Bugs in the Arroyo: sf podcast about metal-eating bug apocalypse

The latest installment of the excellent Tor.com science fiction story podcast is Steven Gould's "Bugs in the Arroyo," a sharp little tale about a world where alien, lethal metal-consuming bugs have rendered the American southwest uninhabitable except in the style of the pioneers. It's got heart, scientific speculation, and pulse-pounding adventure (as you'd expect from the author of the must-read Jumper).

Tor.com Story Podcast 004 - "Bugs in the Arroyo" by Steven Gould

MP3 Link

Tor.com Podcast Feed

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: Entertainment • Science

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Anonymous

Meh, it’s been done on Rocky and Bullwinkle. The Metal Munching Moon Mice, led by “The Big Cheese”, Boris Badenov.
Anonymous

Didn’t Greg Bear or someone write a novel based on a similar conceit? Maybe it was a bacteria, instead. I recall there being a rather lightweight romance about someone who develops metal and petrochemical eating bugs of some sort that sends us all back into pre-industrial modes.
Anonymous

It’s really hard to imagine how metal eating bugs would prevent people from living in a modern or even post-modern way; and certainly it’s hard to imagine pioneers without their iron axes, knives, rifles, pots and pans.

Anything that can be made out of metal, we’ve got other stuff we can make it out of now. Plastics, ceramics, carbon fiber… As for electronics, well, you can encase the metal in something the bugs don’t eat, right?

Well, maybe they explain it better in the book itself. ^.^;;
Daemon

Just going by your introduction… the pioneers didn’t have metal?
bugmaker

They only had folk and bluegrass.
spocko

I will check it out. Jumper is one of my favorite books. Sadly it was turned into a terrible movie. My only joy is knowing that at least he made some money on the rights so he can keep writing.
Cory Doctorow

@3 I think he and Laura paid off the mortgage and put away enough for both kids’ university education off that deal.
Anonymous

The story is also available in html (and other formats) at http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=story&id=22775 .
Anonymous

Doctor Who, Planet of the Dead

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Dead

:)