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The Relaunch Prelaunch

On June 22, 2018

In Drabblecast, Interview

The Drabblecast Kickstarting 9/14/18

“That is Not Dead, Which Can Eternal Lie.”

What is the Relaunch Prelaunch?

The Drabblecast is back in business, with ambitious plans that you won’t want to miss hearing about.

Every week we’ll be digging through the archives to bring you fan favorite stories with author commentary. We’ll also be featuring some fun compilations, news, videos, and a walk down memory lane as we look back on ten years of The Drabblecast.

The Drabblecast is here to stay, folks. So take a walk with us, won’t you? Find us on Facebook and Twitter to stay in the loop! And enjoy this special metacast:

The Relaunch Prelaunch

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Drabblecast 386 – Garen and The Hound

On January 2, 2017

In Drabblecast, Horror, Lovecraft Month

This week the Drabblecast presents an originally commissioned story: “Garen and the Hound” by Jeremiah Tolbert.

It is a story about the dream world and the relentless pursuit of something dark and sinister.

This story is part of our Lovecraft Month, a celebration of all things H.P. and Old Ones.

Story Excerpt:

The veils of madness parted, and Garen the Undreaming found himself once again lucid. His body ached from ears to toes. He jogged, the sun on his left shoulder, and a bitter wind blew at his back that his heavy coats of fur could not fully abate. Where was he? How did he get here? Questions he was not unfamiliar with asking himself.

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Drabblecast 385 – The Innsmouth of the South

On December 11, 2016

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Lovecraft Month

The Drabblecast continues Lovecraft Month with “The Innsmouth of the South,” an originally commissioned story by Rachael K. Jones.

Imitation and authenticity are as much a part of the H.P. Lovecraft mythos as any of the Old Ones in today’s open source fiction universe. If one theme pierces all of Lovecraft’s work it is that the laws of reality are anything but absolute.

Story Excerpt:

At R’lyeh Funland, you never entered the tower unless summoned. That’s because our boss, Mr. Whatley (no relation to those Whatleys–you know the ones), only called people up for one of three things: to chew you out, scapegoat you, or fire you. So when he called for La’vonne over the loudspeakers, I knew nothing good would come of it.

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Drabblecast B-Sides 68 – The Wanderers

On December 6, 2016

In Drabblecast B-Sides, Sci-Fi

We came to your planet because we knew that you, the peoples of Kill Bill and Saw and Vietnam and Columbine Massacre would understand us. You could not call us monster, as our subjects had done, and you would not call us morally reprehensible, arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct. We had watched your entertainments, our satellites catching your transmissions from so many fog years away, through so much space we marveled at the quality of transmission. The other planets never sent out such good entertainments. Yours we liked to watch most, the four of us, as our subjects screamed from the metal chambers which we had locked them in and which we never strayed from so we could hear them as they cried.

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Drabblecast 384 – The Cats of Ulthar

On December 5, 2016

In Drabblecast, Horror, Lovecraft Month

We begin our month-long celebration of H.P. Lovecraft with a dramatic reading of “The Cats of Ulthar.”

Lovecraft Month is our yearly celebration of H.P. and his sprawling mythos. All this month you’ll enjoy some awesome original stories commissioned just for Drabblecast listeners. We’re excited to be featuring works by three of our favorite authors, Rachael K. Jones, Jeremiah Tolbert, and Frank Key.

The Cats of Ulthar is one of Lovecraft’s shorter pieces. It was originally written in 1920.

Story Excerpt:

It is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may kill a cat; and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For the cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see. He is the soul of antique Aegyptus, and bearer of tales from forgotten cities in Meroë and Ophir. He is the kin of the jungle’s lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language; but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she hath forgotten.

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Drabblecast 383 – SUN MOON CAT MAN

On September 5, 2016

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi

The Drabblecast concludes Women and Aliens month with “SUN MOON CAT MAN” by Julia Reynolds.

This is a story about #Language#.

#Language# is a key.

#Language# can open doors of emotion, of empathy, and of connection. It unites us, it bonds us.

#Language# can also lock those doors and keep us together alone.

Story Excerpt:

“What have we got, Sergeant Kelley?” I ask, tired and bored from a long day of doing very little. I was just about to go home to my empty flat. These days it’s not so different from the police station.

On my speaker-phone Kelley’s voice says, “Patrol has a perp for you to interview. He’s in Interrogation Room 1, ma’am.”

Of course he’s in Room 1, I think as I walk down the hallway. We don’t even use the other rooms anymore except for storage. One benefit of our new Masters, crime is practically nonexistent.

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Drabblecast 382 – Down the Well

On August 20, 2016

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi

Women and Aliens month continues with “Down the Well” by Alaya Dawn Johnson.

Alaya is the author of speculative and historical fiction and has written six novels. Her stories have been featured in Asimov’s, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Welcome to Bordertown. She is also a recipient of the Cybils and Nebula awards.

Story Excerpt:

“I enjoy watching children,” she said. “It comforts me to remember that I too was a child once, and one day they too will be old.”

Her shiny olive skin was firm, but even the best youth-treatments couldn’t hide the purple veins that snaked around her arms like cables. She appeared to be in well-preserved middle-age; only I and a few other agents knew the truth. Her eight remaining fingers were casually laced over a knobby walking stick that she carried for show. A particularly knowledgeable observer might have noted that the cherry-red wood was at once lighter and stronger than any known on Earth. Dr. Constance Roya was a scientist in the ancient sense, when that term implied at least as much of a reckless love for adventure as an appreciation of form and method and the furtherance of human knowledge.

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Drabblecast B-Sides 67 – Bad Shit

On July 11, 2016

In Comedy, Drabblecast B-Sides, Sci-Fi

“Fat Jimmy,” said Wilbur. “I told you: Fat Jimmy.”

“You told me it was a skinny guy,” said the uniform.

“Fat Jimmy is skinny,” said Wilbur.

The uniform sighed.

“So you bought the weed from a skinny dealer called Fat Jimmy?”

“Didn’t buy, just holding.”

“For Fat Jimmy?”

“That’s what I said: Fat Jimmy.”

“Where did Fat Jimmy get it?”

“I don’t know,” said Wilbur. “His man.”

Drabblecast B-Sides: <a href="http://www.drabblecast.org/donate/">Donate</a>

Drabblecast 381 – Unathi Battles the Black Hairballs

In Action, Drabblecast, Horror, Sci-Fi

Women and Aliens Month slithers forward with this week’s story: “Unathi Battles the Black Hairballs” by Lauren Beukes.

Lauren Beukes is an award-winning, best-selling novelist who also writes comics, screenplays, and TV shows. Her novels include The Shining Girls, Broken Monsters and Zoo City.

Story Excerpt:

Unathi was singing karaoke when the creature attacked Tokyo. Or rather, she was about to sing karaoke. Was, in fact, about to be the very first person in Shibuya’s Big Echo to break in the newly uploaded Britney hip-hop remix of the Spice Girls’ ‘Tell Me What You Want (What You Really Really Want)’.

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Drabblecast 380 – The Four Generations of Chang E

On April 21, 2016

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi

Drabblecast cover for The Four Generations of Change E, art by Caroline Parkinson We kick off Women And Aliens Month with “The Four Generations of Chang E,” by Zen Cho.

It’s a dystopian space story steeping in Eastern mythology and tradition. And rabbits. Moon rabbits.

Story Excerpt:

In the final days of Earth as we knew it, Chang E won the moon lottery.

For Earthlings who were neither rich nor well-connected, the lottery was the only way to get on the Lunar Habitation Programme. (This was the Earthlings’ name for it. The moon people said: “those fucking immigrants”.)

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Drabblecast 379 – Water Spots

On April 4, 2016

In Drabblecast, Horror

This episode of the Drabblecast presents “Water Spots,” by Rebecca Gomezrueda, a troubling tale of murk, darkness, and the complexity of the human experience. Is it something in the water?

Consider yourself warned.

Story Excerpt:

“They found your brother…”

Her mother leaves the sentence unfinished, and she wants to tell her not to go on. He can be anywhere, in the water, in the fire, and in the end there’s little difference between burnt bones and waterlogged bones.

“Did you hear me? I said they found your brother.”

“Mhm.” So she’d have his bones. What did she want with them?

“Water Spots” is printed in full below the player. Enjoy!

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Drabblecast B-Sides 66 – Heart of Clay (A Saint Darwin’s Spiritual)

On March 20, 2016

In Drabblecast B-Sides, Fantasy, Horror

The Drabblecast brings you “Heart of Clay,” part of D.K. Thompson’s Saint Darwin’s Spirituals series.

D.K. Thompson was the host and co-editor of PodCastle, a fantasy fiction podcast, for five years, and has narrated audiobooks by Tim Pratt, Greg van Eekhout, and James Maxey, among others.

Story Excerpt:

Awareness terrified the golem, but the burning paper in his mouth and the word written on it gave him comfort. It filled him with wonder and fear, knowledge and life. Saint Darwin had fashioned the paper from a certain bush on an Egyptian mountainside that was impervious to fire. When the golem’s life dissipated, the flames would sputter out but the mystical paper would never be consumed.

This story is available to our $10/month B-Sides subscribers! Not a member yet? Here’s how you can support the show!

Drabblecast B-Sides: <a href="http://www.drabblecast.org/donate/">Donate</a>

Drabblecast 378 – Giraffe Cyborg Cleans House!

On March 2, 2016

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi

A plate, a plate, another plate burst upon the kitchen tile. This one broke into three large pieces and assorted ceramic crumbs. Giraffe closed her long-lashed eyes and prayed to her many makers. Why in the world would the people make one hard thing that was so likely to smash into a second hard thing?

“Another one?” Ms. Mtombe yelled. “Get out of my kitchen immediately!” She seemed to have been lurking near the kitchen entrance in anticipation. Giraffe didn’t bother to look. That unshining face made guest appearances in her night terrors. It was Tuesday, so it would be the zebra print dress, the long strand of Moroccan beads, and those slapping gold sandals.

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Drabblecast 377 – Here There Be Monsters?

On February 17, 2016

In Drabblecast, Fantasy

The canary yellow shirt read “Camp Fit,” but it didn’t quite fit the bulbous, pre-adolescent boy cringing in the cabin’s corner. Rows of bunks lined both sides of the room.

Standing over the boy, Worgly raised his shaggy brown arms and roared with his terrible roar. “You’re going to eat me!” And the monster gnashed his terrible teeth, and rolled his terrible eyes, and showed his terrible claws.

The boy’s expression changed from terror to puzzlement. “You want me to eat you?”

“Yes!” shouted Worgly. “Wait… No.”

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Drabblecast 376 – A Last Kiss for Lazarus Winters (A Saint Darwin’s Spiritual)

On January 18, 2016

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror

This episode of the Drabblecast brings you “A Last Kiss for Lazarus Winters,” another story in D.K. Thompson’s Saint Darwin’s Spirituals series.

D.K. Thompson was the host and co-editor of PodCastle, a fantasy fiction podcast, for five years, and has narrated audiobooks by Tim Pratt, Greg van Eekhout, and James Maxey, among others.

Story Excerpt:

I was born again on New Year’s Eve, full of broken promises, and slick and sticky with two kinds of blood. One of them was a ghost’s. That didn’t surprise me, though. I’ve seen my share of ghost blood.

I’d spent most of my life working with spirits and principalities — tracking ghosts, and making demands of them. That’s what people hired me for. But I wasn’t one of Darwin’s spiritualists, though I’d read his Origin of the Spirits and wore the goggles he’d fashioned. No, the spiritualists aided the spirits, providing a bridge between the living and the dead to help care for them. Me? I took all of Charlie Darwin’s studies and tools, and crossed those bridges to make certain demands of ghosts. I was a spiritual extortionist.

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Drabblecast B-Sides 65 – The Country of the Blind

On January 16, 2016

In Drabblecast B-Sides, Fantasy

Three hundred miles and more from Chimborazo, one hundred from the snows of Cotopaxi, in the wildest wastes of Ecuador’s Andes, there lies that mysterious mountain valley, cut off from all the world of men, the Country of the Blind…

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Drabblecast 375 – Ghost in the Coffee Machine

On January 1, 2016

In Drabblecast, Fantasy

When it comes to ghosts, my grandmother has one solution: brew a pot of coffee. Like today, in Sadie Lancaster’s kitchen.

Sadie clutches her hands beneath her chin and stares at our percolator, her eyes huge. The thing gurgles and hisses as if it
resents being pressed into service. My own reflection in its side is distorted. When I was younger, I thought this was how ghosts see our world.

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Drabblecast 374 – Jump I’ll Catch You

On December 18, 2015

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi

Anton drew his legs up underneath him. The car seat was huge and puffy, and the leather made a breathy creak when he moved. It sounded like it was sighing.

‘How much longer?’ he said.

For a while, nobody answered. He thought maybe they hadn’t heard him, but then his mother said, ‘We’ll be there soon.’

There meant the place where our new friends lived. When people talked about them, you could hear something extra in the words. Like they were names: Our New Friends. Anton was trying to look forward to it, because it was good to make new friends, but he sometimes got nervous when there were a lot of new things, different things, to take in. But his mother said they all had to get used to things being different now, so he was trying. He was trying hard.

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Drabblecast 373 – Trifecta: Things We Made

On November 30, 2015

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi

Sato lay on the cement floor of the workshop in a pool of his own blood and tried desperately to get Kuro-4’s legs working again. The robot, in turn, tried to deal with the gaping wounds in Sato’s smashed leg and pelvis.

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Drabblecast B-Sides 64 – The Top 10 Post Apocalypse Short Films

On November 27, 2015

In Drabblecast B-Sides, Video

Norm shares the top 10 best (and free online!) post apocalypse short films in an exlusive video podcast.

Access Drabblecast Bsides Premium Content by signing up for an automatic $10/month subscription to the Drabblecast. Your support is greatly appreciated!

Drabblecast B-Sides: <a href="http://www.drabblecast.org/donate/">Donate</a>

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