Category ArchivePodcast Episodes



Podcast Episodes 02 Sep 2011 06:21 pm by David !

Podcast 21: VEGETABLES, by Chris Cox

“VEGETABLES,” by Chris Cox.
Read by Todd Croak-Falen. (16 min)

“The bloke’s a fuckin’ whack job.”

Billy, the Director of Marketing, tells me this while he’s picking his nose with a paperclip. “He wasn’t right to start with; he’s the last bastard who should’ve got that blood test. He’s been treading water all his life, but he’s sinkin’ now.”

He straightens the paperclip, then slides it between his thumb and finger to squeegee the snot off. Unimpeded by my Ugh face, he wipes his fingers on the fabric of my cubicle wall. In the background a phone has been ringing for five minutes without kicking into voicemail, and in the next cube, somebody’s screaming at a subordinate employee on another line. I want to kill them all and dance to the sounds of their suffering through the junkyard of smashed computers and office plants and overturned desks.

Download the MP3 Subscribe on iTunes
Direct podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/machineofpodcast

Chris Cox loves dark humor, funky slap bass, jazz fusion and single malt Scotch. Tastes include The Wasp Factory, Harold & Maude, Waking Ned Devine, and addictions include Magnus Mills, Kurt Vonnegut, Danny Boyle, the Borg, the Wraith and Q. He’s a writer and geek, usually working on novels, and quiet, polite global domination. He lives in Providence with his wife, and an abundance of books, films, music, mountain bikes, tennis rackets and strange ideas. Outside this stuff, Chris is an Aerospace Quality Analyst and an Information Science student. His non-fiction work can be read at theunderstatement.org, and he can be reached at: chriscox at gmx.com.

Todd Croak-Falen is an author and screenwriter. He is a graduate of Chapman University, where he won the Cinetech Most Promising Filmmaker Award, and shared a Best Picture Cecil Award with David Malki for the film Accusation. He the author of several screenplays and one novel, Catch Up To Myself. Most recently, he produced and co-wrote (with David Malki) the film Expendable.

In the book, “VEGETABLES” is illustrated by Kevin McShane. This podcast episode was edited by Matt Schwartz.

Podcast Episodes 25 Aug 2011 08:55 pm by David !

Podcast 20: TORN APART AND DEVOURED BY LIONS, by Jeffrey Wells

“TORN APART AND DEVOURED BY LIONS,” by Jeffrey Wells.
Read by Jesse Thorn. (28 min)

“Missus Murphy, I will have you know that I am to be torn apart and devoured by lions.”

Simon Pfennig was fully aware of how strange he must sound.

He had no choice. It was too exciting not to share.

Eventually, the silence on the other end of the line was broken. “…Excuse me?” Mrs. Murphy eventually managed.

“I,” said Simon, “am to be torn apart and devoured by lions.”

“I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Murphy. “Weren’t you just talking to me about insurance a moment ago?”

“I was,” said Simon. “Now I’m talking about lions.”

Download the MP3 Subscribe on iTunes
Direct podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/machineofpodcast

Jeffrey C. Wells is the co-creator of the award-winning webcomic “Skin Horse”, found online at skin-horse.com. He himself has also won awards, but they were for things like “Worst Opening Line of a Science Fiction Story”, so if you want to award him with things so he no longer feels inferior to his own webcomic, that would be great. He lives in the wilds of rural Wisconsin with a wonderful spouse, a dial-up modem, and more pets than you can shake a stick at.

Jesse Thorn is the host and producer of the radio show and podcast The Sound of Young America, distributed by Public Radio International. He also hosts the podcasts Judge John Hodgman and Jordan, Jesse, Go!, the webseries Put This On, and the IFC television program The Grid.

In the book, “TORN APART AND DEVOURED BY LIONS” is illustrated by Christopher Hastings.

Events &Podcast Episodes 05 Jul 2011 06:29 pm by David !

Live performance of “MURDER AND SUICIDE, RESPECTIVELY” in San Francisco!

Machine of Death is proud to partner with The Un-Scripted Theater Company of San Francisco for a special, one-night-only live performance of Ryan North’s story “MURDER AND SUICIDE, RESPECTIVELY.”

The performance is part of a show at Un-Scripted called “Act One, Scene Two,” in which actors start with the first scene of an unfinished play — or in our case, they’ll perform Ryan’s piece — and then keep going, improvising the rest of the story to show what happens next. It’s gonna be super-fun, and if you’re in the Bay Area, we’d love to see you there!

The show will be this Saturday, July 9, at 8pm. Tickets are available here!

This is an Official MOD Event — David Malki ! will be in attendance in person, Ryan North will be there on Skype (if all goes well), and we’ll have books and death prediction cards, as well as our super-fancy embosser that proves you were there in person.

EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS: MoD authors Erin McKean (“NOT WAVING BUT DROWNING”) and Shaenon K. Garrity (“PRISON KNIFE FIGHT”) will be on hand to sign books!

(David will also be at the Renegade Craft Fair in San Francisco both Saturday and Sunday.)

Podcast version of this story!

And just to give you a taste — here’s MC Frontalot reading “MURDER AND SUICIDE, RESPECTIVELY” for our podcast. We recommend listening to this one with headphones on.

“MURDER AND SUICIDE, RESPECTIVELY,” by Ryan North. (8 min)
Read by MC Frontalot.

“You don’t see it? What if we could ship this box further away? What if Dr. Merry lived thousands of light-years away, and we could somehow get the box to him? If we set a time for him to do the killing, and for us to run the blood through the machine shortly afterward, then as soon as we read the machine’s prediction, we’ve sent information faster than the speed of light!”

Download the MP3 Subscribe on iTunes
Direct podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/machineofpodcast

Ryan North writes “Dinosaur Comics,” your new favourite comic ever in time, which you can read online at qwantz.com and also in books too. He also built Project Wonderful, a site that makes online advertising not suck, and ALSO makes it awesome. He is a tall drink of water who lives in Toronto with his wife Jenn.

MC Frontalot was born Maxwell Claudio Frontasako behind a Boise Walmart in 1973. The fronting has increased exponentially since. Sixteen years of rap stardom, fourteen world tours, and hundreds of platinum albums find MC Frontalot threatening retirement. His legion of fans will sob quietly to themselves.

In the book, “MURDER AND SUICIDE, RESPECTIVELY” is illustrated by Aaron Diaz.

Podcast Episodes 23 Jun 2011 11:36 pm by David !

Podcast 18: FIRING SQUAD, by J Jack Unrau

“FIRING SQUAD,” by J Jack Unrau. Read by the author. (27 min)

When I looked up from my plate, three young men were sitting on the other side of the rough table, staring at me intensely. None of them were very tall, but they had the tough look of mountain people. Their faces were purple from burst blood vessels — or maybe it was makeup, I’m not going to pass myself off as some expert here. They wore heavy canvas clothes and long, filthy woolen scarves.

When I finished my meal the one on the left spoke to me. “Do you know where we can get a Machine of Death?”

Download the MP3 Subscribe on iTunes
Direct podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/machineofpodcast

J Jack Unrau is a freelance writer and vagabond librarian whose work has appeared on Wired.com, CBC Radio and in Broken Pencil. Living in China taught him valuable lessons about taking pictures of riot police. J’s online home is thedubiousmonk.net.

In the book, “FIRING SQUAD” is illustrated by Brandon Bolt. This podcast episode was edited by Matthew Schwartz.

Podcast Episodes 10 Jun 2011 01:14 am by David !

Podcast 17: LOSS OF BLOOD, by Jeff Stautz

“LOSS OF BLOOD,” by Jeff Stautz.
Read by Joel Watson. (16 min)

Pepper coughs and her eyes snap open. Then she yelps and recoils from me, my white uniform and blue gloves, my belt blinking with electronics.

“No, I’m fine,” she says. “Just fainted, is all.” She scrambles backward across the floor.

Everyone tries to do this, soon as they recognize who we are and what we’re there for. It never does any good. We already have our hands around Pepper’s arms and I’m trying to shush her, keep her calm while Titus does the blood sample. He presses the tagger’s piston to the inside of her left elbow.

“Don’t,” she says. “I can explain.”

Download the MP3 Subscribe on iTunes
Direct podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/machineofpodcast

Jeff Stautz lives in Vancouver, Canada. He is the Fiction Editor of PRISM international, is a former Fishtrap Fellow, and was a writer-in-residence at the Montana Artists’ Refuge. His work has appeared recently in The First Line and Event.

Joel Watson is the author of the comic strip “HijiNKS Ensue” and one-third of the HijiNKS Ensue Weekly Geek Podcast. He lives near Dallas, Texas.

In the book, “LOSS OF BLOOD” is illustrated by Kris Straub. This podcast episode was edited by Matthew Schwartz.

« Previous PageNext Page »