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Cast of Wonders 596: The Thief of Memory

First published in Reactor in August 2022. 

Episode image by BENMANSOUR ZAKARIA from Pixabay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:58 — 63.1MB)

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The Thief of Memory

by Sunyi Dean

Miquon set off across the endless desert to catch the Thief of Memory. On her belt she carried a knife made of ice, to freeze the Thief when she caught him. Across her back she carried a hollow staff, to siphon his stolen memories.

Hot sand burnt her bare feet as she tracked his steps over shifting dunes. Her people wore shoes for the desert heat, special ones picked out with embroidery and beads, but Miquon could no longer remember what the beads looked like or the significance of the colours, nor did she know anymore where her people might be found.

There were holes in her mind, gaps from the Thief. Until she caught him, that could not be fixed. And she knew that—how? She wasn’t sure. Fragments remained, bright constellations of truth gleaming in the emptiness of her savaged memories. Meanwhile, she went barefoot and cursed the sun. (Continue Reading…)

Cast of Wonders is a finalist for Outstanding Fiction Podcast in the Ignyte Awards!

Cast of Wonders is a finalist in the Ignyte Awards in the Outstanding Fiction Podcast category – for excellence in audio performance and production for speculative fiction. We’re sharing the shortlist with LeVar Burton Reads, Old Gods of Appalachia, our sister publication Podcastle, and the Simultaneous Times Podcast.

We’re stunned and thrilled to bits to share a shortlist with such amazing shows – if you’re not familiar with any of them, go and take a listen!  Voting for the awards is open now – and there are many other brilliant nominees in the other categories as well.

Many thanks from everyone on the team for the nomination.  If you want to see what we got up to in 2023, our 2023 original fiction and Staff Pick episodes are a great place to start.

OUTSTANDING FICTION PODCAST for excellence in audio performance and production for speculative fiction PodCastle - The Podcastle Team Old Gods of Appalachia - Steve Shell and Cam Collins Cast of Wonders - The CoW Team Simultaneous Times Podcast (Space Cowboy Books) Levar Burton Reads

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Cast of Wonders 595: Come in, Children

Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

This story was first published in issue 10 of Hexagon magazine in September 2022

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:28 — 41.8MB)

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Come In, Children

by Ai Jiang

Yejin rubbed her eyes. A cyst was growing at the edge of her right lid. She didn’t have to feel this terrible, but ever since she’d stopped draining the youth of lost children who wandered into the forest, the wrinkles had settled in, her brown hair streaked with grey, and her teeth had become brittle, sensitive to brews both too hot and too cold. She hated lukewarm tree sap water, but it would have to do.

When a knock on her door came, Yejin fumbled for her glasses on the nightstand next to her bed. The old crow that lived in the large oak with its branches draped over her mushroom-shaped house hadn’t yet called. It was far too early for the beginning of her business hours.

The rapping against her creaking wooden door quickened—staccato and urgent. But Yejin’s movements remained slow, steady, and calm, as though she were in a trance. At least it wasn’t a smart phone. Technology, she could never understand the appeal. The quietness of the forest was much more desirable than the roar of the city. She refused to use the Internet, though she snuck into the city every decade or so just to peek at the state of the world—more often than not, it was a mistake. People were foolish, brutish, shortsighted, and utterly helpless on their own, but she had renounced the world and did not intend to return, no matter how clearly they required her services. They’d have to come seek her out for it, and there would be a price—there always is. (Continue Reading…)

silhouette of two heads in autumn shades, with a foreground fractal

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Cast of Wonders 594: In this Universe, Jon Flowers is a Story

Cast of Wonders 594: In this Universe, Jon Flowers is a Story is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:54 — 17.7MB)

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In This Universe Jon Flowers is a Story

by Nathan Susnik

As Lydia takes his hand, Jon Flowers’ heart skips a beat. No, literally. It skips a beat. He has a premature ventricular contraction. It’s not dangerous, but this is his first experience with it. His knees go all wonky and he jerks his hand away. Sweat forms on his forehead; he is dizzy. His breaths shorten to gasps, and he excuses himself to the bathroom. He is dying, he thinks, having a heart attack at 26 and dying. In a state of panic, he forgets about Lydia, walks out of the restaurant, and flags a cab that takes him to the ER. They take blood, hook him up to beeping machines and tell him that nothing is wrong. They say that he should see a cardiologist for a thorough examination just to be sure. The cardiologist informs Jon that he had an anxiety attack triggered by a premature ventricular contraction. After he has been given a clean bill of health, Jon does not call Lydia. At this point in his life, he is too embarrassed about his anxiety to explain this to someone else. This is not a meet-cute. They never talk again. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 593: The Bookstore at the End of America

First published in the anthology A People’s Future of the United States edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams

Image by Mirko Stödter from Pixabay

war, political intolerance

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:22 — 76.0MB)

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The Bookstore at the End of America

by Charlie Jane Anders

A bookshop on a hill. Two front doors, two walkways lined with blank slates and grass, two identical signs welcoming customers to the First and Last Page, and a great blue building in the middle, shaped like an old-fashioned barn with a slanted tiled roof and generous rain gutters. Nobody knew how many books were inside that building, not even Molly, the owner. But if you couldn’t find it there, they probably hadn’t written it down yet.

The two walkways led to two identical front doors, with straw welcome mats, blue plank floors, and the scent of lilacs and old bindings—but then you’d see a completely different store, depending which side you entered. With two cash registers, for two separate kinds of money.

If you entered from the California side, you’d see a wall hanging: women of all ages, shapes, and origins holding hands and dancing. You’d notice the display of the latest books from a variety of small presses that clung to life in Colorado Springs and Santa Fe, from literature and poetry to cultural studies. The shelves closest to the door on the California side included a decent amount of women’s and queer studies, but also a strong selection of classic literature, going back to Virginia Woolf and Zora Neale Hurston. Plus some brand-new paperbacks.

If you came in through the American front door, the basic layout would be pretty similar, except for the big painting of the nearby Rocky Mountains, though you might notice more books on religion, and some history books with a somewhat more conservative approach. The literary books skewed a bit more toward Faulkner, Thoreau, and Hemingway, not to mention  Ayn Rand, and you might find more books of essays about self-reliance and strong families, along with another selection of low-cost paperbacks: thrillers and war novels, including brand-new releases from the big printing plant in Gatlinburg. Romance novels, too. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 592: Flawless

First published in 2013 in the short story collection Twisted Winter, edited by Catherine Butler

Image by Leonhard Niederwimmer from Pixabay

 neglect and dysfunctional relationships

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:11 — 47.0MB)

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Flawless

by Frances Hardinge

When people stay in hotel rooms, they suddenly turn into toddlers. Weird, creative, screwed-up toddlers.

Let’s smear jam on the wall! Let’s leave apple cores in the drawers! Let’s hide used nappies behind the radiator, so that they fill the whole room with the smell of cooked poo! Hello, whoever cleans this room! I’ve left you a surprise!

Maybe they think there’s some hidden handle we pull to flush the room clean. But there isn’t. The only ‘handles’ are Mum, ‘occasional Kev’ from the village, and me. Kev’s just Occasional and Mum has everything else to do, so cleaning is mostly my job, particularly during the school holidays. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 591: Scrap Dragon

First published in the January/February 2012 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

Image by Dorothe from Pixabay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:26 — 45.9MB)

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Scrap Dragon

by Naomi Kritzer

Once upon a time, there was a princess.

Does she have to be a princess? Couldn’t she be the daughter of a merchant, or a scholar, or an accountant?

An accountant? What would an accountant be doing in a pastoral fantasy setting?

The people there have money, don’t they? So they’d also have taxes and bills and profit-and-loss statements. But he could be a butcher or baker or candle-stick-maker, so long as he’s not a king. (Continue Reading…)

raw meat

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Cast of Wonders 590: Umami

Originally published in October 2019 by Sourcebooks on their FIREreads blog

Episode image by Andreas Lischka from Pixabay

cannibalism, zombies

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:17 — 26.5MB)

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Umami

by Amelinda Bérubé

Their progress through the woods had slowed to a stagger, but they kept going. They had to.

Jane shoved one booted foot through the layers of fallen leaves, then the other. Imagination kept her fear burning, prodding her forward with what if on an endless loop. What if that thing that had been her father had lurched impossibly to its feet, bent-necked and grinning, and come after them? But the sun was going down, the sky fading to pink and lavender behind the trees, and they wouldn’t be able to push forward much longer.

Emmett, ahead of her, cried out. “Look!”

Jane squinted in the direction he pointed, but the pale, twilit trees refused to stop moving after she turned her head, sliding past like tall, mocking ghosts. (Continue Reading…)

watercolour purple dragon against a sunset sky

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Cast of Wonders 589: The Answer of the Fickle Heart

Originally published in Kaleidotrope, January 2023

Image by Oberholster Venita from Pixabay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:15 — 63.0MB)

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The Answer of the Fickle Heart

by Eden Frenkel

Sophie had a fickle heart.

She didn’t know at first what fickle meant—the word reminded her of tossing a coin and waiting to see which way it lands—but her mother kept using it, and her sisters, and her brother. Maybe fickle meant that she liked sewing one day and sword-fighting the next, or that she kissed two different boys (and one girl) within the span of a single fortnight, or maybe it simply meant that she laughed too much, and often cried, and sometimes screamed.

Sophie knew, however, that there was a witch beyond the woods that bordered her village, and that witches could take care of such things for people, for the right price. She also knew that one shouldn’t—at any cost—approach a witch and ask for such a deal, because witches were cunning and snaky and fickle, in their own magical way. But Sophie was fickle too, and she wasn’t afraid. (Continue Reading…)

Image by Freepik

Congrats, Seoung Kim!

We’re thrilled to learn that Seoung Kim’s Cast of Wonders story Park’s All-Night Ramyun and Snack Emporium is listed as one of the notable works of 2023 in the 2024 edition of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Hugh Howey and John Joseph Adams.  You can see the full list of recognised stories at the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 web pages, and read/listen to the story here.