Science Fiction & Fantasy

This episode features “Spore” written by Tang Fei and translated by Andy Dudak. Published in the May 2021 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker.

The text version of this story can be found at:
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/tang_05_21

Support us on Patreon at http://patreon.com/clarkesworld

 

 Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 176 - Spore by Tang Fei [43:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (13751)

This episode features “Dancing With Ereshkigal” written by Sameem Siddiqui. Published in the May 2021 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker.

The text version of this story can be found at:
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/siddiqui_05_21

Support us on Patreon at http://patreon.com/clarkesworld

 

 Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 176 - Dancing With Ereshkigal by Sameem Siddiqui [26:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (8305)

This episode features “Vanishing Point” written by Robert V.S. Redick. Published in the May 2021 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker.

The text version of this story can be found at:
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/redick_05_21

Support us on Patreon at http://patreon.com/clarkesworld

 

 Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 176 - Vanishing Point by Robert V.S. Redick [83:45m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (11538)

1.
“I’ve got a signal,” Cora said. “Elena, come look!”
I rushed to Cora’s bank of computers. For six long, working-into-the-evening days, we’d gotten only the faintest of quantum signals, nothing usable. Our grant only gave us three weeks on the TU Delft equipment. Cora complained that Americans somehow seem to never get as much quantum-tech time [...]

1
Security AIs heard whimpering, diagnosed the source, then alerted the rest of the household. A baby moggie had fallen inside one of the nearby recycling hubs. Of course the children hurried outside to see, and being noble souls, they dragged the half-suffocated creature out of the garbage. But the rescue had barely begun. Social agencies [...]

I have been activated, therefore I have a purpose, Bot 9 thought. I have a purpose, therefore I serve.
It recited the Mantra Upon Waking, to check that it was running at optimum physical efficiency, then the Mantra of Obedience, the Mantra of Not Improvising Without Clear Oversight and Direction, and the Mantra of Not Organizing [...]

Xu Haifeng sat down at the desk and tapped a button.
Large screens slowly rose to surround him, like a three hundred and sixty-degree theater. All kinds of data scrolled on the screens in a never-ending torrent.
Xu waved his hand and the screens responded, scrolls coming and going. When the capital flowchart revolved before his eyes, [...]

Kiriko frowned as she peered into her magnifying glass. “This wasn’t here last time, Hama-san.”
“Oh, please don’t tell me I have a new symptom again,” Mr. Hama said, wincing.
Mr. Hama was a man in his fifties, with a vine-like pattern at the edges of his membranes, and carnelian-colored eyes. He had a long history of [...]

We were seventy-seven when the Pleiades burned out. As the seventh daughters of a seventh daughter, it seemed almost poetic that this was what Fate had in store for us.
Yes, I said daughters. Plural. Casto came first, but she wasn’t breathing. I came second, and I was shrieking—gulping air like a parched man fresh from [...]

We are not so different, sister sojourner.
Correct us if we are mistaken, but we are both creatures trying to survive under the most adverse circumstances, evading hazards, defying misfortune, and eluding death. We share more in common than you think.
Yet we have never seen anything like you, a strange being from an equally strange world.
We [...]