Posts Tagged ‘Cast of Wonders’

Artemis Rising 5 Guest Editors

We’re thrilled to announce that this year’s guest editors for Artemis Rising will be Amy Brennan and Karissa Sluss, with assistant editors Alexis Goble and Katherine Inskip.

Amy Brennan is a huge fan of all manner of fiction and non fiction writing, music, art, basically anything even mildly creative. A geologist by training, holding a masters in Geoscience from Keele Unversity she used to make mud pies for a living. It is a job that is both enjoyably challenging and at times mind-numbingly repetitive. She devoured audiobooks at a rate of knots to get her through the day – until she discovered podcasts and hasn’t looked back since.  She lives in Cambridgeshire with her partner, and three floofs of the cat and rabbit type. She occasionally blogs, and you can follow her on Twitter.

Karissa Sluss lives with in North Carolina with her family and a hairy husky named Bonnie. Her favorite things are coffee, dark chocolate, Star Wars, and Princess Bride. By day she wrangles cases and hearing schedules for a small administrative court. At night, after cooking dinner, checking homework, and walking the dog, she writes and reads as much as possible. You can find out more about her writing online at karissalaurel.com, and she loves making friends on Twitter @karissalaurel.

Full details of the submission guidelines will follow.

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Cast of Wonders 313: Desert Dogs

Cast of Wonders 313: Desert Dogs is a Cast of Wonders original.

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Desert Dogs

by Drea Silvertooth and Lian Rose

The vast desert sprawled before Kei, burnt sienna beneath the rising sun. In the distance, derelict buildings of the Old Cities defined the horizon, their dark and splintered silhouettes pointing like daggers at the sky.

Behind her, the city gate clanged shut with a heavy sense of finality. The outer sentries ignored her as she shouldered her supplies—food, water, and the exact number of bullets allowed for intercity travel—and walked toward the stables. Her red cloak dragged in the sand, leaving a path in her wake like a winding snake.

A half-mile out stood a small, hunched figure waiting for her. The faded blue fabric of his robes was drawn up over his face to protect from the stinging wind.

“My driving student,” he said warmly, extending his hand as she approached. “Mister Zhang?”

“Miss,” Kei corrected, taking his hand. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 312: Ten Things Sunil and I Forgot to Prepare for, When Preparing for the Apocalypse

First published in Intergalactic Medicine Show, Issue 51

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Ten Things Sunil and I Forgot to Prepare for, When Preparing for the Apocalypse

by Shane Halbach

1. We didn’t prepare multiple contingencies

When Sunil and I made our plan, we always thought it would be zombies. I mean, we literally imagined nothing else. It just made sense.

Now that I think about it, there are tons of other ways the world could end: aliens from space, nuclear war, some kind of non-zombie disease, maybe nanobots or something. But even then, I wouldn’t have thought of portals to other worlds. I mean, I literally could not have imagined it. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 311: And Flights of Skuhwiggle

Cast of Wonders 311: And Flights of Skuhwiggle is a Cast of Wonders original.

Content warning: cancer and terminal care

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And Flights of Skuhwiggle

by Charles Lee McDaniel

“Hello, children. Quiet down and give me your attention. We have a super-duper treat for you this morning.”

Geez, Nurse Janina was laying it on thick. Jimmy’s hand tightened around the tall stool he held, and his stomach shrank to the size of a raisin.

Why are you worried? the familiar voice inside his head asked.

Because I’ve never done this before, Jimmy thought back.

Excuse me? The gooey green alien perched on Jimmy’s shoulder puffed out its rubbery chest and it squinted its almost-human eyes at him. Have you forgotten how we wowed the crowd at the school talent show? It was only a couple of weeks ago. I know you humans can’t compete with Astrofarians when it comes to memory, but even so…

It’s not that. Jimmy peeked past the curtain hiding him and Skuhwiggle from the rest of the ward. Twenty or so kids looked up at Nurse Janina, drinking in her tale of how Jimmy had supposedly met his alien friend.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 310: Little Wonders 18 – Transformation

Cast of Wonders 310: Little Wonders 18 – Transformation is a Cast of Wonders original.

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A Cradle of Vines

by Jennifer Mace

There’s a plant in the hedgerow whose berries glimmer like starlight. Gyn passes it every morning on her way to school. Its leaves are waxy beneath her hands, small as the new baby’s fingernails and greener than grass stains on knees. They leave her skin smelling of peppermint.

The berries are blacker than midnight, blacker than her new father’s hair, and Gyn first notices them as her mother stops noticing her. They like to hide under hawthorn leaves or in the joints of holly bushes, but their silver shine in the winter sun gives them away. She’s smarter than the blackbirds and the robins. She understands hidden things.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 309: The Moon, the Sun and the Truth

Originally published in Shimmer, Issue 38 (July/August 2017)

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Show Notes

From the author: In January 2017, Dan Rather “tipped his journalist Stetson” to Anderson Cooper. I had a brief fangirl moment in which I imagined them meeting on some desolate hill and nodding stoically at each other. And then I just kept asking myself questions about what that world would look like. Eventually, I found this story, in a very different time and place than its inspiration, with different faces that echoed very similar fears.

The Moon, the Sun, and the Truth

by Victoria Sandbrook

Dust rising over the next scrub-covered hill gave away the rider’s position even before the incoming trash-guzzler’s growl settled around Andy’s ears. She waited as patiently as you could on a jittery horse that didn’t know you well, in sun that’d singe any hint of bare skin.

They’d been waiting an hour. Time enough in the desert to dream up how many ways this data drop could go. Could be this rider had the data chip and she’d be drowning her sorrows at the tavern by sunset. Could be he was a Directorship plant and there would be a gun for her.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 308: Every Drop of Light

Originally published in FOUND: short stories by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (2016)

Content Warning: sibling grief and abuse; animal death

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Every Drop of Light

by Rachel Delaney Craft

No one ever said no to Grace, because she almost died when she was a baby. That’s why we always did what she wanted to do, even though I was the older sister. That’s why, when we were kids, I followed her into the woods behind the old factory.

We had no business being there. But Grace just giggled as she skipped down the path alongside the eroded creek bank. “Anna, come on!”

I trailed behind her, imagining the knots in the tree trunks melding into stern eyes and puckered mouths. I felt I was in a giant, slow-moving lung: each rustling breeze was a deep breath in, each creaking branch a collective sigh. I felt the place might inhale me and never let me out. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 307: Sidekicks Wanted

Originally published in the anthology Heroes by Bushmead Publishing (October 2015)

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Sidekicks Wanted

by Laura Johnson

**SIDEKICKS WANTED**

HERO HUNTERS INC.

JOB POSTING: SIDEKICK

Job ID: 09012015
Location: Various
Base Pay: To be discussed
Industry: Heroism/Villainy
Reports to: Hero

DUTIES:

  • Fighting evil
  • Protecting the innocent
  • Rescuing damsels in distress
  • Saving the city/world/universe from danger (as required)
  • Listening to the Hero explain his origins
  • Engaging in witty banter with the Hero

QUALIFICATIONS:

  • Possession of a Sidekicking degree from an accredited university*
  • Prior Sidekicking experience preferred
  • Superpowers are an asset
  • Knowledge of weapons and technology
  • Sense of humour
  • Must be comfortable wearing spandex
  • Must be willing to endure rumours of romantic involvement with the Hero
  • Must be willing to be kidnapped so the Hero can stage a dramatic rescue

*May be substituted with appropriate experience

Underlings need not apply.

Interested applicants can send resumes to: Xenethera@herohunter.net (Continue Reading…)

2018 Sunburst Award Longlist

Congratulations to all the Sunburst Awards longlist finalists, including Rati Mehrotra’s Hacker’s Faire, narrated by Wilson Fowlie, and PodCastle associate editor Naru Dames Sundar’s The Weight of Sentience.

The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is an annual award celebrating the best in Canadian fantastika published during the previous calendar year. Winners receive a medallion that incorporates the Sunburst logo. Winners of both the Adult and Young Adult Sunburst Award also receive a cash prize of $1,000, while winners of the Short Story Sunburst Award receive a cash prize of $500.

The Sunburst Award takes its name from the debut novel of the late Phyllis Gotlieb, one of the first published authors of contemporary Canadian speculative fiction. Past winners of the Sunburst Award include Ruth Ozeki, Guy Gavriel Kay, Cory Doctorow, Nalo Hopkinson, Charles de Lint, Thomas King, and last year’s winner Claire Humphrey.

For additional information about the Sunburst Award, the nominees, juries, as well as previous awards, eligibility, and the selection process, please visit the official website at www.sunburstaward.org.

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Cast of Wonders 306: The Poet and the Spider

Originally published in Anathema: Spec from the Margins, December 2017

Phobia Warning: Spiders

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The Poet and the Spider

by Cynthia So

You saw the Empress once, when you were still a pillow-cheeked and blossom-mouthed child. She was tall and severe, and the train of her yellow dress flowed behind her for miles and miles, a river of pure gold. You stood behind your mother and wanted to bathe yourself in that river, and the Empress turned, her crown twinkling like a cosmos of cold stars, and she looked at you. You told everyone in your village afterwards that the Empress looked at you.

It was only for a moment. Her head was briefly inclined in your direction, and then it wasn’t. She kept walking. The river of gold frothed sumptuously past for hours, until at midday a woman interrupted it. She wore a black dress that spilled from her shoulders like ink. She held a brush in one hand, and in her other she held aloft the yellow fabric, on which she wrote in decisive strokes. In her wake, the river was no longer pure, muddied by dense black columns of characters.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 305: All Systems Go

Originally published in Spacesuits and Sixguns, Volume 2, Issue 1 (2015)

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All Systems Go

by Gerri Leen

The spaceport at Norn Five is a shining ode to order, automation, and interstellar travel. State-of-the-art communication ports dot the walls, offering instant access to loved ones, bosses, or eccentrics offering revolution at bargain prices.

Travelers move across the floors, various forms of locomotion taking them from point A to point B. Walkers tends to be the most common, but there are also floaters, crawlers, slitherers, and the odd vaporous beings that just sort of waft.

And working around it all are the units of the robotic char force. One in particular moves slowly along the wall, sucking up the residue left by one of the slithering public. It gets stuck for a moment when it hits a point where one being’s slime has mixed with another’s, making a sort of glue of the noxious kind. The bot revs forward, then backward, sucking up goop up as it goes, spritzing solvent onto the floor and then wiping it up so no one slips.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 304: The Temple of the Whale

Cast of Wonders 304: The Temple of the Whale is a Cast of Wonders original.

Content Warning: Parental grief

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The Temple of the Whale

by Karissa Sluss

Late in the morning I find Terren in our palm tree shelter, packing his few possessions: his bone knife; a collection of coral carved into various whale poses; a square of cloth he uses as a blanket on rare, cool evenings; a flask of water; a day’s supply of food, enough to carry him until he reaches the village. His intent to leave me is clear.

I rub away budding tears and cough to clear the warble trapped in my throat. Stiffening my spine, I square my shoulders, a defense against the urge to melt into quivering lump. “I see you’ve made up your mind.”

Terren rearranges things in his satchel to keep his hands busy, to keep his attention occupied. A poor pretext to keep from having to face me. “I have.”

“And you’re set on going now? It can’t wait another day?”

“Safaro wants to leave tomorrow, at first light.”

Safaro is a peddler, a tinker who regularly visits the village at the other end of the tombolo connecting our small tied island. He has seduced my son with exotic trinkets and tales of travel and adventure in the big, grand world thriving beyond our self-imposed cloister. Terrren is almost eighteen. How can I expect him to resist?

“Who’s going to help me fish and forage?” A petulant tone creeps into my voice, something I would never allow under other circumstances, but I’ve temporarily misplaced my dignity. “Whose breath will lull me to sleep at night? What will I do with myself?” I haven’t been a wife for a long time. If Terren leaves, I’ll have no one left to mother. I’ll merely be a caretaker for the legacy of a ghost.

“You’ll still have the temple,” he says, but mutters something unintelligible under his breath.

“What did you say?” I put a hand to his arm to encourage him to face me.

Terren tosses his satchel over his shoulder. His eyes glitter, hard black stones reflecting a challenge. “I said you still have the temple, but I think you should let go of Bailene, too.”

I gasp and give into the tears I’d been trying to resist.

(Continue Reading…)