Podcast appearances and mentions of David D Levine

A very nice book trailer about The Kuiper Belt Job: https://youtu.be/Y6VFJFZySWo About David D Levine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_D._Levine Twitter: @daviddlevine David D Levine and his writing in the Wild Cards series: https://www.wildcardsworld.com/wc-author/david-d-levine/

A very nice book trailer about The Kuiper Belt Job: https://youtu.be/Y6VFJFZySWo About David D Levine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_D._Levine Twitter: @daviddlevine David D Levine and his writing in the Wild Cards series: https://www.wildcardsworld.com/wc-author/david-d-levine/

A very nice book trailer about The Kuiper Belt Job: https://youtu.be/Y6VFJFZySWo About David D Levine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_D._Levine Twitter: @daviddlevine David D Levine and his writing in the Wild Cards series: https://www.wildcardsworld.com/wc-author/david-d-levine/

About David D Levine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_D._Levine Twitter: @daviddlevine David D Levine and his writing in the Wild Cards series: https://www.wildcardsworld.com/wc-author/david-d-levine/

Happy Monday, Fabulous Listener! Welcome to Inside the Minds of Authors. A podcast dedicated to bringing you passionate authors with exciting books. Today we have the pleasure of talking to the Award-Winning Author, David D. Levine. We are discussing his latest novel, a space-opera caper called The Kuiper Belt Job. David D. Levine's previous works include Andre Norton Nebula Award-winning novel Arabella of Mars, sequels Arabella and the Battle of Venus and Arabella the Traitor of Mars. He has over sixty SF and fantasy stories. His story “Tk'Tk'Tk” won the Hugo, and he has been shortlisted for awards including the Hugo, Nebula, Campbell, and Sturgeon. David's stories have appeared in Asimov's, Analog, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Tor.com, numerous Year's Best anthologies, and his award-winning collection Space Magic. To learn more about his works, check out his website at https://daviddlevine.com/. If you are enjoying the podcast and would like to stay in touch, subscribe. You don't want to miss a single episode. Happy Listening, DC

Available on Amazon and leading online bookstores worldwide. Once upon a time in the Solar System, there was a gang called the Cannibal Club led by the man known as Strange. Max was the muscle, Damien the pilot, Alicia the thief, Tai the hacker, and Shweta the grifter. They would break into banks, hack computers, swindle the rich and powerful, run guns ... whatever it took. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/daniel-lucas66/message

We are set for outer space as Julia Golding talks to the award-winning science fiction writer David D. Levine. David shares his journey into science fiction writing and guides us through a deep dive into the pulp fiction of the mid-20th century - so get your boy, babe, and bug-eyed monster ready! David is not just a writer, but an expert on sci-fi, so there is a lot to learn as the conversation skims from westerns, to Star Trek, Blake's Seven, Dr Who, Star Wars and Bladerunner to some lesser known sci-fi works that you'll want to put on your reading list. If you want to find out more about David and his books, as well as catch him on his book tour, visit https://daviddlevine.com for more details. For more information on the Oxford Centre for Fantasy, our writing courses, and to check out our awesome social media content visit: Website: https://centre4fantasy.com/website Instagram: https://centre4fantasy.com/Instagram Facebook: https://centre4fantasy.com/Facebook TikTok: https://centre4fantasy.com/tiktok

We are set for outer space as Julia Golding talks to the award-winning science fiction writer David D. Levine. David shares his journey into science fiction writing and guides us through a deep dive into the pulp fiction of the mid-20th century - so get your boy, babe, and bug-eyed monster ready! David is not just a writer, but an expert on sci-fi, so there is a lot to learn as the conversation skims from westerns, to Star Trek, Blake's Seven, Dr Who, Star Wars and Bladerunner to some lesser known sci-fi works that you'll want to put on your reading list. If you want to find out more about David and his books, as well as catch him on his book tour, visit https://daviddlevine.com for more details. For more information on the Oxford Centre for Fantasy, our writing courses, and to check out our awesome social media content visit: Website: https://centre4fantasy.com/website Instagram: https://centre4fantasy.com/Instagram Facebook: https://centre4fantasy.com/Facebook TikTok: https://centre4fantasy.com/tiktok

Here's the audio from the October 11th, 2023 Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading, with guests David D. Levine & Matthew Kressel. We need your help to stay funded! Support the reading series by clicking here!​​​​   David D. Levine David... Continue Reading →

This episode features "Kora Is Life" written by David D. Levine. Published in the May 2022 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/levine_05_22 Support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/join/clarkesworld?

I had a great opportunity to speak with Edward and it was super awesome. Edward is definitely a superb writer. He has been writing for many years and Edward told Keepin It Real all about his journey and how he became an amazing writer. He has wrote for many people and doesn't mind helping other writers and authors. Edward Willett, an award-winning Saskatchewan-based author of more than sixty books of science fiction, fantasy, and non-fiction for readers of all ages, has launched a Kickstarter campaign on March 8 to fund a third annual anthology featuring some of the top writers of science fiction and fantasy working today, all of whom were guests on his Aurora Award-winning podcast, The Worldshapers (www.theworldshapers.com). Shapers of Worlds Volume III featured new fiction from Griffin Barber, Gerald Brandt, Miles Cameron, Sebastien de Castell, Kristi Charish, David Ebenbach, Mark Everglade, Frank J. Fleming, Violette Malan, Anna Mocikat, James Morrow, Jess E. Owen, Robert G. Penner, Cat Rambo, K.M. Rice, and Edward Willett; poetry from Jane Yolen; and additional stories by Cory Doctorow, K. Eason, Walter Jon Williams, and F. Paul Wilson. Among those authors are several international bestsellers, as well as winners and nominees for every major science fiction and fantasy literary award. All of the authors were guests during the third year of The Worldshapers, where Willett interviews other science fiction and fantasy authors about their creative process. Backers' rewards offered by the authors include numerous e-books, signed paperback and hardcover books (including limited editions), Tuckerizations (a backer's name used as a character name), commissioned artwork, original poetry (from Jane Yolen), audiobooks, opportunities for online chats with authors, short-story critiques, and more. The Kickstarter campaign can be found at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/edwardwillett/shapers-of-worlds-volume-iii. The campaign goal was $12,000 CDN. Most of those funds will go to pay the authors, with the rest going to reward fulfillment, primarily the editing, layout, and printing of the book, which will be published in both ebook and trade paperback formats by Willett's publishing company, Shadowpaw Press (www.shadowpawpress.com). The special Kickstarter edition for backers will be followed by a commercial release this fall. Stretch goals are simple: for every $5,000 over the goal the campaign raises, the authors will be paid one cent a word more. Shapers of Worlds Volume III is a follow-up to Shapers of Worlds, successfully Kickstarted in 2020, and Shapers of Worlds Volume II, Kickstarted last year. Shapers of Worlds included new fiction from Tanya Huff, Seanan McGuire, David Weber, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., John C. Wright, D.J. Butler, Christopher Ruocchio, Shelley Adina, and Edward Willett, plus reprints from John Scalzi, Joe Haldeman, David Brin, Julie E. Czerneda, Fonda Lee, Gareth L. Powell, Dr. Charles E. Gannon, Derek Künsken, and Thoraiya Dyer. Shapers of Worlds Volume II featured new fiction from Kelley Armstrong, Marie Brennan, Helen Dale, Candas Jane Dorsey, Lisa Foiles, Susan Forest, James Alan Gardner, Matthew Hughes, Heli Kennedy, Lisa Kessler, Adria Laycraft, Ira Nayman, Garth Nix, Tim Pratt, Edward Savio, Bryan Thomas Schmidt, Jeremy Szal, and Edward Willett, plus stories by Jeffrey A. Carver, Barbara Hambly, Nancy Kress, David D. Levine, S.M. Stirling, and Carrie Vaughn. As I said before Edward is an amazing person. If you want to to contact Edward on social media...all you have to do is find Edward Willett. Therefore, Edward is available for interviews, media appearances, speaking engagements, and/or book review requests. Please contact mickey.creativeedge@gmail.com by email or by phone at 403.464.6925. Thank you for your support and keep listening to the podcast. Book your interview with Keepin It Real. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/caramel-lucas/message

This episode features "Best-Laid Plans" written by David D. Levine. 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/levine_05_21 Support us on Patreon at http://patreon.com/clarkesworld

This episode features "Best-Laid Plans" written by David D. Levine. 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/levine_05_21 Support us on Patreon at http://patreon.com/clarkesworld

Author : Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko Narrators : S.B. Divya and David D. Levine Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 750: The Anatomy of Miracles is an Escape Pod original. The Anatomy of Miracles by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko For half a song every evening, the sunsets […] Source

Today we sat down with Hugo-award winning author David D. Levine to talk about how he got started in writing from short stories up to his latest novels. Grab a coffee and come learn his path to being a novelist, from engineering to fiction. … Continue...Episode 46 – David Levine

Author : Deji Bryce Olukotun Narrator : David D. Levine Host : S.B. Divya Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums When We Were Patched by Deji Bryce Olukotun The last time we ever spoke, my partner Malik asked me whether I believed speed or power made for the best athlete. I was puzzled, […] Source

Episode Sponsor- I’m From Nowhere, a novel by Lindsay Lerman. This week’s Drabblecast explores unrequited love and how relationships, like anything in life, are susceptible to change. We bring you a full cast production of David D. Levine’s space opera story “Love in the Balance,” read to you by Mike Boris, Lauren Synger, Veronica Giguere, Adam […] The post Drabblecast 417 – Love in the Balance appeared first on The Drabblecast.

Amanda and Jenn discuss Australian historical fiction, psychopaths, comedic murder mysteries, and more in this week's episode of Get Booked. This episode is sponsored by Book Riot Insiders, Penguin Random House Audio, and So Done by Paula Chase.   Feedback Just some feedback for Ben’s daughter from episode 155! As someone not *too* far removed from the voracious-child-reader stage can I suggest: Dragonskin Slippers (Jessica Day George), Inkheart (Cornelia Funke), The Ranger’s Apprentice (John Flanagan), the Stravaganza series (Mary Hoffman) and Eragon (Christopher Paolini). Hope some of those are useful, and thank you so much for the podcast - every episode just brightens my week x --Hannah   Questions   1. First of all, when I found your show it was like a dream come true. I love to read! Second only to my love of reading, is my love of discovering new books and putting them on my to read shelf. I keep telling my husband that I wish I had y’all’s job. Speaking of my husband, I am recently married and we are getting ready to go on our honeymoon in December. We are heading to Australia! My husband and I have no intention of just laying on the beach and relaxing all honeymoon. That’s not our style. Instead we plan to do plenty of historical tours. My favorite tours are when I already have a little background on the history of a place. I was hoping you guys could recommend some historical fiction novels set in Australia, especially dating back to its early colonial days and possibly some about its Aboriginal population. I do not like nonfiction or pages and pages of descriptions. I can’t wait to hear your recommendations!! Thank you! --Amelia   2. Hello Ladies! Thanks for answering my previous questions (all those Besses are this Bess) and laughing at my jokes! Very validating! I'm writing to ask for reading recommendations to read over my honeymoon! We're going to an all inclusive resort and I can't wait to just lie around and read :) I'm specifically asking for books that are that tender, heartrending romance where you just want them to be together! Examples include Song of Achilles, Room with a View, Golden Compass Series (Will x Lyra forever). I already own Possession, haven't read it yet -- Way down with pining and angst, I am not really looking for a romance novel, but a literary story where two characters' love is just oh so burny and tender! Thanks in advance, --Bess - bride to be   3. Hi, so like you I loved Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho and I am waiting on tenterhooks for the next book in the series. I’m looking for something to filled the Sorcerer to the Crown shaped hole in my heart. I really like both the Regency, the politics, the slow romance and the magic elements of the book. The Regency period is such an interesting time in British history - right on the edge of the modern, but not quite there yet. I don't need the book to have magic, but it is always a plus. I have already read: Arabella of Mars by David D. Levine Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal Sorcery & Cecelia: or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer and loved all of them. --Sidsel   4. I am looking for recommendations for my 11 year old daughter. She would love to read YA, but I think I would like to hold off from the love relationships and more adult themes for a little bit longer. Last year she read "Some Kind of Happiness" by Claire Legrand and said it was written for her. I'm looking for books that are perhaps more mature, but somewhere in between middle grade and YA. Thanks! --Lauren   5. Hi Amanda and Jenn, I am listening to Deadly Manners, a dark comedy murder-mystery podcast series I am in love with! It's an old-school style story with modern sensibilities. The plot: there's a dinner party and guests are getting picked off one by one, and Levar Burton narrates. Need I say more? I just finished the next to last episode and am already dreading the void in my life when it's over. Can you recommend some books to fill it? Thanks! --Alexis   6. I know Halloween just passed but I heard Shelly Laurenston's booklist from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books podcast, one of the things she mentions is psychopaths and I was wondering if you had any recommendations for this. I don't want mystery or thrillers, more like a mind dive into spotting them, try to understand why they do it or facts. Since the holiday are coming up I would like some recommendations as soon as possible please. --Ash   7. Hi Jenn and Amanda, I would love to get some recommendations for romance novels that deal with sexual trauma or sexual dysfunction (or that just acknowledge the fact that sex isn't always easy and fun). I'm not fussy about the type of romance (just no paranormal). I realize this may be difficult because romance is supposed to be escapist but I am desperate to see my experience represented. Thanks so much for your help! --Joss   Books Discussed The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (tw: homophobia, assault) Becoming by Michelle Obama obviously The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott The Mothers by Brit Bennett My Education by Susan Choi Heartstone by Elle Katharine White Gail Carriger Witchmark by CL Polk Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten, transl. By Marlaine Delargy Confessions of a Sociopath by M.E. Thomas The Anatomy of Evil by Michael Stone (rec’d by Liberty) Asking For It by Lilah Pace (tw: discussions of/roleplay of rape/sexual assault, violence against women) Under Her Skin by Adriana Anders, Blank Canvas series, (tw: domestic violence, assault)

As a part of the Relaunch Prelaunch we revisit a listener favorite with special insight from the author, David D. Levine. Enjoy the “Director’s Cut: Charlie the Purple Giraffe Was Acting Strangely.” Our feature originally aired in Episode # 113 way back in 2009. It is a unique tale set inside a televised cartoon world. […] The post Drabblecast Director’s Cut: Charlie the Purple Giraffe Was Acting Strangely appeared first on The Drabblecast.

It's time for a special lightning-round episode of Eating the Fantastic as 15 guests devour a dozen donuts while recounting their favorite Nebula Awards memories. Michael Swanwick explains how his love of Isaac Asimov impelled him to walk out on guest speaker Newt Gingrich, David D. Levine remembers catching the penultimate Space Shuttle launch, Daryl Gregory recalls the compliment which caused him to get yelled at by Harlan Ellison, Barry Goldblatt reveals what cabdrivers do when they find out he's an agent, Cat Rambo puts in a pitch for SFFWA membership, Fran Wilde confesses a moment of squee which was also a moment of ooops, Steven H. Silver shares how he caused Anne McCaffrey to receive a Pern threadfall, Annalee Flower Horne tells of the time John Hodgman stood up for her onstage during the awards banquet, and much, much more!

By Rahul Kanakia, from Issue #249 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online MagazineNarrated by David D. Levine.Sometimes the crimes were egregious. In these cases I ripped up the would-be magicians with no compunctions. But other times...More info »

NOW WITH IMPROVED AUDIO!   In this episode we discuss the following stories from Wild Cards, Book One: Interlude One (George R R Martin) Captain Cathode and the Secret Ace (Michael Cassutt) Powers (David D. Levine) Shell Games (George R R Martin) Interlude Two (George R R Martin) The Long Dark Night of Fortunato (Lewis Shiner) Transfigurations (Victor Milán) Interlude Three (George R R Martin) Down Deep (Edward Bryant and Leanne C. Harper) Interlude Four (George R R Martin) Strings (Stephen Leigh (S. L. Farrell)) Interlude Five (George R R Martin) Ghost Girl Takes Manhattan (Carrie Vaughn) Comes a Hunter (John J. Miller) Epilogue: Third Generation (Lewis Shiner) [briefly] Appendix, The Science of the Wild Cards Virus, Excerpts from the Minutes of the American Metabiological Society Conference on Metahuman Abilities (all George R R Martin) Intrigued by American after-school horror TV specials for the under-12s? Watch The Red Room Riddle on YouTube:  Joey King is on Twitter Questions, comments, or corrections? Email us at acesjokerswildcards@gmail.com, or find us on Twitter.

A roundtable discussion with Jim Baen Memorial Award: The First Decade anthology editor William Ledbetter, and story authors Marina Lotsetter, David D. Levine, K.B. Rylander, and Martin Shoemaker. The book is a "best of the best" collection of award winners from the past ten years of the contest sponsored by Baen Books and the National Space Society, and concentrating on near-future fiction that is positive and forward-looking about humanity's future in space; and part twenty-eight of the complete audiobook serialization of Liaden Universe® novel Alliance of Equals by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

Main Fiction: "End of the Silk Road" by David Levine Originally published in Old Venus David D. Levine (www.daviddlevine.com) is the author of novels Arabella of Mars and Arabella and the Battle of Venus, as well as over fifty SF and fantasy short stories, His story “Tk’Tk’Tk’” won the Hugo, and he has been shortlisted for awards including the Hugo, Nebula, Campbell, and Sturgeon. Stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, Tor.com, numerous Year’s Best anthologies, and his award-winning collection Space Magic. Narrated by the author Fact: Marc Zicaree - Mr. Sci-Fi Alien commentary See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Join David D. Levine for some awesome Kansas City BBQ as we talk about the things being a science fiction fan for so long taught him about being a professional science fiction writer, what it was like contributing to George R.R. Martin's Wild Cards universe after having read the series since Day One, how pretending to live on Mars for two weeks helped him write his newly published novel Arabella of Mars, and much more.

Space pirates, Martians, and youthful adventures, oh my!  In our 301st episode, David D. Levine joins us to discuss his new novel, Arabella of Mars.  We talk about the physics of his alternate history, his choice to write a young female protagonist, the culture of the early 1800s, Martians, and much more! We hope you enjoy […]

The following audio was recorded live at the KGB Bar on July 20th, 2016, with guests David Levine and Helen Marshall. Only David’s reading is included in this podcast. David Levine David D. Levine is the author of the novel Arabella of Mars and over fifty SF and fantasy stories. His story “Tk’Tk’Tk” won the Hugo, and he […]

Into the Nth Dimensionby David D. LevineThe fence around Dr. Diabolus's lair is twenty feet tall, electrified and topped with razor wire.  I'd expected no less.  From one of the many pouches at my belt I pull a pair of acorns and toss them at the base of the fence. I exert my special power.  Each acorn immediately sprouts, roots digging through asphalt as the leafy stem reaches skyward.  Wood fibers KRACKLE as the stems extend, lengthen, thicken, green skin changing to grayish bark in a moment.  Leaves SSHHH into existence; branches reach out to the neighbor tree, twining themselves into rungs. Before the twin oaks have reached their full height I spring into action, clambering up the living ladder as it grows, creeping along a limb even as it extends over the razor wire.  It's a dramatic, foolhardy move, but I can't delay -- Sprout is in peril!  The branch sags under my weight, lowering me to within ten feet of the ground, and I leap down with practiced ease. Full transcript after the cut:----more----Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 22 for February ... 20th, oops. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you!Our story today is "Into the Nth Dimension" by David D. Levine, read by... David D. Levine.David is the author of novel Arabella of Mars, which will be out from Tor Books in July 2016, and over fifty science fiction and fantasy stories. His story “Tk’Tk’Tk” won the Hugo Award in 2006, and he has been shortlisted for awards including the Hugo, Nebula, Campbell, and Sturgeon. Stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, numerous Year’s Best anthologies, and his award-winning collection Space Magic.Oh, just one more thing! While I was putting this episode together the SFWA Nebula award nominations came out, and David JUST, as in, literally minutes ago, received a Nebula nomination for his story "Damage," which was released on Tor.com. Congratulations!GlitterShip would also like to congratulate some of the authors whose stories appeared in previous episodes: Ken Liu (Episode 15), was nominated for best Novel for his book "The Grace of Kings", Rose Lemberg (Episode 7) was nominated for her novelette "Grandmother-nai-Leylit's Cloth of Winds", and Sarah Pinsker (Episode 2) was also nominated for a novelette, "Our Lady of the Open Road."Ok. NOW you can listen to the story.Into the Nth Dimensionby David D. LevineThe fence around Dr. Diabolus's lair is twenty feet tall, electrified and topped with razor wire.  I'd expected no less.  From one of the many pouches at my belt I pull a pair of acorns and toss them at the base of the fence. I exert my special power.  Each acorn immediately sprouts, roots digging through asphalt as the leafy stem reaches skyward.  Wood fibers KRACKLE as the stems extend, lengthen, thicken, green skin changing to grayish bark in a moment.  Leaves SSHHH into existence; branches reach out to the neighbor tree, twining themselves into rungs. Before the twin oaks have reached their full height I spring into action, clambering up the living ladder as it grows, creeping along a limb even as it extends over the razor wire.  It's a dramatic, foolhardy move, but I can't delay -- Sprout is in peril!  The branch sags under my weight, lowering me to within ten feet of the ground, and I leap down with practiced ease. Again I concentrate, and the two trees wither away behind me, a gnawed patch of asphalt and a few stray leaves the only sign they'd ever existed.  I feel their pain as they wilt and die, but I don't want my intrusion discovered sooner than necessary.  The loss of their green and growing lives is just the latest of the many sacrifices I've made.  I press onward.Slippery elm makes short work of the side door lock; mushrooms blind security cameras and heat sensors.  These bright corridors, humming with electricity and weirder energies, are cold places of steel and concrete, offering me no plants or plant matter to leverage my powers.  I've faced worse.  I prowl quickly, silently, keeping my head down, all senses alert to any trace of the kidnapped Sprout.Voices!  I duck into an alcove as two of Dr. Diabolus's goons round the corner.  As soon as they've passed I spring out behind them, tossing seeds at their feet.  Fast-twining English ivy ensnares one before he can cry out, but the other evades its tendrils.  "Phyto-Man!" he gasps.POW! my fist responds.  He drops cold beside his still-struggling comrade, whose eyes glare with hatred above his smothered mouth.  I direct the ivy to bind the unconscious goon as well, so he'll raise no alarm when he awakes.Even their underwear is synthetic fiber.  Dr. Diabolus is thorough, I'll grant him that.Deeper and deeper into the cavernous lair I probe, keeping an eye on the pipes and conduits that line the ceiling, smaller leading to larger, following the branch to find the trunk.  I know Dr. Diabolus; wherever he's holding my sidekick it will be near his latest contrivance, and all his inventions require massive amounts of power. If only he'd gone solar instead of stealing plutonium, we might have been allies.At last I come to a massive, vault-like door, all steel and chrome, set in a concrete wall into which many thick conduits vanish.  But nothing is more persistent than a plant.  I tuck dozens of tiny dandelion seeds into the crack between door and jamb.  Their indomitable roots reach deep, swelling and prying, until with a WHANGG of tearing metal the door bursts from its frame. With my own muscles I wrench the shattered door aside and burst into the chamber.  Dr. Diabolus turns to me, cape swirling.  "You disappoint me, Phyto-Man," he sneers, his artificial eye glowing red.  "I expected you here half an hour ago.""Traffic was terrible," I quip.  The chamber is dominated by a complex machine, seething with arcane energies that make my head swim, but there's no sign of Sprout.  "What have you done with my sidekick, you fiend?""I sent him to... the Nth Dimension!"  He pulls a lever on the control panel before him.  A ten-foot iris of blue steel in the center of the machine SNICKs open, revealing...Looking into the opening makes my eyes feel like they're being pulled out of my head.  It's as though all the colors of the palette have somehow been smeared together with... others... forming impossible combinations of hue and tone that swirl sickeningly.  But worse than that, the weird amalgam of color seems to bend... around a corner that isn't there.  It's painful to see, even harder to look away.CHANGG!  Something hard and cold fastens onto my bicep, breaking the spell.  "What?" I cry.  Before I can move, a second steel claw CHANGGs onto my other arm.  CHANGG!  CHANGG!  CHANGG!  I'm caught like a fly, steel bracelets ringing my arms, legs, and neck.  Jointed metal arms haul me off the floor, suspend me in the air before the gloating Dr. Diabolus. "HAHAHAHAHA!" he laughs as I struggle in vain.  "You've foiled my plans for the last time, Phyto-Man!""If you've harmed Sprout--!" I growl through clenched teeth, straining against the imprisoning metal."My dear Phyto-Man, I must confess... I don't know!"  He works the controls and the arms propel me, none too gently, toward the yawning portal.  The uncanny colors swirl crazily, filling my vision, seeming to tug at every fiber of my being.  "But whatever has become of your Sprout, you will shortly be joining him there.  Bon voyage, Emerald Avenger!"The arms thrust me forward.  With a SPRANK! the five claws open simultaneously, flinging me into the swirling abyss.A hard, gritty surface presses against my side.  I'm cold, my head is spinning, and everything hurts.  There's a thin, rushing sound off in the distance.  Traffic?I sit up and open my eyes.  And immediately I wish I hadn't.There's nothing to see but a cracked and filthy concrete floor and my own hands, but they're all wrong... seriously wrong.  The floor curves away from me in every direction -- the same impossible curvature I'd seen in Dr. Diabolus's portal -- despite the fact that it looks and feels flat.  And the surface looks like... like concrete multiplied by itself.  Cracks are crackier.  Grit is grittier.  It's all realer than real; it pounds on my eyes as though I were staring into the sun, though there's barely any light.  And the color is not just gray, but a weird amalgam of thousands of different grays blended smoothly together.  A whole shining rainbow of grays.My heart is pounding.   I've faced death many times, fought monsters, escaped from traps, but I've never experienced anything this disturbing.  Always before the threat came from outside, but now it's me -- my own perceptions -- that have changed.My hands, too, are a disconcerting, amplified version of themselves.  I turn them before my eyes, and as they rotate I seem to see both sides at the same time as the front.  In color they are... kind of an ultra-pink, not the plain pink I've seen every day of my life but an eye-hurting blend of unnatural shades.  Pinks that don't exist, have never existed.  And as I look more closely I see disturbing swirls of texture in my skin, spiraling like microscopic galaxies, like nothing I've ever seen before.I swallow and rip my attention away from my own fingers.  Have I been drugged?  I shake my head hard, but that just makes the headache and dizziness worse.  I pound my fists on the ground, but though I feel the impact and the pain there's no comforting THUD, just a muffled thump so faint and distant I might as well be imagining it. "Hello?" I call.  No, nothing wrong with my hearing; my voice bounces back to me from the darkness, echoing off the distant, unseen walls.To my surprise there's an immediate reply.  "Michael?"  The voice is heartbreakingly familiar.  I feel a twinge of hope."Sprout?"  I peer into the darkness, hoping for a glimpse of green tights and pointed shoes.  It's a ridiculous outfit.  Why have we never changed it?And why have I never wondered that before?"It's me, Michael.  Richard."A familiar figure appears in the dim distance, but with everything so strange here I can't afford to relax.  "Is this a secure area?  We should stick to code names...""No need.  There's no Sprout here, and no Phyto-Man either."Worries spring up in my mind -- impostors, hypnosis, possession, brainwashing -- but I decide to bluff it out in case there are unseen observers.  "Well, I'm here now, Sprout." "This all seems very strange, I know, but don't worry.  Everything will be all right."Despite his reassurances, there's a strangeness about Sprout as he approaches.  He's wearing street clothes, in colors and textures as hallucinogenic as everything else here, and his face combines familiarity with an alien super-reality exactly as my own hands do, but the really disturbing thing is the way he moves.  Each step flows into the next with a weird gliding motion that propels him forward seamlessly, without transitions.  It's like he's rolling toward me on a treadmill, constantly cresting a hill that isn't there.  I push down feelings of nausea and... and fear.  Never in all my adventures have I faced anything as disquieting as this place.  "Where am I?""Dr. Diabolus called it the Nth Dimension, but the people here just call it the world."  He's reached me now, and the mingled concern and relief in his face match the conflicting emotions in my own heart.  "I'm so glad you're finally here."He bends down and helps me to my feet, a disturbing reversal, and I find that I move with the same unnatural glide that he does.  Even more disturbing, I find I'm naked.  "My costume!"  I cover myself with my hands as best I can, but the loss of my belt pouches, my carefully nurtured collection of seeds, leaves me feeling not just nude but defenseless.I reach out with my powers.  Perhaps a seed from a discarded Fig Newton lies in a crack on the floor, a seed I can grow into leaves to cover my nakedness.  But there's nothing; my powers are dulled almost to nonexistence.  I can feel wood beams supporting the ceiling high above, but I can't warp them to my will. I'm helpless.  For the first time in... I can't remember when."Don't worry," Sprout says, "no one here wears costumes.  I brought you some clothes."  He turns, the motion revealing sides and back, width and depth and thickness, all at once.  I groan and nearly lose my balance.  "Oh!" he says.  "I'm sorry.  Try closing one eye.  It helps."I do, and it does -- the colors are still wrong but the disorienting sense of everything being too far away and too close at the same time is greatly reduced.  Sprout -- Richard -- reaches into a rustling paper bag and hands me a folded bundle. Putting the clothes on is a challenge.  Each trouser leg recedes like a portal to another world; buttons and zippers feel much larger, more detailed than they should.  I close my eyes completely and let my instincts take over.  It makes a big difference.  How many times in my life have I dressed myself?  But this still feels like the first time.I sit on the filthy floor to tie the unfamiliar shoes.  "That's better," I say.  "Now let's get to work."  Maybe action will still the trembling dread in my heart.  "There's no time to lose -- we need to get back to our own dimension and defeat Dr. Diabolus before it's too late!"Richard smiles and shakes his head.  I'm starting to get used to the weird multi-dimensional effect.  "Don't worry, there's plenty of time."  He puts out a hand.  "Come on.  I'll explain over coffee."Sprout's lack of concern raises anew the questions I'd had about drugs, hypnosis, imposters.  But, lost in a strange, incomprehensible world, I have no better alternative to offer.  I take his hand. His hand is warm and soft in mine.  When was the last time I'd grasped it without gloves, without haste, without danger all around? He leads me across the floor -- now that my eyes have adapted a bit to the darkness and strangeness I see that the space is a cavernous, disused warehouse -- to a corroded metal door.  It opens with a muted squeak of rusty hinges, not the SKREEK I would have expected, but once we pass through it to the street I'm assaulted by a cacophony of sounds, visions, and smells more intense than New Year's Eve in Metro City.  Cars in an astonishing variety of designs and colors careen by, with the same seamless motion as Sprout's walk but a hundred times faster.  Each one seems to zoom in from the horizon and vanish away to infinity all in a moment, but even as they speed by I can't help but notice their scratches and dents and chips in the paint and a hundred other details.  It's a dizzying kaleidoscope of color and detail."Whoa!" I cry out as Sprout hauls me back from the curb."Careful, big guy."  He pats my shoulder.  "You're not invulnerable here.""Well, I've never been in Dynamic Man's league...""No, I mean you can really get hurt easily.  It doesn't take much, and it takes a long time to heal.  Look at this."  He pulls up his sleeve, revealing a hideous scab on his elbow.  "I scraped this on a brick wall when I first got here.  Just a little scrape, nothing I'd even have noticed if I were in a fist fight with the Demolisher, but it hurt like a son of a bitch --"I've never heard such language.  "Sprout!""-- and a month later it's still not all the way better."A month?  Immediately I'm on high alert again.  Has the imposter slipped up?  Sprout only disappeared the day before yesterday.But he notices the change in my expression -- faces here seem more subtle, more expressive -- and puts up a hand.  "Sorry.  We're on a monthly schedule.  One or two of our days, more or less, is a month here.  I should have told you right away."  His eyes dip to the sidewalk.  "There's a lot I should have told you, before."My suspicions are only slightly allayed, but I still have little alternative but to stick with this person, whether or not he's the Sprout I know.  Whoever he is, he just saved my life.We walk to a coffee shop.  Safe from the chaos of the street, I can begin to appreciate the wonder of this world -- the colors and textures, the tears in the vinyl seat's upholstery, the individual grains of spilled sugar on the laminate tabletop.  My spoon makes a tiny tink, tink noise as I stir my coffee.  The flavor is astonishing -- rich and sweet and dark.  "So you've been here a whole month?" He nods.  "I showed up in the same place you did.  It's the closest analog in this world to Dr. Diabolus's lair.  It took me quite a while to figure this place out, but I finally did.""You always were the brains of this partnership."  Before Sprout, there had been no Phyto-Computer, no chemical lab, no advanced cross-breeding program in the Hidden Greenhouse.  I'd really been little more than a thug with a green thumb."This world... it's like a layer above our world.  Everything here is... bigger.  More complex.  More detailed.  Even the color spectrum... there's an infinity of different colors here, Michael."I think back on the time I fell into the Hollow Earth, and how I had to help the downtrodden people there throw off the tyrannical overlord Karg before I could return to the surface.  "Then they must have even bigger problems than we do.  More villainous villains!  More despotic despots!  More disastrous natural disasters!"  I find myself grinning with anticipation.  "This could be our greatest adventure!""You might think so, but I haven't seen any sign of it.  There aren't any villains here.""It's some kind of Utopia, then?""Not really."  His face squinches up the way it does when he's thinking hard.  "There are people who do bad things.  But every time someone does something that seems entirely villainous to me, a whole bunch of other people come along and say it was really the right thing to do.  I'm kind of confused, really."  He shakes his head.  "Even bank robbers have their defenders here.  And there are tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes, but they're... diffuse.  I mean, yeah, people get hurt, but you never see the President's daughter trapped under a collapsed building or someone racing to get the secret plans to the hidden base before the whole Eastern Seaboard becomes uninhabitable.""Sounds... boring.""Oh, it's not!"  His eyes brighten and he grabs my hands across the table.  "It's the most wonderful place, Michael.  There's art and culture and nature like nothing you've ever seen.  Not just stuffy charity balls where the only exciting thing is when The Rutabaga tries to steal the debutante's diamond necklace.  I can't wait to show you Turandot."I pull my hands from his.  "Whoa, whoa, whoa, kiddo.  We're not here to be tourists.  We're here for a reason.  And once our job is done here, we'll go back where we came from.  That's the way the world works.""Not this world.  In this world you can do whatever you want, make the best of what you've got, succeed or fail or just muddle along... you're not limited to playing the role you were born into, fighting the same villains and foiling the same plots over and over again.  Not like our world."  He reaches into his hoodie's front pocket, pulls out a slim colorful magazine.  "To the people here, we're fictional!"The title of the magazine is The Amazing Phyto-Man, issue 157.  On the cover, a hulking over-muscled brute with a ridiculous green outfit and a caricature of my own face smacks a tentacled monstrosity in the beak.  The pages inside are divided into squares and rectangles, each bearing a picture and some text...It shows the whole story of how I got here.  Over the fence, down the corridors, the confrontation with Dr. Diabolus, the metal arms flinging me into the portal.I feel as though the world has been jerked out from under my feet.  "This is impossible.  Absurd.  Some kind of hoax.""It's no hoax.  There were ten copies of this one on the rack I bought it from.  All our friends have their own publications too."  He taps the final panel, showing me screaming as I fall into the swirling colors... but the colors on the page are the flat, limited palette of the world I came from.  "This is how I knew you'd be arriving here."I stare at the page.  It's wood pulp with vegetable inks.  My powers are weak here, almost nonexistent, but I can feel the minuscule thread of green life in it.  In some ways this stupid little magazine is the only thing in the whole chromium-and-vinyl coffee shop that's real. The only thing that's real...I turn back a page.  It's one large panel, with Dr. Diabolus laughing "HAHAHAHAHA!" as I struggle in the grip of the metal arms.  I stare at his flat, cartoonish face.I exert my power. It's not easy.  What I'm trying to do is unlike anything I've ever done before.  My teeth grind together; my pulse pounds in my temples. This is as hard and as strange as the very first time I ever made a seed sprout. It had been an apple seed, a discarded pip from my lunch, that happened to be lying on the floor the day that eerie green-glowing meteorite had crashed into the experimental greenhouse with its stocks of Growth Serum X.  That tiny seed, and the potential apple tree within, had been all that stood between me and certain death as the heavy beam had come crashing down toward me.  As though in a dream I'd sensed its potential, I'd reached out, I'd pulled harder than I'd ever pulled on anything before... and the tree burst into being, root and branch and leaf cushioning the beam's fall and saving my life.That had been the first time I'd felt that green power flowing through me.  Now I feel it again, a thin green thread of life pulsing in the dead, flattened wood pulp before me.  But this time it's different somehow, pulling at me even as I pull at it.Sweat stings my eyes and runs down my nose.  I keep straining...And then Dr. Diabolus blinks. The caricature face turns fractionally toward me, its look of triumph beginning to change into one of astonishment...It's more than I can sustain.  I collapse, my breath rushing out in a whoosh as I fall back into the padded seat.  The page before me reverts to its previous form, but I feel a sense of triumph. Sprout snatches the magazine away.  "What did you do?" "I used my powers.  I touched our world.  I made a change." "So what?""We can use this!"  I pound the table.  "I don't know how, but somehow we can use this magazine to get back to our own world!""Hush!" Sprout pats the air with his hands; I notice that the server and the other patrons are staring.  I sit down, noticing as I do that I'd surged to my feet.  "Michael... I don't want to go back to the world we came from.""We have to!"He looks at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. And then he bolts from the table. I stare stupidly at the door as the little bell over it tinkles, then take off after him.Sprout's fast, but ever since that day in the experimental greenhouse I've been stronger and tougher and faster than most people, and at least some of that seems to have come through the portal with me.  I manage to make it through the door before his heels vanish around the corner.Running in this world is a kaleidoscopic, hallucinogenic experience.  Walls seem to rush at me, a riot of color and texture; cars veer and swerve, horns blaring.  But I keep my eyes fixed on Sprout's blue hoodie as he dashes across streets, pushes through crowds of protesting civilians, runs down alleys. Block after block, I'm gaining.  Sprout was always the smart one in our partnership, but I'm the one who battled The Piledriver to a standstill.  Soon I'm only a few feet behind.We're racing down an alley, dodging around dumpsters and piles of newspaper, when I get almost close enough to touch him.  He looks over his shoulder... and trips on a bundle of magazines.  He tumbles on the concrete with an "oomph" that sounds almost like something from our original world.I catch up to him just as he's sitting up.  Bright red blood runs from his nose; there's a rusty smell.  "Guh?" he says.I bend down, put an arm around his shoulder.  "Are you all right, old buddy?"He stares into my eyes for a moment, blood painting his nose and mouth.And then he kisses me.I taste blood.  I feel his warm lips soft under mine. I kiss him back.Then, horrified, I push him away.  "What are we doing, Sprout?""Kissing.  And you liked it as much as I did."  His bloody lips twist into an ironic smile.  "If you couldn't figure that much out, I guess I really am the brains of this partnership.""But... but you're just a kid!"He glares at me.  "I'm twenty-two, Michael."Twenty-two?  It's strange to realize that he's right.  He was fifteen when I adopted him after Maniac killed his parents, but that was... seven years ago.  Where did the time go?  How had I failed to notice he'd grown into a lithe, attractive young man?  "Even so... it's... it's wrong.""Maybe where we came from.  Not here."  He pulls a bandana from his pocket, wipes his mouth.  Blood still trickles from his nose but it's slowing.  "This world is better than ours, Michael.  It's complex and it's mundane and it's sometimes tedious, but it's not just the same round of villains and fights and secret identities over and over again.  It's... it's real, Michael.  And here I can be what I've always wanted to be, instead of just playing a role."  He holds out the bandana.  "And so can you."Sprout keeps holding out the bandana. After a while I take it, and wipe my own mouth.Then I stand up. "I'm a hero, Richard.  It may be a role, but it's the only role I know."Sprout just looks at me.  The expression on his blood-spattered face is a sick compound of longing, sadness, disappointment.  Perhaps I'm learning how to understand what I see in this world.I wonder what the expression on my own face tells him."Give me the magazine, Sprout.  We'll take it to the warehouse where we came in.  I figure that's the best place to try going back to our world.""No."Sprout lies at my feet, looking so small and weak, the front of his blue hoodie stained black with his blood.  I could take the magazine from him easily.  "I'll find another copy.""You don't have any money to buy one.""I'll steal it."He gives a weak little laugh.  "Liar."I have to smile myself.  "Okay, maybe not."  I sit back down.  "Come back with me, Sprout.  You know it's where we belong."He sits up, leans against me.  His shoulder is warm, the only warm thing in this cold, garbage-strewn alley, and I let it rest on my chest.  "Give this world a chance, Michael.  You've only just arrived.  I've already found a job at a nursery.  You could work there too."  He looks up at me.  His nose has stopped bleeding.  "We could share the apartment."I consider the idea.  I put my arm around my sidekick, lean back against the filthy brick wall, and think very hard about it.  This world is amazing, with its details and colors and motions and flavors.  And to share it with Sprout would be... something I hadn't even realized I desired. But in the end, it's duty that wins out.  "I'm sorry, Sprout.  Even if I wanted to -- and there's a part of me that does, believe me -- it's more than just you and me.  There are people depending on us back home.  If we don't go back there, who'll keep the Scimitar Sisters in check?"  I give him one last squeeze, disentangle myself, and stand up.  "Coming?""You're sure I can't change your mind?"I'm so, so tempted.  "I'm sure.""Then I'm coming too."  He stands, brushes himself off.  "I'd rather be a cartoon hero with you than alone here."We walk hand-in-hand back to the warehouse.  As we pass the coffee shop, I pause.  Sprout looks up at me, expectant.  "I, uh... I still have some of my powers here."  I clear my throat.  "I wonder if there's.... if there's any way we can bring... some of this world, back to ours?""I don't think so."  He points to a small shield printed in the corner of the magazine's cover.  "There are rules against it."Finally we find ourselves again in the dark, echoey space where we entered this world.  I think about how strange it looked to me when I first arrived, and I realize I've grown used to these new perceptions.  My old world will seem so flat and colorless by comparison. Sprout stands beside me as I spread the magazine out in a patch of sunlight.  There is no joy in me as I contemplate the garish images full of POW and KRUNCH, only a dull sense of obligation.  "It's not too late to change your mind," Sprout says.  "We can make a life together here.""I'm sorry, Sprout.  Our world needs saving."  But even as I say it, I know I'm trying to convince myself as well as him.  I hold out my hand.Without a word, he takes it.I bend down and stare hard at the last page, showing my cartoon avatar falling into the vortex between worlds.  I exert my will, block out all other sensations, focus my powers on the ink-saturated wood pulp.  Somehow, I know, I can use this image of the portal to return myself and Sprout to the world where we were born.It's the hardest thing I've ever done. I concentrate.  I work my power.  I push and pull and strain... this is as hard as the time I used pea vines to temporarily close up the Grand Canyon.  Harder.I strain still more intensely.  The printed vortex begins to whirl...I feel again, just as I did on that first day in the experimental greenhouse, the deep connection between my soul and the green life underlying the page...I feel the warmth of Sprout's hand in mine...And I realize that the connection runs both ways. With an unprecedented effort of will, I reverse my power. Where before the meteor's green energy had flowed into me at my moment of greatest need, now I send the energy flowing from myself into the printed page. I scream in pain as the power drains from me like my life's blood. The image before me springs to life.  Just as the metal claws release, the cartoon me on the page reaches down and tears open his belt.  Seeds of all descriptions pour out in their thousands, most falling into the vortex, but many others sprouting and twining and filling the portal with leaves and stems and branches.  I bounce off the web of vegetable matter, springing right back toward Dr. Diabolus.  WHAM!  My fist connects with the villain's chin.Then all is blackness.Later.  I open my eyes, and the first thing I see is Dr. Diabolus's lab.  Everything is flat, static, in eight garish colors.  But then I blink, and realize I've fallen face-first into the magazine spread on the floor before me.I sit up.  I'm no longer looking at the last page of The Amazing Phyto-Man issue 157.  It's now the first page of issue 158, a single large panel.  In it Dr. Diabolus, threatened by an enormous Venus flytrap, cowers at the controls of his dimensional portal, through which a grinning Sprout steps to take the hand of Phyto-Man.  All's well in Metro City."Michael?"  Richard is just awakening beside me.  "Wha... what just happened?"It takes me a long, reflective moment to find an answer to his question.  "I... I sent the power back where it came from, I think."  I look within myself.  It certainly isn't in there any more.  "It's with him now."  I tap the page. Richard's eyes dart from the page to my face.  "But that's you.""Not any more.  I'm just Michael now."  I stroke the flat, cartoon version of myself with my fingertips.  "Phyto-Man is back where he belongs.  I don't know how much of me went with him, but I hope... I hope he enjoyed his day in this world.  Maybe he can use what I learned here to make Metro City a better place.""But what about... us?  What happens next?"I close the magazine.  "I don't know.  Isn't it amazing?"END“Into the Nth Dimension” was originally published in Human For A Day, edited by Jennifer Brozek and Martin H. Greenberg in 2011.This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library.Thanks for listening, and I’ll be back on March 1st with “Je me souviens” by Su J. Sokol.

Her Last Breath Before Wakingby A.C. WiseShe is a city haunted by a ghost.When the architect dreams, her sinews are suspension bridges, her ribs vaulting arches, her bones steel I-beams, and her blood concrete. In her dreams, the city is pristine and perfect. She is perfect.The architect has a lover who is afraid to sleep. At night, the lover lays her head against the architect’s chest. Instead of breath and pulse, she hears the rumble of high-speed trains.Full transcript after the cut.----more----Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 21 for February 2, 2016. I am your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you.Today's story is "Her Last Breath Before Waking" by A.C. Wise.Before I get to the story, I just wanted to mention that GlitterShip is currently eligible for the Best Fancast category of the Hugo Awards. I wasn't really sure if GlitterShip was a "fancast" or a "semiprozine" but I thought I should check just in case anyone asked me.That said, if you like GlitterShip, the best thing you can do is tell your friends to start listening. If they're interested in LGBTQIA short fiction but are unable to access audio (or just don't like it!), they can read all of the GlitterShip stories on our website at glittership.comA.C. Wise's short stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Apex, Shimmer, and, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2015, among other places. Her debut collection, The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron Saves the World Again, was published by Lethe Press in October 2015. In addition to her fiction, she co-edits Unlikely Story, and contributes a monthly Women to Read: Where to Start column to SF Signal. Find her online at www.acwise.net.Our guest reader this week is Amanda Fitzwater.Amanda Fitzwater is a dragon wearing a human meat suit from Christchurch, New Zealand. A graduate of Clarion 2014, she’s had stories published in Lethe Press’ “Heiresses of Russ 2014”, “Daughters of Frankenstein: Lesbian Mad Scientists”, and recently an essay in Twelfth Planet Press’ “Letters to Tiptree”. Look out for stories coming soon from Shimmer Magazine and The Future Fire. As a narrator, her voice has been heard across the Escape Artists Network, on Redstone SF, and Interzone. She tweets under her penname as @AJFitzwater   Her Last Breath Before Wakingby A.C. WiseShe is a city haunted by a ghost.When the architect dreams, her sinews are suspension bridges, her ribs vaulting arches, her bones steel I-beams, and her blood concrete. In her dreams, the city is pristine and perfect. She is perfect.The architect has a lover who is afraid to sleep. At night, the lover lays her head against the architect’s chest. Instead of breath and pulse, she hears the rumble of high-speed trains.The architect stands on the balcony of her close apartment looking over the city-that-is and seeing the city-that-might-be. She smokes thin cigarettes and mentally replaces the burnt-out factory and its blind-eye smashed windows with a row of gleaming, silver towers. Once she builds them, her towers will scrape the stars.“The city is rotten,” she says; she doesn’t turn around.“I like the city,” says the architect’s lover, so softly she might not be heard. “It’s where we met.”But the architect isn’t listening. Her hands sketch forms on the air, rewriting the view with shimmering art deco buildings, glistening fountains, and wide, chilly plazas.The architect’s lover creeps outside to stand beside the architect. She hates visiting the architect here; it’s too high. The wind plucks at her. She doesn’t like seeing the city spread out this way, reduced to brick and wood, stone and smudges of light. Her own apartment is close to the ground, where she can step out the door and feel worn cobblestones beneath her feet.Sometimes, even though she knows the architect would disapprove, the architect’s lover goes outside barefoot. She stands in her doorway and breathes in the stench of factories, blanketing the city in smoke. She breathes in the crackling, golden scent of fresh bread from the bakery on the corner. She breathes in the rotting geraniums in her neighbor’s window box. But most of all, she breathes in the stink of the river, because once upon a time it smelled like the promise of a new world.On those days, the architect’s lover curls her toes around the worn-smooth cobbles and drinks in the life of all the people who came before her — every horse’s hoof, every shoeless urchin, every factory-man and whore, every rainfall wearing the cobbles as round as they are now. It makes the city feel alive. It comforts her.More than once, she has tried to show the architect her city, the one she sees with her feet curled around the cobblestones, but the architect only frowns. The architect has plans. The architect’s lover would re-write the city with new-forged memories; the architect would re-write it with glass and chrome.The architect slides her arm around her lover’s waist, drawing her closer to the view, but she’s still looking at the city.“One day this will be beautiful,” the architect says.The architect’s lover looks at the architect instead of the city — the plane of her cheekbones, the sweeping lines of her neck and throat, the dark spiral of her hair.“It’s beautiful now,” she says.In the morning, the architect’s lover finds plans scattered throughout the apartment. She lay beside the architect all night, listening to the high-speed rumble of dreams moving under the architect’s skin. The architect couldn’t have drawn the plans. She must have shed them from her body in her sleep like unwanted skin.In two weeks, a tower rises where the architect’s hands traced the air, even though there have been no work crews, no scaffolds, no sound of hammers and nails. Like the plans, the architect must have dreamed it, brought it into being by force of will.The architect’s lover cannot remember what stood there before the tower, if anything at all. This makes her weep, sitting alone in a café near the river, where the architect will not see. The architect’s lover wants to remember everything about the city, imprint it on her bones: here is where she held the architect’s hand, there is where they watched long barges pole down the canal. If she can keep the city from changing, maybe she can keep the architect from changing as well.People pass the café where the architect’s lover sits, but no one seems to notice the tower. It has always been there. They take it for granted; this is the way the city is meant to be. When she tries to ask about it, people merely shrug. They walk faster; they look at the architect’s lover with strange, indulgent smiles. They shake their heads before going about their days.The next time the architect’s lover visits, the architect calls her out onto the balcony. She points to the tower that has always been there.“You see?” the architect says, indicating the top of the tower, a pyramid of glass all lit up with giant spotlights and faceted like a jewel. “One day I’ll buy you a diamond bigger and brighter than that one. I’ll string stars around your waist and wrap moonlight around your throat. I’ll drape you in fur and put pearls and feathers in your hair. You’ll never want for anything.”The architect’s lover shudders; she imagines drowning under all that weight.The architect’s lover still longs to become the architect’s wife some day, even though she fears she will die of neglect if she does, so long as she doesn’t die of a broken heart first. She has tried not to love the architect every way she knows how, but her heart keeps circling back to the day they met. It is a fixed point in time, and for the architect’s lover, it will never change.They were both strangers in the city, recognizing in each other someone else who had not yet learned to call it home. They discovered it together, exploring every street, every alley, every rooftop and doorway. As they did, the architect’s lover wrote each location on her heart, remembering the way the architect looked when she touched that lintel, this railing. The architect’s lover never saw the city until she saw it through the architect’s eyes, and now they are inextricably intertwined. After so long adrift, these twin points, architect and city, anchored her. In the secret places inside her skin and her bones, her name for both architect and city is home.What secret name the architect has for her, the architect’s lover does not know. This, she does know: The architect never learned to name the city home and she will rewrite all the places they’ve ever been together — the smoky café where they first met, drinking absinthe and watching bloated corpses float down the river; the crumbling bridge where they shared their first kiss, the architect tasting of heady wine and the architect’s lover tasting of nothing at all; the factory where they first fucked, the rough brick against the architect’s lover’s back, and broken glass crunching under their boots. Even the rotten pier where the boats that brought them both from different places long before they knew each other first landed.Even so, the architect’s lover cannot fall out of love.All the places she has written on her heart will vanish. Her heart will remain. But when those places are gone, who will they be — the architect and the architect’s lover? Who will they be, separate and together? With no history, what hope can there be for their future?The architect’s lover is afraid the architect will rewrite her if she falls asleep. So she stays awake, eating cold, tart plums the color of new bruises. She smokes cigarettes she can’t stand the taste of, and drinks coffee so thick the spoon stands on its own when she forgets it halfway through stirring.She does all these things and tries not to think of the architect’s hands on her body when they fuck, placing causeways in the curve of her hip, a spiral staircase winding around her spine, a domed cathedral to replace her skull.She can’t tell the architect of her fear. She can’t tell her she’s afraid, or she’ll lose the architect even sooner. She is losing her. Has lost her. Will lose her again and again. She wants to lose her, and yet the architect’s lover is afraid of coming unmoored again, losing the only place she can call home.So instead she tries to imagine making herself vast enough to hold a city entire, her arms long enough to encompass bridges and canals, wrapped so tight nothing will ever crumble. Even in her dreams, in the rare moments she lets herself sleep, she fails.These are the architect’s dreams.One: She replaces her bones with scaffolding. Her eyes become window glass, shattering sunlight. Her jaw sings a bridge’s span, made musical by the tramping of a thousand feet. All through her are tunnels, connecting everything. Her veins are marble. Her foundation stone. Her heart a cavernous station thundering with countless trains. She is vast and contains multitudes. And she is beautiful.Two: She is very young and playing on the river bank with her brother and her cousin. It is summer and they are barefoot, squishing mud between their toes, feeling the wet, green life of fish and frogs and stilt-legged birds. They break off reeds from the shore and whip-thin branches from the overhanging trees, weaving them into impossible, organic structures. She is not the architect yet, in these dreams, but hers are always the strongest buildings. Her brother and cousin are too impatient, their fingers too quick. They splinter the reeds, snap the wood, and throw the wrecks into the sun-glinting water. They don’t want it badly enough. Her constructions can withstand anything, bound by her force of will.Three: She is very old, but ageless. Her skin, stretched taut over bone-that-is-not-bone, is so thin the light shines through it. There is metal everywhere she can fit it. She has carved away as many pieces of herself as she can and still walk, still breathe. She has cut windows in her flesh, replaced skin with glass so the delicate structures within, the winding catwalks and promenades, are visible. She is light, so light, but she abhors the body that remains, holding her down.At night, she calls her children to her. They come creeping from the shadows, their fingers bloody from tearing her city apart by day and building it anew as dusk falls. Metal spines protrude through their skin. Electricity sparks in their bones, makes their eyes glow. They never speak, but they crackle. She has given them whips to hold, downed power lines with frayed copper ends. At her bidding, they flay her, drawing blood from her remaining skin. She closes her eyes, cries ecstasy from a throat clogged with emotion. They are so perfect, her beautiful children, but it is never enough.She is never enough.Four: In her house near the river, she lies snugged tight between her brother and cousin, breathing in their dreams. Elsewhere in the house, her mother, father, and uncle snore. The door bursts open, shatters, raining splinters. Her family, all of them, is dragged from their beds, pushed barefoot into the snow.She can see her breath as they are marched, all in a line, to the river and forced out onto the frozen surface. Under the snow, the ice is impossibly blue, and under the blue, the water is impossibly black. She is separated from everyone but her mother, who grips her hand so tight their bones grind together, and refuses to let go. There are other families, nearly the whole village, teeth chattering, shivering, confused. One man protests, and a soldier in his warm coat and fur hat breaks the man’s nose with the butt of his gun. The man makes a choking noise. He spits blood on the ice, and one yellow-white tooth. He doesn’t protest again.One of the soldiers wears a star on his hat. He barks a command in a language she doesn’t understand, and two of his men go to either end of the shivering line. They walk slowly, with their guns drawn, and shoot every third person they come upon.One, two, three. Crack. One, two, three. Crack. Her father, uncle, and cousin are sixth, eighteenth, and twenty-first in line. Her mother is thirtieth, and she is thirty-first.Each bullet is the sound of the ice cracking, her heart breaking, the feel of her mother’s cold-chapped hand grinding against her bones then letting go as the force of gravity and the terrible color of blood upon the snow pull her down.Her brother survives. She survives. The solider with the star on his hat lays a heavy hand on her shoulder. He leans forward and breathes in her face, against her ear. His breath, the only hot thing on the frozen lake, smells of sausage and cheap whiskey.“Go,” he says. “Go, and take your brother with you. I want you to remember. I want you to carry this moment with you wherever you go.”There are tears on her lashes, freezing in place. She will never let them fall. They are perfect, inverted globes, holding the last image of her family. If they fall, they will shatter, and her family will be lost forever.This is what the architect dreams.The city changes. Weak and rotten flesh is scraped away to reveal shining bone. Towers rise. Bridges cross and re-cross the city. A train thunders from uptown to midtown and beyond, rattling windows paned in sparkling glass.The architect recruits an army of children, urchins with dirty fingers. The architect’s lover sees them in the shadows of old bridges, chipping away fragments of old stone. She sees them in the streets, hurling those chunks of stone through dirt-streaked windows, exploding brick dust from ancient buildings, hastening decay. She sees them digging between the cobbles, pulling them like teeth, prying between ancient boards until they snap. Their fingers are everywhere.She listens to the architect’s plans. She listens to the trains run beneath the architect’s skin when she sleeps. The city will never be finished, never be done. By night the children will build it up, by day the children will pull it down, and put new, shining structures in its place when the moon rises again.The city will never be complete. The architect will never be complete.Although they have never spoken of it, the architect and the architect’s lover disagree.To the architect’s lover, the river smells of promise, a particular promise that smells of her mother’s skin — fried onions, boiled cabbage, and harsh soap.To the architect, the river is the smell of sickness. It is the feel of her brother’s fevered skin under the palm of her hand. The river is the color of his eyes, glazed, muddy silt from its bottom occluding his sight. It is the sound of him parting blood-cracked lips at the end, rattling out one last breath, and calling her by her mother’s name. It is the memory of him surviving the ice, and dying — as so many others did — on the refugee-choked boat carrying them to a new life, a new shore.The architect is determined she will stitch the river closed. Her thread will be iron and steel, binding up the city’s wounds, sealing her brother’s ghost underneath its skin like a bruise, where it needs must fade.Sometimes the architect likes to imagine she never touched down on the city’s shore. When her brother died, she climbed up on the rail of the boat, crowded with so many stinking refugees, and let herself fall into the churned, muddy water. She sank, rag doll arms and legs drifting loose around her, hair trailing like weeds. She breathed out and out, silver bubbles rising toward the surface, the only bright and beautiful thing in all the muck. She did not jump, but sometimes she wishes she did. Sometimes, even though she knows it is not true, she convinces herself she did jump. The river swallowed her whole. Some other girl, a drowned girl, a ghost, entered the city in her place.At her core, who the architect truly is, is different. She is still under water, still exhaling, watching those bubbles rise. She is waiting. And one day soon, she will breathe in, light, perfect, and stripped clean. She will breathe in. And wake.She tries to tell her lover these things, but she knows her lover doesn’t hear them. Somewhere, somehow, they lost their way. They met in one city, and somewhere along the way, they diverged. They look at the city now, and they see different things. The architect wonders if she can ever build a bridge strong enough to pull her lover across. And if she can’t, what will happen to them, then?The architect’s lover takes to drinking. She drinks in cafes and bars along the ever-changing river, which she scarcely recognizes anymore.Is that the place where she met the architect? Or was it over there? What of the factory, the stone bridge? What of the taste of the architect’s skin, smoky with the factory’s ghosts, sweat-slick beneath her lover’s lips? What of absinthe cradled on the architect’s tongue, and their hands held palm to palm — so tight — bone to bone? So tight they will never let go. Where are the echoes of their heels cracking in rhythm, one, two, three, as they run from one place to the next, running wild into the future?The architect’s lover doesn’t recognize herself anymore. She doesn’t know where she fits — not on the streets, where cobbles no longer rise to meet the arches of her feet; not against the architect, where sharp juts of bone meet her fingers in place of the soft hollow of a throat, the gentle curve of a hip, or the warm swell of a breast.She drinks and she smokes until her memories blur, until their edges round and grow soft like the scarcely-remembered thousand-year cobble stones. The architect’s lover shouts at strangers, her words slurring as she tells them of factories and piers and bridges that never existed.She tells them of home.When she slips up and says she is the architecture’s lover, not the architect’s, no one corrects her.She is a ghost, in love with a city.And in time, because she is afraid and she doesn’t know how to fall out of love, the architect’s lover takes home a beautiful boy whose name she can’t be bothered to remember. She fucks him precisely because it means nothing. Smoking still more cigarettes, eating chilled and bruised plums, watching him sleep, she is terribly afraid she’ll marry him one day. Still never knowing his name, the architecture’s lover will use up her body bearing the beautiful boy’s children. Children who will become the monsters of the architecture’s dream.The architect, the architecture, is all angles and planes now, the glint of steel, concrete skin. The architecture’s lover doesn’t recognize anything anymore. She is a stranger in a city she once loved, a city that held so much promise. A city she called home.The architect’s lover remembers her mother putting her on a boat. There were so many boats in those days, all leaving from different places, but all traveling to the city — a place of promise, a place of dreams. She remembers clinging to her mother’s skirt, sobbing and not wanting to let go as her mother’s hands — red and blistered from washing — urged her up the wooden gangway.“It’s a better life,” her mother told her. “You’ll have opportunities I never had, things I can’t give you. You’ll be happy there, in time. Promise me you’ll try.”She remembers gripping the ship’s rail so hard her knuckles turned white, leaning out over the churning water, waving and straining her eyes until her mother was only a vanished speck on the horizon. Landing on the city’s shore didn’t take the pain away, but stepping from the boat’s swaying deck onto firm land once more, the architect’s lover straightened her spine, keeping her promise to try. Determined to make her mother proud.This is not the city she once called home.This city is hostile. It is like the place she came from, on a boat, so long ago, a place that pushed her out, not wanting her anymore. It does not love her. It barely knows she’s alive.And yet, still, she cannot fall out of love.The architecture’s lover looks at the beautiful boy whose name she doesn’t know, and tries to love him. Silent tears run down her cheeks; she doesn’t remember why.The architect stands on her balcony high above the shining city. Her city. Towers stab defiant at the sky, bridges stitch old wounds closed, trains hum deep underground, and the winking glass that is everywhere catches the sun. Strong and true, it will never crack, never break, never crumble.Her skin is planed clean, scraped thin. Still, it is too heavy for her bones. But there is time, she knows. This is only the beginning.The architect shades her eyes, and looks toward what was once the river. People stride along what are no longer banks, small as ants from up here. They are laughing, smiling. Women, sleek in cool silk the color of her towers. Men, in crisp suits the color of ice cream that will never melt. Their teeth are impossible in the sun. They don’t remember a life other than this one. She has made it so.Everyone should have the luxury of forgetting the times when they weren’t as happy as they must be now.Still, something tugs at the edges of the architect’s mind. There is a ghost in the city. The shadow of towers, spewing smoke, and the memory of a kiss, and salt-tasting skin against her lips haunt her mind. Before her marble skin, before the columns of her spine, the tension bridge of her jaw, before the diamond pane windows of her eyes, wasn’t she someone else? Wasn’t there someone who knew her as she was, and loved her just the same?There, amid the ant-bustle on the once-shores, is a lone girl. Her feet are bare and spattered with mud. She is looking straight at the architect, across all the distance, and the people part around her like water breaking around a stone. Like she isn’t there.The architect wonders: Is that her? Or someone she used to know?Even though she can’t see them from her balcony, the architect knows: The girl’s eyes are the color of stirred silt, and blue ice. There are weeds in her hair. She raises her hand — a drowned girl, waiting to breathe, waiting to rise from the river and come ashore — and waves to the architect, but she does not smile.The architect’s lover leaves the café. She is utterly lost. She recognizes nothing here.She goes toward the water, some vague memory pulling her. But the map written on her skin is muddled. The streets, everything she thinks she knows, has been re-written.The architect’s lover is looking for someone, but she doesn’t know who. No one looks familiar here. Except…Except there is a girl, standing and looking across the water. It is a girl the architecture’s lover almost knows. The girl has eyes like silt and ice. They remind the architect’s lover of home.The architecture’s lover raises her hand, catching the girl’s attention. The girl looks at her, and the architect’s lover falls to her knees. A name catches in her throat and stalls. She can’t remember. She weeps, and doesn’t know why. In her mind, there is one word, echoing persistently and meaning nothing: Home.The architect stands on her balcony, and looks at the girl and the water. For a moment, the architect thinks there is something she has forgotten. Then she puts the thought from her mind.Soon the city will be perfect. She will tear it down and rebuild it until it is so.The architect turns. She does not raise her hand to the girl on the shore. Or the weeping woman on her knees by the girl’s side.The architect goes inside. And she does not say goodbye.END"Her Last Breath Before Waking" was originally published in 3-Lobed Burning Eye in December 2013.This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library.Thanks for listening, and I'll be back on February 16th with "Into the Nth Dimension" by David D. Levine.

Matthew Johnson, Derek Kunsken, David D. Levine, Linda Nagata, and Michael Z. Williams discuss The Year's Best Military SF and Space Opera. Also, part 1 of John Ringo's Under a Graveyard Sky.

Coming Up… Octagon Technology Fact: Looking Back At Genre History by Amy H Sturgis Main Fiction: “Mammals” by David D. Levine Originally published at Analog Magazine David D. Levine is the author of over fifty published science fiction and fantasy stories. His work has appeared in markets including Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, and Realms of Fantasy and has won or been nominated for awards including the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, and Campbell. His “Regency interplanetary airship adventure” novel Arabella of Mars will be published by Tor in 2016, with two sequels to follow. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Kate Yule. Narrated by the Author See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Coming up… Cover Art: Aeon Lux Fact: Synthetic Voices by Jimmy Rodgers 06:00 Main Fiction: “Pupa” by David D. Levine 20:00 She had already molted seven times and knew this feeling well, but this next molt would be her last as a juvenile. After this molt, she would pupate for three months, her ugly juvenile body replaced by a gleaming adults’. She was thrilled. She was terrified.  David D. Levine is the author of over fifty published science fiction and fantasy stories. His work has appeared in magazines including Asimov’s, Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Realms of Fantasy and has won or been nominated for awards including the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, and Campbell.... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Coming up: Good evening 0:00:41 A bit about baseball and comics and… 0:01:33 Fiction: “Letter to the Editor” by David D. Levine, narrated by Dr. Talon 0:06:41 We need…. 0:24:17 Fiction: “Fish Night” by Joe R. Lansdale, narrated by Steven Thomas Howell 0:27:01 Pleasant dreams 0:49:41 Nightmare Magazine See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Coming Up Fact:  Science Fiction Movie Soundtracks by David Raiklen 01:30 Main Fiction: “Citizen-Astronaut” by David D. Levine 16:15 Narrator: Kevin Hayden   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Aural Delights No 84 David D. Levine Editorial: The Sofanauts by Tony C Smith 00:10 Intro to Story: Lawrence Santoro 07:30 Flash Fiction: Then, Just a Dream by Lawerence Santoro New Titles: Book 3 Astropolis, Many Contain Traces of Magic, The Spy Who Haunted Me 28:00

This episode brings you Charlie the Purple Giraffe, by David D. Levine. It is a unique tale set inside a televised cartoon world. Our main character, Charlie the purple giraffe, has a disturbing and profound view of his world, one not shared by his best friend Jerry the orange squirrel.  Floating question marks, colored word […]

This episode of the Drabblecast features “Babel Probe” by David D. Levine. This superbly narrated tale follows a nano scale robot on its mission to the past. Six thousand years earlier it uncovers the myths surrounding the Tower of Babel. A thought-provoking story unfolds. Which came first, God or man? Story Excerpt: I have been […]

By David D. Levine, from Issue #4 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online MagazineShe was glad of the darkness, because it meant the two men could not see her tremble.More info »