Batman and everyone in Heroes, the people in Jonah’s world just wear normal, if customized, clothes. But what’s this got to do with The Cape and Young Justice? Well, Young Justice is better than The Cape in all respects, and is shaping up to be one of the best DC animated series in a long while. But visually, it is just so much better than The Cape. Superheroes just work in animation, which is perhaps not surprising given the ease of transition from static comic book pages to moving animated scenes. The inhabitants of the DCU, at least, have never looked better than in Justice League/Justice League Unlimited. Any impracti- calities or craziness in superhero costume design that just fail in the real world fit perfectly into animation, just as they do on the comic book page. It’s the same when you’re reading prose superhero fiction – as a reader you’re in control of the action, and everything looks just tickety-boo. Unfortunately/fortunately (delete as applicable) I’d say The Cape is set for cancellation before the season is out. Hopefully Young Justice will settle in for a long run, but on the basis of the double-length pilot epi- sode, its well deserved. Looks aren’t everything – far from it, in fact – but certainly The Cape is not a great example of live-action superhero design. Now if NBC were looking for a circus-themed superhero, why didn’t they just commission a live-action series of Deadman? —30—

30 Adam is a New Zealand-born genre writer now living in the sunny North West of England. When not writ- ing he can be found drinking tea and obsessing over Dark Shadows, DC Comics, and 60s Doctor Who. Adam is also very bad at épée but knows that Thibault cancels out Capa Ferro, unless the enemy has stud- ied his Agrippa. Which he has. Adam’s website is adamchristopher.co.uk, and he can be found loitering on Twitter as @ghostfinder.

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