A reading of "In the Late December," by Greg van Eekhout

December 25, 2007 8:24 AM

"In the Late December" (MP3 link), by Greg van Eekhout, is a Nebula award-nominated story about Santa Claus and the end of the universe, and is Escape Pod #138. (By the way, this is a very dark story -- there's no sex or violence but this probably isn't suitable for kids, where "kids" is defined as a stereotypical aggregate of child-like characteristics. Yours may be different.)
posted by JHarris (13 comments total)

“You, sir,” the silver boy says, “are a tiresome consciousness cluster. Your binary value system remains as laughable as it is irrelevant. How you manage to remain cohesive is beyond me.”

“My value system is hardly binary,” Santa says. “In between naughty and nice I’ve made room for you: grumpy but fundamentally sound. Do you want a toy or not?”

Awesome.
posted by Balisong at 8:30 AM on December 25, 2007

If you are a scrooge like me who can't stand people reading to you, here is the text version of the story.
posted by moonbiter at 9:58 AM on December 25, 2007 [3 favorites]

Thank you, moonbiter, I wouldn't have bothered otherwise. (Writing is written to be read, damn it.)

That was surreal but enjoyable.
posted by blacklite at 12:28 PM on December 25, 2007

+1 Improved my otherwise less-than-optimal Christmas.
posted by Alterscape at 1:50 PM on December 25, 2007

Ah, thanks much moonbiter!
posted by JHarris at 2:01 PM on December 25, 2007

Yeah, thanks, moonbiter. You can read something to me three times, and, no lie, it's in one ear and out the other.

I read something once and it's there forever. And this is a great story to have stuck in my mind.
posted by John of Michigan at 2:11 PM on December 25, 2007

Thanks, moonbiter. I too skipped the reading but found the text version enjoyable.
posted by localroger at 3:59 PM on December 25, 2007

Good story. Thanks, moonbiter.
posted by ashbury at 6:24 PM on December 25, 2007

Love the story - thanks JHarris and moonbiter!
posted by Ira.metafilter at 7:15 PM on December 25, 2007

I thought it said Greg Evigan.
posted by dasheekeejones at 3:37 AM on December 26, 2007

Being a scrooge (but still busy for the holidays), I forgot to thank JHarris for the FPP. Thanks!
posted by moonbiter at 6:27 AM on December 26, 2007

I liked this. It grabs my imagination quickly, although I pictured alot of it looking like something from Mario Galaxy on the Nintendo Wii.
posted by Hicksu at 8:13 AM on December 26, 2007

That was amazing.
posted by Arturus at 8:10 AM on December 27, 2007