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Cast of Wonders 148: Shimmer

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction (October 2012).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:45 — 19.9MB)

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Shimmer

by Amanda C. Davis

Bethany Chow is shimmering in the cafeteria like the disco ball they borrow from the seventies for every stupid school dance. Her hair is shifting through a dozen shades of black and brown, a dozen patterns of highlights and lowlights, and her eyes are changing shape so fast she seems to be constantly winking. She’s only changing height slightly these days, so people must have figured out how tall she is. She’s really settling into her shimmer. If I guess right, she’ll be shimmering the rest of her life. She’ll never be without admirers, and lots of them, to think about her and remember her and shape her.

One of her adoring lunch buddies glances over her shoulder at me, and I feel my thighs expand. The seams of my jeans dig into my skin. I have to get out of here. I leave my lunch tray where it is, grab my backpack by the straps, and bolt.

Unfortunately I pass a table full of the track team on my way out of the cafeteria. That slows me down.

In the hallway my legs snap back to normal, but I feel a few pimples come and go as I pass a boy with one amazing case of acne. He must not have any friends at all. You can usually count on people not to remember the particulars of your zit pattern–unless it’s all they know about you, and then look out. Their memories will turn you into a gargoyle.
(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 147: 30 Minutes for New Hell (Part 2)

Cast of Wonders 147: 30 Minutes for New Hell (Part 2) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:23 — 26.0MB)

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30 Minutes for New Hell

by Rick Kennett

Part 2

He checked the clock again.

Twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven …

From his vantage point at the weapons console at Com, Lieutenant Frank Peters looked first at the forward access hatch, then at the aft access hatch, speculating. Yes, he thought. Forward hatch. Definitely. It was slightly further from Scans, but more direct. And the Professor was nothing if not direct.

He leaned back and listened to the building power-song of the drive firing gravity rings down the hull, faster and faster, acting on every atom simultaneously, causing no g forces within.

Twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-two …

(Continue Reading…)

Young Writer? This Prize Is For You!

IGGY & Litro have announced their annual contest for 13 – 18 year old writers , with a cash prize of £2000 for the winning entry. The theme of this year’s competition is Myths and Legends.

You can read all the entry details here.

Good luck!

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Cast of Wonders 146: 30 Minutes for New Hell (Part 1)

Cast of Wonders 146: 30 Minutes for New Hell (Part 1) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:32 — 24.3MB)

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30 Minutes for New Hell

by Rick Kennett

Part 1

What are they doing?

Cy De Gerch leaned forward and peered at the scene on one of her repeater screens. A few minutes ago, there in the middle of a New Hell desert viewed from a high-orbit drone, the Dhooj’s vehicle had suddenly stopped – skidding on its six balloon tyres, spraying red dust. Yet none of its crew, clad in their vacuum suits and transparent helmets, had so far emerged.

Which was odd, and Cy knew it. Ever since their landing on New Hell two days ago the Dhooj had been trundling along, setting up experiments, making observations, reporting excitedly back to their home world thirty million kilometres sunward like the pioneers and explorers they were. Energetic creatures, the Dhooj, not ones to just sit. Didn’t they have geological samples to take? Water probes to drill? Low g sports to play?

On impulse Cy shivered and pulled her grey tunic closer about. There was a desert wind blowing down there. She could feel it even from so distant an orbit. The scene was too much like home, too much like Mars. And well she knew that Martian winds blew forever cold.

(Continue Reading…)

Artemis Rising

Calling all female authors! Our good friends at Escape Artists (EscapePod, Podcastle and Pseudopod) are now open to submissions for their February 2015 month of celebrating women in genre fiction.

Submissions close December 20th. You can learn more about submission criteria and procedure on their websites.

Good luck, and say hello for us!

Submission Category Update

Hello everyone! A brief update about submissions. Responses are in progress and I’ll post here again when we’re caught up.

In addition, please take a quick peek at the word counts the next time you submit a story. We’ve normalized our categories with the SWFA word counts. In brief, this means we’re no longer accepting stories over 7500 words as they fall in the novella range. We’ve done this to make sure that all our weekly episodes continue to be eligible in various industry awards under the flash and short story categories. If you have any questions, please get in touch.

As always, thanks for listening!

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Cast of Wonders 145: Tell Them Of The Sky

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction (July 2013).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:23 — 15.0MB)

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Tell Them of the Sky

by A. T. Greenblatt

She is too small, Kitkun thinks, the first time she enters his tiny workshop tucked between the market’s stalls. Too young to have left the nest alone. Yet, despite the years of waiting, he still feels a prick of hope as she steps out of the city’s unrelenting smog and over the threshold, thinking, perhaps she will be the one. Perhaps she will ask.

“Are you lost, child?” says Kitkun, setting down his tools. She is dressed in cream colored silk – a foolish color to wear in this city – but her shoes are covered in grime.

She nods. “I thought I saw a raven,” she says.

“And did you?”

Her face crumples with disappointment. “Nanny couldn’t keep up. She doesn’t believe birds exists.”

Kitkun smiles. Customers do not randomly wander into his shop. “Well, I do,” he says, pointing at the display next to her, “See?”
(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 144: The Middle Rages

Cast of Wonders 144: The Middle Rages is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:05 — 25.7MB)

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The Middle Rages

by Joseph L. Kellogg

Cale twirled his drumstick morosely as the last of the reverb from the guitars died out.

“We vent,” he finally declared, tossing the sticks down onto the snare with a clatter. He leaned against the back of the couch and crossed his arms over his ample stomach.

“No, come on,” Bendrick replied, turning toward the drums as he brushed the hair from his eyes. “That was good, we’re definitely getting better. We’ve just gotta-” He stumbled as he stepped on the cord and pulled the plug sharply from his guitar. “We’ve gotta keep practicing.”

“What for, Benny?” asked Jillan, plopping down on an amp and resting her head in her hands. “It’s not like we can ever sign a big record contract, or go on a world tour. There aren’t any opportunities on the ship, no matter how good we are.”

“Don’t you see?” Bendrick said, pulling the guitar strap over his head and setting it down. He pointed at the crude letters formed from strips of electrical tape on the base drum. “We’re The Middle Rages! It’s not about the money or the fame, it’s about the rage, the emotion. It’s about the art.”
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Cast of Wonders 143: Dagon

Originally published in issue #11 of The Vagrant (November 1919).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:01 — 25.6MB)

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Dagon

by H. P. Lovecraft

I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more. Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone, makes life endurable, I can bear the torture no longer; and shall cast myself from this garret window into the squalid street below. Do not think from my slavery to morphine that I am a weakling or a degenerate. When you have read these hastily scrawled pages you may guess, though never fully realise, why it is that I must have forgetfulness or death.
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Cast of Wonders 142: Marrow

Cast of Wonders 142: Marrow is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:20 — 27.8MB)

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Marrow

By Mav Skye

I have eyes but do not see.

I have ears but do not hear

I have a nose but I cannot smell

My mouth wears a stitched frown…

And if I get close, I suck bones out your crown.

 

What am I?

 

A gaggle of teens stalk sugar on All Hallow’s Eve. It’s a beaut of a night and we’ve got ourselves a whole crowd of ghouls. Why there’s Frankenstein and Vampire, Werewolf and Gorilla, also Kitty, Witch, and Dorothy carrying a live Toto in a basket. Toto yaps and all the kids laugh. They’re high on sugar as the moon is full. Werewolf howls, and the girls giggle. They’re carrying pillowcases overflowing with candy, pitching rocks at Mr. and Mrs. Vandyke’s cornfield. The cornstalks are picked clean as bones. And the dry, leathery sound they make when the wind blows is eerie enough to scare the nuts off a squirrel.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 141: Reading Time / A House in the Forest

Reading Time was originally published in Daily Science Fiction (August 2011)

A House in the Forest was originally published as House Woods Bugs Los Alamos in Beyond Prose (November 2008)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:14 — 24.0MB)

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Reading Time

by Beth Cato

We began to burn the books, and Dad tried to kill himself.

Almost all of the extra furniture had been burned over the previous month, leaving the upholstery and padding from sofas and chairs heaped on the big bed in what used to be just Mom’s and Dad’s room. Me and Taylor stayed in that room all day since heat rises, and we wore so many layers of clothes that it was hard to go up and down the stairs. Anyway, with so many of the walls and rooms empty, the whole house echoed so their voices really carried from the downstairs library.

“I can’t do this, Vick, I can’t. Burning books, like Nazis?”

“We are not burning books like Nazis. We’re burning books to keep our kids warm and alive. I’ve torn apart everything else first. You know that. The books are last.”

Dad made some sort of weird moan like a whale from an old nature show. “I know, I know. But if we make it out of here, what sort of world will it be without books? What sort of civilization–”

“Tom. Listen to yourself. We’re one family. There are other survivors out there. You’ve said yourself that a nuclear winter isn’t supposed to last long. It’s a drop in temperature, nothing permanent.”

“I thought it would be over by now. The smoke and debris should have cleared the atmosphere.”
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Cast of Wonders 140: Of Pumpkin Soup and Other Demons / The Ghost of Grammy Goneril

Of Pumpkin Soup and Other Demons was originally published in Coping: A Not One of Us Special Publication in 2014.

The Ghost of Grammy Goneril was originally published in Underneath the Juniper Tree in Fall 2013.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:51 — 26.4MB)

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Show Notes

It’s October, everyone. That means it’s time for our annual Halloween special. This year we’ve gone for a theme, presenting a collection of horror stories about endings, both figurative and literal. The dead and the undying. Spirits sea monsters. Apocalypses writ both large and small. Welcome to The End of the World.

Of Pumpkin Soup and Other Demons

by Natalia Theodoridou

The shutters rattled in their hinges as rainy fists banged against the wood. Katina rubbed her knuckles. They made a creaky noise. “Old bones, what did you expect?” she chuckled. “Old bodies are as good as coffins.”

She stirred the pumpkin soup boiling on the stove and tasted her wooden spoon. “Almost ready.”

The wind pounded on the door with all his might and fury. It almost sounded like knocking.

“Are you set on tearing my house down?” she asked him.

Then, another knock. And another.

Katina looked at the door, her left eyebrow raised.

“Is someone there?” she asked.

(Continue Reading…)