This is a story about a cat and a dog and their undying devotion to their human master. It doesn’t have anything in common with the family films you have seen. It is a masterpiece you have to listen to.
Cat with armor in the city of the dead. Dog chase after the Cat and a story told with epic esoteric language. The master was a god. The dog and the cat learn the master’s words from the small animal in their dreams and set out on a mission to rescue their master.
The story is fantastic and make you interested in more, the world is a singularity one where humans have evolved and can make copies of their own minds. Unrestricted copy led to the creation of Plurals some of which evolved to transhuman civilizations out among the stars. Now human law limit every human to one copy at a time. The master breaks the law and is sentenced to a virtual prison. It’s from there the animals have to rescue him.
The language in the story is poetic and it sounds fantastic coming from someone not born to the language.
The story hints on things that might be in Hannu’s upcoming novel. There is a war going on among the stars and its there the small animal are going, to the Big Dogs.
The story is also amusing and fun imagine the dog become a musician to earn money and the cat had a gladiator career that lasted a while.
I have only one word for this story: Epic
Read by Peter Piazza; courtesy of Starship Sofa.
Guest introduction by Paul Graham Raven of Futurismic.
First appeared in Interzone, October 2008.
Before the concert, we steal the Master’s head. The Necropolis is a dark forest of concrete mushrooms in the blue Antarctic night. We huddle inside the utility fog level attached to the steep southern wall of the ice valley. The cat washes itself with a pink tongue. It reeks of infinite confidence.
“Get ready,” I tell it. “We don’t have all night.”
It gives me a moderately offended look, and dons its armor…
Read about his upcoming novel The Quantum Thief. It will be published in September by Gollancz.
Listen to Escape Pod 227: His Master’s Voice
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