StarShipSofa

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StarShipSofa No 345 Octavia Cade (Part 2) Jul 09, 2014

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Fact: Looking Back At Genre History by Amy H. Sturgis 03:40

Fact: Happy Birthday Dad (Jonathan Segal aged 70) by Ariel Segal 15:00

Main Fiction: “Trading Rosemary” (Part 2) by Octavia Cade

Rosemary wasn’t particularly fond of jam. She disliked the way the pips clung to her teeth like crows on carrion.

Octavia Cade is a PhD candidate in science communication at the University of Otago in New Zealand. Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Cosmos Magazine, and Aurealis, amongst other places. “Trading Rosemary” is her first novella, published earlier this year by Masque Books. She can be found at http://ojcade.com.

Narrators: Ruth Stearns

Ruth Stearns got her start as a narrator by reading to...

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StarShipSofa No 344 Octavia Cade (Part 1) Jul 02, 2014

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Cover Art by Juan Ochoa

Main Fiction: “Trading Rosemary” (Part 1) by Octavia Cade

Among those who could accurately judge such things, it was generally acknowledged that Rosemary’s library was the finest of its kind in the entire archipelago.

Rosemary was justifiably proud of it. Begun by her great-grandfather, it had passed down through the family, with each generation adding to the collection— at considerable personal expense. She had contributed many exquisite pieces herself, and introduced order and organization into what had been a fine mess. Each coin was now carefully preserved, and suitably labeled according to its age, provenance, and properties. They were boxed in slim rectangular cases with burnished leather covers, and arranged according to catalogue, so that if one particular coin was required it could then be...

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StarShipSofa No 343 John Chu Jun 25, 2014

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Fact: Science News by J J Campanella

Main Fiction: 2014 Hugo Nominee – “The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere” by John Chu

Narrated by the author

The water that falls on you from nowhere when you lie is perfectly ordinary, but perfectly pure. True fact. I tested it myself when the water started falling a few weeks ago. Everyone on Earth did. Everyone with any sense of lab safety anyway. Never assume any liquid is just water. When you say “I always document my experiments as I go along,” enough water falls to test, but not so much that you have to mop up the lab. Which lie doesn’t matter. The liquid tests as distilled water every time.

John Chu designs microprocessors by day. He writes fiction, narrates for
podcasts, and translates fiction from Chinese into English by night....

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StarShipSofa No 342 Jay Lake Jun 18, 2014

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Main fiction: “The Sky that Wraps the World Round, Past the Blue and Into the Black” by Jay Lake

I believe that all things eventually come to rest. Even light, though that’s not what they tell you in school. How do scientists know? A billion billion years from now, even General Relativity might have been demoted to a mere Captain. Photons will sit around in little clusters of massless charge, bumping against one another like boats in the harbor at Kowloon.
The universe will be blue then, everything from one cosmic event horizon to the other the color of a summer sky.
This is what I tell myself as I paint the tiny shards spread before me. Huang’s men bring them to me to work with. We are creating value, that gangster and me. I make him even more immensely wealthy. Every morning that I wake up still alive is his gratuity to me in return.
It is a fair...

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StarShipSofa No 341 Sean McMullen Jun 11, 2014

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Main Fiction: “The Firewall and the Door” by Sean McMullen

Entanglement technology had brought the final frontier as close as the living room. All we had to do was get an uncrewed probe out to whatever was to be explored, and the entangled telepresence established in its computers would provide practically instant communication. Everything was easy. Too easy. People took the wonders for granted until something went spectacularly wrong.
Sean sold his first stories in the late 1980s and has become one of Australia’s top Science Fiction and Fantasy authors. In the late 90s he established himself in the American market, and his work has been translated into Polish, French, Japanese and other languages.The settings for Sean’s work range from the Roman Empire, through Medieval Europe, to cities of the distant future. His work is a mixture of romance, invention and adventure, while populated...

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StarShipSofa No 340 Ben H. Winters Jun 04, 2014

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Cover Art by Jim Burns

Fact: Looking Back At Genre History by Amy H Sturgis 02:10

Introduction: “Dead Man’s Hand” anthology, edited by John Joseph Adams 20:00

Main Fiction: “The Old Slow Man and His Gold Gun From Space” by Ben H. Winters

Whether Caleb and Crane came out to California separate and partnered up later on—or whether they knew each other from some eastern clime and made their way westward as a pair—well, who the devil can tell and what the devil does it matter? Suffice it to say that whether they came to their claim as partners or came to it alone, Crane and Caleb...

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StarShipSofa No 339 Brandon Sanderson May 28, 2014

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Main Fiction: Defending Elysium by Brandon Sanderson

The woman thrashed and spasmed in the hospital bed. Her dark hair was matted to her

head with sweat, and her uncontrolled motions seemed almost epileptic. Her eyes,

however, did not have the wildness of the insane—instead they were focused.

Determined. She was not mad; she just couldn’t control her muscles. She kept waving her

hands in front of her with awkward movements, movements that seemed strangely

familiar to Jason.

And she did it all in silence, never uttering a word.

Jason switched off the holovid, then leaned back in his chair. He had watched the vid

a dozen times, but it still confused him. However, he couldn’t do anything until he arrived

at Evensong. Until then, he would simply have to bide his time.

Fact: Science News by Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/starshipsofa.

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StarShipSofa No 338 Alan DeNiro May 21, 2014

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Main Fiction: “The Philip Sydney Game” by Alan DeNiro

This narration of “The Philip Sydney Game” was created by and appears courtesy of Audible. The complete Audible audiobook of “Tyrannia and Other Renditions” – in which this narration first appeared – may be downloaded from www.audible.com/StarShipSofa.

Several years ago, I started writing a story about a man who was flying into Minneapolis-St. Paul and saw a car crash from above. The plane was about a thousand feet up and was descending when he saw the crash. It was late at night, a red-eye flight, so he could only see the headlights and tail-lights, and the faintest silhouettes of the cars. One car began to swerve and careened into the opposite lane, grazing the driver’s side of an oncoming car, which halted. The car that caused the accident stalled...

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StarShipSofa No 337 Brad Torgersen May 14, 2014

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Main Fiction: “Ray of Light” by Brad Torgersen

My crew boss Jake was waiting for me at the sealock door. I’d been eight hours outside, checking for microfractures in the metal hull. Tedious work, that. I’d turned my helmet communicator off so as not to be distracted. The look on Jake’s face spooked me.

“What’s happened?” I asked him, seawater dripping from the hair of my beard.

”Jenna,” was all I got in reply. Which was enough.

Brad R. Torgersen is a healthcare computer geek by day, a United States Army Reserve Chief Warrant Officer on the weekend, and a speculative fiction writer by night. Award-winning and award-nominated, he is a regular in the pages of Analog magazine, and has published numerous pieces of short fiction in other venues such as Mike Resnick’s Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/starshipsofa.

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StarShipSofa No 336 Ron Collins May 07, 2014

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Fact: Looking Back at Genre History by Amy H. Sturgis 02:30

Main fiction: “Bugs” by Ron Collins 15:30

Dr. Caulder kept talking, but John could scarcely follow along. The government needed authorization. Would he sign a waiver? Of course, Jesus Christ, of course. His hospital gown disappeared. A nurse sprayed his chest with shaving creme. Carol’s beautiful face filled his view, tears streaming down lined cheeks. She said something long and drawn out, but all John heard was “I love you.” Then he was gone. Preparations continued as they rolled. IV bottles hung from steel rods. An elevator door closed. A needle pricked his arm.

Bugs, he thought. They’re going to use the bugs.

Then he was asleep.

Ron Collins’s work has appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, Nature, and several other magazines and...

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