2018 Award Eligibility
Hello everyone, award season is right around the corner. If you are nominating and/or voting for various genre fiction awards this year, please consider our original publications listed below.
Genres: Fantasy, Modern Fantasy
Cast of Wonders 339: The Penelope Qingdom (Staff Picks 2018)
Show Notes
Every year in January, Cast of Wonders highlights some of our favorite episodes from the previous year. It’s a great chance for us to take a bit of a breather, and let you, our listeners, catch up on any missed back episodes with new commentary from a different member of the crew.
Today’s episode is hosted by associate editor Amy Brennan.
The Penelope Qingdom
by Aidan Moher
It was during the particularly frozen-solid Prince George winter of ’91, a few days after the new neighbours had arrived, that I first stumbled into the Penelope Qingdom. (Continue Reading…)
Genres: Fantasy
Cast of Wonders 338: Earn Your Breath (Staff Picks 2018)
Show Notes
Every year in January, Cast of Wonders highlights some of our favorite episodes from the previous year. It’s a great chance for us to take a bit of a breather, and let you, our listeners, catch up on any missed back episodes with new commentary from a different member of the crew.
Today’s episode is hosted by community manager Dani Daly.
Earn Your Breath
by Jaime O. Mayer
Liith had fought the Snake Island raiders every summer since her fifteenth year and had yet to taste defeat. She had dueled the boat-men of the north with their fish-belly white skin and won the pair of metal knives envied by many a man in her village. Yet, it was the sight of the latch on the cookshack door that filled her with dread. Gray Stone’s village elders said fate could not be changed, and she would rather die than prove them right. But each passing day brought her twentieth year closer, and her throat remained bare of a breath mark. (Continue Reading…)
Genres: Steampunk
Cast of Wonders 337: Silkstrand, A Minute Of
Silkstrand, A Minute Of
by Anton Stark
Imperial Majesty, Lord-for-Countless-Years, Son of Heaven, Ruler of Industry and Wisdom; this your servant Cai Jing of the Ministry of Works greets you. As per your Imperial Decree, I have compiled the following report on the matter of Master Su’s Clock and its abnormal behaviour. The facts of the case, as far as truth has presented itself, are as follows:
(Continue Reading…)
Genres: Fantasy, Modern Fantasy
Cast of Wonders 336: Little Wonders 19 – Bittersweet Christmas
The Night Before Never
by Gerri Leen
Kris Kringle moved silently through the workshop, making sure nothing had been forgotten by the elves. Normally, they’d be starting their post-toy-making-frenzy party, but this year the group was more subdued, the carols on low, with no one making merry or wearing lampshades.
Kris sighed and lifted his hand in a wave as he passed the break room, but he didn’t go in.
Inventory. Yes, inventory would take his mind in the direction it needed to go.
Toys? Check.
Lumps of coal? Check.
He peeked out the window. Elves hooking up the reindeer? Check.
Reindeer fat—but not too fat, they did have to fly—and happy? Check.
Rudolph’s nose at full power? Check.
As Kris moved from the workshop to the adjoining kitchen, he sniffed. Apple pie baking, ready to eat when he got home?
Genres: Post-Apocalypse, Science Fiction
Cast of Wonders 335: Skinned
Skinned
by Amanda Helms
So Jian thinks he needs a new skin.
He says it like it’s no big deal, just a little epidermal clean-up, Oh ha ha how’d that peeling happen? But what he means is that he has to replace his rusting face. It’s harder to accept than a pinkie finger would be, or even a whole arm. His face is him, and Jian acts like tearing it off means nothing.
He heard from someone who heard from someone that the old Smythson Cerebral place has a working rejuvpod, so that’s why we’re sneaking into an abandoned biodroid repository at two in the morning. He’s hoping he’ll get double-lucky and find a compatible stem-skin.
Jian scans the darkened landscape, probably seeking a sturdy-enough tree I could hide in, except there’s nothing but wizened trunks and naked branches.
He’s also checking for bandits. One little apocalypse and they breed like rabbits.
(Continue Reading…)
Genres: Science Fiction, Superhero, Urban Sci-Fi
Cast of Wonders 334: Secrets and Things We Don’t Say Out Loud
Secrets and Things We Don’t Say Out Loud
by José Pablo Iriarte
Blame cabin fever–I don’t usually do stupid things. (Continue Reading…)
Genres: Science Fiction
Cast of Wonders 333: Tunguska, 1987
Tunguska, 1987
by Maria Haskins
1929
Alexander was running through the snow. The rifle, and the pack of squirrel-skins pounded against his back with every step. Realization seeped into him as he ran: he had shot a Metallic. Its shiny armor hadn’t protected it. After all these years of living in fear, it had been that easy to take one down: one shot, straight into its mid-section, and the hovering thing had cracked apart and fallen to the ground.
He’d peered inside the broken remains and seen nothing but metal and wires. Nothing living hid inside. Ajax dead beside it, a mess of black and grey fur and curled tail in the snow. So much blood. The torn ear, where the neighbor’s dog had ripped into him as a pup had been the only recognizable part of his head. Best damn squirrel-dog anyone had ever had. Best damn dog anyone had ever had. And that Metallic had fired like it meant nothing.
Alexander’s heart raced as he ran. Was this what rebellion and resistance tasted like: tears and bloodied iron on your tongue, the sting of gunpowder in your nostrils?
(Continue Reading…)
Content warnings update
Hi everyone, we’ve made an addition to our content warnings – the death of pets. Thank you very much to the listener who passed along this feedback. We provide further detail on our approach to content warnings on that page. If you have further questions, feel free to contact our editor directly.
We haven’t applied this change retroactively except for the episode in question. We’re happy to update an old episode on request.
We hope this helps more listeners make the right choice for them about when or whether to listen to a particular story.
Genres: Fantasy, Rural Fantasy, Weird Western, Western
Cast of Wonders 332: The Good, the Bad, and the Utahraptor (Dinovember)
The Good, the Bad, and the Utahraptor
by Jennifer Lee Rossman
No one could say for sure exactly when the dinosaurs started appearing outside the little mining town of Hell Creek, nor where they’d come from. Rumors of cattle found dead with long slashes across their hides went back to the 1850s, but the raptors had been showing up more often in the last few decades, even coming into town when food got scarce.
People said they came from under the ground, down from the depths of Hell itself, and that the miners’ dynamite woke ’em up. Rosita’s abuela said they were descended from some kind of feathered lizard god.
Rosita didn’t particularly care about any of that. She just wanted to ride one.
Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Cast of Wonders 331: Radio Free Heartland
Radio Free Heartland
by Corey Mallonee
When the car was just a distant cloud of dust above the corn fields I turned to Smoke and told him, “You ought to know I shot someone.”
“We all do things we regret,” he said, without looking up from the circle he was drawing in the dirt. His radio sat in the middle of the circle, tuned to nothing, just a hiss of static. It was made of something he called Bakelite, which I guess is a fancy kind of old plastic. It was brown like it was supposed to look like wood.
“I didn’t say I regret it,” I said.
Genres: Science Fiction, Urban Sci-Fi
Cast of Wonders 330: The Raptor Snatchers (Dinovember)
Show Notes
Rachael had this to say: This story is part of a shared world project I did with several friends who happen to be fellow Escape Artists authors, although this is the only story in the project so far to reach publication. I’m always looking for new ways to peer pressure them into finishing their chapters of this project, so if you enjoy this one, please help me by shaming them with effusive praise on Twitter!
The Raptor Snatchers
by Rachael K. Jones
Dad said you can’t buy friends, but that’s not always true, because I bought my best friend Zilla with my 10th birthday money. She didn’t cost much because velociraptors were pests, which meant there were too many of them in Absence, and nobody liked them. Rooster’s Rescue was overflowing with raptors.
Zilla was real funny-looking. About half her brown crest feathers had fallen out, and underneath her skin was bright pink, my favorite color. At the rescue, she’d squeezed out of her pen to chase a kitten up Mr. Rooster’s trouser leg. Mr. Rooster lassoed a cord tight around Zilla’s neck and forced her back into her cage. She looked so sad, like Godzilla in movies Dad watched, getting shot by airplanes when he just wanted to be left alone, so I picked her and named her Zilla.
(Continue Reading…)