Science Fiction Podcasts

Science Fiction

Instructions for Good Boys on the Interplanetary Expedition

Spotnik knows the humans haven’t forgotten him, because kibble still clatters into Spotnik’s bowl at six a.m. sharp. They’ve been gone long enough for all the vegetables in Hydroponics to shrivel up, limp and dead. Spotnik eats his kibble and licks up the crumbs, because he is a Good Boy, and Good Boys eat their rations. Even when the kibble goes soft and develops a white coat of mold and begins to stink so bad that he has to struggle to choke it down.

In Mar. 2025 (Issue 178)

Science Fiction

Message in a Babel

by Adam-Troy Castro

WARNING: The reading of this Dispatch is prohibited for anyone but the intended recipient. There are no exceptions. If you possess the encryption key and are not the intended recipient, be apprised that the means of decoding the contents do not constitute license. Penalties for the possession of the following include life imprisonment, or immediate execution. If you are delivered this message by accident, either delete it or, if a hard copy, seal it within an opaque receptacle and store in a secure location.

In Mar. 2025 (Issue 178)

Science Fiction

Those Who Seek to Embrace the Sun

by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe

Author spotlight

The humans crawl into us, carrying their instruments and consulting their manuals. Their hands run over us, searching for nuts and bolts and hidden crevices. We are big toys that they all long to play with, to tear down and study. Our origin baffles them. They express endless awe at the complexity of our systems and are always asking themselves who built us. They come up with theories that get increasingly bizarre as time passes.

In Mar. 2025 (Issue 178)

Science Fiction

Dekar Druid and the Infinite Library

by Cadwell Turnbull

Author spotlight

Dekar Druid lives in an infinite library. Besides Ebizenum, who is in a special category of their own, he is the only living person in the library’s single tower. Outside, a forest surrounds the tower. There’s a lake a short walk to the north and a peak to the distant south. And nothing else. The lake is easy to get to, a respite on hot summer days, but Dekar Druid has never made it to the mountains, not even close, though he’s walked for miles southward.

In Mar. 2025 (Issue 178)

Science Fiction

After the God Has Moved On

by Kate Elliott

We saw her staggering down the promenade, gills flaring as she sucked for the gods’ aether that no longer fueled her breathing. By her gasping breaths we knew the god had moved on, swimming the invisible aether to another, leaving her gasping in the void as she fell back into the strained, recycled, and slightly fishy-smelling air of the space station.

In Jan. 2025 (Issue 176)

Science Fiction

The Exquisite Pull of Relentless Desire

by Will McMahon

The dancer switches the camera on as his ship falls into orbit around the black hole; the opening image of his unmuscled chest squeezed beneath translucent polyester blasts out toward a thousand points of watching light. He’s shaved his body for the first time in his life, the nicks of the razor lingering in little scabbing cuts. He hits the music.

In Jan. 2025 (Issue 176)

Science Fiction

Tell Them a Story to Teach Them Kindness

by B. Pladek

Author spotlight

USER: this is a message for Milwaukee Elementary’s curator Jude Towers, I hope this is the right address. anyway thanks for the story you had RIGHTR generate for my 10th graders’ Empathy Week. it was really great! can you tell me more about it?

CURATOR: I am happy to have fulfilled the assignment.

In Jan. 2025 (Issue 176)

Science Fiction

Get Hyped!

by Gene Doucette

Rachel knew Jacko Hype before just about anybody. That’s what she told people when they asked what made her some kind of expert; she knew who he was, what he was, and what he was not, because she met him first.

In Dec. 2024 (Issue 175)

Science Fiction

Inside the House of Wisdom

by Tamara Masri

This is the eighth floor of the Al-Ahli Memorial Library, my favorite place in the building. When the elevator door opens, it’s like walking into a quiet circle of glass. So, as we walk, I’m going to whisper. People are reading, writing, drawing—it’s such a beautiful place to work.

In Dec. 2024 (Issue 175)

Science Fiction

Ancestor Code Error

by Ai Jiang

Author spotlight

It is 3024, and there are no longer shrines. They long since washed away by nature’s fury in the form of quakes that split across continents, countries, cities, down schools, fields, homes neatly in two. You are to receive the memories of a late mother, a late father.

In Nov. 2024 (Issue 174)