The Library of Babel Podcast

The Invisible Empire, by John Kessel (Season 2, Episode 5)

This is an alternate history story set in the 1880s and concerns the underground activities of a group of first-wave feminists. It has been released under a Creative Commons, Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike license, and the full text can be found here , as part of the author's short story collection, The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories . Music Attribution: Autumn Sunset by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license ( https://creativecommo...

Beneath the Language, by Ken Liu (Season 2, Episode 4)

This is a story in the form of a long-form magazine article, which I think is a neat way to write a bit of speculative fiction. It’s a story about art and machine learning. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License. The full text can be found on the author's website, here . Several other works by Ken Liu can be found for free at his website, here . You can also listen to his World Fantasy Award, Hugo, and Nebula-winning short story The Paper Men...

The Lincoln Train, by Maureen McHugh (Season 2, Episode 3)

A bit of Civil War alternate history, this story won a Hugo Award in 1996 (I said 1995 in the episode, which is the year it was written). It has been released under a Creative Commons, Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike license, along with many of the Maureen McHugh's other works, in a collection called Mothers and Other Monsters . You can find the full text of the story here . Civil War era music is from History on the Net ; the songs were The Vacant Chair and Tramp, Tramp, Tramp . The cl...

Welcome to the Federation, by Mark Onspaugh (Season 2, Episode 2)

The text of this story and can be found online here . It was released under a Creative Commons, Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike license. The other stories in the collection, Thoughtcrime Experiments , are released under the same license. I recommended Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice series in this episode. Find out more about it at her website, here , and read more about why I think it's a better sci-fi model for political action and change here . Music: Noble Dub by Silent Partner, True...

The Book of Jashar, by Benjamin Rosenbaum (Season 2, Episode 1)

The text of this story can be found at the Strange Horizons website where it was originally published, here , or in the author's short story collection, The Ant King and Other Stories , which was released under a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike license. I highly recommend reading 1 Samuel 15-31 in the Bible if you have the time; it's very useful background for understanding the story. If you'd like a translation recommendation, I highly suggest The David Story , by Robe...

The Celestial Omnibus, by EM Forster (Season 1, Episode 5)

The Cask of Amontillado, by Edgar Allan Poe (Season 1, Episode 4)

Is He Living or Is He Dead, by Mark Twain (Season 1, Episode 3)

The Other Side of the Hedge, by EM Forster (Season 1, Episode 2)

The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges (Season 1, Episode 1)