Jeremiah Tolbert

Escape Pod » EP192: Sumo21.

The lat­est Escape Pod is live with Daniel Braum’s story, Sumo21.  This is one of my first selec­tions from the slush pile.  I pub­lished a lot of Dan’s work over at the Fortean Bureau, but this is one I passed on because it didn’t fit our pub­li­ca­tion. It felt good to accept it  on the sec­ond time around.  This week, the story is read by Mr. Eley himself:

“Oh great Emperor,” the gyoji said, con­tin­u­ing the rit­ual. “These two hon­or­able war­riors can not agree who will step aside, and who will join the sacred bat­tle to return you to us. We would gladly send all our sons, but the Council of Infinite Japans says there may be only twenty-​​one. So now they must fight to decide.”

“May the best war­rior join the fight,” the crowd answered in uni­son with the gyoji.

The gyoji stepped back. Asashoryu stared into Takanasuro’s expres­sion­less brown eyes. The match would begin upon a tacit agree­ment between them. He kept Takanasuro’s mid sec­tion in his field of vision while focus­ing on keep­ing his own face blank. He knew the beginner’s les­son as if it were part of him; faces deceive and betray, but all move­ment starts at the hips.

I hope you enjoy it.

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Tags: daniel braum, escape pod, Podcast, Science fiction, stephen eley