Human Echoes Vlog: Al and Ashley Discuss The Last Word by Lisa Lutz

HEP - 56 - No Fate But What We Retcon

In this episode of the Human Echoes Podcast, Tony and Al wrap up Time Travel Month with a look back at arguably the greatest action movie of all time, Terminator 2. Later, the guys talk about how various types of media are dealing with the shift to the world of digital content distribution, and Tony convinces Albert that Michael Bay might have finally made a good movie.

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Links:

Escape Plan

Rope

Ed Wood

Pain and Gain

The Autobiography of Peter Cartwright

Scott Sigler Audiobook Podcasts

HEP - 54 - The Dark Side of Dinosaurs

This week, Time Travel Month continues as the guys dig up a little known Spanish film, Los Cronocrímenes (Timecrimes). Tony recounts his firsthand experience with the Colorado floods. Albert has crazy fan theories about Dinosaur Train.

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Links

Video of the flood in Colorado
Children of Sorrow Trailer
Zach Braff Kickstarter
Free Edgar 2013 shirt
Achievment Hunter Minecraft Lets Play's

Dinosaur Train
The end of Dinosaurs (This was a show for KIDS? REALLY?)
Myst
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
Hardcore History: Wrath of the Khans

HEP - 53 - The Twelve Red Herrings of Christmas

This week Al and Tony kick off Time Travel Month with Terry Gilliam's Kafkaesque sci-fi masterpiece Twelve Monkeys. Later they discuss the potential perils of CEO worship in American business, and wonder is Edison might have been onto something with D.C. power after all.

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Links:

Tesla vs. Edison: Epic Rap Battles of History
Instagram sells for 1 billion dollars, despite having yet to turn a profit.
And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer
Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede teaser trailerBuddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede by Bradley Denton

HEP - Short Echoes 6 - Suspension by Caleb Newell and Hannah-Elizabeth Thompson

Suspension

by Caleb Newell and Hannah-Elizabeth Thompson

Dancing.

Sometimes it looked like we were dancing.

There was nothing for us to hear, we could not verbally communicate anything. And so we watched each other. We watched each other dance. The slow motion twirls and spins. We found we couldn't speed up to reach anyone else, our only means of communication being found in glimpses when we managed to catch eye contact when our spinning matched up just right. 

The planet below became the center of my vision. I closed my eyes for this. I always do. It lasts for about an hour, until the blackness of space comes into view again. I sometimes imagine that the planet below is one I've never seen before. That it's inhabitants did not send me and my kind into the depths of space.

Suspended in the shadow of the planet. Freezing. But even the burning of the veins of ice creeping beneath my skin was relief compared to the hell that met us under the hateful glare of the sun.

Leo was nearest to me, perhaps twenty feet away. He was still in his suit from the job he had on the planet below. Possibly the least violent of any of us, Leo had created an extraordinarily stable life with the mortals. He had even convinced one of them that he had feelings for her. Finishing off the picture. 

Past him were the others. Veronica, Leland and Tobias. The mortals had sent out a larger group of us before, much larger. Perhaps ten thousand. We had managed, using pure luck, to avoid their advanced detection methods. The world had calmed until groups of citizens, conspiracy theorists, convinced that their neighbors and co-workers and mothers-in-law were our kind, started using homemade versions of the methods used by each government. 

It was the mist that did it.

The garlic mist.

Some of them flew little remote controlled planes around town, spewing the stuff into the air. This was effective enough to get one of us when it went out of range of the owner’s controller and began dropping low near a crosswalk. It was close enough for her skin and eyes to react - enough for the people around her to know.

As for the others, they caught us by leaving the stuff everywhere. The entrance of every grocery store and coffeehouse. Doorknobs of houses and clothing hangers in department stores. No one was happy about the stench that eventually built, but after they got Veronica, the complaints fell silent out of fear and curiosity.

The mortals couldn't kill us, they couldn't trust us, they couldn't throw us in a cage somewhere; we'd be meat taking up space many places couldn't afford. 

And so they sent us into space.

The first group was sent in a few pod-like things. Just stuffed in, really to the brim. One of them was kept on earth, to supposedly be sliced and diced. Good luck to them - they’ll never break his skin.

Later on, they decided that even the pods were too merciful, since they protected us from the harsh vacuum of space. They designed small ships that were designed to disintegrate in the later stages of its flight through the atmosphere, leaving us exposed as we are now. To the void outside that made the pressure of every pulse agonizing. That made it impossible to breathe. That left us with no insulation from the biting cold. And no protection from the sun.

That horrible burning star. And so our immortality becomes our greatest curse.

I would give anything to breathe again. To feel air in my lungs. Wind. Solid ground under my feet. Anything. Anything but this freezing void.

I feel a heat at my back as my dead eyes are still fixed on the planet. This isn’t normal; the sun won’t find us for another hour. An impact. Solid, excruciating, but not enough to break me. It sends me spinning out of control, but I catch a glimpse of the culprit: a small meteor. I watch it falling, a fiery tail growing behind it, the rock slowly grinding away as the atmosphere tears it apart. Eventually it disintegrates completely. Only then to I realize that I was not watching it descend below me.

I had been falling next to it. It had sent me on a path back to the planet’s surface.

I start to feel warm. The ice in my veins is thawing as the friction of the atmosphere tries to break me apart as it did the meteor. Tries, and fails. I will not die. I will survive the fall. There is so much to do on the surface. They will be made to regret what they did to us.

Finally, I will have my revenge. I will bleed them dry.

---

About the authors:

Hannah-Elizabeth Thompson is an escapee of Clovis, CA. She is the creative mind behind numerous internet radio shows and podcasts, most recently including A Poetry Show and the WIP Apples Over Oranges. She has a keen fascination with the human brain, and plans on pursuing a career in neurology. She can be found on twitter as @SherlockMadame.

Caleb Newell is a blogger living in West Virginia who loves peanut butter on his toast and his doctors Whovian. Talking to him is like talking to a dictionary, history book, newspaper and comic book all at once. He's a very tall fellow with an interest in...well, kind of everything. Currently he's pursuing a degree in computer science. He can be found on twitter as @PriorityDefault.

HEP - 44 - Author Interview with Ellie Anne

This week, the guys chat with awesome author Ellie Anne about writing, trans-media, and her new steam-punk fantasy novel, The Silver Sickle. Later in the show we dig into the strengths and weaknesses of World War Z (warning: spoilers).

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Links:
The Silver Sickle by Ellie Anne
Film Crit Hulk
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Breaking Steele Aaron Patterson
J. C Hutchins
Transmedia
Sundown: White Birch [also on Google Play]
Steampunk Holmes

HEP 40 - Sympathy for the Slenderman

This week the guys check out the viral web series Marble Hornets, and enter a terrifying world where the Slenderman photo-bombs every home movie ever. Later they discuss the competing values of privacy and security and Al complains about not nearly enough nukes going off.

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Links to Things:
Smodcast
Dan Carlin
Vice nuke documentary
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Silver Sickle by Ellie Anne
Pontypool (movie)
Pontypool Changes Everything by Tony Burgess
House Hunting
Sympathy for the Slenderman

HEP - Short Echoes 4 - Common Use by Jay Wilburn

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Common Use

by Jay Wilburn

“I don’t understand why we are here.”

The older gentleman in the driver’s seat adjusted his fedora and scanned through the pages of his ledger. “If you understood, you wouldn’t be riding along to learn, would you now, compatriot.”

The younger man in the passenger’s seat peered through the windshield of the parked car at the battered, silver trailer. He saw the eclectic, folk art around the grassless lawn and a windmill that appeared nonfunctional in the desert wind.

“We are eliminating obsolete words for the next edition. Is the fellow that lives in this domicile an expert on lexicon?”

The driver closed his ledger and placed it on the broiling dashboard. “He’s a hold out, a hold over.”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“You are quite the ingénue, ain’t ya?”

The young man wiped at the sweat gathering in his collar. “We learn through inquiry, sir. I’ll wait in silence if that serves you better.”

“Touché, son, touché,” the elder leaned back and blinked the sweat out of his eyes. “Every year we have new entries for the dictionary. Changes in technology and ridiculous slang have to be added to sell the print editions and now online searches powered by commercial ads. Did you ever think the dictionary would be subject to commercials?”

“Never could have imagined, sir,” the younger man looked out his side window.

He saw a dusty bus parked at the edge of the property. It had an open top and sides with benches that crossed all the way over with no center aisle. He wondered if that would be cooler in the desert than sitting in the parked car. He also wondered what a tour bus ride through open desert would reveal.

“Me either. Me either,” the older man continued, “Also, self-important authors take it upon themselves to bastardize the language and invent new words where old classics would do their tripe works just fine. Every writer now thinks he is Poe, Shakespeare, or Winfrey and the English language is their playground.”

The younger man noticed a small plane behind the trailer. Sand had blown across the short runway. The craft did not appear airworthy.

The older man held out his hands in front of him over the steering wheel. “We have more words, but no extra money, so arcane words must be quietly eliminated.”

“Yes, sir, I understand our job,” the young man undid two buttons on his dress shirt and loosened his tie. “Why are we not back in the office instead of out here at a hermit’s trailer.”

“Well, then, I guess you do not understand the job at all,” the older man countered.

He reached back over the seat and brought an older edition of the company’s print dictionary over to the front in between them. The letters on the battered cover faded to near illegibility. The pages of the thick volume frayed at the antiqued, gilded edges. The older man rapped his knuckle on the cover thrice.

The younger man sighed and waited for the lesson to continue.

“It’s always the old codgers,” the older man explained looking down at the thick tome. “They hold on to vestiges of language for their own pedantic joy that we need to clear for the bottom line. They engage the Internet solely to correct strangers’ grammar, advance conspiracy theory, and to write us angry letters about our disdain for tradition. Dealing with these curmudgeons is part of the elimination process.”

The younger man finally used the hand crank to crack his window without asking. The dry air outside did feel hotter than the stuffy car. The older man seemed not to notice.

“Sir, did this man write us a letter?”

“No, he is something worse,” the older man’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He is a hold out, a hold over. He continues to use obsolete words infecting them in the minds of others as we are trying to quietly push them out of the lexicon.”

“Like what, sir?”

“He is the last one in America calling his airstrip an aerodrome and he calls that eye sore bus a charabanc. Both words are on the block this year and we need him to let go.”

The younger man squinted and started to speak, but his elder continued after a breath.

“Not so immediate, but as a bonus, he calls his blog The Brabble and refers to his mental health treatment as alienism. So here we are.”

The older man opened the cover of the dictionary. It was hollowed out in the middle. He handed the roll of duct tape to his younger partner. He lifted out the clippers and trench knife for himself.

“Sir, what the hell?”

“We have to obtain his tongue for the company before we deal with the body. Have the tape ready as soon as I have it. Your first time will be easier out here in the desert.”

“I can’t do this. I won’t.”

“Son, if you are not useful, you are obsolete. You can start walking now and make me do this myself, but I will catch up to you. The company sent you out here for your first time for that reason too. What will it be?”

“Is this necessary?”

“Dictionaries are serious business. Leave the tape on the hood, if you decide to run.”

The older man removed the keys from the ignition and stepped out of the car. The younger man looked down at the space in the false volume. He looked back through the windshield where the older man knocked on the door to the trailer. He held his hat in place against the wind. The door opened slightly and he threw his weight into it disappearing inside. The fedora tumbled off his head and bounded across the sandy lot.

The younger man exhaled as he made his decision. He lifted the roll of tape and opened his door.

---

Jay Wilburn lives with his wife and two sons in beautiful Conway, South Carolina by day and writes horror by night. He has not set aside time for sleep yet, but he is hoping to add it in the near future.

Jay Wilburn is featured in THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR vol 5 with editor Ellen Datlow.

Jay Wilburn is a featured author with Hazardous Press at the 2013 World Horror Convention in New Orleans June 13-16. He is also a panelist on THE RULES OF GENRE WRITING at this convention.

Jay Wilburn is a faetured author on the Dark and Bookish authors tour and documentary.

His debut novel, Loose Ends, was published with Hazardous Press. Time Eaters is his new novel coming in November of 2013

Check out his website here. 

Follow him on Twitter here.

HEP - 35 - Let's Kill Judas

In this week's episode, Al and Tony walk the haunted halls of The Orphanage and meet some ghosts that aren't completely stupid. They also talk about Minecraft factory farming, new movies, and the strangeness of geophagy.

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Some Links:

Oblivion

Tropic Thunder

Pacific Rim

Upsteam Color

geophagy

Dante's Inferno

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Next week we talk about Primer (available on Netflix). Don't miss it!

HEP - 13 - Redneck Souvenirs and Rare Exports

This week the Al and Tony ride shotgun with some Norwegian rednecks in their review of the improbably delicious Christmas flick Rare Exports. Later the guys solve all some none of the problems with college football, and get brutally honest about bad writing and trunk novels. Also, Albert has apparently not taken enough internet abuse about his taste in movies, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

Download the podcast directly here. And while you're at it bring us some figgy pudding.
Or you can subscribe to our RSS feed here. But you still have to bring us some figgy pudding. We won't leave until we get some. We'll just sit here on your couch couch staring at you. We really like our figgy pudding.

LINKS!
Rare Exports on Netflix
Boy's Life by Robert McCammon
The Fat Man by Ken Harmon (also available as an audiobook from our fine sponsors at Audible.)

Next week we'll be taking a look at Sky One's adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Hogfather (in which the Grim Reaper is compelled to step into the role of Santa). Don't miss it!

If you feel that somehow our egos aren't over-inflated enough, you can follow us on Twitter @tsouthcotte and @Albert_Berg, or you can subscribe to the podcast's twitter feed at @HEPodcast. Our blogs are also available to the right of this message on the sidebar.

HEP - 12 - Nothing is Scarier

This week Tony and Al drink from the suspiciously hydrodynamic goat skull that is Ti West's House of the Devil. Tony tells the story of the demonic bird-deity that lives in his chimney and is likely to kill any day now, just you wait and see. And later the guys discuss old-school gaming, authorial wagon ruts, Christmas music and the bitter-sweet tug of nostalgia.

Don't miss the podcast that's filled with action*, drama*, and two guys talking about stuff!
(*Sold separately)

Complete the ancient ritual by the blood-light of the eclipse and download the podcast directly here.
If your diabolical plan involves convincing someone to order pizza then reward yourself by subscribing directly to our RSS feed.

Links:
House of the Devil (on Netflix)
Anchorhead (that interactive fiction game Albert mentioned he was really getting into.)
The Fat Man by Ken Harmon (also available from our fine sponsors at Audible.com. Start your free trial today!)
Jasper Fforde
The Raw Shark Texts by Stephen Hall
Mark Z. Danielewski
This Would be Less Work if Albert Hadn't Namedropped so Many Authors
Seth Graham-Smith

Next week we're kicking off December with a feel-good Christmas flick about how Santa Claus used to be some kind of demon-monster thing. Check out Rare Exports on Netflix.

HEP - 11 - Arnold Toynbee is Alive and Well on Jupiter

This week, Tony and Al philosophize about the fountain of youth as they unpack the documentary Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles; then Al talks about why it wasn't worth it to go and see Skyfall while beleaguered by mononucleosis. Also, the guys reveal that the thing they're really thankful for is not having to experience the Russian front of World War II.

To unlock the secret to eternal life on the planet Jupiter, download the episode directly here.
If you're already immortal, why not make your eternal existence a little easier and subscribe to the RSS feed?

Links:
Watch Resurrect Dead on Netflix.
Blindsight by Peter Watts (a free download!)
The Hardcore History Podcast.
[Some fourth item I'm probably forgetting right now]

Next week, we'll be discussing House of the Devil.

(If you get the reference made in the title of this podcast you are one of the awesome).

Don't forget to get your free audio book from Audible.com. Click on the sidebar for more details.

You can follow us on Twitter @tsouthcotte and @Albert_Berg, or you can subscribe to the podcast's twitter feed at @HEPodcast. Our blogs are also available to the right of this message on the sidebar.