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Drabblecast 458 – Plans for Expansion

On July 10, 2022

In Drabblecast, Horror, Lovecraft Month, News

The Drabblecast is molting!

Norm shares some exciting news in the intro this week, Drabblecast has launched a Patreon, and a new quarterly magazine, “The Tentaculum.” Also, welcome new Managing Editor Cameron Howard!

Finally, we close out HP Lovecraft “Month” with an original story by Aliya Whitely called, “Plans for Expansion.”

Stones contain stories.
The deep and worn stones of this castle have tales within them of such strange and horrible occurrences, events too awful to be spoken of, but I will try, this very night, to tell you, to warn you, of what they have witnessed. Beware what awaits you within. Prepare yourself: your sanity is at risk.

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Drabblecast 457 – When the Sun Hits

On April 13, 2022

In Drabblecast, Lovecraft Month, Sci-Fi, Strange

This week’s show brings you an original commissioned HP Lovecraft mythos story by Nick Mamatas called “When the Sun Hits.” Afterwards, Nick talks about the story in an Author’s Note and Norm gives everyone an existential crises in a Drabble News presentation on The Boltzmann Brain.

When the brain is liberated from the body, only to be imprisoned in a steely new home, one interesting side effect of the process is that all the structures previously dedicated to vision, coordination, the autonomic nervous system, motor control, first atrophy, and then generalize. Perhaps it is an artifact of the nanotech-rich protein fluids in which the brain floats, or the peculiar nth-dimensional folding the Mi-Go use to fit a humanoid brain into their canisters…

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Drabblecast 456 – In My Brain in My Body

On February 7, 2022

In Drabblecast, Lovecraft Month, Sci-Fi, Strange

Shark week on Drabblecast has never been so unnerving! Enjoy an original Drabblecast story this week from Evie Mae Barber about what lurks even deeper in the depths…

The great white looked like he was having a good time, swimming upside down, bone-white belly above water, teeth gnashing playfully. Like a puppy dreams of finally catching a squirrel.
Just off the verdant coast, boaters came to see him play. Some reached out as he swam by, trying to stroke his luminous stomach, but he was out of reach.

-get them out-

I warned them to be careful. Something wasn’t quite right; the shark was clearly distressed. Nothing too strange—I’d seen this before—but I had to come out with my crew just to see if it might be research-worthy. Even a byline on a derelict local news site would be nice at this point. Hell, a quote would do fine.

i cant get them out-

Another boat rolled up. One of the boaters said it was tonic immobility—playing dead. “Might think we’re predators. We may want to back off…”

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Drabblecast 454 – The Doom That Came to Sarnath

On November 8, 2021

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror, Lovecraft Month

The Drabblecast kicks off H.P. Lovecraft Month with the grandfather of Weird Fiction’s cautionary dark fantasy, “The Doom That Came to Sarnath.”

There is in the land of Mnar a vast still lake that is fed by no stream and out of which no stream flows. Ten thousand years ago there stood by its shore the mighty city of Sarnath, but Sarnath stands there no more.

It is told that in the immemorial years when the world was young, before ever the men of Sarnath came to the land of Mnar, another city stood beside the lake; the grey stone city of Ib, which was old as the lake itself, and peopled with beings not pleasing to behold…

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Drabblecast 437 – The Shallow One

On December 12, 2020

In Comedy, Lovecraft Month, Romance

The Drabblecast wraps up HP Lovecraft Month this year with a mythos story unlike any variety you’ve likely heard before! We bring you “The Shallow One,” an original Drabblecast story by Matthew Sanborn Smith.

Norm closes out with a song about awkward romance called “There’s a Fetus in Your Kitchen.”

I first met Madeline at the local drug store, IBS, in the digestive aids aisle. We were both buying constipation products when our hands touched. Electricity passed between us, though it may have been the carpeting. My drone quivered on my shoulder, begging permission to snap a pic…

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Drabblecast 436- The Wallpaper Out of Space

On November 20, 2020

In Drabblecast, Lovecraft Month, Strange

Our next original Drabblecast-commissioned story for HP Lovecraft month installment, “The Wallpaper Out of Space!” by Adam-Troy Castro read by Jacob Boris.

All right, so it’s Cheryl’s kid, okay? I didn’t know she had a kid until we were two months in and already deeply involved, and then she tells me she has a sixteen year old from a prior marriage, and that he was what you’re what always supposed to say kids are, a great kid, even if they’re just hostile presences who respond to everything you say with a nod and a blank, “Okay…”

Closing Music: “Juzt Mizunderstood” by Norm Sherman

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Drabblecast 435 – Maternal Instinct

On November 13, 2020

In Drabblecast, Horror, Lovecraft Month

Lovecraft and love life mix on this week’s Drabblecast! As our first offering HP Lovecraft month, we present “Maternal Instinct,” by Chris Lester.

They say you can find absolutely anything on the Internet. The authenticity and good condition of said “anything,” however, is by no means guaranteed. This caveat applies to rare movies, import CDs, collectible knickknacks of all kinds … but most especially to men.

Online dating is to romance what bottom trawling is to fishing. A woman in search of a prospective mate can sift through hundreds of messages a week, only to find that her “catch” consists mostly of trash, filth, and a few sickly and hideous specimens that no sane woman would allow within a hundred yards of the dinner table. Oh, occasionally you might find a worthy candidate, but the strong, healthy and good-looking ones are usually the first to wriggle out of the nets.

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Drabblecast 434 – The Shadow Over Innsmouth Pt. 2

On October 31, 2020

In Drabblecast, Horror, Lovecraft Month

Part two of a Drabblecast production of H.P. Lovecraft’s classic The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

The reality of what I had been through was highly uncertain in my mind, but I felt that something hideous lay in the background. I must get away from evil-shadowed Innsmouth—and accordingly I began to test my cramped, wearied powers of locomotion. Despite weakness, hunger, horror, and bewilderment I found myself after a long time able to walk; so started slowly along the muddy road to Rowley…

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Drabblecast 433 – The Shadow Over Innsmouth Pt. 1

On October 18, 2020

In Drabblecast, Horror, Lovecraft Month, Strange

The Drabblecast Annual Halloween Special kicks off this year simultaneously with HP Lovecraft month on the show, a full month of original Drabblecast-commissioned stories playing around with elements of Lovecraft’s style and mythos.

We kick things off this year with a fullcast adaptation of one of Lovecraft’s most popular stories– The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Do enjoy!

During the winter of 1927–28 officials of the Federal government made a strange and secret investigation of certain conditions in the ancient Massachusetts seaport of Innsmouth. The public first learned of it in February, when a vast series of raids and arrests occurred, followed by the deliberate burning and dynamiting—under suitable precautions—of an enormous number of crumbling, worm-eaten, and supposedly empty houses along the abandoned waterfront. Uninquiring souls let this occurrence pass as one of the major clashes in a spasmodic war on liquor.

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Drabblecast Director’s Cut – Necessary Cuts

On May 12, 2020

In Director's Cut, Drabblecast, Horror, Lovecraft Month

“My headlights were streaked pink with frog blood…”

Norm and author comedian/writer Bryan Miller about comedy and horror, editing and frog country, Lovecraft and fish horror. Also, Bryan’s H.P. Lovecraft-inspired story, “Necessary Cuts.”

The manuscripts I read are haunted. Commas vanish forever into the void. Subjects and verbs struggle in bloody disagreement. Infinitives are cleaved with a dull axe. Sentence fragments ablated at one ragged end lay strewn between the margins.

I take an exorcist’s solemn pride in banishing these warped creatures from the village, sending slapdash monstrosities back to the murky dark from whence they came. The pages come in and the pages go out; my reward is the warm tingle of equilibrium, having restored order to some tiny corner of the world…

Episode Trailer can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC-qJxNuA6s

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Drabblecast 416 – Necessary Cuts

On October 1, 2019

In Drabblecast, Horror, Lovecraft Month

Closing out this year’s H.P. Lovecraft month, we bring you another Drabblecast original, this time from author by Bryan Milller, about editing a manuscript as if the whole world depended on it…

The manuscripts I read are haunted. Commas vanish forever into the void. Subjects and verbs struggle in bloody disagreement. Infinitives are cleaved with a dull axe. Sentence fragments ablated at one ragged end lay strewn between the margins.

I take an exorcist’s solemn pride in banishing these warped creatures from the village, sending slapdash monstrosities back to the murky dark from whence they came. The pages come in and the pages go out; my reward is the warm tingle of equilibrium, having restored order to some tiny corner of the world…

Episode Trailer can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC-qJxNuA6s

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Drabblecast B-sides 78 – The Shadow Over My Dorm Room

On September 15, 2019

In Drabblecast, Drabblecast B-Sides, Holiday, Lovecraft Month

Drabblecast Exclusive Premium Content for $10/month Subscribers

The sky is falling,” Chicken Little said, but of course I didn’t understand him right away. He forgets sometimes that he no longer has lips and teeth and all the other bits you need to produce intelligible speech. I gave him a moment to remember. He isn’t stupid—he’s better than me at math, and his Ancient Religions project won some kind of award—he just has a hard time facing reality, at least where his affliction is concerned…

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Drabblecast 415 – The Best Scarlet Ceremony Ever!

On September 3, 2019

In Comedy, Drabblecast, Horror, Lovecraft Month

Sweet Valley High and the Babysitters Club meet cult life and H.P. Lovecraft mythos, as we continue our special Lovecraft anthology month this week, bringing you an original story by Shaenon K. Garrity.

The Wakefields were the worst family in Oakes Isle. Even the grown-ups knew it. Whenever a chicken was stolen or the air was let out of a bike tire or a starving hex was chalked on a barn wall to sicken the sheep, there was a Wakefield behind it…

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Drabblecast B-Sides 77 – Looking for Jake

On August 24, 2019

In Drabblecast B-Sides, Horror, Lovecraft Month, Romance

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I don’t know how I lost you. I remember there was that long time of searching for you, frantic and sick-making … I was almost ecstatic with anxiety. And then I found you, so that was alright. Only I lost you again. And I can’t make out how it happened.

I’m sitting out here on the flat roof you must remember, looking out over this dangerous city. There is, you remember, a dull view from my roof. There are no parks to break up the urban monotony, no towers worth a damn. Just an endless, featureless cross-hatching of brick and concrete, a drab chaos of interlacing backstreets stretching out interminably behind my house. I was disappointed when I first moved here, I didn’t see what I had in that view. Not until Bonfire Night.

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Drabblecast 414 – Dance, Siege, Swoop

On August 20, 2019

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror, Lovecraft Month

Lovecraft Month continues as the Drabblecast brings you an original, commissioned piece of H.P. Lovecraft mythos fiction, “Dance, Siege, Swoop” by award-winning author Robert Reed.

Be sure to keep a night light on, this one will chill you to the core!

Story Excerpt:

“My foot did not discover the prize, nor was I the first of the object’s erstwhile owners.

According to every account, it was a young girl who innocently tripped over the mostly buried artifact while skipping across a whisper field. Since this was near the edge of the habitable world, onlookers assumed that the object was an artifact lost by one of the Great Cranes, and perceiving rarity, it was the girl’s uncle who excavated the prize…”

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Drabblecast 413 – The Rats in the Walls

On August 9, 2019

In Drabblecast, Horror, Lovecraft Month

Kicking off this year’s H.P. Lovecraft month with a classic from the man himself. It’s not your mind playing tricks it’s The Rats in the Walls!

On July 16, 1923, I moved into Exham Priory after the last workman had finished his labours.

The restoration had been a stupendous task, for little had remained of the deserted pile but a shell-like ruin; yet because it had been the home of several of my ancestors, I let no expense deter me.

The place had not been inhabited for a century since a tragedy of intensely hideous, (though largely unexplained) nature had struck down the master, five of his children, and several servants; finally driving forth under a cloud of suspicion and terror their illegitimate third son— my lineal progenitor, who had been taken in as their own. The final survivor of the cursed line…

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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 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 370 – The Little Mermaid of Innsmouth

On September 13, 2015

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror, Lovecraft Month

The Drabblecast presents: “The Little Mermaid of Innsmouth” by Caroline M. Yoachim.

This is a new take on the classic Hans Christian Andersen fish tale, replete with all the Lovecraftian lore you should expect from The Drabblecast!

Story Excerpt:

Tomiko knelt at the table, across from her father, carefully holding her back rigid and straight as they ate their breakfast. She hoped the formal posture would make him take her arguments seriously, but he barely looked at her as he ate mix of rice and nattō, fermented soybeans that gave off a pungent smell and overpowered even the constant fishy odor of her father’s skin.

Enjoy (full story is printed below the player):

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