βoyfriend: sweetly romantic singularity sf story podcast

This week's Escape Pod podcast story is Madeline Ashby's βoyfriend, a marvellous, sweetly romantic science fiction story about teenagers who use clever artificial intelligences as "training wheels" on the way to their first real love, but who quickly find themselves substituting the warm companionship of their imaginary friends for the confusing and fraught people around them. It's got Ashby's sly humor, heart and it's got clever to spare. I bought Madeline's first published story for Tesseracts 11 and it's wonderful to see where she's gone since.

EP216: βoyfriend

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Audio • Happy Mutants • Kids • science fiction

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scatterbrain

I’ve gotta say I dislike this story–just didn’t get into it at all.
EscapingTheTrunk

Thank you, Cory. I’m tickled!

@#5: Thank you! And thanks for retrieving the link!
Anonymous

So how’s this pronounced? Soy-friend?
Keneke

Did you guess what planet it was?

The planet was Earth!

DON’T DATE ROBOTS!
nairanvac

@Anonymous #1

Wrong symbol. That’s the symbol for beta. The scharfes s looks slightly different.

Scharfes s: ÃŸ
Beta: Î²

The scharfes s doesn’t connect at the bottom, and whereas beta connects and has the little line going down below the bottom.

I’ve actually seen signs in Germany that used beta in the place of scharfes s.
querent

hot.
hershmire

Ssoyfriend?
hershmire

Ah, krap. Beaten by the many German speakers here.
Anonymous

@#1 – I’m with you, and came here to make an almost identical comment… nevermind typographic snob #2. I like our own typographic snobbery better.
Anonymous

The clarity, crispness and modulation of Tina’s delivery shows what a podcast can be when there’s a pro at the mike.

My biggest beef with Escape Pod and Pod Castle has been the enthusiastic amateurs who do the readings. Bad sound quality, people who think it’s neat to whisper and then shout, whole sentences in which all the consonants are swallowed, etc., etc. But Tina knows what she’s doing, and you can hear every blessed word.
Shay Guy

I don’t suppose there’s a text-based version of Î²oyfriend available anywhere? I really prefer reading.
Anonymous

@Shay Guy:

http://www.worldchanging.com/local/canada/archives/009142.html

I really liked Tina Connolly’s voice work on the podcast, though.

Excellent story. Thank you so much for linking it.