That illustration is amazing.

Not a bad story, though not, for me, a brilliant one. I didn't detect much of the 'speculative' in it (unless you're willing to count the credulous beliefs of the superstitious and religious), so that was something of a disappointment.

However, I'm afraid I was distracted by the reading, which I didn't enjoy at all. I counted at least four mispronunciations (of English words, not - as far as I could tell - the Spanish), even *one* of which is an unpleasant way of being ejected out of the 'story zone'.

Tor does a fine job of getting and publishing stories, but not all writers are good readers aloud and I hope that as the podcast continues, more of the stories will be read by Mur and other good readers.

And, while I sympathize with being busy (and therefore don't expect this to happen), I think this podcast could also be used as an excuse to re-record stories that weren't done as well as they might have been, rather than just replay them.