Closing out Women and Aliens month, The Drabblecast brings you another originally commissioned story: “Witches for Mars” by Eden Royce.
It’s a surreal tale about considering greener pastures…
No one expected the government to allow it. To acknowledge it even, but Maira was looking at the advertisement above a webpage she was using to compare prices of agate and selenite healing crystals.
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Next up in Women and Aliens month: a Drabblecast original commissioned from author Eboni J. Dunbar, “The Translator.”
Eboni Dunbar resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with her partner and specializes in queer and black speculative fiction. She is also a VONA Alum, an associate editor for PodCastle and a freelance reviewer.
Corporal Robbie Elms stood at the airlock, waiting for the
arrival of their guests. The rank was as new and as shiny as the toe of her boots, a gift from her mother to congratulate her. The airlock chimed as it depressurized and she stood straighter, trying to make herself look a little taller. This was her first official assignment since the promotion, she wanted to do it right.
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We’re in the thick of Women and Aliens month, and we’re keeping it going with an original commissioned story— “The Moving Stars” by Premee Mohamed.
Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and specfic auhor based out of Canada. Her short fiction has appeared in Analog, Pseudopod, Mythic Delirium, Automata Review, and other venues. Her debut novel is scheduled for a 2020 release from Solaris Books. She can be found on Twitter at @premeesaurus.
As a special treat, this episode is being hosted by one of our preeminent editors, Sandra Odell!
They had to knock me out to get her out of me, which was for the best; I was asking be knocked out for quite a while by that point. All that sweating and grunting and gritted teeth (I cracked a molar, for heaven’s sake) and then darkness and then there she was, swimming up through the layers of gray light, a strange little pink fish that someone had placed into my arms.
What happened?I asked. She got stuck, said one of the nurses, and patted my hand. Backwards and upside down, poor little mite. Sometimes happens with the first. But isn’t she perfect!
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Today the Drabblecast brings you “Diamante and Strass” by Lucy A. Snyder.
Lucy A. Snyder is a five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author, appearing in publications such as Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, and Weird Tales. She lives in Columbus, Ohio and is faculty in Seton Hill University’s MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction.
Our story today has got it all, a sort of Thelma and Louise post-apocalypse Sci-Fi western!
“Are these the gunslingers?” The Queen looked down her long, thin nose through her kaleidoscope monocle at the dusty duo.
“She’s a gunslinger. I’m a bomber,” said Strass.
The Queen of Montana stood regal before her icy throne as her guards hauled in the notorious man-eater Giorgia Diamante and her accomplice, Elvira Strass.
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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.
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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Every few day-cycles, it receives hate-scented lace in anonymous packages. It opens the bland plastic envelope to pull one out, holding the delicate fragment between two forelimbs. Contemplating it before folding it again to put away in a drawer. Four drawers filled so far; the fifth is halfway there.
“Traitor,” say some of the smells, rotting fruit and acid. “Betrayer. Turncoat. One who eats their own young.” Others are simply soaked in emotion: hate and anger, and underneath the odor of fear. It lets the thoughts, the smells, the tastes fill it, set its own thoughts in motion. Then it goes downstairs and sits with the other whores, who make room uneasily for it.
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Another child was born in the great Mother, excreted from the tube protruding from the Nursery ceiling. It landed with a wet thud on the organic bedding underneath. Papa shuffled over to the birthing tube and picked the baby up in his wizened hands. He stuck two fingers in the baby’s mouth to clear the cavity of oil and mucus, and then slapped its bottom. The baby gave a faint cry.
“Ah,” said Papa. “She lives…”
This episode of the Drabblecast is about awakenings and transformations. In the drabble, not all its memories of a man’s life make sense to an undersea creature. In the feature, generations ago the survivors of a ruined world struck a deal with their Mother, an enormous creature merging flesh and technology. They live symbiotically within her, helping her do everything from navigating to digesting food while in return she provides them safety and sustenance. When Mother is injured beyond repair, starved for both food and fresh genetic material, she passes on a dying gift.
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“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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Once you start to see them, they seem to be everywhere…
The Drabble News report, of a 5-year scientific study which showed staring at women’s breasts prolonged the lifespan of males, inspires a now-infamous skit. Norm details the riot among medical test subjects when the non-boobie control group was chosen. The feature story continues with theme of close observation of the Creator’s handiwork. The author, whose work has appeared in “Alien Skin” among other places, presents a disturbing tale of a crusty old misanthrope discovering a crude shortcut from an Impressionistic God, harkening back to the world’s creation. Is humanity ready for that knowledge? Feedback for Episode #39, “The Bee-Keepers,” was accidentally erased by Norm, but the forum comments were very positive, and stimulated a great discussion about parasites. Finally, the Drabblecast New Year’s Resolution is a raise in the submission pay rates.
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