Archive for October, 2011

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Cast of Wonders 15: Same-Day Delivery

“Same Day Delivery” first appeared on On the Premises #11.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:16 — 17.7MB)

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Show Notes

Now, last week, I professed ignorance of U.S geography, then went straight on to prove it by locating Virginia on the west coast! It is, in fact on the east coast. My humble apologies to all Virginians for shifting your fair state so far afield! My only defence is that I live in Australia where right now we’re heading into Spring, Christmas is in the middle of Summer, we walk upside-down, navigating our way through hordes of kangaroos, and everything is generally backwards.

Today we present Same-Day Delivery by Desmond Warzel. The story first appeared in issue #11 of On the Premises. Desmond lives in northwestern Pennsylvania, and that his most recent short story publications appeared in Daily Science Fiction, the anthology Candle in the Attic Window from Innsmouth Free Press, and at Tor.com.

Theme music is “Appeal To Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available at MusicAlley.com.

Same-Day Delivery

Desmond Warzel

Renninger looked like trouble.

Of course, they’re all trouble, or they wouldn’t be coming to me. By definition.

But it’s a sliding scale.

My office was at the end of what most people would consider an excessively long and narrow corridor. It had no door, affording me a clear view of the entire passageway; a necessary concession to my unique brand of paranoia. I need to see them coming, and from as far away as possible.

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Cast of Wonders 14: Bad Kitty

Cast of Wonders 14: Bad Kitty is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:57 — 14.7MB)

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Show Notes

Today we present Bad Kitty by Jason Dextraduer. He lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia. If, like me, you know little about the US, Virginia Beach is the largest city in the state of Virginia; Virginia is on the West Coast. He works as a courier to pay the bills, and writes to keep the stories in his head from driving him crazy. Should he happen to have free time, he likes to spend it with friends, or outdoors letting the wind blow through him, or with a good story. Some of his other stories have appeared in The Hogglepot Online Fantasy Journal, The Absent Willow Review, and 5923 Quarterly.

Your narrators this week are the “Girl Friday Extraordinaire” Marguerite Kenner, who is becoming a welcome regular ‘round these here parts, and The Dark King of podcasting, Alasdair Stuart. Alasdair is a writer and journalist from a small island in the middle of the Irish Sea protected, the legends say, by a wizard who rolled wheels of fire down the central hill to dissuade invaders. Also it rained a lot, and he’s pretty sure that helped too.

Theme music is “Appeal To Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available at MusicAlley.com.

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Cast of Wonders 13: The Name-Day

“The Name-Day” is a story by Hector Hugh Munro, who published it under the pen name “Saki”. It is in the public domain.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:46 — 15.4MB)

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Show Notes

Today I wanted to present The Loot of Bombasharna by Lord Dunsany. However, I didn’t check the copyrights well enough. Lord Dunsany’s works are only in the Public Domain in the US, and certainly not in the UK and Australia. My apologies.

However, another very well-known writer was Hector Hugh Munro who used the pen-name Saki. Today we present his story The Name-Day. Saki’s works frequently satirised Edwardian society and culture and often had a mischievous twist, sometimes leaning toward the bizarre. An example of the mischievous is Down Pens, a story about the trials of responding to gift-givers with notes of gratitude, for politeness’ sake.

You can find out more about Saki at the ultimate arbiter of absolute truth, Wikipedia.

The Name-Day

by Saki

Adventures, according to the proverb, are to the adventurous. Quite as often they are to the non-adventurous, to the retiring, to the constitutionally timid. John James Abbleway had been endowed by Nature with the sort of disposition that instinctively avoids Carlist intrigues, slum crusades, the tracking of wounded wild beasts, and the moving of hostile amendments at political meetings. If a mad dog or a Mad Mullah had come his way he would have surrendered the way without hesitation. At school he had unwillingly acquired a thorough knowledge of the German tongue out of deference to the plainly-expressed wishes of a foreign-languages master, who, though he taught modern subjects, employed old-fashioned methods in driving his lessons home. It was this enforced familiarity with an important commercial language which thrust Abbleway in later years into strange lands where adventures were less easy to guard against than in the ordered atmosphere of an English country town.

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Cast of Wonders 12: To Be True (Part 2)

Cast of Wonders 12: To Be True (Part 2) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:39 — 19.9MB)

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Show Notes

Today we present Part 2 of To Be True by Jess Hyslop.

Theme music is “Appeal To Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available at MusicAlley.com.

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Cast of Wonders 11: To Be True (Part 1)

Cast of Wonders 11: To Be True (Part 1) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:18 — 20.5MB)

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Show Notes

Today we present Part 1 of To Be True by Jess Hyslop. Jess lives in London has recently been ejected from the cosy realm of academia into the perils of ‘the real world’, where she is trying to survive the life of an aspiring writer. She studied English at the University of Cambridge and three years later, emerged with her passion for sci-fi and fantasy still fully intact. Extraordinary!

In 2010 she was awarded the University’s Quiller-Couch prize for creative writing, for Augury, a short story set during the Nazi occupation of Guernsey in WWII. You will soon be able to purchase the story from Shortfire Press.

You can find out more about Jess at her blog.

Theme music is “Appeal To Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available at MusicAlley.com.