surreal – Page 2 – The Drabblecast

Cover for Drabblecast episode 106, Boiled Black Broth and Cornets, by Nettie Pinney

Drabblecast 106 – Boiled Black Broth and Cornets

On March 11, 2009

“From fortress-building to cornet-playing, you never cease to amaze me, Beckie.” I replied, dumping my weekend luggage in a corner of the grm brickish vestibule…

In this episode’s Drabble, reading a spy thriller helps pass the time while an assassin waits for his target to return home. The feature story, Boiled Black Broth and Cornets, concerns a bizarrely convoluted plot by the narrator’s good friend to learn how to build a fortress, make mind-controlling soups, and play the cornet for the overall purpose of abducting and training an octet of musicians to put on a jazz concert.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 104, The Food Processor, by Bo Kaier

Drabblecast 104 – The Food Processor

By Drabblecast

On February 25, 2009

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Strange

Though the boy’s birthdays occurred weeks apart, Mother combined their gift to please Father.
“You may choose your present this year, boys,” said she. “Something to fulfill your destiny, perhaps.” The boys were born to change the world…

The winners of the Drabblecast People’s Choice Award are announced: Best Drabble “Please Allow the Door to Close” by John Medaille (episode 89) and Best Feature Story, Floating Over Time by Robert Reed (episode 83). In the Drabble, gods get whatever they can afford at a marketplace of souls. The feature, The Food Processor, is a coming of age story about two brothers who use their birthday gift, an industrial food processor, to break free from the expectations and control of their formidable chef father.

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Drabblecast B-Sides 2 – 2135: The Year Disco Came Back

By Drabblecast

On January 12, 2009

In Comedy, Drabblecast B-Sides, Sci-Fi, Strange

And with a mighty crack the sky opened up! There, sitting on a throne of ivory and omnipotence, was the Lord in all his terrible glory. And God said: “Let there be Funk!”

On this episode of the Drabblecast B-Sides podcast, a semi-lucid prophecy of a musically dominated future. Disco, punk, funk, and more are at odds, as maniacal genre fan devotion rules the streets!

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

Cover for Drabblecast episode 90, Far Far Away, by Jonathan Wilson

Drabblecast 90 – Far Far Away

By Drabblecast

On November 19, 2008

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi, Strange

The bullet-riddled corpses of our dead crew-mates, all sixteen of them, are coffined up, and the coffins stacked as a makeshift ping pong table…

In Drabble News, Norm congratulates the Harper Collins Dictionary for adding the slang term “meh” (an utterance of indifference). For the Drabble segment, returning author and future editor Matthew Bey (responsible for Drabblecast #58, “Eggs,” among others) allows his strange nocturnal fantasies about pupating locomotives to cross into the listener’s daylight. Next, Norm reads from the work of Frank Key, the British surreal author whose ‘lopsided fiction’ has graced the Drabblecast on numerous occasions, including episode #190. The selection: “The Goat God.” The feature describes the Flying Dutchman space journey of the starship “Corrugated Cardboard,” and the strange transformations of its surviving crew. The crew’s destination: a tiny pink planet where blind, mute, magnetic love monkeys frolic. Do these wonderful mythical creatures even exist, or are they figments of the unreliable narrator’s imagination? Finally, Norm reads from the positive feedback heaped by readers upon Episode #86, “Half Sneeze Johnny.”

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 89, Starry Night, by Philippa Jones

Drabblecast 89 – Starry Night

By Drabblecast

On November 12, 2008

In Drabblecast, Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi

“They were frozen in place, and their bodies blazed. The angel was before them, and they were silent, burning with no heat…”

The episode opens with a Drabble by John Medaille, a veteran of Podcastle, the Dunesteef, and the “Three-Lobed Burning Eye.” It discusses the depredations and terror experienced by survivors of a post-apocalyptic elevator failure. Next, continuing the theme of apocalyptic landscapes, Samantha Henderson also a veteran of numerous podcasts as well as “Realms of Fantasy” contributes her story, “Starry Night.” Evoking Van Gough’s famous painting, her story describes the consequences of a celestial event that illuminated, and then blinded, the renaissance village of Monte Verde. Surreal tragedy follows. After the story, reader feedback from the Double-Header, “Hush and Hark” and “Meta Science Fiction,” describes how disturbing and or amusing the audience found the stories. Listeners rated Trifecta 5 as middle-of-the-road.

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Drabblecast 83 – Floating Over Time

By Drabblecast

On October 1, 2008

In Drabblecast, Drama, Sci-Fi

She was a machine, fabulously complex and durable and imaginative. She was also alive…

This well regarded episode of the Drabblecast shares the poetic story of two complex individuals welcoming, dreading, and ultimately learning from the finality of their own end.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 74, Witchcraft in the Harem, by Caroline Parkinson

Drabblecast 74 – Witchcraft in the Harem

By Drabblecast

On July 30, 2008

In Drabblecast, Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Strange

“I’m in serious trouble here,” I said to the pale man. “Give me some words of wisdom.”

This episode’s Drabble details a disturbing beginning. The feature is a haunting tale of desire and eternity. Norm Sherman gives us more information on the Mega-Beach Death-Match, which contains a squid with tank treads, a giant wasp, and a robotic tanuki. Feedback is from Episode #96 “The Story-Teller” by Saki.

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Drabblecast 43 – Jelly Park

By Drabblecast

On December 20, 2007

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Strange

Drabblecast #43 presents “Jelly Park“ by Aliya Whiteley.

In consideration of the holidays, Norm begins to see a common theme to this Drabblecast season: celebrating relationships.

Take, for example, the relationship between the holidays and a pile of extremely rare rhinoceros dung. Four piles, actually. All collected by conservationists and auctioned on E-bay to raise money for preservation of the species.

Norm speculates on the market timing of such a gift… A thousand dollars and you could have your very own rhino scat to accompany that Elf on your shelf. Which leads us to reflect upon the meaning of the holidays for all manner of people, animals, and legendary monsters.

But we digress.