FarFetchedFables No 188 H L Fullerton

Tue, 23 Jan 2018 10:00:00 GMT

“Too Poor to Sin” by H.L. Fullerton

(Originally published in Mysterion.)

Grandfather squandered our family's fortune on forgiveness, forcing Father to enlist in the Legion and serve the angels. This was before he met Mother and they had me, though the angels' war still rages. Father doesn't say much about his years of service, except that it would've bankrupted us had he bought an honorable discharge. Instead he quit, kept his wages and is banking on God's leniency. He says he amassed those sins in God's name -- he only killed those the angels ordered him to -- and that should count for something, despite the angels' claim that sin belongs solely to the sinner. Father says God knows you can't climb to heaven without breaking a few bones.

H.L. Fullerton writes fiction — mostly speculative, occasionally about angels — which is sometimes published in places such as Lackington's, Daily Science Fiction, and Tales to Terrify. On Twitter as @ByHLFullerton.

About the Narrator:

Devin Martin is just starting out as a writer, editor, and narrator. He almost had a career teaching robots how to kill, but escaped at the last moment. He lives with his brilliant scientist of a spouse and they call Cardiff their home. He almost never tweets @devinxmartin.

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FarFetchedFables No 187 Samuel Marzioli

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 10:00:00 GMT

“Penelope's Song” by Samuel Marzioli

(Originally published in The Third Spectral Book of Horror Stories.)

Penelope gazed through her bedroom window, mesmerized by the motion of the night. Flowers trembled, grass ruffled and trees swayed, flailing their branches. The sight of it unsettled her. In fifteen years she hadn’t learned much about the world, but she did know this: when the wind was absent like it was tonight, a garden wasn’t supposed to move an inch. It could only mean one thing; the Gnasher had returned.

Samuel Marzioli is an Italian-Filipino writer of mostly dark fiction. His work has appeared in numerous publications and podcasts, including The Best of Apex Magazine (2016), Shock Totem, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, and Pseudopod. For more information about his current projects, check out his blog at marzioli.blogspot.com.

About the Narrator:

Margaret Essex lives “the good life” on a small piece of rural New South Wales, Australia, with an amazing man, a couple of pets, all the usual biting and stinging critters that make great horror stories for their visitors, and several rambunctious wombats."

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FarFetchedFables No 186 Michael Rimar

Tue, 26 Dec 2017 10:00:00 GMT

“Avarice” by Michael Rimar

(Originally published in Darwin's Evolutions.)

Shadow blocked the glare of Uttum’s twin suns. Saleem looked up at the source, a man dressed in robes pale as bleached bone.

“Offering for the poor?” Saleem kept his tone weak and pitiful, offering his wicker basket to the stranger.

“I have more than offerings for you, my young friend.” The stranger crouched down to look Saleem face to face. Eyes green as palm fronds regarded him with benevolence. Strands of ebony hair poked from underneath a spotless turban.

Saleem tensed. Anyone who called him friend usually wasn’t. Yet he didn’t run. Anyone foolish enough to run in the heat brought attention, and in the City attention equaled guilt. “Have I offended you in some manner, Isha?” He hoped to flatter the stranger by using the formal address.

“Isha?” The man flashed straight white teeth and looked about as if to see no one overheard. “You may call me Hendari. I am told I should talk to you.”

Saleem’s eyebrows rose a fraction. Hendari. The god of prosperity. Only the wealthy and powerful were so bold to name their children after gods. “What would a great man need of a child beggar?”

“Is this part of the bartering?” Hendari’s green eyes glistened with mirth. “You are less a child, and more than a beggar. I know who it is I need, and that is you.”

Michael Rimar has matured. He no longer writes witty bios with clever puns. He has stopped comparing his two daughters to pets, especially after the cease and desist order. He sees nothing funny about writing science fiction, fantasy, and some horror, although many of his stories might be considered humorous, and purposefully humorous, not this-is-so-bad-it’s-funny kind of humorous. As proof, his story, A Bunny Hug for Karl, was nominated for the 2014 Prix Aurora for the best in Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy. He is an associate publisher of Bundoran Press and co-editor of their anthology Second Contacts, which was awarded the 2016 Aurora for Best Related Work. He has also co-edited Lazarus Risen, nominated for the 2017 Aurora for Best Related Work. Mike has been published in Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, Writers of the Future XXI, and On Spec, all serious publications

despite having the occasional humorous story. If you want to learn more about Mike visit mikerimar.com. Seriously.

About the Narrator:

Growing up, everyone told Christopher Herron that he couldn't read books for a living, it simply wasn't a real job. Always one to have the last laugh, however, he decided to start down the long road of becoming a professional narrator. To help him on his way, he created the youtube channel Tall Tale TV, where he hones his skills by narrating several short stories each week for authors looking to collaborate. He can be found at TallTaleTV.com, Facebook and Twitter.

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FarFetchedFables No 185 Greg van Eekhout

Tue, 12 Dec 2017 15:08:44 GMT

“In the Late December” by Greg van Eekhout

(Originally published in Strange Horizons.)

Here's a secret of the North Pole: Santa powders his hands with talc before donning his thick red mittens.

It is a small secret, true, but some would give anything to steal even that. A secret is a detail, and here in the late December, a detail is as precious as a true name.

Santa, a red exclamation in a white world, walks the reindeer line, stroking sugar-and-cinnamon fur. The reindeer shiver and snort and stamp their hooves, the lines connecting them to the parcel-laden sleigh jingling. Santa looks over to his candy-brick castle and waves good-bye, but no one stands in the doorway to wave back. With a sigh, he climbs onto the sleigh's driver's seat, the bench creaking beneath his weight. He pauses, holding the smooth and supple leather reins, and considers how to start the team. Onward? A-heya? Giddyup? Ho-ho? No, he's already used those. He makes a point of uttering a different word to inaugurate every outing, because he's been doing this for a long time, and if he didn't deliberately insert some bit of novelty into the procedure, he fears his jolly round head might well explode. That is another detail.

Then he has it. He snaps his fingers (no mean feat in his mittens) and with a brisk snap of the reins, he shouts, "Zorxa!"

Zorxa was a great emperor whose realm once encompassed sixteen degrees of the Curvature, and though his despotic rule made him a natural enemy, Zorxa knew how to accept a gift as well as anyone.

Greg van Eekhout lives in San Diego with his astronomy/physics professor wife and two dogs. He used to develop educational software for a living, but now writes full time, which he enjoys much better. His novels range from adult science fiction and fantasy to middle grade and include The Norse Code, the California Bones trilogy, Kid vs. Squid, and The Boy at the End of the World. His next book, a middle-grade novel about dogs on a spaceship, is due out in Fall 2018. You can find more about him at his website: writingandsnacks.com.

About the Narrator:

Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake; has written for the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman; and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV. His current project, Interference (a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook... that kills), is a bestseller on Audible.com. His website for creative projects is Quillhammer.com.

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FarFetchedFables No 184 Russell Hemmell

Tue, 28 Nov 2017 10:00:00 GMT

“M” by Russell Hemmell

(Originally published in Not One of Us.)

We look like them, Christian thought, admiring the fresco in the charnel house and its ghastly figures, scary and eerily beautiful. He adjusted the heavy cloak over his shoulders. The evening was damp and cold, and he was tired after a whole day on the move. But he could not avoid that feeling of elation. He had followed her for too long, and days had become months. Years. Winters, summers, clear starry nights of patient stalking. Across desolate lands and overcrowded cities, poverty and luxury, holy retreats and dangerous havens. And now he was back to square one, where all had started. Incidentally, his birthplace, that glittering Paris so cherished and hated. Isn’t fate... ironic? Because God, for sure, has no business here. Or has He? Christian was sure about one thing, though: the place he was standing on at that precise moment was not a surprise. Where else could that creature ever find a better sanctuary? He kneeled down, covering his face with a perfumed handkerchief. The Cemetery of the Innocents, also known as Les Champeaux, was the same infamous location it had been since centuries, since Roman times. The mass graves were yet to come, and so the Black Death, and war, but the character of the place and its morbid allure were already there, near that market of Les Halles where they had remained for centuries. Conquerors and lords had passed by and ruled, different yet equally unflinching in front of massacres, diseases, famine and blood. Nationality didn’t matter a lot in the business of taking lives. Even less in trading them. The market stopped during the night, but business was florid as usual—with some of its unique perks for the Court of Miracles’ night owls. Christian had arrived just after closing and walked across the walled area, passing the fountain and heading toward the charnel houses. Quietly, he had found a suitable observation point and, hidden beneath the Danse Macabre fresco, had begun waiting for what he knew in advance would follow. He didn’t have to wait for long.

Russell Hemmell is a statistician and social scientist from the U.K, passionate about astrophysics and speculative fiction. Stories in PerihelionSF, SQ Mag, and others. Russell can be found online at earthianhivemind.net and on Twitter via @SPBianchini.

About the Narrator:

Geoffrey Welchman writes, produces, and voices The Reigning Lunatic podcast, a medieval sitcom (and 2016 Parsec Awards finalist). He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. You can find him online at geoffreywelchman.com.

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FarFetchedFables No 183 Paul R Hardy

Mon, 13 Nov 2017 10:00:31 GMT

“Customer Service Hobgoblin” by Paul R. Hardy

(Originally published in Unidentified Funny Objects 5.)

Beeep.

"Good morning, you're through to Robin. How may I receive your prayer?"

"Oh. Hello? My name is Bishop Augusto de Figueroa. Am I speaking to God?"

"No, sir, my name's Robin. How can I --"

"Well, young man, I wanted to talk to God. You see it's very important that I speak to him."

"Yes, of course, sir. You've come through on the Methodist line, is that --"

"No, no, no, this is wrong. I am Catholic."

"Well, sir, it would help if you chose the Catholic line to start with, but I can --"

"Are you a saint?"

"No, sir. I just work here. But if it's not a Methodist prayer then I need to --"

"If you're not a saint then I don't need to talk to you."

"Sir, in any case you're not going to be able to talk to God. That's not how it works."

"Good afternoon, you’re through to Paul R. Hardy’s biography. Please listen carefully to the following options: For a humorous anecdote about his employment history, press 1. For a tedious list of his writing credits, press 2. For a heartwarming glimpse of his personal life, press 3. To listen to these options again, press" -- [beep]

"You pressed 1. Paul weathered the economic crash of 2008 by working at a call centre for the London Congestion Charge, a fact which may seem relevant as you listen to the story. Unless you’ve ever had to pay the Congestion Charge, in which case you won’t be listening any further because you’ll have already thrown your device at the wall in a fit of" -- [beep]

"You pressed 2. Paul’s short stories have appeared in both the fifth and sixth editions of the Unidentified Funny Objects anthology, and will also be seen in Diabolical Plots in about a year or so -- unless you’re on an archive binge in 2065, in which case all of this happened a long time ago and the nurse will be along with your tea in just a minute, smiling indulgently at your addiction to obsolete" -- [beep]

"You pressed 3. Paul lives in the English Midlands and lives almost entirely on home-baked cakes and earl grey tea. He recently survived open heart surgery, which left him with a persistent ticking noise emanating from his chest and a rib cage held together by titanium wire. He has therefore given up any hope of passing through airport security without setting off a major" -- [click, brrr]

About the Narrator:

Rish Outfield is a writer, voice actor, and audiobook narrator. He can be heard co-hosting the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine and That Gets My Goat podcasts, where he and Bigg Anklevich entertainingly waste much of their time. He also features his own stories on the Rish Outcast podcast. He once got a job because of his Sean Connery impersonation... but has lost two due to his Samuel L. Jackson impression.

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FarFetchedFables No 182 Karen Traviss

Tue, 31 Oct 2017 09:00:00 GMT

“The Man Who Did Nothing” by Karen Traviss

(Originally published in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror: Seventeenth Annual Collection.)

Hursley Rise, May 2

There was a boy – five, maybe six – sitting on half a discarded mattress by the kerb as Jeff drove down the road. At first he thought the child was trying to open a bottle of pop, but the closer he got, the better he could see that the boy was making a petrol bomb.

Jeff slowed to a crawl and then stopped. He didn't dare switch the engine off, not here. A daffodil nodded in the grass at the side of the road and the whine of a power-drill competed intermittently with music throbbing from an open window. The normality didn't reassure him; he opened the car window about six inches.

The child was trying to thread some rags into the neck of a beer bottle, pausing every so often to hold the bottle up to the light, sigh, and resume his task of working the rag into the neck of the bottle with his index finger.

For a moment Jeff thought about getting out and taking the thing from him. Then an older boy in the latest Manchester United tracksuit walked up to the kid and crouched over him, like a protective elder brother, and took the bottle gently from him. He examined the wick, pushed it further into the bottle and handed it back to the kid.

That was how you did it. Then both boys looked up at Jeff, as if moving as one.

"Antichrist! Fuckin' antichrist!" they shouted. And the bottle – unlit, mercifully – arced and crashed onto the road just short of the driver's door. Both boys ran back up the road, not looking back.

Karen Traviss is the author of a dozen New York Times bestsellers, and her critically-acclaimed Wess’har books have been finalists five times for the Campbell and Philip K. Dick awards. Her latest novels, Going Grey and Black Run, are military thrillers set in the present day. Her comics work with Batman, Gears of War, and G.I. Joe has earned her a broad range of fans, and she also writes games. A former defence correspondent, newspaper reporter, and TV journalist, she lives in Wiltshire, England. You can find information on her works at karentraviss.com.

About the Narrator:

Ron Jon is a writer, narrator, and singer. He has written and published children’s books, scripts and screenplays for animation and live action, and musical lyrics and libretti. He is a student of strange phenomena/parapsychology, horror, and children’s literature. Ron Jon writes short weird fiction under the name ‘the spectre collector’. See his disturbing videos and hear more of his work on ‘the spectre collector’ blog. Download his disturbing albums on ‘the spectre collector’ Bandcamp site. His latest recordings are 'the car in the woods' and 'the stationmaster’s cottage'.

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FarFetchedFables No 181 Judith Field

Tue, 24 Oct 2017 07:00:00 GMT

“Psychopomps” by Judith Field(Originally published in The Colored Lens, Summer 2014.)Mark’s next door neighbour and business partner Pat kept telling him that power flowed through his veins. He took a breath and closed his eyes, trying to will the power back out again and into the ash wand in his outstretched hand. He pointed it at Pat’s door. A narrow beam of blue light squeezed out of the end and hit the lock. Nothing happened. Sighing, he folded the wand and put it in his pocket. He took out his key and let himself into her house.He heard her moving around in the kitchen, back from sorting out the invasion of reptilian arsonists in a garden in Llandudno the day before, while he had expelled a banshee from a pub in Macclesfield. This morning’s job was to sort out an elderly-care home with a spirit infestation. Mark opened the kitchen door.Pat coughed, wafting her hand at a cloud of green fumes. ‘Damn, they’re still moving,’ she said.Judith Field lives in London. She’s a pharmacist and medical indexer and editor. The daughter of writers, she learned how to agonize over fiction submissions at her mother’s (and father’s) knee. In 2009, she made a New Year resolution to start writing and get published within the year. Pretty soon she realized how unrealistic that was but, in fact, it worked because she got a slot to write a weekly column in a local paper shortly before the end of the year. It ran for a several years and she still writes occasional feature articles for the paper. Her non-fiction articles have appeared in genealogy and general interest magazines. Her fiction, mainly speculative, has appeared in a variety of publications in the USA, UK, and Australia. She speaks five languages and can say, “Please publish this story” in all of them. When not writing she works at the day job, studies for a Masters in English, sings, and swims. She is Science Fiction Editor at Red Sun Magazine. You can find her work here.About the Narrator:Matt Dovey is very tall and very English and most likely drinking a cup of tea right now. He has a scar on his arm that he can't remember getting, but a terrible darkness floods his mind when he considers it. He now lives in a quiet market town in rural England with his wife and three children, and despite being a writer, he still hasn't found the right words to properly express the delight and joy he finds in this wonderful arrangement.His surname rhymes with "Dopey", but any other similarities to the dwarf are purely coincidental. He is the Golden Pen winner for Writers of the Future Volume 32 (2016), was shortlisted for the James White Award in 2016, and has fiction out and forthcoming all over the place; you can keep up with it at mattdovey.com, or follow along on Facebook and Twitter.

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FarFetchedFables No 180 Dave Smeds

Tue, 17 Oct 2017 07:00:00 GMT

“The Tavern at the Ford” by Dave Smeds(Originally published in Sword and Sorceress XXVIII.)Until that awful night, Azure had always assumed she would live out her entire life in thevillage. That’s how it had been for generations.Grandpa had shared the history one day while standing with her on the old stone bridge.“There used to be a ford there,” he said, pointing to the willow flats where Coil and Azure likedto play. Grandpa’s great-grandmother Cinnamon had drowned there while crossing the river. Herhusband Fleet had built the bridge in her memory, working through his grief by making sure noone else would die that way.Dave Smeds has authored novels, short fiction, comic book scripts, and screenplays in a variety of genres including science fiction, contemporary fantasy, superhero, martial arts, horror, and erotica, but he is particularly at home when writing imaginary-world fantasy, as in his novels The Sorcery Within, The Schemes of Dragons, and the forthcoming The Wizard's Nemesis. He is even more at home with imaginary-world short fiction, which has appeared in magazines such as Realms of Fantasy and anthologies such as Dragons of Light, Sorceries, Enchanted Forests, Return to Avalon, Lace and Blade 1, 3, and 4, and in seventeen volumes of Sword and Sorceress. He lives in the wine country of northern California with his wife and son.About the Narrator:Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head, who looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. Having escaped from the sinister forces of Texas, he has retreated to an ingeniously disguised bunker in a secure, undisclosed location in Burnsville, Minnesota. His life goal is to someday annoy someone into letting him voice a part on Escape Pod, but until then, he'd be happy to voice a project for you. yes, you in the checked shirt. Contact him on Google Plus, or on Twitter at @AlephBaker.

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FarFetchedFables No 179 K G Anderson

Tue, 10 Oct 2017 09:00:00 GMT

“Unraveling” by K.G. Anderson(Originally published in Triangulation: Beneath the Surface.)"Sarah -- he's using you!" My voice rose into the whine my daughter loathed, but I couldn't stop. I pressed the phone to my ear. "You're 16. I absolutely forbid -- "My runaway daughter informed me that she hated me."Have fun with the old witches," she said, and hung up.I climbed out of the car, slammed the battered door, and slumped against the sun-baked metal. Gradually my heartbeat slowed, but still felt frighteningly uneven. Fail-ure, fail-ure, FAIL-ure, it thumped.K.G. Anderson grew up listening to her elders, many of whom held to the ways of the Old Country. What they talked about — and what they refused to discuss — inspires much of her fiction. You’ll find K.G.’s stories in anthologies such as Second Contacts, The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper Stories, Triangulation: Appetites, and Alternative Truths, as well as online at Metaphorosis, Ares Magazine, and Every Day Fiction. K.G. attended the Viable Paradise and Taos Toolbox writing workshops. She currently lives in Seattle, where she works as a journalist and technology writer. You can find out more at writerway.com/fiction.About the Narrator:Fran Carris is whatever she decides to be when she wakes up each morning. She has also been known to be a voice talent, performance artist, and poet, and professional dabbler in other arts that express. You can find her online at misfran.com.

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FarFetchedFables No 178 Evan Dicken

Tue, 03 Oct 2017 09:00:00 GMT

“Mouth of the Jaguar” by Evan Dicken(Originally published in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #20.)Hummingbird was to be the final sacrifice of the day. The man before her struggled on a raisedstone slab, chest heaving as a flock of blood-spattered priests pinned his arms and legs. Sunlight glitteredon the Cazonci's obsidian dagger--curved like a jaguar's claw to better hook bone and tear flesh. Thecrowd around the ziggurat waited, caught in the anxious pause between lightning and thunder.The blade fell, but Hummingbird's gaze was not on the shrieking victim. Above, the sun waswhite-gold in a sky clear as the eastern sea. Lake Pátzcuaro sparkled in the light, the riot of sedge andcattails along its banks flecked with motes of bright color as wading birds combed the shallows for fish.The breeze shifted, cutting the heavy pall of incense with scents of wood smoke and cooking meat fromthe city below. Although they had been the enemies of her people for generations, the Tarascans sharedmuch with the Azteca. If not for the guards holding her arms, Hummingbird might have even imaginedherself back in Tenochtitlan as it was before the fall.The sacrifice gave a gurgling cough as the Cazonci cut his heart free of its bloody nest of bone.The priests began a slow, twirling dance, but Hummingbird ignored them, her gaze fixed on the sun. Shedidn't look away even when tears stung her eyes. There was a small pulse of light, quick as a leaf on abonfire. The crowd roared, and Hummingbird prepared herself.By day, Evan Dicken studies old Japanese maps and crunches data for all manner of fascinating medical research at the Ohio State University. By night, he does neither of these things. His fantasy fiction has most recently appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, and Daily Science Fiction, and he has stories forthcoming from publishers such as Chaosium and Gallery of Curiosities. Feel free to look him up at evandicken.com, where he wastes both his time and yours. "Mouth of the Jaguar" originally appeared in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #20, and as luck would have it, the fine editors of that magazine recently published another Hummingbird story in their August 2017 issue.About the Narrators:Summer Brooks is a bit of a television addict, and enjoys putting her sci-fi media geek skills to good use in interviewing guests. She has been a co-host for Slice of SciFi from 2005-2009, the co-host for The Babylon Podcast from 2006-2012, and host of Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas, before returning to Slice of SciFi full time as host and producer in August 2014.She is an avid reader and writer of sci-fi, fantasy, and thrillers, with a handful of publishing credits to her name. Next on her agenda is writing an urban fantasy tale, and a B-movie monster extravaganza.Currently, Summer designs and maintains websites for clients in addition to having fun with the Slice of SciFi websites, and also does voiceover & narrations for Tales to Terrify, StarShip Sofa, and Escape Pod, among others.

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FarFetchedFables No 177 David Morrell

Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:00:00 GMT

Main Story: “Perchance to Dream” by David Morrell(Originally published in Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy.)Dr. Baker.Dr. Baker.He came to my office on a Friday afternoon. Tall, slender, and sandy-haired, he had a thin, aristocratic face that might have been handsome if it weren’t so haggard. His eyes looked puffy. Red streaked their whites. I was surprised when I later learned that he was forty. He appeared at least ten years older.He said his name was Jody Cooke – he spelled his last name, emphasizing the final “e” – and when I introduced myself as Dr. Gerald Baker, he frowned. “Baker. We’re both in that nursery rhyme.”“Nursery rhyme?”“The baker, the cook, and the candlestick maker.”“You’ve got it slightly wrong,” I said.“Wrong?”“In the nursery rhyme, it’s the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker.”“Ah, yes, the butcher,” Jody said, his raw eyes looking pained.David Morrell is the author of First Blood, the award-winning novel in which Rambo was created. He holds a Ph.D. in American literature from Penn State and was a professor in the English department at the University of Iowa. His numerous best-selling novels include the classic espionage novel The Brotherhood of the Rose, the basis for the only television mini-series to be broadcast after a Super Bowl. An Edgar and Anthony finalist, an Inkpot, Macavity and Nero recipient, Morrell has three Bram Stoker awards and ITW’s prestigious Thriller Master award. Bouchercon, the world’s largest conference for crime-fiction readers and authors, gave him its Lifetime Achievement award. His work has been translated into 30 languages. Please visit him at davidmorrell.net.About the Narrator:Rish Outfield is a writer, voice actor, and audiobook narrator. He can be heard co-hosting the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine and That Gets My Goat podcasts, where he and Bigg Anklevich entertainingly waste much of their time. He also features his own stories on the Rish Outcast podcast. He once got a job because of his Sean Connery impersonation... but has lost two due to his Samuel L. Jackson impression.

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FarFetchedFables No 176 Donald Jacob Uitvlugt

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 07:00:00 GMT

“The Hour of the Rat” by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt(Originally published in Cirsova Magazine #1.)shigururu ya               winter rainnezumi no wataru      a mouse runskoto no ue                  across the koto-- Yosa Buson (1716-1783)Nezumi's heart pounded as she pressed against the wall. She willed herself to be as invisible as the night all around her. She put a hand over her mouth so that the puffs of her breath would not give away her position. Within the estate beyond the wall, a guard approached her position. Nezumi whispered under her breath."Namo amida butsu. Namo amida butsu..."She used the prayer to keep time. Two hundred repetitions between the passes of the guards as they made their rounds. Not much time to get over the wall. Nezumi shivered. It was going to rain. She didn't know how she knew, but she always knew.There. One hundred. The guard would be at his farthest point away. Nezumi pulled out the rope she had hidden in the folds of her dark kimono. It took tries, but the rock tied to the end finally caught on the tree in the courtyard beyond. Nezumi scrambled over the wall and dropped down into the shadows behind the tree. She heard footsteps on the gravel path and froze.Donald Jacob Uitvlugt lives on neither coast of the United States, but mostly in a haunted memory palace of his own design. His short fiction has appeared in numerous print and online venues, including Cirsova Magazine and Flametree Publishing's Science Fiction anthology. He strives to write what he calls "haiku fiction", stories that are small in scale but big in impact. If you enjoyed "The Hour of the Rat," let him know at haikufiction.blogspot.com or on Twitter as @haikufictiondju.About the Narrator:Deanna Sanchez is a voiceover artist and actress who has performed professionally for 14 years. She has voiced various commercials, industrials, and characters, and specializes in the “sexy voice” of powerful female roles. An avid fan of science fiction since her grandfather gave her a copy of Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky when she was 9, she feels greatly privileged to help bring this story to life. While pursuing a voice talent and acting career, Deanna also consults in Geographical Information Systems and develops custom mapping applications for real estate and other industries. Her background in IT management does not prevent her from owning multiple old computers, some with Windows 98 still running. Three-dimensional visualization of spatial data is a favorite pastime, and she has spent many hours translating real-Earth elevation data into unique 3-D worlds. Deanna’s voice over demo can be heard at the Lambert Studios website, an outstanding full service recording studio.

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FarFetchedFables No 175 Jakob Drud

Tue, 12 Sep 2017 15:00:00 GMT

“The Demi-Arcanist's Will” by Jakob Drud(Originally published in The Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Volume 2.)The cabinet was all but invisible in the fumes, except in the spot where Jarn Dinaris wove his grounding seam into Master Elosivan's seam of transmission. There the metal hissed and glowed in dark purples as they wove the commissioned refrigeration pattern.Jarn's focus on the pattern was so complete that he didn't immediately detect the failure in old Master Elosivan's concentration. He only became aware that something was amiss when a searing whipback knocked the old man down. Deep pain wrenched the old man's kind wrinkles, only to be replaced by a look of utter confusion that made Jarn's own chest hurt as if he'd been the one struck by the whipback.Twenty years of routine kept Jarn from cutting off his grounding seam, which would have resulted in another whipback aimed at himself. He slowly let go of his grounding source and sought a push flow to open the window, venting the stench of molten metal into the city.Jakob Drud lives in Denmark with his wife and children. It's a good life, but his stories are probably more exciting than he is. They've met aliens, lived in the Sun, fought monsters and flown between the stars. They also travel more than he does, and so far they've appeared in magazines in the US, Canada and Australia.About the Narrator:Alex Weinle lives in a cottage just outside Cambridge where he writes science fiction and narrates stories. His new fridge is bigger than the cottage itself, somewhat like the TARDIS but containing far more calories.

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FarFetchedFables No 174 Molly N Moss and Khalidaah Muhammad-Ali

Tue, 05 Sep 2017 09:00:00 GMT

Flash Fiction: “The Banshee Behind Beamon's Bakery” by Khalidaah Muhammad-Ali(Originally published in Diabolical Plots #21.)Most nights the alley behind Beamon’s Bakery is just an alley.The street lamp bleeds piss yellow light, casting jagged shadows around the overflowing dumpster and discarded boxes. The walls are tagged with gang signs, claiming territory that was never theirs, yardage, bodies, souls, rights.Some nights a transient clears away the broken glass, the random detritus, to squat for the night. Setting up camp here has its own rewards. The warmth that seeps through the bakery walls and through brick facing chases away the chill, but not the ghosts. This is the drawback, you see. The alley is never as vacant as it may seem at first, never as lonely as one may wish. The price of physical warmth is the chilling of your soul.Khalidaah Muhammad-Ali lives in Houston, Texas, with her family. By day she works as a breast oncology nurse. At all other times, she juggles, none too successfully, the multiple other facets of her very busy life. Khaalidah has been published at or has publications upcoming in Strange Horizons, Fiyah Magazine, Diabolical Plots, and others. You can also hear her narrations at any of the four Escape Artists podcasts, Far Fetched Fables, and Strange Horizons. Khaalidah is also co-editor at PodCastle audio magazine, where she is on a mission to encourage more women and POC to submit fantasy stories. Of her alter ego, K from the planet Vega, it is rumored that she owns a time machine and knows the secret to immortality. She can be found online at khaalidah.com and on Twitter as @khaalidah.Author's note: The unjust violent death of Michael Brown at the hands of a police officer was the specific impetus for this story. I tried to imagine what his mother must’ve been feeling upon learning about her son’s death. This wasn’t difficult because I have a son as well. I tried to impart the feeling of rage and horror I, any mother, would feel upon learning that her son was taken away in such a violent horrific way.Main Story: “Gust of Wind Made by a Swinging Blade” by Molly N. Moss(Originally published in Weirdbook #32.)Again, Kinnori strained against the ropes binding him, his muscles already throbbing from exertion. Once again, the cords sliced his flesh and yielded not at all.It was dark in the hold of the guard-ship Murakumo, and a gathering chill numbed his fingers. Rolling waves conspired with exhaustion to make Kinnori's eyelids grow heavy. He shook himself and growled, “Escape or die, Shoji Kinnori.”Molly N. Moss is the pen name of a tuxedo housecat named Marlene who lives in Athens, Georgia. When Marlene got bored with being left alone all day every day, she taught herself to read fiction as a hobby. After a while she decided to try writing fiction of her own. Marlene's fiction has appeared in numerous publications, including Weird Tales, Bards & Sages Quarterly, and the anthology Dark Magic: Witches, Hackers, & Robots.About the Narrator:"The Banshee" is read by the author; see bio above.Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake; has written for the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman; and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV.  His current project, Interference (a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook... that kills), is a bestseller on Audible.com. His website for creative projects is Quillhammer.com.

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FarFetchedFables No 173 Sarah L Byrne

Tue, 29 Aug 2017 07:00:00 GMT

“Princess Cosima and the 1,000 Cats” by Sarah L. Byrne(Originally published in Betwixt #4.)"Provide ships or sails adapted to the heavenly breezes, and there will be some who will not fear even that void." -- Johannes Kepler, 1610The red palace was home to a thousand cats. Or so people said. Princess Cosima, twenty, beautiful and bored, walked through the courtyards until she saw a lithe sandy female sunning itself on the flagstones. She slipped into the cat's mind and sent it prowling across the square, scrambling up the red stone wall onto a tiled canopy and darting over the battlements above towards the nearest tower.Sarah L. Byrne is a scientific editor and writer in London, UK. Her short speculative fiction has appeared in various publications, including Daily Science Fiction, Nature, and Best of British Science Fiction 2016. She can be found online at sarahbyrne.org/fiction.About the Narrator:Tatiana Grey is a critically acclaimed actress of stage, screen, and the audio booth. She has been nominated for dozens of fancy awards but hasn’t won a single damned thing. However, she does have a feature film hitting the festival circuit, called Serious Laundry. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Learn more about her at tatianagrey.com.

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FarFetchedFables No 172 Hal Duncan

Tue, 22 Aug 2017 15:00:00 GMT

Main Story: “The Tower of Morning's Bones” by Hal Duncan(Originally published in Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy.)“Once upon a time, the land of Shuber and Hamazi,Many tongued Sumer, the great Land of princeship’s divine laws,Uri, the land having all that is appropriate,The land Martu, resting in security,The whole universe, the people in unison,To Enlil, in one tongue gave praise."— Samuel N. Kramer (trans.), Enmerkar and The Lord of ArattaDaybreak in the UnderworldA dream, astream, a babe asleep, alone by babbalong of riveron, past shimmer falls & hinter springs, we finned a wolfchild in invernal wildwoods—where?See there? we say.A marblous youth carved out in white & green of mirrormoon & veins of vines: a singer slain. Muses & furies dance around him in an Amazon of maize. The winged horse of his sylph sups at the water lapping, slapping, at his feet. Flowers & leaves form almost a blankout over him.What is his name? we quiz. If we could kissper it in his ear, he might arise out of the night, into the mourning.Away, we scoff at our others.A way? A — wait! He is awakening.Hal Duncan is the author of Vellum and Ink, more recently Testament, and numerous short stories, poems, essays, and even some musicals. Homophobic hate mail once dubbed him "THE.... Sodomite Hal Duncan!!" [sic], and you can find him online at halduncan.com or at his Patreon for readings, reveling in that role.About the Narrator:Seth Williams is the avatar for a three-kilometer sentient starship that is parked (probably uncomfortably) close to the third planet. Surprisingly, he has not yet been discovered. He is very happy that the inhabitants have discovered enough technology to that he can communicate in this limited fashion. Any communications can be directed to theboojum.org.

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FarFetchedFables No 171 Tracy Canfield

Tue, 15 Aug 2017 07:00:00 GMT

“The Seal of Sulaymaan” by Tracy Canfield(Originally published in Fantasy Magazine, July 2010.)Back when there were other ifriit to talk to, I’d tell them Morocco was as far as you can get from Mecca without leaving civilization. In Agadir, with its casinos and five-star hotels and nightclubs filled with Moroccan tourists sporting European fashions too daring to wear at home, even these most fractious of beings could not have argued; but here, a mere twenty miles out of town, I could barely have spoken the words myself without laughing. A thousand and one trashbags flapped and snapped on the branches of the argan trees, blown by the June breeze from every dump in the country. A plastic Ayn Sultaan bottle arced from the window of a passing truck, trailing a mist of carbonated mineral water, and bounced in the dust.Except for the bags, the bottle, and the asphalt road, the landscape was much as I had always known it: rolling hills and twisted gray-green trees, dust and blue sky. One tall tree had been cleared of bags, and a herd of goats perched among its branches, nibbling the pointed argan fruit. A goatherd in a dusty jalbiib leaned on his stick and watched them. I thought of King Sulaymaan (may they build a halaal McDonalds on his grave) leaning on his own stick and took a step out of my way to crush the Ayn Sultaan bottle under my heel.Tracy Canfield’s short fantasy and science fiction has appeared in Analog, Strange Horizons, and other magazines and anthologies. She is a computational linguist who CNN once called a "Klingon scholar" for her work on the Jenolan Caves’ Klingon-language audio tour. Currently, she’s currently developing a computer game based on her space opera novelette “Salvage” for Choice of Games LLC. You can find her on Twitter as @TracyCanfield.About the Narrator:Khalidaah Muhammad-Ali lives in Houston, Texas, with her family. By day she works as a breast oncology nurse. At all other times, she juggles, none too successfully, the multiple other facets of her very busy life. Khaalidah has been published at or has publications upcoming in Strange Horizons, Fiyah Magazine, Diabolical Plots, and others. You can also hear her narrations at any of the four Escape Artists podcasts, Far Fetched Fables, and Strange Horizons. Khaalidah is also co-editor at PodCastle audio magazine, where she is on a mission to encourage more women and POC to submit fantasy stories. Of her alter ego, K from the planet Vega, it is rumored that she owns a time machine and knows the secret to immortality. She can be found online at khaalidah.com and on Twitter as @khaalidah.

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FarFetchedFables No 170 Dennis Mombauer

Tue, 08 Aug 2017 07:00:00 GMT

“The Breeding Dust” by Dennis Mombauer(Originally published in Outliers of Speculative Fiction.)Silent, angular houses with white plaster, a sand-suffocated well and a couple of stunted palms huddled together on the low ground, a once bustling city that only the ghostly desert wind inhabited now.The sun gleamed down without mercy, hanging in the sky as a swirling ball that made the air flicker, and the small caravan decided to rest in this ancient oasis. The camels were led down the loose sand dunes and racked up in the shadow of the ruined walls, while the men sought refuge in one of the best-preserved buildings.Scattered sunbeams fell in through holes in the roof and illuminated dusty rubble, but it was comfortably cool compared to the heat outside. Everyone looked for a place to sit, drank freshly cooked tea and tried to pay as little attention as possible to the wind, which seemed to carry along doleful whispers from a prouder time.The men agreed to wait for nightfall or late afternoon before they would continue their journey, although a short examination found the well waterless and the rest of the city equally empty, not even home to bones or mummified remains.Dennis Mombauer was born in 1984 in the namesake capital of the Bonn Republic and raised along the Rhine river. He currently lives and works as a theater agent and freelance author in Cologne, and rites weird fiction, textual experiments, and literary essays as well as non-naturalist drama and English poetry acculturated with German. He translates both fiction and non-fiction, and is the editor, co-founder, and co-publisher of Die Novelle – Magazine for Experimentalism. Dennis' publications have appeared in various small- to medium-sized magazines and anthologies. He can be found online at dennismombauer.com.About the Narrator:Cheyenne Wright is a freelance illustrator and concept artist. He is the color artist on the three-time Hugo Award winning steampunk graphic novel series Girl Genius, and co-creator of many other fine works; Including 50 Fathoms and the Ennie award winning Deadlands Noir for the Savage Worlds RPG. He has also produced graphics for Star Trek Online, the Champions MMO, and t-shirt designs for TV’s Alton Brown. Cheyenne lives in Seattle with his wife, their daughter, and an ever growing stack of unpainted miniatures. In his spare time he is teaching himself animation, and narrates short stories for a variety of audio anthologies where he is known as podcasting’s Mr. Buttery ManVoice™. You can find him online at arcanetimes.com.

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FarFetchedFables No 169 Michelle Ann King

Tue, 01 Aug 2017 09:00:00 GMT

“Where There's Magic” by Michelle Ann King(Originally published in Kaleidotrope, April 2016.)The witch had a favourite saying: where there's life, there's magic. There was a second part -- where there's magic, there's death -- but she usually kept that to herself.She placed the newborn into the father's arms. He gazed upon the babe with wonder, then upon his wife with concern."Why does she still scream?" he said. "Can't you ease her pain?""There is still pain because she carries twins. There is a second part of this birth to come."The mother lifted her head from the sweat-soaked pillow and shrieked louder. The witch went back to her work.They called the first child Heavenly Gift. She had clothes and toys and kittens awaiting her, all stamped and stitched and branded with her name. There was also further coin for the witch, to perform magical blessings for her good fortune.Her twin, unexpected and unasked for, had none of these things. They called this girl Second Part."That's not going to end well," the witch said, but nobody listened.Since she hadn't been paid for divination, she didn't try to make them.Michelle Ann King was born in East London and now lives in Essex. Her stories have appeared in over seventy different venues, including Interzone, Strange Horizons, and Black Static. Her favourite author is Stephen King (sadly, no relation), and she also loves zombies, Las Vegas, and good Scotch whisky. Her first short story collection, Transient Tales, is available in ebook and paperback from Amazon and other online retailers.About the Narrator:Nikolle Doolin a voice actor and a writer of fiction, scripts, and poetry. She has performed narrations for a number of popular and award-winning podcasts, such as The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify, and StarShip Sofa. She also narrates classic literature in her own podcast Audio Literature Odyssey. To learn more about Nikolle, visit her website at nikolledoolin.com.

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FarFetchedFables No 168 Robert J Santa and Tonya Liburd

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 09:00:00 GMT

"“Princess Lily's Wedding” by Robert J. Santa(Originally published in Blood, Blade & Thruster.)"I love him, Daddy!"King Frederick breathed deeply. It had been a very long conversation with his youngest child, punctuated by much pouting and exasperated sighing and stomping of pretty feet. Frederick stood over her while she held her face in her hands and cried. He wanted to do nothing more than pout and sigh and stomp his feet. Of course, he couldn't, even in his daughter's bedroom with no one else to see.Kings had to uphold higher standards, especially with sixteen year-old daughters.Robert J. Santa has been writing speculative fiction for more than thirty years. His works have appeared in numerous online and print markets. Robert lives in Rhode Island, USA, with his beautiful wife and two, equally beautiful daughters, one of whom is named Lily. And while she is nothing like the Lily of this tale, she could be without stretching the imagination too much.“Shoe Man” by Tonya Liburd(Originally published in Expanded Horizons, July 2016.)Somewhere in downtown Toronto, a homeless black man had shoes whose soles were flapping. He refused to give them up, no matter what people said, no matter what people offered. They were the first things he ever bought in Canada, the shoes he wore to his wedding, so long ago. The wedding that was supposed to mark the beginning of a new life, a good life in Canada.A good life… they were pretty young, he had a wife, he had a daughter, he had a job… then the illness reared its head and took over. And everything spiraled out of control. No medications would make his mind whole again; the fear and confusion from his wife, the fights. The guilt over his daughter witnessing it all. When his wife died instantly from the car accident while he got barely a scratch – fortunately their daughter wasn’t with them – it was the last thing he could take, and he remembered just everything conspiring to force him out the door and leave everything behind. Well, almost. He still had his shoes.That was years ago.Tonya Liburd shares a birthday with Simeon Daniel and Ray Bradbury, which may tell you a little something about her; and while she has an enviable collection of vintage dust bunnies to her credit, her passions are music (someday!) and of course, words. Her poetry has been nominated for the Rhysling award, and her fiction has been long-listed in the 2015 Carter V. Cooper (Vanderbilt)/Exile Short Fiction Competition. Her story “The Ace of Knives” is in the anthology Postscripts to Darkness 6, and is used in Nisi Shawl’s workshops as an example of "code switching". She is the associate editor of Abyss & Apex magazine. You can find her blogging at spiderlilly.com or on Twitter as @somesillywowzer, and support her over at Patreon.com/TonyaLiburd.About the Narrators:Matt Dovey is very tall and very English and most likely drinking a cup of tea right now. He has a scar on his arm that he can't remember getting, but a terrible darkness floods his mind when he considers it. He now lives in a quiet market town in rural England with his wife and three children, and despite being a writer, he still hasn't found the right words to properly express the delight and joy he finds in this wonderful arrangement.His surname rhymes with "Dopey", but any other similarities to the dwarf are purely coincidental. He is the Golden Pen winner for Writers of the Future Volume 32 (2016), was shortlisted for the James White Award in 2016, and has fiction out and forthcoming all over the place; you can keep up with it at mattdovey.com, or follow along on Facebook and Twitter.Cris Maycock is a Bajan Yankee who has lived in Brooklyn most of her life, a beach lover, a food lover, and a sci-fi fan who likes to think that she is both scientific and creative. Cris loves storytelling and the performance medium of audio books."

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FarFetchedFables No 167 Alter S Reiss

Tue, 18 Jul 2017 09:00:00 GMT

"“By Appointment to the Throne” by Alter S. Reiss(Originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #155.)Getting up early enough to open a kitchen hurts. Leaving a warm bed before second watch makes your head ache, and you can feel the chill going from the cobbles through your feet and into your soul. When it's wet on top of the cold, it's the nearest thing to hell. But once I'm there and I'm in the rhythm, it just moves. I check the carcasses as they come in, kick up a fuss if they try to give us short weight or diseased animals, and then I lift them up, bring them in, and take them apart. Hook and cleaver work for two, sometimes three hours.A lot of the Xac refugees working at the Mountain Pine are Sisori, so the hour before dawn, they'll do their prayers out in the garden. I don't mind, even though it slows us down when we need to speed up; I'd rather work with people who stop for prayers and stagger through fast days than with children glittering on juice, or gangs, or spirit.Just after the Sisori came back from morning prayers one of the dishwashers ran in, bloody and yelling.  My first thought was one of the gangs had taken a knife to him. Uncle Cestin owned the Mountain Pine and he paid protection most months, but sometimes not, and gang kids have more glitter than sense. But the washer was bloody, not bleeding, and he was yelling in Xactan about a girl named Meica.Alter S. Reiss lives in Jerusalem with his wife Naomi and their son Uriel. According to his mother, his first word was "book", which seems about right. He likes good food, bad movies, and hopes that at some point his apartment won't be under construction. He is occasionally on Twitter as @asreiss, and he has a somewhat bare-bones website at altersreiss.wordpress.com.About the Narrator:Roberto Suarez is a higher-education professional who loves all things fantasy and science fiction, comic books and board games He is the co-host and producer of A Pod of Casts: The Game of Thrones Podcast and Radio Westworld: The Westworld Podcast. You can find Roberto on the web at robertosuarez.me, or on Twitter via @PuertoGeekan."

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FarFetchedFables No 166 Scott Huggins

Tue, 11 Jul 2017 09:00:00 GMT

"“Phoenix for the Amateur Chef” by Scott Huggins(Originally published in Sword and Sorceress 30.)The phoenix fell.Its sobbing death cry silenced by a coat of ravening flame, it corkscrewed to earth, bleeding dirty white fire across the dusk.What struck the cliff face above our heads was a ball of charred meat. We ducked the searing gobbet of flesh. Only a little pile of ash and bone was left, rapidly whitening, like charcoal.I looked at Tywin, who stood sucking his teeth and polishing his great stonebow. He dropped the remaining stones to the earth, unanointed by Trelesta’s unguent.“Well, shit,” I said finally.Scott Huggins grew up in the American Midwest and has lived there all his life, except for interludes in the European Midwest (Germany) and East (Russia). He is currently responsible for securing America’s future by teaching its past to high school students, many of whom learn things before going to college. His preferred method of teaching and examination is strategic warfare. He loves to read high fantasy, space opera, and parodies of the same. He wants to be a hybrid of G.K. Chesterton and Terry Pratchett when he counteracts the effects of having grown up. When he is not teaching or writing, he devotes himself to his wife, their three children, and his cat.About the Narrator:Andrea Richardson is a British singer and actress. With extensive stage and film performances to her name, she began narration and voiceover work in 2014 but enjoys using her existing skills in a different way. You can find Andrea at andrea-richardson.co.uk and on Facebook."

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FarFetchedFables No 165 Valjeanne Jeffers and Ed Ahern

Tue, 04 Jul 2017 09:00:00 GMT

"“The Sickness” by Valjeanne Jeffers(Originally published in Griots: Sisters of the Spear.)The Bini warriors crouched in the high grass of the savanna. They'd passed the Fula borders a mile back, and now were a hundred yards from the Adobe mud city. At the forefront they were armed with sword and shield, behind them the archers readied their bows.General Chinua led the army. To his right was Nandi, a tall woman with braided hair, high cheekbones and full lips and her ebony-skinned husband, Sula, his head shaved in the traditional Bini custom. To Chinua's left was Nandi's older brother, Tomi.A wide gateway led into the Fula kingdom. It was deserted.Valjeanne Jeffers is a graduate of Spelman College, a member of the Carolina African American Writer’s Collective (CAAWC) and the author of ten books: Including her Immortal series, and her most recent Mona Livelong: Paranormal Detective series. Her first novel, Immortal, is featured on the Invisible Universe Documentary time-line, and her novella, The Switch II: Clockwork, was nominated as best eBook novella of 2013 by the eFestival of words. Her writing has been published in numerous anthologies including The City: A Cyberfunk, 60 Black Women in Horror Fiction, Steamfunk!, Genesis Science Fiction Magazine, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (as Valjeanne Jeffers-Thompson), Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology, Liberated Muse I: How I Freed My Soul, PurpleMag, Drumvoices Revue, 31 Days of Steamy Mocha, Griots II: Sisters of the Spear, Possibilities, Black Gold, and most recently Fitting In: Historical Accounts of Paranormal Subcultures and Sycorax's Daughters. Valjeanne is also one of the screen writers for the horror anthology film 7 Magpies (in production). Preview or purchase her novels at vjeffersandqveal.com. Support her on Patreon at patreon.com/ValjeanneJeffers.“The Heartless Boy” by Ed Ahern(Originally published in Strangely Funny II.)Tom Willman was born experiencing no strong feelings, in fact no feelings at all. No love or affection. No hate or dislike. Certainly no fear. The closest he came to emotions were pleasing or displeasing sensations.Tom’s parents, desperate for a smile, had him tested for a litany of diseases, but he proved to be uncaringly above average. They quit trying to show Tom affection by the time he was six, and by the time he was ten were providing only what was legally required of them.Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He has his original wife, but advises that after 49 years they’re both out of warranty. He works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories, where he sits on the review board and manages a posse of five review editors. Ed’s had 140 stories and poems published so far, and a series of articles on fly fishing. His collected fairy and folk tales, The Witch Made Me Do It, was published by Gypsy Shadow Press. His novella The Witches Bane was published by World Castle Publishing, and his collected fantasy and horror stories, Capricious Visions, was published by Gnome on Pig Press. Ed’s currently working on a paranormal/thriller novel tentatively titled The Rule of Chaos. Visit his website at swampgasworks.com and at Twitter as @bottomstripper.About the Narrators:Aminat Badara is a budding writer and aspiring on-air-personality. She loves reading and has a weird penchant for collecting hardcover notebooks and mugs. When she's not writing or trying to be superhuman, she's either looking for Xs to solve, seeing movies, or getting her heart broken by Arsenal FC. Every once in a while, she puts up posts on meenahsthoughts.wordpress.com. You can find her on Twitter as @09_Eleven.Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head, who looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. Having escaped from the sinister forces of Texas, he has retreated to an ingeniously disguised bunker in a secure, undisclosed location in Burnsville, Minnes...

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FarFetchedFables No 164 Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

Tue, 27 Jun 2017 07:00:00 GMT

"“The Centaur's Daughter” by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam(Originally published in A cappella Zoo.)As a little girl I never understood my father’s night self. It’s hard to be a kid whose father is two people. He changed every day with the sky. I cried at sunrise. I had trouble sleeping. Still do, and I’ve had seventeen years to process my father’s differences.When I was small enough that my hands didn’t fit around a soda bottle, I couldn’t be left alone. The babysitter would coax me from the safety of my closet with chocolate granola surprise shakes and a broom guitar upon which she sang classic Elvis. Despite myself I always laughed. I loved that babysitter, but babysitters don’t follow you into high school. Now when I think of her, I see the woman who, once I was old enough to understand, told me that my father was a monster, warned me that I had his blood, that even though I would never look half-horse like him, I could still develop the night terrors, The Confusion. “You better be careful, Ruby. It runs in families, you know,” she said.I didn’t know. I was twelve and too old for a babysitter, and suddenly I understood that some of the things I had loved as a child, some people, would not carry over into the grown up world.Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam’s fiction and poetry has appeared in more than 40 magazines and anthologies such as Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Interzone. Her novelette “The Orangery” is a finalist for the 2016 Nebula Award. In 2015, she released the collaborative fiction-jazz album Strange Monsters. You can visit her on Twitter @BonnieJoStuffle or through her website: bonniejostufflebeam.com.About the Narrator:Maurine McLean narrates is an Austin musician, plucking the bass with acoustic bands The Therapy Sisters and A Proper Cup of Coffee. She earns her keep in the courtroom, interpreting real-life amazing tales from Spanish to English. Find here on Facebook here."

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FarFetchedFables No 163 Douglas Smith

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 07:00:00 GMT

"“Spirit Dance” by Douglas Smith(Originally published in Tesseracts 6, this work is the prequel story to Douglas's novel The Wolf at the End of the World.)In the beginning of things, men were as animals and animals as men. -- Cree legendVera made a warding sign as I entered the store, my hound Gelert trailing behind me. She pretended to wipe her hands on her faded blue apron, but I caught the dance of her fingers.“Hello, Vera. It’s been a while,” I said.“Yes, yes it has, Mr. Blaidd,” she said too quickly, not returning my smile. Turning from where she’d been refilling a food bin, she addressed her husband. “I gotta check something in the back, Ed.” Almost running, she slipped behind the long wooden counter and into the storeroom at the rear of the store.Edward Two Rivers leaned on the counter beside the cash register, a newspaper spread in front of him, his long gray hair spilling onto the pages. He watched her leave then smiled at me.“Ouch,” I said.“You still spook her,” he chuckled.Douglas Smith is an award-winning Canadian author described by Library Journal as "one of Canada's most original writers of speculative fiction". His fiction has appeared in twenty-five languages and more than thirty countries. "Spirit Dance" was Doug's first professional sale, appearing way back in 1997 in the Canadian anthology Tesseracts 6. The tale was also the basis for Doug's first novel, The Wolf at the End of the World.If you enjoyed this story, check out that novel, available from all major retailers. Doug's work also includes the collections Chimerascope, Impossibilia, and La Danse des Esprits. His non-fiction guide for writers, Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction, is a must read for any short story writer.Doug is a three-time winner of Canada's Aurora Award, and has been a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award, CBC's Bookies Award, Canada's juried Sunburst Award, and France's juried Prix Masterton and Prix Bob Morane. His website is smithwriter.com and he tweets as @smithwritr.About the Narrator:Mark "The Encaffeinated One" Kilfoil loves fiction, so much so that he's written some (such as the Parsec-nominated Tainted Roses), read quite a lot (a library of over a thousand half-read books and growing), and now narrates it (sometimes actually recorded for others). He's found that volunteering for a dozen years in radio was a decent way to get a full-time job as a Program Director at a community radio station in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, but not such a great way to finish his thesis, so he stopped at a Masters in Computer Science. He can be heard frequently on CHSRfm.ca, and two of his shows regularly appear as podcasts, and can be found at encaffeinated.ca and theweirdshow.com. He likes cats enough to pet them but not enough to own one, and computers enough to own several but pet none of them. He will someday write a million words, but at this rate, that will require life extension, so he eagerly awaits the ability to upload into a computer, if that hasn't already happened and this is all only a simulation."

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FarFetchedFables No 162 Michael Ezell

Tue, 13 Jun 2017 07:00:00 GMT

"“Bones of a Righteous Man” by Michael Ezell(Originally published in Fantasy for Good.)-- Has the life of a righteous man been taken?-- We find that it has, Excellency.-- And what shall become of the killer?-- He shall carry the bones of the righteous man until their weight does cause his death.The setting sun reflected in a million rose-hued sparkles across the surface of the Glass Desert. The slit in Traveler’s eyeshades cut everything down to a thin panorama. A glittering expanse of heat glass, marked only by the crushed tracks of the Apostates’ road. In those tracks traveled the wagon he’d been following for days. Weeks, really. With a start, he realized it was more like months. Wasn’t it?Through the shimmer to his right, he saw either a town, or a mirage that would lead him astray, wasting precious time.Michael Ezell is a former US Marine who now works as a project coordinator for an Emmy-winning makeup effects shop in Southern California. Michael's story "The Good Food", from Beyond the Stars: At Galaxy's Edge, was selected for Baen Books' 2016 Year's Best Military and Adventure SF, edited by David Afsharirad. For more, check out Sinisterwriter.com and follow @SinisterEZ on Twitter.About the Narrator:Graeme Dunlop is a software solution architect and voice actor living in Melbourne, Australia. He is the former co-editor of the fantasy podcast Podcastle, and former host of the YA podcast Cast of Wonders. You can find him on Google+, and he occasionally tweets as @kibitzer on Twitter."

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FarFetchedFables No 161 Judith Field and Michelle Ann King

Tue, 06 Jun 2017 09:00:00 GMT

"Flash Fiction: “Never Leave Me” by Michelle Ann King(Originally published at Daily Science Fiction.)Katrine grew up with the stories, she knew them as well as her own name. First there was true love's kiss, then the fair maiden became the radiant bride, and she lived happily ever after.But the stories all stopped there, and Katrine hadn't realized just how much ever after there would be.Michelle Ann King was born in East London and now lives in Essex. Her stories have appeared in over seventy different venues, including Interzone, Strange Horizons, and Black Static. Her favourite author is Stephen King (sadly, no relation), and she also loves zombies, Las Vegas, and good Scotch whisky. Her first short story collection, Transient Tales, is available in ebook and paperback from Amazon and other online retailers.Main Story: “The Prototype” by Judith Field(Originally published in Stupefying Stories, August 2012.)When they let me out of hospital, I decided to rent somewhere with space to write. Jo, the social worker, helped me find a terraced house in the old part of town; the only one in the row not converted into flats. Gentrification had leapfrogged the area. There were no skips outside the tumbledown houses; no four-by- fours blocking the narrow streets. The shades of my immigrant ancestors spoke to me in the place they’d once made a crowded, warm world of their own.Judith Field lives in London. She’s a pharmacist and medical indexer and editor. The daughter of writers, she learned how to agonize over fiction submissions at her mother’s (and father’s) knee. In 2009, she made a New Year resolution to start writing and get published within the year. Pretty soon she realized how unrealistic that was but, in fact, it worked because she got a slot to write a weekly column in a local paper shortly before the end of the year. It ran for a several years and she still writes occasional feature articles for the paper. Her non-fiction articles have appeared in genealogy and general interest magazines. Her fiction, mainly speculative, has appeared in a variety of publications in the USA, UK, and Australia. She speaks five languages and can say, “Please publish this story” in all of them. When not writing she works at the day job, studies for a Masters in English, sings, and swims. She is Science Fiction Editor at Red Sun Magazine. You can find her work here.About the Narrators:Tatiana Gomberg is a critically acclaimed actress of stage, screen, and the audio booth. She has been nominated for dozens of fancy awards but hasn’t won a single damned thing. She lives in New York City. See more about her at tatianagomberg.com.Margaret Essex lives “the good life” on a small piece of rural New South Wales, Australia, with an amazing man, a couple of pets, all the usual biting and stinging critters that make great horror stories for their visitors, and several rambunctious wombats."

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FarFetchedFables No 160 Claire Davon and David Steffen

Tue, 30 May 2017 09:00:00 GMT

"Flash Fiction: “Mysterious Ways” by David Steffen(Originally published in Uncle John's Flush Fiction Anthology.)The afterlife was arbitrary, Sam Fichtner decided. There was no Heaven or Hell, only one place. He'd had plenty of time to ponder since he crossed over. The Hereafter was filled with endless rows of clear domes like the one he occupied, a space of infinite size covered with a grid of cake platters. When people died, they were each partitioned into one of these domes, to spend the rest of eternity.David Steffen is a writer, editor, and software engineer. He edits Diabolical Plots, which began publishing original fiction in 2015. He runs the Submission Grinder, a tool for writers to find markets for their work. He recently published The Long List Anthology, which is a collection of 21 stories from the longer Hugo Award nomination list last year. His own stories have been published in many nice places, including Escape Pod, Podcastle, Daily Science Fiction, and StarShipSofa.Main Story: “Stone Works” by Claire Davon(Originally published in Misunderstood.)The unblinking statue returned Raffaello’s gaze.It could never blink again. He wondered what the residents would think if they knew that their prized thousand-year-old marble statue was once a breathing human being. None of his creations had been visible from the Salerno building he’d been trapped on for seven centuries.He knew the statue maker’s work. You didn’t forget the person who imprisoned you in stone.“Take our picture?”Raffaello turned and focused on the voice. It was a woman of around forty years old, although these days it was hard to tell. She had what Raffaello understood to be a camera thrust out. He had learned about cameras in the short time he had been freed, but he still had much to understand. The world had changed in seven hundred years.Claire Davon has written on and off most of her life, starting with fan fiction when she was young. She writes across a wide range of genres, including romance, science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Currently based in Los Angeles, she spends her free time writing and doing animal rescue. Claire's website is clairedavon.com.About the Narrators:Jack Calverly lives in Central London where he watches a very small patch of land struggle into gardenhood. In even quieter moments he has been known to narrate science fiction stories for Starship Sofa and horror stories for Tales to Terrify, and also hosted the now defunct Crime City Central podcast for its entire two-year run. He is a member of the T-Party genre writers' group, another group called WINOS, and critters.org, and (having attended two online classes from the Odyssey Writing Workshops) is a member of the Odyssey online critique group. A testament to perseverance if nothing else. He lives online at jackcalverley.com where he watches a very small patch of website struggle into nethood.Danny Kelly aka Shri Fugi Spilt was assembled from off-the-shelf components and deployed to a backwater planet for reasons that are not quite clear. He’s fully equipped with a palette of super powers that includes the ability to sleep almost anywhere, sustain optimal function by eating only leaves, and bridge time and space with just his voice. The stout of heart and keen of mind can travel with him to the hoary past and the almost future in the slightly explicit Daughter of Godcast podcast, all about the 11-year adventure making his scifi post-apocalyptic surreal romantic comedy featurette."

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FarFetchedFables No 159 L S Johnson

Tue, 23 May 2017 07:00:00 GMT

"“Vendemiaire” by L.S. Johnson(Originally published in B is for Broken.)There was a time when Arianne could not see over the rows of her father’s grapevines. At the height of the summer the vineyard became a vast maze and she would follow her mother, watching her taste the grapes, her skirts swaying as she walked, a fine haze of dirt collecting on their hems. The world then was black soil and green life and her mother striding ahead, head held high, lips and fingers stained crimson from the juices.All of that was years ago. Yet there are days when Arianne goes far into the rows, searching for anyplace where the leaves are green and dense still, where the fruit grows plump, not mildewed and shriveled. When at last she finds a patch she goes down on her knees in the dirt until she can see nothing but blushing fruit and green leaves and the blue sky above.L.S. Johnson was born in New York and now lives in Northern California, where she feeds her cats by writing book indexes. Her stories have appeared in such venues as Strange Horizons, Interzone, Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, and Year's Best Weird Fiction. Vacui Magia: Stories, is her first collection. Find her online at traversingz.com.About the Narrator:Josie Babin was lucky to grow up with wizards and fey mentors and hobbits and fawns for companions. Keeping her head in the clouds allowed her to always be looking up and out and ahead, leading to an over-developed curiosity that she freely indulges to this day. As a grown up, she gets to play in the ever curious sandbox of medical science, on a quest to cure evil diseases. In her spare time she can be found keeping company with the San Diego sun or tormenting her two cats with attempted belly rubs."

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FarFetchedFables No 158 Jonathan Laidlow

Wed, 17 May 2017 07:00:00 GMT

"“Inundated” by Jonathan Laidlow(Originally published in Ecotones.)Yuri woke up to the sound of waves breaking at the end of the street, and knew that the undines had breached the final defences. Even his house, one of the furthest from the harbour, would be theirs once again, like the rest of the city.Jonathan Laidlow grew up in the North West of England, near the Sellafield Nuclear Power plant, which regularly leaked. He has one good leg, one good eye, and one good ear… His stories have appeared at Daily Science Fiction ("Hyrmnal") and Liminal Stories ("Obtrusion Rate" on May 1st). His next story will be at Strange Horizons. He lives in Birmingham, UK, and run the Ultan's Library website about Gene Wolfe, available at ultan.org.uk. He tweets as @burtkenobi and blogs occasionally at jonlaidlow.com.About the Narrator:Ron Jon is a writer, narrator, and singer. He has written and published children’s books, scripts and screenplays for animation and live action, and musical lyrics and libretti. He is a student of strange phenomena/parapsychology, horror, and children’s literature. Ron Jon writes short weird fiction under the name ‘the spectre collector’. See his disturbing videos and hear more of his work on ‘the spectre collector’ blog. Download his disturbing albums on ‘the spectre collector’ Bandcamp site -- his new album is called Decomposition on Ice."

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FarFetchedFables No 157 Michael McGlade

Tue, 09 May 2017 09:00:00 GMT

“Another Beginning” by Michael McGlade(Originally published in Shimmer #29.)The Real BeginningÓgán loses Niamh to his best friend Malachy. Ógán and Niamh had been high school sweethearts, and the three of them had been inseparable -- the Three Blind Mice.Ógán stumbled onto this scene: the affair in full swing, the pair of them at it like otters in his best friend's bed (he'd seen a documentary about how otters held hands when they slept -- but this right now was absolutely not cute). Ógán had been let inside by a still-stoned flatmate, the squawking pair growing louder as he raced down the long, cement hallway toward that familiar sound -- knowing it was Niamh behind the locked bedroom door, his teeth zinging like when foil shorts out your fillings.Some things can never be un-seen.Michael McGlade is a freelance writer living in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He has more than 80 short stories published in such journals as the Saturday Evening Post, Hennessy New Irish Writing, Shimmer, Ares Magazine, and Grain. He holds a master’s degree in English from the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's University, Belfast. He’s a professional member of the Irish Writers Centre. Represented by the Blake Friedmann Literary Agency, he’s currently writing his debut novel. Find out the latest news and views from him on McGladeWriting.com.About the Narrator:Cian Mac Mahon is an Irish Software Engineer who in a past life was the world’s youngest professional podcaster, ran a radio station and very nearly ended up being a journalist. While he hopes to some day revive his show which podfaded many years ago, he now spends most of his free time playing about with cameras and cooking, as old microphones and sound-desks lurk in the shadows, right at the edge of eyesight. he can be found online at CianMacMahon.com.

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FarFetchedFables No 156 Barbara Barnett

Tue, 02 May 2017 00:00:00 GMT

"Main Story: “What the Blood Bog Takes” by Barbara A. Barnett

Originally published in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show #47.)

On the Day of Sacrifice, my sister Asthore and I wait at the blood bog's edge, our feet sinking into the muddy shore. Asthore gawks with unbridled curiosity as the ceremonial procession emerges from the fog-shrouded forest; I watch with trepidation. Our clan-chief Fallon leads the procession, a sheepskin mantle draped across his sinewy shoulders and a wary look on his furrowed face. It has been many generations since the gods last demanded the sacrifice of a clan-chief, but the harvest has been meager this year, and many of our kinsmen have died raiding neighboring clans. And so Fallon walks with slow steps, leaden with the possibility that today the gods will call for his death.

Barbara A. Barnett is a writer, musician, orchestra librarian, coffee addict, wine lover, and all-around geek. Her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, Daily Science Fiction, and Flash Fiction Online. She is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and currently serves as managing editor of the workshop's blog. Barbara lurks about the Philadelphia area and can be found online at babarnett.com.

About the Narrator:

Andrea Subissati (aka "Lady Hellbat") is a sociologist, journalist, and podcaster. Lady Hellbat earned her moniker playing roller derby for Toronto’s Gore-Gore Rollergirls. In 2010, her masters thesis on the social impact of zombie cinema was published under the title When There’s No More Room In Hell: The Sociology of the Living Dead. Since then, she has been published in The Undead and Theology (2012) and The Canadian Horror Film: Terror of the Soul (2015). She became executive editor of Rue Morgue magazine in 2017.

In addition to writing, Andrea has made guest appearances on the Rue Morgue Podcast and Pseudopod, and the TV horror documentary Why Horror? (2014). She is co-host and producer of The Faculty of Horror podcast with writer Alexandra West, as well as co-curator of the Toronto-based horror lecture series The Black Museum, which she founded with Paul Corupe. In 2015, she launched the horror YouTube channel THE BATCAVE. Lady Hellbat stalks the streets of Toronto, Ontario, and can be found in her natural habitat, hunched over her laptop, and plotting her next coup. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram."

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FarFetchedFables No 155 Claude Laumiere

Tue, 25 Apr 2017 07:00:00 GMT

"“The Ministry of Sacred Affairs” by Claude Lalumière(Originally published in Here Be Monsters #7: Tongues and Teeth.)Lost in music, it takes some time for Leo to register that Rosa is calling his name, that her hand is trembling on his shoulder. He lays down his violin and clasps her wrinkled hands between his."Something terrible's happened next door. At the Bergens'. Pounding on the wall. A shriek. Things thrown about." Rosa speech is terse, choppy, nervous. Leo stands up and enfolds his small and fragile wife in his bony old arms. She continues: "I phoned, but there was no answer."Leo and Rosa look away from each other. Leo knows which memory haunts his wife. It haunts him, too, but they never speak of it. Of him.Claude Lalumière is the author of Objects of Worship, The Door to Lost Pages, Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes, and the forthcoming in 2017 Venera Dreams. His work has been translated into French, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Hungarian, and Serbian and adapted for stage, screen, audio, and comics. In summer 2016, he was one of 21 international short-fiction writers showcased at Serbia’s Kikinda Short 11: The New Deal. Originally from Montreal, he now lives in Ottawa. He can be found at claudepages.info and on Twitter as @cldllmr.About the Narrator:Martin Reyto is an educator, writer, and musician. He has worked in an eclectic variety of fields, including 18 years as a technical writer and software developer, 16 years as a teacher of creative writing, computer science, and business communication, and shorter stints as a symphony musician and audiobook narrator. He has published short fiction and two collections of his poetry."

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FarFetchedFables No. 154 - Nisi Shawl

Tue, 18 Apr 2017 09:00:00 GMT

"Main Story: “Wallamelon” by Nisi Shawl(Originally published in Aeon #3.)The boys ran ahead of her as she walked, and circled back again like little dogs. Kevin urged her onto the path that cut across the vacant lot beside his house. Mercy was standing on a pile of rubble half the way through, her straight hair shining in the noonday sun like a long, black mirror. She was pointing down at something Oneida couldn’t see from the path, something small, something so wonderful it made sad Mercy smile.“Wallamelons,” Kevin explained as they left the path. “Grown all by they selves; ain’t nobody coulda put em there.”“Watermelons,” Oneida corrected him automatically.The plant grew out from under a concrete slab. At first all she could see was its broad leaves, like green hearts with scalloped edges. Mercy pushed these aside to reveal the real treasure: four fat globes, dark and light stripes swelling in their middles and vanishing into one another at either end. They were watermelons, all right. Each one was a little larger than Oneida’s fist.“It’s a sign,” said Mercy, her voice soft as a baby’s breath. “A sign from the Blue Lady.”Nisi Shawl’s Filter House, in which “Wallamelon” was collected, co-won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. Her acclaimed alternate history/steampunk novel Everfair was a 2016 Tor publication and a Nebula finalist. She has been selected as Guest of Honor for WisCon in 2011, for the Science Fiction Research Association’s convention in 2014, and for Austin’s Armadillocon in 2017.Shawl co-edited Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler; and Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany. Since its inception she has been Reviews Editor for feminist literary quarterly Cascadia Subduction Zone. She’s the coauthor of Writing the Other: A Practical Approach; and teaches the workshop it’s based on. Shawl is a founder of and board member for the Carl Brandon Society, a nonprofit supporting the presence of people of color in the fantastic genres; she also serves on Clarion West’s board of directors. She lives in Seattle, taking daily walks with her mother June and her cat Minnie at the pace of an entitled feline. She can be found online at nisishawl.com.About the Narrator:Stephanie Morris is a professional fangirl by day and the lone library assistant staffing a college circulation desk at night. She has narrated short stories for PseudoPod, PodCastle, EscapePod, Cast of Wonders, and Starship Sofa, guest-blogged on subjects ranging from book recommendations to zombie turkeys, and performed Shakespeare in a handful of weird churches. Until she suppresses her inner perfectionist enough to create a website, you can find her on Twitter at @smaliamorris."

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FarFetchedFables No 153 Robert Silverberg

Tue, 11 Apr 2017 09:00:00 GMT

“The Sorcerer's Aprpentice” by Robert SilverbergOriginally published in Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy.)Gannin Thidrich was nearing the age of thirty and had come to Triggoin to study the art of sorcery, a profession for which he thought he had some aptitude, after failing at several for which he had none. He was a native of the Free City of Stee, that splendid metropolis on the slopes of Castle Mount, and at the suggestion of his father, a wealthy merchant of that great city, he had gone first into meat-jobbing, and then, through the good offices of an uncle from Dundilmir, he had become a dealer in used leather. In neither of these occupations had he distinguished himself, nor in the desultory projects he had undertaken afterward. But from childhood on he had pursued sorcery in an amateur way, first as a boyish hobby, and then as a young man's consolation for shortcomings in most of the other aspects of his life -- helping out friends even unluckier than he with an uplifting spell or two, conjuring at parties, earning a little by reading palms in the marketplace -- and at last, eager to attain more arcane skills, he had taken himself to Triggoin, the capital city of sorcerers, hoping to apprentice himself to some master in that craft.Robert Silverberg has been a professional writer since 1955, widely known for his science fiction and fantasy stories. He is a many-time winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards, was named to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1999, and in 2004 was designated as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. His books and stories have been translated into forty languages.Among his best-known titles are Nightwings, Dying Inside, The Book of Skulls, and the three volumes of the Majipoor Cycle: Lord Valentine's Castle, Majipoor Chronicles, and Valentine Pontifex. His collected short stories, covering nearly sixty years of work, have been published in nine volumes by Subterranean Press. His most recent book is Tales of Majipoor (2013), a new collection of stories set on the giant world made famous in Lord Valentine's Castle.He and his wife Karen and an assorted population of cats live in the San Francisco Bay Area in a sprawling house surrounded by exotic plants. He can be found online at the Quasi-Official Robert Silverberg Web Site.About the Narrator:Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head who looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. Having escaped from the sinister forces of Texas, he has retreated to an ingeniously disguised bunker in a secure, undisclosed location in Burnsville, Minnesota. his life goal is to someday annoy Norm Sherman into letting him voice a part on Escape Pod, but until then, he'd be happy to voice a project for you. Yes, you in the checked shirt. Contact him on Google Plus, or on Twitter at @AlephBaker.

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FarFetchedFables No 152 Premee Mohamad

Tue, 04 Apr 2017 07:00:00 GMT

"“The Adventurer's Wife” by Premee Mohamad(Originally published in She Walks In Shadows.)It was not till after the adventurer had been interred that we learned that the man had been married. My editor, Cheltenwick, did not even let the graveyard mud dry decently on his boots before he dispatched me to the widow’s house with instructions for a full interview, which I had no doubt he would embellish even more than his wont.“Delicate sighs, Greene,” he said, hurrying me into a cab and pushing a fresh notebook into my hands. “A crystal-like droplet that rolls down her wan face. I want that, and a most particular description of the house, and don’t botch it up!”“Do it your precious self, Wick-Dick!” I wished to shout, but it was too late and my career would be worth less than an apple-fed horsefart if I did botch this article. Henley Dorsett Penhallick had been a living legend for 50 years; any description of a life-imperiling venture or terrifying journey was known as a ‘Dorsett tale’ in these parts. One never knew of his comings and goings -- he was either thousands of miles away, or hunkered in his house ignoring the doorknocker. Every few years, his publisher would release a booklet of his exploits, copied verbatim -- at his insistence -- complete with the spelling errors and lavish illustrations in his letters. I had seen a few around the newsroom, the long, elegant script tipped exaggeratedly over on its side, as if racing to get to its destination. I was quite sure he had never mentioned a wife. Everyone would have gone quite mad at such a discovery.Premee Mohamad is a scientist and spec fic writer working out of Canada. Her work has appeared most recently in Syntax and Salt, Metaphorosis, Alliteration Ink's No Sh!t, There I Was anthology, Innsmouth Free Press' 2016 World Fantasy Award-winning She Walks In Shadows anthology, the Molotov Cocktail (top 10 in Flash Phenom and Flash Fear contests), and others. Upcoming work has been accepted by Third Flatiron Press.About the Narrator:Kaushik Narasimhan is a management consultant by day and a writer by night, with a keen interest in psychedelics and role playing video games. You can find him online at kazarelth.net."

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FarFetchedFables No 151 Scott Huggins

Tue, 28 Mar 2017 09:00:00 GMT

"“The Blind Queen's Daughter” by Scott Huggins(Originally published in Hides the Dark Tower.)The heavy mauls swung inward, the only thunder in the soft morning rain. The priests watched, trembling. The small man from Arabia stared hungrily at the widening hole.The bricks sealing the cell shivered, and Amren watched his father’s jaw tremble under the blow. Tremble as it never had in two desperate battles. Not even when the men of his auxilia fell about him in desperate retreat had Amren seen Sir Bedwyr’s face show fear. Until now. And the Roman Legate looked on, sneering.The brick fell inward under the final blow, and only gelid, tomb-like darkness crouched within. Perhaps she is dead. How long had she dwelt in this three-windowed cell, sealed up in brick, lest her anchoress’s vows of solitude prove, like her wedding vows, too weak? Since before my birth, nearly twenty years ago. How could she but die, if she had not gone mad?But from within the cell, a scraping of feet echoed, and a shape emerged, its dark cloak held fast about by two alabaster hands. Amren’s breath caught.Stiff with age she moved, her stiff hands veined like marble. Reached up. Removed her cowl.“Bedwyr,” she said. “It has been long.” Amren sucked in his breath.The rain caught in the raven-dark hair like glass beads. They glowed in the whiteness of her skin. Her eyes were the gold of a summer dusk. Rich, dark gold shot through her hair in strands, as well. Gwynhwyfar. The White Enchantress.Scott Huggins grew up in the American Midwest and has lived there all his life, except for interludes in the European Midwest (Germany) and East (Russia). He is currently responsible for securing America’s future by teaching its past to high school students, many of whom learn things before going to college. His preferred method of teaching and examination is strategic warfare. He loves to read high fantasy, space opera, and parodies of the same. He wants to be a hybrid of G.K. Chesterton and Terry Pratchett when he counteracts the effects of having grown up. When he is not teaching or writing, he devotes himself to his wife, their three children, and his cat.About the Narrator:Matt Dovey is very tall and very English and most likely drinking a cup of tea right now. He has a scar on his arm that he can't remember getting, but a terrible darkness floods his mind when he considers it. He now lives in a quiet market town in rural England with his wife and three children, and despite being a writer, he still hasn't found the right words to properly express the delight and joy he finds in this wonderful arrangement.His surname rhymes with "Dopey", but any other similarities to the dwarf are purely coincidental. He is the Golden Pen winner for Writers of the Future Volume 32 (2016), was shortlisted for the James White Award in 2016, and has fiction out and forthcoming all over the place; you can keep up with it at mattdovey.com, or follow along on Facebook and Twitter."

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FarFetchedFables No 150 Mattew Hughes

Tue, 21 Mar 2017 07:00:00 GMT

"This Week: “The Inn of the Seven Blessings” by Matthew Hughes(Originally published in Rogues.)The thief Raffalon was sleeping away the noon-day heat behind some bracken a short distance from the forest road when the noise of the struggle awakened him. He rolled over onto his stomach, quietly drawing his knife in case of need. Then he lay still and tried to see through the inter-layered branches.Figures scuffled, voices spoke indistinctly, the syllables both sibilant and guttural. A muffled cry, as of a man with a hand over his mouth, was followed by the sharp crack of hard wood meeting a human cranium.Raffalon had no intention of offering assistance. The voices he had heard were those of the Vandaayo, whose border was not far away. Vandaayo warriors left their land only for ritual purposes, and then always in groups of six, and never without their hooks and nets and cudgels. Their seasonal festivals centered on the consumption of manflesh, and if Raffalon had attempted to intervene in the harvesting now taking place on the other side of the thicket, the only result would have been to add a bonus to the part-men’s larder.Matthew Hughes writes fantasy and space opera, often in a Jack Vance mode. Booklist has called him Vance’s “heir apparent.”His latest works are: A Wizard’s Henchman (novel) and Epiphanies (novella), both from PS Publishing.His short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, F&SF, Postscripts, Lightspeed, and Interzone, and bespoke anthologies including Songs of the Dying Earth, Old Mars, and Old Venus, all edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois.He has won the Canadian equivalent of the Edgar, and been shortlisted for the Aurora, Nebula, Philip K. Dick, Endeavour (twice), A.E. Van Vogt, and Derringer Awards.He is now self-publishing his backlist as ebooks and POD paperbacks.He spent more than thirty years as one of Canada’s leading speechwriters for political leaders and corporate executives. Since 2007, he has been traveling the world as an itinerant housesitter, has lived in twelve countries, and has no fixed address. You can find him online at matthewhughes.org, and sign up for his monthly newsletter and receive a free ebook of his space opera novel Template here.About the Narrator:Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake; has written for the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman; and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV.  His current project, Interference (a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook... that kills), is a bestseller on Audible.com. His website for creative projects is Quillhammer.com."

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FarFetchedFables No 149 Laurence Raphael Brothers and Alex Shvartsman

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 09:00:00 GMT

“The Temple of Thirteen Pleasures” by Laurence Raphael Brothers(Originally published in The Sockdolager #3.)"I'm sorry to summon you like this, Countess" said Marcus apologetically. We were sitting together on a divan in his townhouse drawing room. Lord Cyprian's heir was dressed in a deep crimson suit so dark it was almost black, with a ruffled white cravat held in place with a ruby stickpin. A black memorial armband for his late father was prominent on his sleeve. I was in my temple whites."Please," I said, "call me Harriet. Anyway I'm here in my capacity as a novice, and it's quite an honor to assist in your rite of investiture. I had to fight off a dozen other priestesses to get the job."Laurence Raphael Brothers is a technologist with R&D experience at such firms as Bell Communications Research and Google. He has recently sold short fiction to the New Haven Review, to The Sockdolager, and to the SciFutures City of the Future anthology. Follow him on twitter via @lbrothers.“Dante's Unfinished Business” by Alex Shvartsman(Originally published in Galaxy's Edge #22.)Dante Ferrero had three serious and immediate problems. First, he was fiending for a joint something awful. He hadn't been high for almost two days now, and the sensation of observing the world through sober eyes was entirely unpleasant. Second, the Bengals lost to the Steelers, which eliminated any chance they had at the playoffs and also left Dante owing a considerable amount of money to Mitch, his bookie. Third, he was dead.Alex Shvartsman is a writer, translator and game designer from Brooklyn, NY. Over 80 of his short stories have appeared in Nature, Galaxy's Edge, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, and many other magazines and anthologies. He won the 2014 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction and was a finalist for the 2015 Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Fiction. He is the editor of the Unidentified Funny Objects annual anthology series of humorous SF/F. His collection Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories and his steampunk humor novella H.G. Wells, Secret Agent were both published in 2015. His website is www.alexshvartsman.com.About the Narrators:Fran Carris is whatever she decides to be when she wakes up each morning. She has also been known to be a voice talent, performance artist, and poet, and professional dabbler in other arts that express. You can find her online at misfran.com.Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head who looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. Having escaped from the sinister forces of Texas, he has retreated to an ingeniously disguised bunker in a secure, undisclosed location in Burnsville, Minnesota. his life goal is to someday annoy Norm Sherman into letting him voice a part on Escape Pod, but until then, he'd be happy to voice a project for you. Yes, you in the checked shirt. Contact him on Google Plus, or on Twitter at @AlephBaker."

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FarFetchedFables No 148 Ed Ahern

Tue, 07 Mar 2017 14:00:00 GMT

"This Week: “Caveat Emptor/Caveat Venditor” by Ed Ahern(Originally published in Silver Pen.)As warlocks go, Harald was a failure. Even though his curses were vigorously evil, and his pitches quite logical, he almost always lost the business. Harald partly blamed his sex. Most internet advertising for spells and curses came from witches. Those seeking vengeance or unfair advantage picked the repugnant hags rather than Harald, who was merely homely and middle aged. Harald had given himself mental hernias trying to increase sales..Fifteen years an apprentice and sorcerer, he thought, and nothing to show for it. Washed out priests and ministers become counselors or teachers, but who’s willing to pay tuition to learn the uses of bloodwort?Harald had joined Wizards Anonymous, but the other members only talked about their mushroom dependencies. Needing money to live on, he took a job with a livery service, driving pampered executives to and from New York airports. It was several months of traffic jams before Harald realized what a premium resource he had at his disposal. He practiced the phrasing of his questions.Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty-odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He has his original wife, but advises that after forty-eight years they are both out of warranty. Ed has had more than ninety stories and poems published so far, and two books. You can find him on Twitter as @bottomstripper and online at swampgasworks.com.About the Narrator:Rish Outfield is a writer, actor, and podcaster who can be heard as co-host of The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, which presents genre stories with a full cast. He also performs audiobooks for Audible, and occasionally becomes a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the moon is full and bright."

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FarFetchedFables No 147 Philip A Suggars

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 10:00:00 GMT

"This Week: “Dependent Assemblies” by Philip A. Suggars(Originally published in Interzone #262.)“Purity of blood, purity of spirit. One nation united by the river, one nation united under the sun” – Elias Rojas presidential campaign slogan, Buenos Aires 1894.Alfonso and Marcelo were cold and tired as they shovelled the dirt onto Celia’s small body in the shallow grave. Alfonso dared himself to look down, catching a glimpse of her porcelain fingers and the yellowing heads of the freesias that they had buried with her in the garden. He wanted to cry, but all he felt was an aching numbness in his fingertips.A sudden play of spotlights above the cloud announced the arrival of an ornithopteron. The monolithic black moth burst through the grey canopy that covered the city and flapped low over their house, bellowing a hunting call so deep it throbbed in Alfonso’s chest.Philip A. Suggars is a British writer with a single yellow eye in the middle of his forehead and a collection of vintage binoculars. His work has appeared in the Guardian, Strange Horizons, Persistent Visions Magazine, and Interzone, and has been performed for Starship Sofa and the London chapter of the Liars’ League. He was winner of the short story award at the Ilkley Literature Festival, (judged by Man Booker long-lister Jane Rogers) and runner-up in the James White Award. He lives with three hairless primates and an imaginary cat. Visit him at philipasuggars.com or follow him on Twitter: @felipeazucares.About the Narrator:Seth Williams is the avatar for a three-kilometer sentient starship that is parked (probably uncomfortably) close to the third planet. Surprisingly he has not yet been discovered. He is very happy that the inhabitants have discovered enough technology to that he can communicate in this limited fashion. Any communications can be directed to theboojum.org."

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FarFetchedFables No 146 Michael M Jones

Tue, 21 Feb 2017 08:02:00 GMT

“Sea of Strangers” by Michael M. Jones(Originally published in Inscription.)There was a weird vibe in the halls before first period today. As I made my way towards homeroom, weaving between people with experienced ease, I picked up a thousand different emotions-- everything you’d expect from a building packed to the gills with hormone-ridden teenagers and long-suffering adults-- and something new, strange, and impossible to identify. A slippery, elusive, emotional flavor that tinted the rest without revealing itself. It poked at my subconscious, put me on edge, made me just a little careless. I bounced off a man-mountain wearing a football letter jacket, and got a snarled, “Watch it, lesbo,” for my troubles. The shove he gave me wasn’t gentle; I stutter-stepped away, trying to regain my balance.It was going to be one of those days. Some people hate Mondays; this was proof that Tuesdays could be just as bad, given the opportunity.Sometimes, it really sucks to be queer and out in high school. I blame the combination of pack and herd mentalities. Those who aren’t preying on the weak and different, are shunning those who don’t belong… and every group has a different idea of what’s appropriate. Unfortunately, when you draw a Venn diagram of “different” and “doesn’t belong,” the overlap tends to include people like me. The black-clad loner types with few friends and a thing for the same sex.Michael M. Jones lives in Southwest Virginia, with too many books, just enough cats, a plaster penguin, and a wife who once clothes-lined a legendary author without remorse or mercy. His fiction has appeared in such anthologies as B is for Broken, Clockwork Phoenix 3, and A Chimerical World. He also edited Scherazade's Facade and the forthcoming Schoolbooks & Sorcery.About the Narrator:Heidi Hotz is a voiceover artist with a range of personalities who has been in the industry for more than 10 years, and has worked on TV commercials, radio, documentaries, audio fiction, and narration in general. She can be found at Voices.com."

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FarFetchedFables No 145 Frances Silversmith

Tue, 14 Feb 2017 08:00:00 GMT

"“Languid in Rose” by Frances Silversmith(Originally published in Fantasy for Good.)Lilia I, Queen of Roses, reluctantly opened her eyes to yet another perfect day, courtesy of the Enchantment. The briar rose outside her windows threw moving shadows on the salmon-colored material curtains of her four-poster bed. What a disgustingly lovely sight.Lilia forced her heavy limbs to a sitting position. Instantly, her maid appeared with a cup of hot chocolate -- as she did every morning. When she was younger, Lilia had often tried to trick the Enchantment, getting up in the middle of the night, or staying prone in bed until long past her usual hour -- to no avail; the maid always appeared on time.Lilia sipped the cocoa, wishing that she could decline the too-sweet drink. But Queen Rose I, Lilia’s great-great-grandmother and the Great Benefactress of the kingdom, had decreed that the queen should have a cup of hot chocolate upon awaking. And so the queen did.Queen Rose I had made a Great Sacrifice a hundred years ago when she cast the Enchantment to protect the kingdom and give its citizens peace and prosperity. Disobeying the Great Benefactress’ commands could not be risked, because nobody alive knew which of those commands were vital for the protective spell’s stability.Frances Silversmith writes computer software for a living and science fiction and fantasy stories for fun. She lives in a small town in Germany with her husband, six guinea pigs, and two Icelandic horses. Please visit her website at francessilversmith.com.About the Narrator:Deanna Sanchez is a voiceover artist and actress who has performed professionally for 14 years. She has voiced various commercials, industrials, and characters, and specializes in the “sexy voice” of powerful female roles. An avid fan of science fiction since her grandfather gave her a copy of Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky when she was 9, she feels greatly privileged to help bring this story to life. While pursuing a voice talent and acting career, Deanna also consults in Geographical Information Systems and develops custom mapping applications for real estate and other industries. Her background in IT management does not prevent her from owning multiple old computers, some with Windows 98 still running. Three-dimensional visualization of spatial data is a favorite pastime, and she has spent many hours translating real-Earth elevation data into unique 3-D worlds. Deanna’s voice over demo can be heard at the Lambert Studios website, an outstanding full service recording studio."

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FarFetchedFables No 144 Wendy Nikel and Robert Dawson

Tue, 07 Feb 2017 10:00:00 GMT

"First Story: “The Girl in the Windmill” by Wendy Nikel(Originally published in Enchanted Spark. Based on the Italian fairy tale "In Love with a Statue")Maartje van Dijk lived in a windmill.At the age of ten, her vater and moeder perished at sea, and she was sent to live with her Opa on the coast. Despite her grief, she grew to love him and he taught her all about how to grind the village's grains and tend the enormous sails and gears that made the mill run.Her Opa hadn't always run the mill, though. Each evening, by firelight, he would show Maartje the amazing feats of transformation that he used to perform all over the world.When Wendy Nikel isn't traveling in time, exploring magical islands, or investigating mysterious phenomena, she enjoys a quiet life near Utah's Wasatch Mountains with her husband and sons. She has a degree in elementary education, a fondness for road trips, and a terrible habit of forgetting where she's left her cup of tea. Her short fiction has been published by AE, Daily Science Fiction, and others, and she is a member of SFWA. For more info, visit wendynikel.com.Second Story: “Soldier's Return” by Robert Dawson(Originally published in Niteblade.)If a dead woman waits at a window, and nobody is there to see her, what marks the passage of time?#The ruined house broods on the shore. The sleety February rain seeps through the rotting shingles, drips through sagging plaster, and trickles down the wallpaper. The hall is festooned with gray scrims of cobweb, hanging so low that even the mice must follow a labyrinthine path between them. A staircase ascends in a broken sagging arc, its stringers long rotten. The air is dank with the odor of time and decay.Robert Dawson teaches mathematics at a Nova Scotian university. When not teaching or doing research, he writes, fences, cycles, and volunteers with a Scout troop. His fiction has appeared in Nature, Futures, AE, Compelling Science Fiction, and numerous other periodicals and anthologies. He is an alumnus of the University of Cambridge, Sage Hill, and Viable Paradise.About the Narrators:Josie Babin was lucky to grow up with wizards and fey mentors and hobbits and fawns for companions. Keeping her head in the clouds allowed her to always be looking up and out and ahead, leading to an over-developed curiosity that she freely indulges to this day. As a grown up, she gets to play in the ever curious sandbox of medical science, on a quest to cure evil diseases. In her spare time she can be found keeping company with the San Diego sun or tormenting her two cats with attempted belly rubs.Jack Calverley lives in Central London where he watches a very small patch of land struggle into gardenhood. In even quieter moments he has been known to narrate science fiction stories for Starship Sofa and horror stories for Tales to Terrify, and also hosted the now defunct Crime City Central podcast for its entire two-year run. He is a member of the T-Party genre writers' group, another group called WINOS, and critters.org, and (having attended two online classes from the Odyssey Writing Workshops) is a member of the Odyssey online critique group. A testament to perseverance if nothing else. He lives online at jackcalverley.com where he watches a very small patch of website struggle into nethood."

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FarFetchedFables No 143 Cyril Simsa and Lynette Meija

Tue, 31 Jan 2017 10:00:00 GMT

sh Fiction: “Connection” by Lynette Meija(Originally published at Daily Science Fiction.)The magician wobbled a little on his bar stool."Ask me what I did for a living," he said. Somewhere deep inside of him a small voice was shouting to shut up, that he sounded like a fool, but he ignored it. His plane was likely delayed until morning, anyhow."I already know what you are," she answered. Her pale skin seemed to shimmer a little in the murky atmosphere of the bar. He liked the way the dim light played on her features, rendering half of her in shadow."And what is that?" His words were slurred. Was this his fourth whiskey, or his fifth?"You're a magician," she said, as if it were obvious.Lynette Meija writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror prose and poetry from the middle of a deep, dark forest in the wilds of southern Louisiana. Her work has been nominated for the Rhysling Award and the Million Writers Award. You can find her online at lynettemejia.com.Main Story: “Starspawn” by Cyril Simsa(Originally published in Albedo One.)The first time I saw Starspawn was in 1985. January or February, I expect. Perhaps early March. This was back in the days when British law still forbade the hoi polloi to dance on a Sunday. Really. People forget, it was a different century. There were still bombsites from the Second World War in the poorer parts of town, and London Underground was still running trains from the 1930s. David Lynch shot The Elephant Man on location at Paddington station, and it was no problem. Think about it.Cyril Simsa was born and raised in London, and for a while pretended to study zoology, though in actual fact he rarely left the obscurer regions of the university library and has rarely come closer to doing any real science than various holiday jobs at the Natural History Museum. Since 1992 he has lived in Prague, where he shuffles students around the borders of the former Austria-Hungary and does his best to avoid the fate of his near-namesake in the Kafka story. He has been hovering on the fringes of the SF world for much longer than is really sensible, and has contributed reviews and articles to a wide variety of genre publications such as Foundation, Locus, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, and Wormwood. His story credits include Darkness Rising, Here & Now, StarShip Sofa, The World SF Blog, and Electric Velocipede. His short story collection Lost Cartographies: Tales of Another Europe (Invocations Press, Brighton, 2014) is available on Amazon and via select genre retailers.About the Narrators:Chris Lade is a Leipzig-based orchestral conductor, pianist, and English teacher by day, and an avid reader by night. When not doing either of the four, you can usually find him listening to music, reading classical music blogs, riding his bike, or trying to cook something Italian in his kitchen. Life goals include motorcycling through Europe on a Triumph Bonneville and owning a Bernese Mountain Dog, preferably at the same time.Andrea Richardson is a British singer and actress. With extensive stage and film performances to her name, she began narration and voiceover work in 2014 but enjoys using her existing skills in a different way. You can find Andrea at andrea-richardson.co.uk and on Facebook."

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FarFetchedFables No 142 Robert Dawson and Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 08:00:00 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Descanso Dream” by Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold("Tales of the Rose Knights" #12, originally published at Daily Science Fiction.)Descanso is the smallest of the Rose Knights, and perhaps the strangest. He is a dream made flesh, a pale man with skin the white of the ocean's dead, riding a horse of fog and silk. His banners trail behind him like a wind from the Orient. His smile gleams of starlight and the gentle thoughts of a loving woman. Jay Lake lived in Portland, Oregon until his death in 2014, shortly before his 50th birthday. His books include Kalimpura from Tor and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime. His short fiction appeared regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay was a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. In 2015, he posthumously received the Locus Award for his collection Last Plane to Heaven.Learn more about him and his work at jlake.com.Ruth Nestvold has published widely in science fiction and fantasy, her fiction appearing in such markets as Asimov's, F&SF, and Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Tiptree, and Sturgeon Awards. In 2007, the Italian translation of her novella Looking Through Lace won the Premio Italia award for best international work. She maintains a web site at ruthnestvold.com and blogs at ruthnestvold.wordpress.com.Jay and Ruth's collection of short stories, Almost All the Way Home from the Stars, is available at Amazon and via iTunes.Main Story: “A Bend in the Road” by Robert Dawson(Originally published in Zen of the Dead.)Story excerpt.Robert Dawson teaches mathematics at a Nova Scotian university. When not teaching or doing research, he writes, fences, cycles, and volunteers with a Scout troop. His fiction has appeared in Nature, Futures, AE, Compelling Science Fiction, and numerous other periodicals and anthologies. He is an alumnus of the University of Cambridge, Sage Hill, and Viable Paradise.About the Narrators:Geoffrey Welchman writes, produces, and voices The Reigning Lunatic podcast, a medieval sitcom (and 2016 Parsec Awards finalist). He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. You can find him online at geoffreywelchman.com.Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head who looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. Having escaped from the sinister forces of Texas, he has retreated to an ingeniously disguised bunker in a secure, undisclosed location in Burnsville, Minnesota. his life goal is to someday annoy Norm Sherman into letting him voice a part on Escape Pod, but until then, he'd be happy to voice a project for you. Yes, you in the checked shirt. Contact him on Google Plus, or on Twitter at @AlephBaker."

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FarFetchedFables No 141 Filip Wiltgren and Mark Finn

Tue, 17 Jan 2017 09:00:00 GMT

"First Story: “The Bed of the Crimson King” by Filip Wiltgren(Originally published in Grimdark #9.)The king lies in his big bed under the crimson covers, and dreams of freedom. The bed is not his, not the way the grasses of the savanna were, but he must sleep in it. It is the king's bed, and he is the Crimson King, and he has no choice.He had no choice when he went into the military at thirteen. He had no choice when he shot his commander and formed his own band at nineteen, and he had no choice when he led his men against the soldiers of the Witch King at twenty-six. Now he's an old man lying in a dead man's bed, dreaming of life as a young boy sleeping on the sandy ground.Filip Wiltgren is a writer and tabletop game designer based in Sweden. He's held jobs ranging from coal loader to martial arts teacher -- which are a lot more impressive on paper than in reality -- and his publications range from Nature to Daily Science Fiction. When he isn't writing he spends time with his wife and kids. For more writing and free stories visit wiltgren.com.Second Story: “Bridge of Teeth” by Mark Finn(Originally published in Adventure Vol. 1.)Casa Blanca, Nuevo Leon, MexicoOctober 24th, 1994The bartender turned around, a dented and worn Louisville Slugger in his fist, and swung it with all of his strength at the spot where on the bar where my hand had been an instant before. I backed up, throwing as much broken Spanish between us as possible. “Senor, senor, por favor, no violencia...”He wasn’t having any. He hurled himself bodily against the bar, trying to come over it, as he swung at me again. “Brujah!” he shrieked. “trabajador del diablo!”I started to say more, but my duffel bag tripped me up and I hit the wood planks in a cloud of sawdust, the wind knocked out of me. I regained my breath and my sight just in time to get a spectacular view of the Louisville Slugger as it rushed up to kiss my face. For an instant, I saw the duplicated etch of Ted Williams’ scrawl, and then my vision went white and red and I had the weirdest ringing in my ears. I couldn’t feel my nose, but I could feel blood on my lip and taste it in my mouth. The bat was coming down again. I barely rolled out from under it.Mark Finn is an author, actor, essayist, pop culture critic, and movie critic. He is a nationally recognized authority on iconic Texas author Robert E. Howard, and has written extensively about him. His biography, Blood and Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, was nominated for a World Fantasy award in 2007 and is currently available in an updated and expanded second edition. His articles, essays, reviews, short stories and comics have been published by Playboy.com, RevolutionSF.com, Dark Horse Comics, DC/Vertigo Comics, Monkeybrain Books, The University of Texas press, Greenwood Press, Scarecrow Press, F.A.C.T. Publications, Tachyon Press, and others. For the past three years, Finn was named one of the top movie critics in Texas by the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors awards. He lives in North Texas over an old movie theater that he owns and operates along with his long-suffering wife, far too many books, and an affable pit bull named Sonya. He tweets at @finnswake, blogs at marktheaginghipster.blogspot.com, and podcasts at thegentlemennerds.com.About the Narrators:Nikolle Doolin a voice actor and a writer of fiction, scripts, and poetry. She has performed narrations for a number of popular and award-winning podcasts, such as The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify, and StarShip Sofa. She also narrates classic literature in her own podcast Audio Literature Odyssey. To learn more about Nikolle, visit her website at nikolledoolin.com.By day, Roberto Suarez works as a community college student advocate and recruiter. By night he geeks out on all things fantasy and science fiction, comic books and board games He is the co-host and producer of A Pod of Casts: The Game of Thrones Podcast and the new Radio Westworld, a podcast dedicated to HBO’s recent science fiction series. You can find Roberto on the web at robertosuarez.me, or on Twitter as @PuertoGeekan."

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FarFetchedFables No 140 Barbara Barnett and Tim Boiteaub

Tue, 10 Jan 2017 09:00:00 GMT

"Flash Fiction: “The Robbed” by Tim W. Boiteau(Originally published at Every Day Fiction.)You can’t find your keys this morning, so your wife drives you to work.At dinner, it seems, the salt is lacking, but when you attempt to add some more, the shaker is bare.The only consolation at the end of such a troubling day, of course, is Aurelius, but he too is absent from the shelf.When sleep doesn’t come, the bedroom grows long, the blankets constrict the body, stretching over with elastic tension, blood stagnates in the head, and the ears sharpen to the muted creeping of thieves, careful things, biding their time in air vents and drains and the narrow crevices between walls, watching through miniscule peepholes.Tim W. Boiteau's fiction has appeared in such places as Every Day Fiction, The Writing Disorder, LampLight, Kasma Magazine, and Write Room. He was a finalist in Glimmer Train’s 2013 Fiction Open contest. Tim holds a PhD in experimental psychology and lectures at Eastern Michigan University. He lives in Michigan with his wife and son.Main Story: “Notes on a Page” by Barbara A. Barnett(Originally published in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show #32.)Yesterday Maestro Fuhrmann took the Beethoven so fast I was gasping for breath; today I'm wondering if I'll make it to the end of the phrase before turning blue in the face. Rehearsals like this leave me wishing I had learned violin instead of oboe — string players aren't encumbered by the limits of their lungs. But as the maestro is so fond of reminding me, I have another limitation to worry about."Feeling, Ms. Adams!" he says, his German accent as thick as his eyebrows. Every criticism begins with those same words, that same exasperated tone of voice that makes me want to crawl inside the music and hide behind the staff lines. "Beethoven wrote a piece full of passion. You're just playing notes on a page."Barbara A. Barnett is a writer, musician, orchestra librarian, coffee addict, wine lover, bad movie mocker, and all-around geek. Her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, Daily Science Fiction, and Flash Fiction Online. She is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and currently serves as managing editor of the workshop's blog. Barbara lurks about the Philadelphia area and can be found online at babarnett.com.About the Narrators:Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head who looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. Having escaped from the sinister forces of Texas, he has retreated to an ingeniously disguised bunker in a secure, undisclosed location in Burnsville, Minnesota. his life goal is to someday annoy Norm Sherman into letting him voice a part on Escape Pod, but until then, he'd be happy to voice a project for you. Yes, you in the checked shirt. Contact him on Google Plus, or on Twitter at @AlephBaker.C.J. Plog has her Master's from Washington University in St. Louis and has worked in the mental health field for 20 years. She grew up in the Midwest and does not remember a time when she didn't love reading a good book. Between family life, education and career, time has become a precious commodity and leisurely reading, a guilty pleasure. Listening to audio books became the perfect substitute during long commutes to work. C.J. was always curious about how readers for audio books were selected and secretly desired to be one, but that seemed as ludicrous as dreaming of a career in Hollywood or Nashville. CJ has enjoyed listening to completed works and reading for Librivox since July 2014."

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FarFetchedFables No 139 James Moore and Addison Smith

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 08:00:00 GMT

"Flash Fiction: “Hope for Enthos” by Addison Smith(Originally published in Fireside magazine.)The muted horns of passing cars drifted up to Enthos, where he sat on his ledge, peering over the street. The familiar lights and sounds were both comforting and maddening. The scent of flowers washed over him, the blossoms continuing their cycle of blooming and dying under his watch. How much time do I have left?The sun fell below the horizon, casting shadow over the city, but he felt no chill of night on his wings. The wind howled, but it did not tickle the fur of his neck. The gargoyle sat still, stationary. Stone.Addison Smith lives and writes in the wilds of icy Minnesota with a wolf, a baby wolfling, and (one day soon) another human. He tweets as @addisoncs, but it’s mostly an excuse to share photos of his pets.Main Story: “A Proper War” by James A. Moore(Originally published in Grimdark #8.)They found their prey near the edge of the cliff that fell into the Rehkail River a few hundred feet below. There was a damp trail of footsteps that ran from the edge of the cliff to where the shape waited. Allim wondered if the furry mass they stared at had actually climbed the sheer cliffside and then shook the notion away. Madness."What do you make of that, then?" Allim stared at the lump of fur leaning against a large rock and frowned. Under him his piebald shifted from hoof to hoof, but did not bolt. The damned thing was always skittish."It’s a big bastard of a man, or a bear. Damn near the same size." Benny spoke, no more troubled than if they were having a pint around a fire. Just the same Benny checked that his weapons were in easy reach.James A. Moore is the award-winning author of more than twenty novels, thrillers, dark fantasy and horror alike, including the critically acclaimed Fireworks, Under The Overtree, Blood Red, the Serenity Falls trilogy (featuring his recurring anti-hero, Jonathan Crowley), and his most recent novels The Blasted Lands and City of Wonders. In addition to writing multiple short stories, he has also edited, with Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon, the British Invasion anthology for Cemetery Dance Publications.James cut his teeth in the industry writing for Marvel Comics and authoring over twenty role-playing supplements for White Wolf Games, including Berlin by Night, Land of 1,000,000 Dreams, and The Get of Fenris tribe book for Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse, among others. He also penned the White Wolf novels Vampire: House of Secrets and Werewolf: Hellstorm.His first short story collection, Slices, sold out before ever seeing print. His most recent novels include A Hell Within (With Charles R. Rutledge) and the forthcoming apocalyptic sci-fi thriller Spores, and a new series tentatively called The Tides of War, with the first book The Last Sacrifice slated for release in January 2017. More information can be at jamesamoorebooks.com and genrefied.blogspot.com. James can also be found on Twitter as @JamesAMoore and on Facebook.About the Narrators:By day, Roberto Suarez  works as a community college student advocate and recruiter. By night he geeks out on all things fantasy and science fiction, comic books and board games He is the co-host and producer of A Pod of Casts: The Game of Thrones Podcast and the new Radio Westworld, a podcast dedicated to HBO’s recent science fiction series. You can find Roberto on the web at robertosuarez.me, or on Twitter as @PuertoGeekan.Mark "The Encaffeinated One" Kilfoil loves fiction, so much so that he's written some (such as the Parsec-nominated Tainted Roses), read quite a lot (a library of over a thousand half-read books and growing), and now narrates it (sometimes actually recorded for others). He's found that volunteering for a dozen years in radio was a decent way to get a full-time job as a Program Director at a community radio station in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, but not such a great way to finish his thesis, so he stopped at a Masters in Computer Science. He can be heard frequently on CHSRfm.ca, and two of his shows regularly appear as podcasts, and can be found at encaffeinated.ca and theweirdshow.com. He likes cats enough to pet them but not enough to own one, and computers enough to own several but pet none of them. He will someday write a million words, but at this rate, that will require life extension, so he eagerly awaits the ability to upload into a computer, if that hasn't already happened and this is all only a simulation."

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FarFetchedFables No 138 Ari Marmell and Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold

Tue, 27 Dec 2016 08:00:00 GMT

"Flash Fiction: “Myriam” by Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold("Tales of the Rose Knights" #11, originally published at Daily Science Fiction.)When the Rose Knight Myriam arrived in the farthest reaches of the magical lands of Hy Rugosa, she was already so pale she soon became known as the Gossamer Knight. She told no one from whence she hailed or why she had sought out the lands of Hy Rugosa, but rumors abounded: that she had assassinated the leader of the Inner Sea, that she had poisoned the Prince in Point-of-Sleep, that she had betrayed her fellow knights in far Chemeketa. Some thought they heard the lilt of the Moonwood in her voice, others the exotic strains of the Farmost West. One thing all the stories agreed on--she had been banished. She was mourning. And every day, she disappeared a little bit more.Jay Lake lived in Portland, Oregon until his death in 2014, shortly before his 50th birthday. His books include Kalimpura from Tor and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime. His short fiction appeared regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay was a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. In 2015, he posthumously received the Locus Award for his collection Last Plane to Heaven.Learn more about him and his work at jlake.com.Ruth Nestvold has published widely in science fiction and fantasy, her fiction appearing in such markets as Asimov's, F&SF, and Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Tiptree, and Sturgeon Awards. In 2007, the Italian translation of her novella Looking Through Lace won the Premio Italia award for best international work. She maintains a web site at ruthnestvold.com and blogs at ruthnestvold.wordpress.com.Jay and Ruth's collection of short stories, Almost All the Way Home from the Stars, is available at Amazon and via iTunes.Main Story: “Heavy Sulfur” by Ari Marmell(Originally published in Operation: Arcana.)Late autumn, 1916The Western FrontAmidst the roiling clouds of mustard gas, bilious and billowing, I could just make out the alchemancer positioned atop the hillock.He stood tall, arms spread, apparently untroubled by the fusillades filling the air with lead, the bursting ordnance raising geysers of shrapnel and mud across the field of no man’s land. Ritual robes of rusty hue hung open over an officer’s uniform of the German Empire; unseen eyes glared through the lenses of a heavy gas mask, a hideous insectile thing that looked to have taken the place of the man’s head. The carbine strapped to one shoulder hung unused, for his right hand was occupied by a rune-carved staff of oak, from which the impossible banks of flesh-searing gas flowed. He directed them, as an orchestra conductor, sending them against the wind, positioning them where he would. They rolled toward the trenches and the brave British defenders; far behind the alchemancer, I could see multiple squads of German soldiers preparing to rush any breach the mustard gas might open.I wasn’t meant to have spotted the poison-witch, none of us were. His occult defenses were far too strong. That, however, was why men such as I fought on the front lines. I could feel the faint wetness of the oil with which I’d anointed my own brow and eyelids, the charm that permitted me to overcome such protections.Ari Marmell would love to tell you all about the various esoteric jobs he held and the wacky adventures he had on the way to becoming an author, since that’s what other authors seem to do in these sections. Unfortunately, he doesn’t actually have any, because real life is boring — hence the focus on fiction. His published work includes fully original novels, such as Hot Lead, Cold Iron, and Thief's Covenant; licensed/tie-in novels for multiple properties; and role-playing game material for games such as Dungeons & Dragons and Vampire: The Masquerade. He has worked with publishers such as Del Rey, Pyr Books, Titan Books, and Wizards of the Coast.Ari currently lives in an apartment that’s almost as cluttered as his subconscious, which he shares (the apartment, not the subconscious, though sometimes it seems like it) with George — his wife — and two cats who really, really think it’s dinner time. You can find Ari online at mouseferatu.com and on Twitter as @mouseferatu.About the Narrators:Jen R. Albert is an entomologist, writer, editor, narrator, wife, dog-mom, game-player, reader of all the things, and haver of too many hobbies from Toronto. She is a regular narrator at the Escape Artists podcasts and is co-editor of Podcastle.Jack Calverley lives in Central London where he watches a very small patch of land struggle into gardenhood. In even quieter moments he has been known to narrate science fiction stories for Starship Sofa and horror stories for Tales to Terrify, and also hosted the now defunct Crime City Central podcast for its entire two-year run. He is a member of the T-Party genre writers' group, another group called WINOS, and critters.org, and (having attended two online classes from the Odyssey Writing Workshops) is a member of the Odyssey online critique group. A testament to perseverance if nothing else. He lives online at jackcalverley.com where he watches a very small patch of website struggle into nethood."

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FarFetchedFables No 137 Ken Scholes and Alex Shvartsman

Tue, 20 Dec 2016 09:00:00 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Dreidel of Dread: The Very Cthulhu Chanukah” by Alex Schvartsman(Originally published in Galaxy's Edge.)Twas the night before Chanukah, and all through the planet, not a creature was stirring except for the Elder God Cthulhu who was waking up from his eons-long slumber. And as the terrible creature awakened in the city of R'lyeh, deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, and wiped drool from his face-tentacles, all the usual signs heralded the upcoming apocalypse in the outside world: mass hysteria, cats and dogs living together, and cable repairmen arriving to their appointments within the designated three-hour window."This will not do," said Chanukah Henry. "I will not have the world ending on my watch, not during the Festival of Lights."Alex Shvartsman is a writer, translator, and game designer from Brooklyn, NY. More than 80 of his short stories have appeared in Nature, Galaxy's Edge, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, and many other magazines and anthologies. He won the 2014 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction and was a finalist for the 2015 Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Fiction. He is the editor of the Unidentified Funny Objects annual anthology series of humorous science fiction and fantasy. His collection Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories and his steampunk humor novella H.G. Wells, Secret Agent were both published in 2015. His website is alexshvartsman.com.Main Story: “If Dragon's Mass Eve Be Cold and Clear” by Ken Scholes(Originally published at Tor.com.)Muscles tire. Words fail. Faith fades. Fear falls. In the Sixteenth Year of the Sixteen Princes the world came to an end when the dragon’s back gave out. Poetry died first followed by faith. One by one the world-strands burst and bled until ash snowed down on huddled masses whimpering in the cold.The Santaman came reeking of love into this place and we did not know him.This is his story.This is our story, too.PreludeThe Santaman Cycle, Authorized Standard VersionVerity Press, 2453 YDI buried my father on Dragon’s Mass Eve. I dug the grave myself, there on the hill overlooking our homestead, beside the grave he dug for my mother some thirty-five years earlier.Ken Scholes is the award-winning author of the five volume Psalms of Isaak series (published in the US by Tor) and more than fifty short stories. He is a native of the Pacific Northwest with two honorable discharges, a degree in History, and a wide background that includes time logged as a street performer, revivalist, nonprofit executive, government procurement analyst, and label gun repairman. Ken makes his home in Saint Helens, OR, with his twin daughters. Visit kenscholes.com to learn more.About the Narrators:Heather Klinke was born and raised in Southern Illinois. She grew up loving Gilda Radner, Wonder Woman, and the Muppets, all of whom inspired Heather to make the move to Hollywood. She received her BA in Theatre from Western Illinois University, and discovered the art of improvisation. She performed in numerous improv shows and stage plays in St. Louis before moving to LA, where she was accepted into Second City Hollywood’s first conservatory class. Heather has produced and starred in many shows at Second City, including “It’s Klinke! It’s Klinke!”, written and directed by Marc Evan Jackson. She often lends her voice to cartoons and the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, which is co-hosted by her husband, Chad Fifer.Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake; has written for the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman; and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV.  His current project, Interference (a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook... that kills), is a bestseller on Audible.com. His website for creative projects is Quillhammer.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 136 Paul Jessup and Effie Seiberg

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 09:00:00 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Under the Bed” by Effie Seiberg(Originally published in Crossed Genres.)I keep it clean under the bed. I go swoosh swoosh swoosh and suck the dust away. Jimmy can’t have a dusty bed. It would make him sick. I don’t want Jimmy to get sick. I love Jimmy. So I keep it clean.Jimmy’s been gone for three nights.Every night, we used to do our special thing. I’d slooooowly start to move. Make the whisperiest of sounds. And Jimmy would pretend to be frightened and he’d scream. His mom would come back into his room and look under the bed. “There’s nothing there, honey,” she’d say. But Jimmy and I would know different. It’s our secret, even though he can’t keep the secret even the littlest bit. But that’s OK. I always forgive him, because I love Jimmy.Effie Seiberg is a fantasy and science fiction writer. Her stories can be found in the Women Destroy Science Fiction! special edition of Lightspeed magazine (winner of the 2015 British Fantasy Award for Best Anthology), Galaxy's Edge, Analog, Fireside Fiction, and PodCastle, among others. She is a graduate of Taos Toolbox 2013, a member of SFWA and Codex, and a reader at Tor.com. Effie lives in San Francisco, recently and upcoming (but not presently) near a giant sculpture of a pink bunny head with a skull in its mouth. She likes to make sculpted cakes and bad puns. You can follow her on Twitter via @effies or on effieseiberg.com.Main Story: “The Adventures of Petal the Paper Doll Pirate” by Paul Jessup(Originally published in Fantasy Magazine.)The candle in the sky warmed their skin, making all too crisp the vellum of their bones. This was the Water Colored Tropics, far south from the harsh and acrylic snowlands that her Jotuns called home. Petal liked it here, this land of single hatch beaches and popup book natives in grass skirts.The papier-mâché Jotuns were grumpy and tired and sick. They did not like the heat, did not like being so close to the candle sun. They were afraid of burning up, of their paper-thin clothes curling black and catching flame, scattering the ash of their corpse in the static waves of the painted sea.They whispered behind Petal’s back. Talked of mutiny, written down in hidden parts of the ship. They made no secret of their disgust. When the Jotuns came brandishing clumsily drawn chains Petal had already stowed away on a brown cardboard boat, peddling straight towards a distant shore. She had copied the map on her flesh, inking the memory of the treasure she searched for into her skin with a large silver point pen.Paul Jessup is a critically acclaimed and award winning author, poet, and playwright. He's been published in numerous anthologies and magazines, and has three books out by various small presses.About the Narrators:Fran Carras is whatever she decides to be when she wakes up each morning. She has also been known to be a voice talent, performance artist, and poet, and professional dabbler in other arts that express. You can find her online at misfran.com.Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and three children. By day she works as a breast oncology nurse. At all other times she juggles, none too successfully, writing, reading, gaming, and gardening. She has been published at Escape Pod, An Alphabet of Embers, and People of Color Destroy Science Fiction!. She’s also penned a novel titled An Unproductive Woman which can be found on Amazon. Khaalidah is also a narrator and you may have heard her voice at Strange Horizons and all four of the Escape Artists podcasts. Khaalidah is guest editor for Artemis Rising 3 over at PodCastle and is also guest editing Truancy magazine‘s fourth issue.Khaalidah is on a mission to encourage more women and people of color to write and publish science fiction stories. Of her alter ego, “K” from the planet Vega, it is rumored that she owns a time machine and knows the secret to immorality. You can catch up to her posts at her website, khaalidah.com and follow her on Twitter, @khaalidah.

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FarFetchedFables No 135 Sharon Shinn

Tue, 06 Dec 2016 10:00:00 GMT

Feature Story: “The Double-Edged Sword” by Sharon Shinn(Originally published in Elemental: The Tsunami Relief Anthology: Stories of Science Fiction and Fantasy.)I sat at the back of the dark tavern at the table that, in the past five years, had come to be known as mine. Even on the days when I did not bother to leave my house, or leave my bed, no one sat in this booth except me. The townspeople knew better, and strangers who made the mistake of sitting in my place would be told politely by Samuel that the table was reserved. I was the only one who ever sat there, and Samuel was the only one who would approach me while I was in possession.I idly shuffled my zafo cards and began laying out an unspecified fortune. It would be my own, of course; these days, I did not read for anyone except myself. And even then, I was rarely satisfied with the pictures I saw in the cards.Sharon Shinn has published 26 novels, one collection, and assorted pieces of short fiction since her first book came out in 1995. Among her books are the Twelve Houses series (Mystic and Rider and its sequels), the Samaria series (Archangel and its sequels), the Shifting Circle series, and the Elemental Blessings series. Visit her website at sharonshinn.net or on Facebook at sharonshinnbooks.About the Narrator:Julie C. Day's fiction has appeared in such venues as Interzone, Podcastle, and Resurrection House’s anthology XIII. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program and a Masters of Science in Microbiology from the University of Massachusetts. You can find Julie’s latest story “Florida Miracles” in Interzone 261. As well as narrating for StarshipSofa, Julie is also the host of the Small Beer Press podcast. If you want to hear more of Julie’s voice, you can find her narration of Carmen Maria Machado’s “I Bury Myself” at smallbeerpress.com. Finally!: You can find Julie herself on Twitter @thisjulieday or through her website stillwingingit.com.

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FarFetchedFables No 134 Gerri Leen and Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold

Tue, 29 Nov 2016 09:00:00 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Myriam” by Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold("Tales of the Rose Knights" #10, originally published at Daily Science Fiction.com.)When the Rose Knight Myriam arrived in the farthest reaches of the magical lands of Hy Rugosa, she was already so pale she soon became known as the Gossamer Knight. She told no one from whence she hailed or why she had sought out the lands of Hy Rugosa, but rumors abounded: that she had assassinated the leader of the Inner Sea, that she had poisoned the Prince in Point-of-Sleep, that she had betrayed her fellow knights in far Chemeketa. Some thought they heard the lilt of the Moonwood in her voice, others the exotic strains of the Farmost West.One thing all the stories agreed on -- she had been banished. She was mourning. And every day, she disappeared a little bit more.The Oldest People knew her story, but they did not tell.Jay Lake lived in Portland, Oregon until his death in 2014, shortly before his 50th birthday. His books include Kalimpura from Tor and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime. His short fiction appeared regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay was a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. In 2015, he posthumously received the Locus Award for his collection Last Plane to Heaven.Learn more about him and his work at jlake.com.Ruth Nestvold has published widely in science fiction and fantasy, her fiction appearing in such markets as Asimov's, F&SF, and Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Tiptree, and Sturgeon Awards. In 2007, the Italian translation of her novella Looking Through Lace won the Premio Italia award for best international work. She maintains a web site at ruthnestvold.com and blogs at ruthnestvold.wordpress.com.Jay and Ruth's collection of short stories, Almost All the Way Home from the Stars, is available at Amazon and via iTunes.Main Story: “Whither Thou Goest” by Gerri Leen(Originally published in She Nailed a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror.)In the stories of those who survive, I am a heroine. In the stories of my own people, those of us descended from Lot's daughter, from her incestuous union with her own father, I am also a heroine. If two such noble peoples see me as such, who am I to complain?They both love me because I endure. Because I survive. Because I cling with holy -- or is it unholy -- fervor to the woman who bore the man I sucked dry. Once she knew what I was, Naomi would have killed me if she could, but her life is forfeit if I should cease to draw breath. I saw to that when I said the ancient words, binding me to her, twining my very breath with hers."Wherever you go, I will go…"Gerri Leen lives in Northern Virginia and originally hails from Seattle. She has work appearing or accepted by: Nature, Flame Tree Press’s Murder Mayhem and Dystopia Utopia anthologies, Daily Science Fiction, Escape Pod, Grimdark, and others. She recently caught the editing bug and is finalizing her third anthology for an independent press. You can find her online at gerrileen.com.About the Narrators:Tatiana Gomberg is a critically acclaimed actress of stage, screen, and the audio booth. She has been nominated for dozens of fancy awards but hasn’t won a single damned thing. She lives in New York City. See more about her at tatianagomberg.com.Andrea Subasatti is a sociologist, journalist, and podcaster. In 2010, her Master's thesis on the social impact of zombie cinema was published under the title When There’s No More Room In Hell: The Sociology of the Living Dead. She joined the staff of Rue Morgue magazine in 2014, to which she is a frequent contributor. Her writing has also been published in The Undead and Theology (2012) and The Canadian Horror Film: Terror of the Soul (2015). In addition to writing, Andrea is the co-host and producer of The Faculty of Horror podcast with writer Alexandra West. She has made guest appearances on the Rue Morgue Podcast and Pseudopod, and is co-curator of The Black Museum, a Toronto-based monthly horror lecture series she founded with Canuxploitation creator Paul Corupe. Lady Hellbat lives and works out of Toronto, Ontario. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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FarFetchedFables No 133 Travis Burnham and Matt Mikalatos

Tue, 22 Nov 2016 10:00:00 GMT

First Story: “Evil is as Evil Does” by Travis Burnham(Originally published in Aoife's Kiss.)Right in the middle of my nefarious plan to create an enormous ball of bubonic plague-infected fleas, the door gong set my teeth to rattling. I sent Herschel to see who it was.“It's today's virgin,” he rumbled from the end of the hallway.“Well don't just stand there like an idiot, bring her in,” I shouted. “You know the routine.” Herschel is as loyal as any evil master could hope for, but if his intellect were a knife, he'd have trouble cutting butter.Herschel brought her in over his shoulder and placed her on the trapdoor that dropped virgins to the room below where they would meet their violent, bloody deaths at Vilesnoot's claws and fangs.I leaned back in my easy chair, annoyed. “Herschel, remind me to call Green Light Virgins and complain. They're simply cutting too many corners.”Travis Burnham is an SF/F writer and science teacher. His work has previously appeared in Aoife's Kiss, Bad Dreams Entertainment, South85 Journal, and SQ Quarterly. Originally from New England, he's lived in Japan, Colombia, and the Mariana Islands, and currently lives in Upstate South Carolina with his wife and pup. He's a bit of a nomad, having bungee jumped in New Zealand, hiked portions of the Great Wall of China, and gone scuba diving in Bali. He's got some novels looking for homes and can be found online at travisburnham.blogspot.com and travisburnhambooks.com.Second Story: “Picture Perfect” by Matt Mikalatos(Originally published in Unidentified Funny Objects 3.)Richard the unfriendly ghost woke me. I blinked twice. The sun was still up, I could sense it on the other side of the drapes. "Are you trying to murder me again?" I asked.Richard cackled. "Worse! Much worse, Isaac."I frowned. I didn't bother to ask what was worse than murder. As a vampire I had doled out plenty of worse-than-murder moments, not the least of which was feeding Richard to one of the elder gods of terror. That had bought me almost two months of Richard-free bliss. But ghosts are surprisingly resilient.Matt Mikalatos is the author of eight books, the most recent of which is the young adult superhero novel, Capeville: Death of the Black Vulture. Find out more at mikalatos.com, or on Twitter and Facebook.About the Narrators:Dan Kelly is an artist allowing the universe to deliver his wildest dreams. Other than a high school diploma and a few random certificates for esoteric skills like Steadicam operation and freediving, Dan is giddily sans credentials and credibility. Born just before all those iconic Americans were rubbed out, he now thrives at the northern edge of the USA amidst paranoid prepper enclaves and socialist sleeper cells. Dan likes movies and with a little luck, he’ll be releasing his first open source inspired featurette, a post-apocalyptic romantic comedy titled Daughter of God sometime in the late summer of 2016. You can learn more at dankelly.sexy.Seth Williams is the avatar for a three-kilometer sentient starship that is parked (probably uncomfortably) close to the third planet. Surprisingly he has not yet been discovered. He is very happy that the inhabitants have discovered enough technology to that he can communicate in this limited fashion. Any communications can be directed to theboojum.org.

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FarFetchedFables No 132 Jakob Drud and Russell Hemmell

Tue, 15 Nov 2016 08:01:00 GMT

"Flash Fiction: “1348” by Russell Hemmell(Originally published in Strangelet 1.4 and also End of the Year Anthology 2015.)He arrived on Sunday, after a winter of sleep and snow. A jester with clear blue eyes, pale lithe hands and white flowers in them. He smiled and said, I come in peace. I ply my trade with buffooneries and riddles, and the joking tambourine accompanies my laughter. Enjoy my gifts, you beautiful city, and the good time I bring. He bowed in reverence, with the beauty of an angel. And it was Sunday.On Monday Florence woke up at the song of hundred birds, colourful plumes of fast-winged spirits. Sun was bathing the city roofs, and its rays made the Cathedral’s spires shine and glow. Here it comes an unforgettable season, people rejoiced. For the jester had promised.Russell Hemmell is a statistician and social scientist from the U.K, passionate about astrophysics and speculative fiction. His stories have appeared in Not One of Us, Perihelion SF, SQ Mag, and others. Learn more at earthianhivemind.net or on Twitter via @SPBianchini.Main Story: “Master of Business Apocalypse” by Jakob Drud(Originally published in Unidentified Funny Objects 3.)For the last one hundred thirty-one years my job at Mundo Perpetuo has been to stop all the probable and improbable apocalypses that people accidentally invoke. I've worked my way up from junior meteor diverter to viral containment specialist, and now, as the most senior staff member, I get to run the Department of Mixed Ends of the World. If the dinosaurs return, or civilization as we know it is threatened by falling anvils, Old Joe steps up to bat.And still, some days the world takes me by surprise, like the day when Paula Johnson greeted me in the lobby with these words: "Mr. Inflectus. I am to inform you that our new CEO, Mr. Halen, has called a meeting of all department heads at 9:00 A.M., and that you are now five minutes late."Around the office I just go by the name of Joe, so her salutation stopped me dead in my tracks. "And, eh, a very formal morning to you too, Ms. Johnson. New CEO, you said?"Paula just cracked her knuckles, a gesture I knew as danger incarnate. Her magic was capable of manipulating physical objects in disturbing ways, which made her the best security chief in the northern hemisphere. She was also an archivist of unrivaled skills, and both abilities had saved my life time and again. If she felt threatened, I did, too.Jakob Drud lives in Denmark with his wife and children. It's a good life, but his stories are probably more exciting than he is. They've met aliens, lived in the Sun, fought monsters and flown between the stars. They also travel more than he does, and so far they've appeared in magazines in the US, Canada, and Australia.About the Narrators:Alex Weinle lives in a cottage just outside Cambridge where he writes science fiction and narrates stories. His new fridge is bigger than the cottage itself, somewhat like the TARDIS but containing far more calories.Jonathan Sharp lives and works in a sleepy southern New Mexico town alongside his exceedingly talented wife, Paige. When he is free from the mountains of organic vegetables under which he works, he plays in front of the microphone in the hope it may one day talk back to him. You can reach him online at sharpandvoice.com."

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FarFetchedFables No 131 Gerri Leen and SL Harris

Mon, 07 Nov 2016 08:00:00 GMT

Flash Fiction: “In the Timeline Where the Moscow Metro Opened in 1934” by S.L. Harris(Originally published at Daily Science Fiction.)In the timeline where the Moscow Metro opened in 1934, we live together in a khrushchyovka on Bourbon Street and eat green caviar on waffles. Times are hard but we love each other like we never love each other, like we never love anyone else, in all the hundreds of millions of timelines I've seen.S.L. Harris is a writer and archaeologist who lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter and their faithful hound. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Abyss & Apex, Daily Science Fiction, and Plasma Frequency. He occasionally tweets as @sl_harris.Main Story: “The Last Song” by Gerri Leen(Originally published in Reflection's Edge, July 2008.)Haze rises like swamp gas in the capital, and Lupe can smell the exhaust swarming up around him from the traffic stalled on the Avenida La Reforma. The tourists are sweating as they head for the restaurants and shops or back to their hotels to stay in for the night. A man pushes past the others, hurrying, late perhaps. Sweat stains his fine shirt, darkening the fabric under the arms and down the back.“It’s a hot one,” Hector mutters. He doesn’t sweat, even though his charango lies flat against his back as he walks, the wood gleaming, the strings reflecting silver-white in the dying light.Enrique pushes his guitar back, but it’s too big to lie flat. It flops to the front after he has taken a few steps, the woven strap worn and faded and barely connected to the instrument. “So, it’s hot. So what?”They have been together too long to waste words. But Lupe knows they can’t remain entirely quiet. Silence is worse than death.And they should know.Gerri Leen lives in Northern Virginia and originally hails from Seattle. She has work appearing or accepted by: Nature, Flame Tree Press’s Murder Mayhem and Dystopia Utopia anthologies, Daily Science Fiction, Escape Pod, Grimdark, and others. She recently caught the editing bug and is finalizing her third anthology for an independent press. You can find her online at gerrileen.com.About the Narrators:Logan Waterman has a degree in Technical Theatre from California State University, and has worked in many theatres, large and small, professional and amateur. He has also worked for Apple computers, sold hot tubs and comic books, and prepared court documents. He has taught and performed sword-fighting for the stage, and run lights for a local band, until they broke up.Logan currently lives in Northern California with Grendel, a huge black beast whose primary occupations are sleeping, stalking the fish in the aquarium, and keeping the house safe from the hordes of invisible monsters that come out after dark; and Morgana, a small fluffy Queen who rules her domain with an iron paw. The fish are unimpressed.As of this bio, he has narrated for The Drabblecast and all five District of Wonders shows: StarShip Sofa, Tales To Terrify, Far Fetched Fables, and the late lamented Protecting Project Pulp and Crime City Central -- and is the only story narrator to do so.By day, Roberto Suarez works as a community college student advocate and recruiter. By night he geeks out on all things fantasy and science fiction, comic books and board games He is the co-host and producer of A Pod of Casts: The Game of Thrones Podcast and the new Radio Westworld, a podcast dedicated to HBO’s latest science fiction series. You can find Roberto on the web at robertosuarez.me, or on Twitter as @PuertoGeekan.

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FarFetchedFables No 130 Doug C Souza and Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold

Thu, 03 Nov 2016 07:00:00 GMT

"Flash Fiction: “Papagena” by Jay lake and Ruth Nestvold("Tales of the Rose Knights" #8, originally published in Daily Science Fiction.)Papagena was born on the Borderlands, between the sere landscape of the south and the orange plains to the north, a child of two homes, and when she chose to become a Rose Knight, her allegiance was to the plains as well as the desert, to the fertile land of Osverio as well as the harsher but warmer beauty of the Desertlands.She did not wear only one color. Some said her loyalties were divided, but she was true to both, orange and yellow, fighting with an ancient heart for both armies, giving the strength of her sword arm when the orange knights went to battle and the strength of her shield when the yellow knights needed to defend Sandbridge from intruders. As with all of the Rose Knights about whom the tales are told, Papagena was her own agent, free to go where she would and fight with whom she chose, living off booty and the pay from the campaigns in which she fought. Nonetheless, most Rose Knights fought for only one army.Papagena went a different way.Jay Lake lived in Portland, Oregon until his death in 2014, shortly before his 50th birthday. His books include Kalimpura from Tor and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime. His short fiction appeared regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay was a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. In 2015, he posthumously received the Locus Award for his collection Last Plane to Heaven.Learn more about him and his work at jlake.com.Ruth Nestvold has published widely in science fiction and fantasy, her fiction appearing in such markets as Asimov's, F&SF, and Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Tiptree, and Sturgeon Awards. In 2007, the Italian translation of her novella Looking Through Lace won the Premio Italia award for best international work. She maintains a web site at ruthnestvold.com and blogs at ruthnestvold.wordpress.com.Jay and Ruth's collection of short stories, Almost All the Way Home from the Stars, is available at Amazon and via iTunes.Main Story: “She-Who-Thinks-For-Herself” by Juliet E. McKenna(Originally published in Resurrection Engines.)My beloved aunt, Phyllis Charteris, has received none of the plaudits lavished on the laurel-garlanded heroes who explore the remote heart of Africa. The Royal Geographic Society might deign to acknowledge Mary Kingsley after the success of her publication, ‘Travels in West Africa’ but there is not one quarter-inch of a newspaper column recording my aunt’s achievements.Such injustice has galled me ever since my return from the trackless swamps of the upper Zambesi. However I was sworn to secrecy for reasons which this narrative will soon explain.Now Mr. H. Rider Haggard has published the reminiscences of his Cambridge acquaintance sheltering beneath the pseudonym “Horace Holly”. Consequently I am free to share my aunt’s achievements with the world.But I am outstripping my story’s proper order.Juliet E. McKenna is a British fantasy author living in the Cotswolds, UK. Loving history, myth, and other worlds since she first learned to read, she has written fifteen epic fantasy novels, from The Thief’s Gamble which began The Tales of Einarinn in 1999, to Defiant Peaks concluding The Hadrumal Crisis trilogy. Exploring new opportunities in digital publishing, she’s re-issuing her backlist as ebooks as well as bringing out original fiction. She also writes diverse shorter fiction, reviews for web and print magazines and promotes science fiction and fantasy by blogging, attending conventions, and teaching creative writing. You can learn more about all of this at julietemckenna.com, and you can find Juliet on Facebook and on Twitter via @JulietEMcKenna.About the Narrators:Kat Merkulova is a multilingual, multi-national human. Born in the USSR, she currently lives in Paris, France. In the past she’s written a doctorate in plant biology, been an electro-grunge singer, and reported “LIVE!” on Russian national television. She’s recently decided to give web development a chance. As fascinating a person as she may be by day, she has zero literary credentials apart from being a fan of genre literature and podcasting. If you really want to, you can follow her on Instagram at @katlarusse.Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements. She also hosts this podcast..."

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FarFetchedFables No 129 Camille Griep and Natalia Theodoridou

Mon, 24 Oct 2016 07:01:00 GMT

"Flash Fiction: “Anatomy of an Arrow” by Natalia Theodoridou(Originally published on Daily Science Fiction.)"So, uh, I've been meaning to ask. What's that?" He pointed at the fletching that poked out of a hole in her blouse, a few inches from her chest. It almost dipped in her bowl every time she bent to take a spoonful of soup.She shrugged and looked away. "An arrow.""An arrow." He mouthed the word slowly, as if trying to wrap his mind around each syllable.Natalia Theodoridou is a media and cultural studies scholar, a dramaturge, and a writer of strange stories. Her fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Crossed Genres, Interfictions, and elsewhere. Find out more at natalia-theodoridou.com or follow @natalia_theodor on Twitter.Main Story: “Into the Woods, with Zombunny” by Camille Griep(Originally published in Unidentified Funny Objects 3.)Squire Ulrich's very worst day began with cold tea at breakfast, followed by the discovery of a hole in his right greave, and culminating with a lost battle flag. "Good luck with your next job" his knight had said. Ulrich might have misplaced any number of items of little consequence; the battle flag was not one of them. Ulrich's shoulders slumped as his former employer disappeared over the rise. He'd never been sacked before, in the middle of battle, no less.The squire turned his back to a pile of pendants, none of which belonged to him, when misfortune beset him a final time. A sharp pain between his shoulder blades revealed itself to be a sturdy, wooden arrow impaling his chest.Camille Griep's recent work has been featured at Cartridge Lit, The Drabblecast, Under the Gum Tree, and Synaesthesia, among others. She is the editor of Easy Street, a senior editor at The Lascaux Review, and an editor at Prison Renaissance, a project that fosters mentorship and collaboration between incarcerated and free artists. The author of Letters to Zell (July 2015) and New Charity Blues (April 2016), she lives and writes near Seattle with her bulldog assistants, Dutch and Hippo. She can be found online at camillegriep.wpengine.com.About the Narrators:Jen R. Albert is an entomologist, writer, editor, narrator, wife, dog-mom, game-player, reader of all the things, and haver-of-too-many-hobbies from Toronto. She is a regular narrator at the Escape Artists podcasts and is co-editor of Podcastle.Rish Outfield is a writer, actor, and podcaster who can be heard as co-host of The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, which presents genre stories with a full cast. He also performs audiobooks for Audible, and occasionally becomes a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms, and the moon is full and bright."

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FarFetchedFables No 128 Django Wexler

Mon, 17 Oct 2016 07:01:00 GMT

“The Penitent Damned" by Django Wexler(Originally published on io9.)Duke Mallus Kengire Orlanko, Royal Minister of Information — sometimes called the Last Duke, though not in his hearing — did not look particularly dangerous. He was short, balding, and tended toward the portly, a roly-poly little man with an unfortunate taste for rich purples that gave him the look of a ripe plum.Nevertheless, it was widely agreed that the Duke was the most dangerous man in Vordan, if not beyond. This was not simply because he was the inheritor of the most powerful fiefdom in the kingdom (though he was), or even because as Minister of Information his secret police, the all-seeing, all-knowing Concordat, had an informer in every shadow (though they did). What gave Orlanko his aura of terror was the certain knowledge that he had merely to crook a finger, and grim-faced men in long black coats would go to the home of the object of his displeasure in the middle of the night and haul the unfortunate away; and more importantly that no one would ever say a word about it, whether the prisoner was a beggar or a peer of the realm. Even the other Ministers of the Cabinet walked with care around the Last Duke.Django Wexler graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, with degrees in Creative Writing and Computer Science, and worked for the university in artificial intelligence research. He eventually migrated to Microsoft in Seattle, where he now lives with two cats and a teetering mountain of books. When not writing, he wrangles computers, paints tiny soldiers, and plays games of all sorts. He can be found online at djangowexler.com and via Twitter: @DjangoWexler.About the Narrator:Nikolle Doolin is a voice actor and a writer of fiction, scripts, and poetry. She has performed narrations for a number of popular and award-winning podcasts, such as The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify, and StarShip Sofa. She also narrates classic literature in her own podcast Audio Literature Odyssey. To learn more about Nikolle, visit her website at nikolledoolin.com."

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Far Fetched Fables No. 127 Oliver Buckram and Lynn Hardaker

Mon, 10 Oct 2016 07:00:00 GMT

Flash Fiction: “The Choochoomorphosis” by Oliver Buckram(Originally published in Unidentified Funny Objects 3.)As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed into Neville, the Crime-Fighting Locomotive. Neville was a funny little blue engine with six small wheels and a stumpy smokestack. He lived in the Big Station with the other steam engines of the Happyville Railroad, and spent his days cheerfully bustling up and down the railroad tracks, solving crimes and getting into mischief.Oliver Buckram Ph.D., lives in the Boston area where (under an assumed name) he teaches social science to undergraduates. His work has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Interzone, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF), among other places. Find out more about him at oliverbuckram.com.Main Story: “The Mermaid's Purse” by Lynn Hardaker(Originally published in Cabinet des Feés' Scheherezade's Bequest: Something Rich and Strange.)“Look, Mummy, I’ve found another one.” The girl came running over. Claire watched her daughter with quiet detachment. Combing the beach for shells and feathers and mermaids’ purses was one of Lily’s favourite things to do.Her polka-dotted rubber boots made her steps awkward, but she didn’t seem to notice.With a look of triumph, she dropped the mermaid’s purse into Claire’s lap then pirouetted away, her long red hair catching the sea-wind as she ran back to the shore.Without taking her eyes off the girl, Claire picked up the purse, feeling the smooth black casing under her finger tips. Once, in a moment of doing what she thought a mother ought to do, she had told Lilly that they were actually cases for the eggs of skates or sharks. Lilly refused to believe it.Claire looked at the one she had now, alien and beetle-like. She squeezed it gently. Empty.“Mummy,” Lily had reappeared suddenly, “I think there’s one out there.” She pointed to the silver-gilded waves.“One what?”“A mermaid.”Lynn Hardaker is a Canadian writer and artist currently living in Regensburg, Germany. Her poems and short stories have appeared in such journals as Mythic Delirium, Scheherezade's Bequest, and Goblin Fruit. She's this close to finishing the third draft of her YA historical fantasy novel set in early 18th-century London. Her blog can be found at Beneath the Bracken.About the Narrators:Geoffrey Welchman writes, produces, and voices The Reigning Lunatic podcast, a medieval sitcom (and 2016 Parsec Awards finalist). He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. You can find him online at geoffreywelchman.com.Summer Brooks is a bit of a television addict, and enjoys putting her sci-fi media geek skills to good use in interviewing guests. She had been a co-host for Slice of SciFi from 2005-2009, the co-host for The Babylon Podcast from 2006-2012, and host of Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas, before returning to Slice of SciFi full time as host and producer in August 2014.She is an avid reader and writer of scifi, fantasy and thrillers, with a handful of publishing credits to her name. Next on her agenda is writing an urban fantasy tale, and a B-movie monster extravaganza.Currently, Summer designs and maintains websites for clients in addition to having fun with the Slice of SciFi websites, and also does voiceover & narrations for Tales to Terrify, StarShipSofa and Escape Pod, among others.

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FarFetchedFables No 126 Juliet McKenna and Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold

Tue, 04 Oct 2016 07:01:00 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Papagena” by Jay lake and Ruth Nestvold("Tales of the Rose Knights" #8, originally published in Daily Science Fiction.)Papagena was born on the Borderlands, between the sere landscape of the south and the orange plains to the north, a child of two homes, and when she chose to become a Rose Knight, her allegiance was to the plains as well as the desert, to the fertile land of Osverio as well as the harsher but warmer beauty of the Desertlands.She did not wear only one color. Some said her loyalties were divided, but she was true to both, orange and yellow, fighting with an ancient heart for both armies, giving the strength of her sword arm when the orange knights went to battle and the strength of her shield when the yellow knights needed to defend Sandbridge from intruders. As with all of the Rose Knights about whom the tales are told, Papagena was her own agent, free to go where she would and fight with whom she chose, living off booty and the pay from the campaigns in which she fought. Nonetheless, most Rose Knights fought for only one army.Papagena went a different way.Jay Lake lived in Portland, Oregon until his death in 2014, shortly before his 50th birthday. His books include Kalimpura from Tor and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime. His short fiction appeared regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay was a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. In 2015, he posthumously received the Locus Award for his collection Last Plane to Heaven.Learn more about him and his work at jlake.com.Ruth Nestvold has published widely in science fiction and fantasy, her fiction appearing in such markets as Asimov's, F&SF, and Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Tiptree, and Sturgeon Awards. In 2007, the Italian translation of her novella Looking Through Lace won the Premio Italia award for best international work. She maintains a web site at ruthnestvold.com and blogs at ruthnestvold.wordpress.com.Jay and Ruth's collection of short stories, Almost All the Way Home from the Stars, is available at Amazon and via iTunes.Main Story: “She-Who-Thinks-For-Herself” by Juliet E. McKenna(Originally published in Resurrection Engines.)My beloved aunt, Phyllis Charteris, has received none of the plaudits lavished on the laurel-garlanded heroes who explore the remote heart of Africa. The Royal Geographic Society might deign to acknowledge Mary Kingsley after the success of her publication, ‘Travels in West Africa’ but there is not one quarter-inch of a newspaper column recording my aunt’s achievements.Such injustice has galled me ever since my return from the trackless swamps of the upper Zambesi. However I was sworn to secrecy for reasons which this narrative will soon explain.Now Mr. H. Rider Haggard has published the reminiscences of his Cambridge acquaintance sheltering beneath the pseudonym “Horace Holly”. Consequently I am free to share my aunt’s achievements with the world.But I am outstripping my story’s proper order.Juliet E. McKenna is a British fantasy author living in the Cotswolds, UK. Loving history, myth, and other worlds since she first learned to read, she has written fifteen epic fantasy novels, from The Thief’s Gamble which began The Tales of Einarinn in 1999, to Defiant Peaks concluding The Hadrumal Crisis trilogy. Exploring new opportunities in digital publishing, she’s re-issuing her backlist as ebooks as well as bringing out original fiction. She also writes diverse shorter fiction, reviews for web and print magazines and promotes science fiction and fantasy by blogging, attending conventions, and teaching creative writing. You can learn more about all of this at julietemckenna.com, and you can find Juliet on Facebook and on Twitter via @JulietEMcKenna.About the Narrators:Kat Merkulova is a multilingual, multi-national human. Born in the USSR, she currently lives in Paris, France. In the past she’s written a doctorate in plant biology, been an electro-grunge singer, and reported “LIVE!” on Russian national television. She’s recently decided to give web development a chance. As fascinating a person as she may be by day, she has zero literary credentials apart from being a fan of genre literature and podcasting. If you really want to, you can follow her on Instagram at @katlarusse.Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements. She also hosts this podcast..."

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FarFetchedFables No 125 Michael Rimar and David_Steffen

Mon, 26 Sep 2016 07:01:00 GMT

“Reckoning” by David Steffen(Originally published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, September 2013.)"The Day of Reckoning is upon us," Preacher Paul said."You reckon?""I reckon."Paul watched Jake for telltale signs of guilt, but his friend only nodded and went on rocking his chair on the general store's porch."You'd best do everything you can to prepare," Paul added. "I'm here to offer you counsel if you need it.""Before you get too far in that sermon of yours, you ought to know I don't have any money for you, Preacher."Paul shook his head and stroked his beard. "That's just what the Devil's telling you to say."David Steffen is a writer, editor, and software engineer. He edits Diabolical Plots, which began publishing original fiction in 2015. He runs the Submission Grinder, a tool for writers to find markets for their work. He recently published The Long List Anthology, which is a collection of 21 stories from the longer Hugo Award nomination list last year. His own stories have been published in many nice places, including Escape Pod, Podcastle, Daily Science Fiction, and StarShipSofa.“Four Wizards and a Funeral” by Michael Rimar(Originally published in Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show #23.)True to her reputation, Simone the Starling was positively ravishing for a wizard.With her black satin robe accentuating her long, free-flowing hair, she moved like wavelets across a pond at midnight.In contrast, her face was paler than the dead man laying between us, a slash of crimson across her full lips the only suggestion she retained any membership to the living.Remembering my station, I folded my hands in a functionary manner and half-smiled, half-frowned my condolence. "Did you know him well, madame?" A standard if officious question. A blind man would recognize the only female member of the Cabal, or that Carmichael the Ferret, the leader of that notorious quintet of mages lay prone upon my preparation table.Michael Rimar no longer writes witty bios with clever puns and cute references to his pets. He has since matured. Also, he has no pets -- just two daughters, which is kind of the same thing. Furthermore, he sees nothing funny about writing science fiction, fantasy, and some horror, although many of his stories might be considered humorous. And purposefully humorous, not this-is-so-bad-it’s-funny kind of humorous. As proof, his story, A Bunny Hug for Karl, was nominated for the 2014 Prix Aurora for the best in Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy. He is also an associate publisher of Bundoran Press and co-editor of the anthology Second Contacts, which was also nominated for the 2016 Aurora award. He has been published in Writers of the Future XXI and On Spec, both serious publications despite having the occasional humorous story. Learn more about Mike at mikerimar.com. Seriously.About the Narrators:Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake; has written for the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman; and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV. His current project, Interference (a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook... that kills), is a bestseller on Audible.com. His website for creative projects is Quillhammer.com.Seth Williams is the avatar for a three-kilometer sentient starship that is parked (probably uncomfortably) close to the third planet. Surprisingly he has not yet been discovered. He is very happy that the inhabitants have discovered enough technology to that he can communicate in this limited fashion. Any communications can be directed to theboojum.org.

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Far Fetched Fables No 124 Thana Niveau

Mon, 19 Sep 2016 07:00:00 GMT

“First and Last and Always” by Thana Niveau(Originally published in Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane.)Tamsin placed her hands on either side of her phone and gazed intently at the picture of Nicky she’d taken the day before. Her heart soared as she said his name aloud.“Nicky.”The flickering candlelight gave him the illusion of movement and Tamsin could almost believe she was watching him through a portal, seeing him as he was right at this moment. After a few seconds the picture faded and the screen went dark. She peered into the smooth black surface, focusing on the afterimage – Nicky in negative, overlaid by the reflection of her eyes and the ghostly glow of the flame.“Nicky.”When the image behind her eyes finally faded too she tried to see beyond the scrying glass of the phone’s screen, into whatever dimension the emptiness might reveal. Past, present, future – she didn’t care as long as she saw him.Thana Niveau is a horror and science fiction writer. Originally from the States, she now lives in the UK, in a Victorian seaside town between Bristol and Wales. She has twice been nominated for the British Fantasy Award – once for her debut short story collection From Hell to Eternity and once for her story “Death Walks En Pointe”. She has been writing all her life, but only began to publish after winning first place in a Jack the Ripper short story competition in 2010. Many others stories followed, in such diverse publications as Interzone, Black Static, Darker Companions (a tribute to Ramsey Campbell), Steampunk Cthulhu, Zombie Apocalypse Endgame, several volumes of both the Black Book of Horror series and the Terror Tales series. Her Lovecraftian novella Not to Touch the Earth appears in Whispers in the Dark. Her work has been reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, as well as Best British Horror.About the Narrator:Summer Brooks is a bit of a television addict, and enjoys putting her scifi media geek skills to good use in interviewing guests. She had been a co-host for Slice of SciFi from 2005-2009, the co-host for The Babylon Podcast from 2006-2012, and host of Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas, before returning to Slice of SciFi full time as host and producer in August 2014.She is an avid reader and writer of scifi, fantasy and thrillers, with a handful of publishing credits to her name. Next on her agenda is writing an urban fantasy tale, and a B-movie monster extravaganza.Currently, Summer designs and maintains websites for clients in addition to having fun with the Slice of SciFi websites, and also does voiceover & narrations for Tales to Terrify, StarShipSofa and Escape Pod, among others.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 123 Spencer Ellsworth and Jeremy Szal

Mon, 12 Sep 2016 07:00:00 GMT

“The Ifrit's Trial” by Spencer Ellsowrth(Originally published in Human Tales.)Noble courtiers, wazirs, Sultan and lovely Sultana, salaam. Such fanfare for a poor Ifrit you have brought! I see you have seven red-robed sorcerers arrayed about the room, and seven white-robed holy men, each holding the seal of Suleyman whom the Hebrews called Solomon the Wise, and chanting the psalms of David, may peace fall upon him. In the yards of the palace you have arrayed seven times seven of these fork-bearded sorcerers, and seven times seven of these shaven holy men, and they each hold the seal and speak psalms and suras. After the time I have spent in your service, noble Sultan, do you think that I would be so foolish to not stand at my trial? I am a foolish Ifrit, this much is true, but there is enough sense in my head of air and fire to know that I owe you an explanation.This is the crime of which I stand accused: of my own malicious nature, I cast a wicked spell upon the Sultana Jalima and caused her to love me.Spencer Ellsworth lives in the top left corner of the USA, the Pacific Northwest, with his wife and three children. By day he works as a faculty/admin combo at a tribal college on a Native American reservation; by night he writes fiction. His short fiction has appeared and is forthcoming at Tor.com, Lightspeed Magazine, F&SF, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and many other places. His first novels, a space opera trilogy called Starfire, will be released in short increments by Tor.com in 2017.“Last Age of Kings” by Jeremy Szal(Originally published in Fantasy Scroll Magazine #10.)Fog approached the town.Roshar knew it would happen, but it was still unsettling to see it touch the outskirts of his home. The day before, you could still see the fields. And the week before that Lithgard was still visible if you looked hard enough. But they had all been swallowed up by the spectral fog that scrubbed them out of existence.And soon it would be Northam’s turn.He was almost glad that Robin would never have to see this.Born in 1995 with a twisted sense of humor and a taste for craft beer, Jeremy Szal’s fiction and nonfiction has appeared or is forthcoming in such venues as Nature, Nature: Physics, Abyss & Apex, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and others. He is the fiction editor for a rubbish little-known podcast you probably haven't heard of called StarShipSofa, a Writers of the Future Finalist, and also has a useless BA in Film Studies and Creative Writing. He’s written multiple novels and is on the hunt for literary representation. He carves out a living in Sydney, Australia. Find him on Twitter at @jeremyszal or at his blog, jeremyszal.com.About the Narrators:Heath Miller is an actor from Perth, Western Australia. Often found in theaters, recording studios, comedy clubs, television sets, convention centers, and YouTube videos, Heath currently finds himself living on an island off the coast of Maine with two improbably large cats, one improbably large dog, one rather small puppy, and a brace of regular-sized chickens. You can follow him on Twitter at @zaboots or at heathmiller.net.Mark "The Encaffeinated One" Kilfoil loves fiction, so much so that he's written some (such as the Parsec-nominated Tainted Roses), read quite a lot (a library of over a thousand half-read books and growing), and now narrates it (sometimes actually recorded for others). He's found that volunteering for a dozen years in radio was a decent way to get a full-time job as a Program Director at a community radio station in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, but not such a great way to finish his thesis, so he stopped at a Masters in Computer Science. He can be heard frequently on CHSRfm.ca, and two of his shows regularly appear as podcasts, and can be found at encaffeinated.ca and theweirdshow.com. He likes cats enough to pet them but not enough to own one, and computers enough to own several but pet none of them. He will someday write a million words, but at this rate, that will require life extension, so he eagerly awaits the ability to upload into a computer, if that hasn't already happened and this is all only a simulation.

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FarFetchedFables No 122 Siobhan Carroll and Jay Lake Ruth Nestvold

Mon, 05 Sep 2016 07:01:00 GMT

"Flash Fiction: “Eden Rose” by Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold("Tales of the Rose Knights" #7, originally published in Daily Science Fiction.)When the Rose Knight Graham Thomas first fell in love with Eden Rose, he knew the two of them would not have an easy time of it. He was a Yellow Rose of the old guard in the service of the Sun, while she was a White Rose, a servant of the Moon, her colors white and the faintest pink blush. The Sun and the Moon had long been at war, but in the way of youth, Eden and Graham knew that their individual fates would be strong enough to overcome history.Jay Lake lived in Portland, Oregon until his death in 2014, shortly before his 50th birthday. His books include Kalimpura from Tor and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime. His short fiction appeared regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay was a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. In 2015, he posthumously received the Locus Award for his collection Last Plane to Heaven.Learn more about him and his work at jlake.com.Ruth Nestvold has published widely in science fiction and fantasy, her fiction appearing in such markets as Asimov's, F&SF, and Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Tiptree, and Sturgeon Awards. In 2007, the Italian translation of her novella Looking Through Lace won the Premio Italia award for best international work. She maintains a web site at ruthnestvold.com and blogs at ruthnestvold.wordpress.com.Jay and Ruth's collection of short stories, Almost All the Way Home from the Stars, is available at Amazon and via iTunes.Main Story: “Asmodeus Flight” by Siobhan Carroll(Originally published in Ghost in the Cogs)The day she turned eleven, Effie's father showed her how to die."Even the best aeronaut can be taken down by a spark" he said, his hand tracing the air between the Asmodeus engine and the oil-varnished paper over their heads. Effie swallowed. The ground below the air balloon looked unreal now, falling away into a picture of farmland and houses. But the hot flame that licked and danced before her — that threat seemed real.When not globetrotting in search of dusty tomes, Siobhan Carroll lives and lurks in Delaware. She is a graduate of Clarion West, the indefatigable OWW, and the twin ivory towers of Indiana University and U.B.C. Her fiction can be found in such magazines as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Realms of Fantasy, and Lightspeed. Sometimes she writes under the byline "Von Carr". Both versions of herself firmly support the use of the Oxford Comma. For more, visit voncarr-siobhan-carroll.blogspot.com.About the Narrators:Heidi Hotz is a voiceover artist with a range of personalities who has been in the industry for more than 10 years, and has worked on TV commercials, radio, documentaries, audio fiction, and narration in general. She can be found at Voices.com.Andrea Richardson is a British singer and actress. With extensive stage and film performances to her name, she began narration and voiceover work in 2014 but enjoys using her existing skills in a different way. You can find Andrea at andrea-richardson.co.uk and on Facebook."

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FarFetchedFables_No_121_Robert_V_S_Redick

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 04:49:32 GMT

“The Forever People” by Robert V.S. Redick(Originally published in Fearsome Journeys.)When Majka stepped out through the kitchen door at dusk she found a huge white weasel in the garden. Brazen, it locked eyes with her: a rare chelu, a ghost weasel, halfway between the garden wall and the little ramp by which the chickens entered the barn. Majka hissed. The chelu answered with a growl. The animal was nearly the size of a wolverine.The door stood open behind her. From within came the eager thok thok of her mother-in-law’s knife as she battled a turnip, then a chord from the mandolin her son was learning to play. They had borrowed the instrument from a neighbor; it was scratched and worn, and the neck felt slightly loose, but the family treated it like the relic of a saint. It had changed their evenings, brought life to those shadow-swamped rooms.Majka closed the door. She would face the chelu with the axe from the wood-splitting stump. Never taking her eyes from the creature, she backed along the side of the whitewashed house. A fierce wind was rising. The warmth of the day was ebbing fast.Robert V.S. Redick is the author of the critically acclaimed epic fantasy series The Chathrand Voyage Quartet. His new trilogy, The Fire Sacraments, launches in the fall of 2017 with Master Assassins. For twenty years he has combined fiction and international social and environmental justice work. Robert has lived and worked in Indonesia, Colombia, Argentina, and the UK. He now lives in Massachusetts with his partner, Kiran Asher, where they raise mud turtles. He can be found online at robertvsredick.com.About the Narrator:Amy Robinson is a voice artist with a wide range of vocal styling, inflections, and accents. She can be heard in a wide array of radio announcer spots, audiobook narrations, animated series, and even telephone IVR systems, and is a featured player on the Rookery Radio Hour Podcast. You can find her online at amyrobinsonvo.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 118 Alison Littlewood and Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold

Wed, 17 Aug 2016 07:00:00 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Black Baccara” by Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold("Tales of the Rose Knights" #6, originally published in Daily Science Fiction.)Baccara is one of the dark ones from among the ranks of the Rose Knights. She is a pale woman, needle-thin with large eyes dark as bruises. She always goes clad in satin of a color that falls somewhere between maroon and leaf mold. Baccara follows battle rather than leading it like most of her fellows, always in the service of the Armies of the Moon.Baccara can hear the whispers of the departing souls of the dead. From them she bargains for secrets. And the Velvet Knight always keeps her bargains.Jay Lake lived in Portland, Oregon until his death in 2014, shortly before his 50th birthday. His books include Kalimpura from Tor and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime. His short fiction appeared regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay was a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. In 2015, he posthumously received the Locus Award for his collection Last Plane to Heaven.Learn more about him and his work at jlake.com.Ruth Nestvold has published widely in science fiction and fantasy, her fiction appearing in such markets as Asimov's, F&SF, and Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Tiptree, and Sturgeon Awards. In 2007, the Italian translation of her novella Looking Through Lace won the Premio Italia award for best international work. She maintains a web site at ruthnestvold.com and blogs at ruthnestvold.wordpress.com.Jay and Ruth's collection of short stories, Almost All the Way Home from the Stars, is available at Amazon and via iTunes.Main Story: “In the Quiet and In the Dark” by Alison Littlewood(Originally published in The Best British Fantasy 2013.)The street was dead. Steph looked up and down it and saw honey-coloured houses, a quiet church, and behind everything, sleeping fields. She wrinkled her nose. ‘Street’ didn’t seem the right word for it, not really; she didn’t know what was. ‘Lane’ was too small – this was the centre of Long Compton – and ‘road’ implied it was going somewhere. Anywhere.She thought again of the way her mother had said goodbye, walking down the platform after the train as if she hadn’t wanted Steph to go. Then she’d turned before she was quite out of sight, taken her new husband’s arm and walked away, a spring to her step, off to live in some cheap bar on an unfashionable stretch of Italian coastline. Steph scowled. She had asked if she could go too – just once – and she didn’t really remember the words her mother had used, but she remembered the look in her eyes. Steph knew, when she saw that look, that it wasn’t any use. The flat in London was already sold – the one that lay on a street, a proper street – and now she was here in the Cotswolds with her dad, nowhere to go and nothing to do, in the far reaches of the back of beyond.Alison Littlewood is the author of A Cold Season (published by Jo Fletcher Books), which was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club, where it was described as "perfect reading for a dark winter’s night". Her sequel, A Cold Silence, has recently been published. Her next book, The Hidden People, is about the little folk and the fate of a suspected changeling. Alison won the 2014 Shirley Jackson Award for Short Fiction and her short stories have been picked for several Year’s Best anthologies. Alison lives with her partner Fergus in Yorkshire, England, in a house of creaking doors and crooked walls. She has a penchant for books on folklore and weird history, Earl Grey tea, and semicolons. You can talk to her on Twitter via @Ali__L, find her on Facebook, or visit her at alisonlittlewood.co.uk.About the Narrators:Nikolle Doolin is a writer and a voice actor. Her fiction, poetry, and plays have been published and presented; and her voice has appeared in various mediums. Nikolle has performed numerous narrations for a number of popular and award-winning podcasts, such as The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify, and Far-Fetched Fables. She also narrates classic literature by the likes of Austen, Poe, James, and more in her own podcast, Audio Literature Odyssey. To learn more about Nikolle, visit her website at nikolledoolin.com.Catherine Logan had many years of training in theatre and voice in her youth, and then many years of teaching acting, drama, writing, and English literature as a grown-up. She has taken plenty of workshops and has studio experience in narration, commercial and animation voiceover work. Catherine is now involved in a second career which takes her back to her first love. She can be reached at catherineloganvoice.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 119 Beth Cato

Tue, 16 Aug 2016 07:00:00 GMT

Flash Fiction: “The Quest You Have Chosen Defies Your Fate” by Beth Cato(Originally published in Daily Science Fiction.)You are reading a book, and within that book you now walk through the iron gates of the junior high school of your youth. You don't understand how you are reading of a real place within this old fantasy book of adventures you found in the closet of your childhood bedroom. These particular pages didn't exist before, here in this volume that you read until its white spine was bowed, swaybacked, broken. Today you have fallen between the plot lines, the inked illustrations, the bookmarks you once placed at the major decisions you were asked to make--yes, your cheating is known. The bookmarks are gone. You can no longer flip back to choose between releasing the unicorn on page 32, or continuing into the forest on page 210, or the various other forks in your literary path. Main Story: “Cartographer's Ink” by Beth Cato(Originally published in Daily Science Fiction.)Not even the soothing heat of a full cup of tea could ease the agony in Sir Oren's hands. Each finger joint throbbed as if it contained a burning coal. He cursed, trying to cradle the cup between his palms, but the brew sloshed and speckled his velvet housecoat. Oren exhaled in frustration and set the cup aside.If he couldn't drink tea, how in the ten hells was he supposed to manage pen and ink? The secret of his pained hands had been kept this long because the king had no immediate need of him, and his other commissions had far-off deadlines. Oren claimed headaches, avoided the map room entirely, and tried every available concoction to heal his hands. Nothing worked.If King Atsu didn't see an update on his linked palace map soon, there'd be another messenger. His Majesty would already be marshaling his soldiers to march on Jal and reinforce the Grey Watchtower, so recently cut off by the meandering river. He must draw the new map lines to assert their claim against those Jalian ingrates.Beth Cato hails from Hanford, California, but currently writes and bakes cookies in a lair west of Phoenix, Arizona. She shares the household with a hockey-loving husband, a numbers-obsessed son, and a cat the size of a canned ham. She's the author of The Clockwork Dagger (a 2015 Locus Award finalist for First Novel) and The Clockwork Crown from Harper Voyager. Follow her at BethCato.com and on Twitter at @BethCato.About the Narrators:Geoffrey Welchman writes, produces, and voices The Reigning Lunatic podcast, a medieval sitcom. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. You can find him online at geoffreywelchman.com.Martin Reyto is an educator, writer, and musician. He has worked in an eclectic variety of fields, including 18 years as a technical writer and software developer; 16 years as a teacher of creative writing, computer science, and business communication; and shorter stints as a symphony musician and audiobook narrator. He has published short fiction and two collections of his poetry.

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FarFetchedFables No 120 Rachel Swirsky

Tue, 16 Aug 2016 07:00:00 GMT

“Broken Clouds” by Rachel Swirsky(Originally published in When the Villain Comes Home.)Alex walked home through light rain that was almost soundless as it silvered the sidewalk. The whole world seemed colorless: overcast sky, grey drizzle, endless cement.The empty, grasping ache in her abdomen gnawed at her, not just because of the pain but because of the frisson of loss that accompanied it. She was like a glass with the water poured out, a vacant vessel.Would it ever stop? Did anyone ever recover from having the magic torn out of their flesh?Her house came into view as she turned the corner, its dilapidated single story dwarfed by the apartment buildings on either side. It always seemed to be cowering, as if the neighboring giants might decide at any moment to crush it into oblivion. Its faded wood siding was the same grayed-out blue as the rainy sky. Battered shutters held tight against wind and water.Rain had swollen the doorframe. Alex grunted as she put her weight into tugging it open. Hinges screeched. Slanting rain pooled inside the threshold.Rachel Swirsky met her husband in 2003 when he began teaching her about the wondrous evolution of life on earth. Ten years later, she wrote a short story about dinosaurs and won the Nebula Award. "Broken Clouds" was written for the anthology When the Villain Comes Home, the sequel to an earlier one called When the Hero Comes Home. She says of the story: "I wanted to play with some of the traditional urban fantasy stuff, like Charles de Lint and Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere." You can find her online at rachelswirsky.com and patreon.com/rachelswirsky.About the Narrator:Ashley Storrie is a Scottish stand-up comedian, podcaster, and radio presenter. She's currently performing at the Fringe Festival, and will be there until the 28th of August at The Free Sisters. Follow her on Twitter via @ashleystorrie."

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FarFetchedFables No 117 Michael M Jones and Lane Robins

Mon, 01 Aug 2016 07:00:00 GMT

"nd Mercury, Gilt and Glass” by Lane Robins(Originally published in Daily Science Fiction.)42 facts about my wife, Marie:1) Marie was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1984.2) She has blue eyes, and brown hair that falls just below her shoulders, not quite wavy, not quite straight. Her features are regular and even, though her upper lip is a little short and always bares her teeth.3) We met five years ago during a dull business conference mixer. I thought she had a wonderful smile, especially when she turned it toward me.Lane Robins was born in Miami, Florida, the daughter of two scientists, and grew up as the first human member of their menagerie. She attended the Odyssey workshop, the Center for the Study of Science Fiction novel and short story workshops, and has a BA in Creative Writing from Beloit College. She is the author of Maledicte and Kings and Assassins, and the romantic mystery Renovation. Under the name Lyn Benedict, she writes the urban fantasy series beginning with Sins and Shadows. Her short fiction has been published in Strange Horizons, Penumbra, and Nightmare Magazine. She currently resides in Lawrence, Kansas.“Your Name is Eve” by Michael M. Jones(Originally published in Clockwork Phoenix 3.)On Monday, Clancy and Eve went out to dinner. They found the ideal place in the dreams of an exhausted Wisconsin woman, a young mother who'd fallen asleep on the couch while watching the Food Network late at night, after an exhausting day taking care of her toddler. She dreamed of cooking with today's secret ingredient, sweet potatoes, and a host of delicious, wonderful dishes were served up by handsome men with swimmers' bodies and the faces of famous network chefs. As part of the judging committee, Clancy and Eve tested a series of dishes, from delicate appetizers to a rich soup, from spiced chicken to a desert casserole, each using the secret ingredient to great result.Michael M. Jones lives in Southwest Virginia, with too many books, just enough cats, a plaster penguin, and a wife who once clothes-lined a legendary author without remorse or mercy. His fiction has appeared in such anthologies as B is for Broken, Clockwork Phoenix 3, and A Chimerical World. He also edited Scherazade's Facade and the forthcoming Schoolbooks & Sorcery.About the Narrator(s):Dan Kelly is an artist allowing the universe to deliver his wildest dreams. Other than a high school diploma and a few random certificates for esoteric skills like Steadicam operation and freediving, Dan is giddily sans credentials and credibility. Born just before all those iconic Americans were rubbed out, he now thrives at the northern edge of the USA amidst paranoid prepper enclaves and socialist sleeper cells. Dan likes movies and with a little luck, he’ll be releasing his first open source inspired featurette, a post-apocalyptic romantic comedy titled Daughter of God sometime in the late summer of 2016. You can learn more at dankelly.sexy.Deanna Sanchez is a voiceover talent and actress who has performed professionally for 14 years. She has voiced various commercials, industrials, and characters, and specializes in the “sexy voice” of powerful female roles. An avid fan of science fiction since her grandfather gave her a copy of Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky when she was 9, she feels greatly privileged to help bring this story to life. While pursuing a voice talent and acting career, Deanna also consults in Geographical Information Systems and develops custom mapping applications for real estate and other industries. Her background in I.T. management does not prevent her from owning multiple old computers, some with Windows 98 still running. Three-dimensional visualization of spatial data is a favorite pastime, and she has spent many hours translating real-Earth elevation data into unique 3D worlds. Deanna’s voice over demo can be heard at the Lambert Studios website, an outstanding full service recording studio."

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FarFetchedFables No 116 Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas and Paul Jessup

Tue, 26 Jul 2016 07:00:00 GMT

"n Xochitl in Cuicatl in Shub-Niggurath” by Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas, translated by Silvia Moreno-García(Originally published in Sword & Mythos.)Screams. The sun had not risen yet when the Mexica priests entered the Valley of Toluca, carrying the effigies of their gods. They carried the whistles of death tied around their necks: small clay skulls that produced terrifying shrieks when they blew them. This is how they announced the arrival of war, and with it, of Huitzilopochli and Tezcatlipoca, the lords that the Matlazinca would be forced to worship after being defeated by the Mexica.Šuti spat when she saw the procession coming closer. Those feathered puppets would never be her gods.Nelly Geraldine Garcia-Rosas is Mexican but lives in the UK with her husband. Her stories have appeared in anthologies like The Apex Book of World SF 3 and She Walks in Shadows. She can be found online at nellygeraldine.com or tweeting mostly in Spanish as @kitsune_ng.“Sun Sorrow” by Paul Jessup(Originally published in Sword & Mythos.)...and then Beyla sat down, under the lost arch and thought again of Carcosa, and the hidden secrets she’d searched for in its crowded temples and burning libraries. She picked up the rabbit head, deep in her own thoughts, staring into the dead eyes. Wanting to forget. Wanting to remember. Perverse, the way her mind worked. She rubbed the tips of the ears, pushing them back against the head. Slick, like hair. The oracle. She had found him. He was dead, but she had found him.Paul Jessup is a critically acclaimed and award winning author, poet, and playwright. He's been published in numerous anthologies and magazines, and has three books out by various small presses. You can find him online at pauljessup.com.About the Narrators:Karen Bovenmyer earned an MFA in Creative Writing: Popular Fiction from the University of Southern Maine in 2011. She has published approximately 25 poems, short stories, and novellas and has a novel coming out next year. She teaches and mentors students at Iowa State University and serves as the Nonfiction Assistant Editor of Escape Artists’ Mothership Zeta Magazine. Karen’s narrations can be heard on the Strange Horizons, StarShip Sofa, Gallery of Curiosities, and Pseudopod podcasts. You can find her online at karenbovenmyer.com.Julie C. Day's fiction has appeared in such venues as Interzone, Podcastle, and Resurrection House’s anthology XIII. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program and a Masters of Science in Microbiology from the University of Massachusetts. You can find Julie’s latest story “Florida Miracles” in Interzone 261. As well as narrating for StarshipSofa, Julie is also the host of the Small Beer Press podcast. If you want to hear more of Julie’s voice, you can find her narration of Carmen Maria Machado’s “I Bury Myself” at smallbeerpress.com. Finally!: You can find Julie herself on Twitter @thisjulieday or through her website stillwingingit.com."

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Far Fetched Fables No. 115 Richard Parks and Wendy Nikel

Tue, 19 Jul 2016 11:00:00 GMT

This month's cover art is "Dragonfly Kiss" by Susan McKivergan, a digital muse, graphic designer, and artist. When not working and improving her skills in digital art, she enjoys cooking, 3-D modeling, texturing, painting, crafts, sewing, the beach, gardening, traveling, and more. She has done artwork for many CD and book covers, magazines, E-zines, and commissioned and licensed work. She has won several awards, has appeared in ImagineFX, and has sold thousands of prints through deviantART. Her virtual gallery can be found on Renderosity and deviantART, and she can be found on Facebook and Twitter.Flash Fiction: “Rain Like Diamonds” by Wendy Nikel(Originally published at Daily Science Fiction.)The queen hoarded the barrels of seed, keeping them locked within her coffers among the diamonds and gold and strings of perfect pearls, remnants of the former days of prosperity and excess. The seeds would receive neither sun nor water nor nutrients from the soil until unlocked by the shining key strung around her neck. Day after day, she sat upon her throne, and the villagers lined up before her, pleading. It was only her loyal guards, with their sharp swords glimmering in her peripheral, who kept the villagers from severing her neck to get at that key. When Wendy Nikel isn't traveling in time, exploring magical islands, or investigating mysterious phenomena, she enjoys a quiet life near Utah's Wasatch Mountains with her husband and sons. She has a degree in elementary education, a fondness for road trips, and a terrible habit of forgetting where she's left her cup of tea. Her short fiction has been published by AE, Daily Science Fiction, and others, and she is a member of SFWA. For more info, visit wendynikel.com.Main Story: “Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls” by Richard Parks(Originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #131, named to the 2013 Locus Recommended Reading List.)The tales varied as to why the well was outside the village rather than inside. Some say that an earthquake and rockfall destroyed the original town site and the survivors rebuilt the village at a safer distance, leaving the now-dry well where it was. Others say that a saké-addled farmer relieved himself in the well one night, so offending the spirit of the well that it had moved itself and had been dry ever since. Whichever version one believed, the well was where it was, and nearly every evening the boy called Hiroshi came to stare down into the darkness, and listen.The well was full of music.Richard Parks has written and published science fiction and fantasy longer than he cares to remember... or probably can remember. His works were finalists for both the World Fantasy and Mythopoeic Awards, and has appeared in Asimov’s, Realms of Fantasy, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and several “year’s best” anthologies. Other adventures featuring Yamada no Goji were collected in Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter (Prime Books, 2013) and the novels Yamada Monogatari: To Break the Demon Gate and Yamada Monogatari: The War God’s Son (Prime Books, 2014 and 2015, respectively). Parks blogs at the Den of Ego and Iniquity Annex #3, also known as richard-parks.com.About the Narrators:Catherine Logan had many years of training in theatre and voice in her youth, and then many years of teaching acting, drama, writing, and English literature as a grown-up. She has taken plenty of workshops and has studio experience in narration, commercial and animation voiceover work. Catherine is now involved in a second career which takes her back to her first love. She can be reached at catherineloganvoice.com.Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake; has written for the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman; and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV. His current project, Interference (a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook... that kills), is a bestseller on Audible.com. His website for creative projects is Quillhammer.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 114 Paul Magrs and Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold

Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:00:00 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Harlekin” by Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold("Tales of the Rose Knights" #5, originally published on Daily Science Fiction.)Harlekin was fair as a maiden, with a blush to match. Women can possess the kind of beauty that was his and still be taken seriously, but not men -- or so it seemed to the beautiful youth. Is it any wonder that he chose to wear particolor and play the clown?This strategy went well for him for a time--being underestimated has its advantages. But when Harlekin decided to become a Rose Knight and serve the forces of Prince Arthur de Sansal in the Kingdoms of the East to fight against the Forces of Darkness, the proctors of the Kingsguard looked at his fair skin and rosy cheeks, at his suit of creamy white and blushing red, and chuckled.Jay Lake lived in Portland, Oregon until his death in 2014, shortly before his 50th birthday. His books include Kalimpura from Tor and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime. His short fiction appeared regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay was a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. In 2015, he posthumously received the Locus Award for his collection Last Plane to Heaven.Learn more about him and his work at jlake.com.Ruth Nestvold has published widely in science fiction and fantasy, her fiction appearing in such markets as Asimov's, F&SF, and Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Tiptree, and Sturgeon Awards. In 2007, the Italian translation of her novella Looking Through Lace won the Premio Italia award for best international work. She maintains a web site at ruthnestvold.com and blogs at ruthnestvold.wordpress.com.Jay and Ruth's collection of short stories, Almost All the Way Home from the Stars, is available at Amazon and via iTunes.Main Story: “Talented Witches” by Paul Magrs(Originally published in Resurrection Engines.)My Aunts were nimble creatures, standing on the steep slopes of this is how it happened, although I couldn’t quite remember what I found down there. It’s starting to come back now. They reached out because they felt my presence. In some truly here in the past, in this benighted place.I can feel the chill, feel the breezes and the springy turf between tall black gravestones. It is as if I am actually dashing after my churchyard where those Brontë sisters used to play and live, in the last century. She’s in the ways I have settled in very nicely, adapting to their rituals and routines, and I can. I can. I’ll get into terrible trouble.I see the idea take light behind young Emily’s eyes. From across the room I can hear her heart beating faster and harder. And along the cobbled streets of Haworth bristling with resentment and fury. Why am I patting her hand as he coaxes her into committing arson?Paul Magrs lives and writes in Manchester. In a twenty year writing career he has published a number of novels in a variety of genres, including books about trans-temporal adventuress Iris Wildthyme and also the Brenda and Effie Mysteries, which are about the Bride of Frankenstein running a B&B in the seaside town of Whitby. He has also written fiction for young adults, including Strange Boy, Exchange, and most recently, Lost on Mars (Firefly Press). Over the years he has contributed many times to the Doctor Who books and audio series. He is the author of a beloved cat memoir The Story of Fester Cat (Berkley). He has taught Creative Writing at both the University of East Anglia and Manchester Metropolitan University, and now writes full time. He blogs at lifeonmagrs.blogspot.co.uk, and he can be found on Twitter and Facebook.About the Narrators:Seth Williams is the avatar for a three-kilometer sentient starship that is parked (probably uncomfortably) close to the third planet. Surprisingly he has not yet been discovered. He is very happy that the inhabitants have discovered enough technology to that he can communicate in this limited fashion. Any communications can be directed to theboojum.org.Katherine Inskip weighs galaxies for a living, and builds worlds in her spare time. She is addicted to chocolate and Japanese logic puzzles.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 113 Steven Toase and Stephen S. Power

Tue, 05 Jul 2016 15:00:00 GMT

Flash Fiction: “River Boys” by Stephen S. Power(Originally published in Faed.)The river gives our village food and blood, breath and beat, and, one evening, it gave us a boy.A girl named Minu found him in a coracle caught on a mossy bank upstream. She didn’t recognize the weave of his boat or the cloth knotted at his hips. He was terribly thin. He couldn’t speak or open his eyes. He only pointed at his mouth. She helped him onto shore and laid his head across her lap. As the river shares with us, we must share with others, so Minu fed the boy a pinch of the fishballs she’d brought in a blue and white cloth. He took her wrist with a slippery hand and sucked her fingertips clean. He seemed to fill out as she watched. Then he pointed at his mouth again.She looked toward the village and, seeing no one coming, she fed the boy another fishball. And another. In a few moments he’d eaten them all. When he let go of her wrist and pointed at his mouth, Minu held up the empty cloth and shook it. His eyes sprang wide. They were mud brown and raging like the river under a storm. Minu gasped, fell into them and drowned.As the river gives all to us, we give ourselves to the river.Stephen Power's novel The Dragon Round, will be published by Simon & Schuster on July 19, 2016, and is available for pre-order. His work has recently appeared at AE, Daily Science Fiction, and Flash Fiction Online, and he has stories forthcoming in Amazing Stories, Deep Magic, and Lightspeed. He lives in Maplewood, NJ, tweets as @stephenspower, and can be found online at stephenspower.com.Main Story: “Skin Like Carapace” by Steven Toase(Originally published in Cabinet des Fees's Scheherezade's Bequest Vol 1.)I sleep shallow and my memories whisper in my ear, their hand on my shoulder so I cannot evade them. They speak to me of the first time I came to the market of fragrance, 16 years old and face bare apart from one age branch carved above the broken brow of my nose. I pay them no heed, but it's hard, hard to ignore the first taste of the air surrounding the market. Then and still the greatest wonder of the Land of No Light.Here you can buy powders to stain your skin with the scent of fly agaric and birch bark, or smoke to disguise you as a freshwater pool to hide from violent and determined creditors.Everyday, between the fourth and the fifth bell, dancers gather on the cobbled square. Each one is bathed since birth in a different essence. They weave their scents into epic stories of the origins of the four Royal houses, and the spectres whose tattered odour is carried on the wind. Those who brush against the dancers never clean that patch of skin and carry the story on them throughout their lives.Steven Toase lives in North Yorkshire, England and occasionally Munich, Germany. His stories tend towards the unsettling and unreal, and his work has appeared in Cabinet de Fees' Scheherezade's Bequest, Innsmouth Magazine, Not One of Us, and Cafe Irreal among others. His story "Call Out" was published in The Best Horror of The Year Anthology 6 in 2014. He is currently working with Becky Cherriman and Imove on a commissioned project called Haunt. To read more of Steve's work please visit stevetoase.wordpress.com.About the Narrators:Kaushik Narasimhan is a management consultant by day and a writer by night, with a keen interest in psychedelics and role playing video games. You can find him online at kazarelth.net.Rob Matheny is a Salem, Oregon-based producer, voice guy, book fiend, metal head, and the host of The Grim Tidings Podcast. You can find him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Far Fetched fables No. 112 Michael J. Martineck and Anna Zumbro

Tue, 28 Jun 2016 08:00:18 GMT

Flash Fiction: “The Pixie Game” by Anna Zumbro

(Originally published at Daily Science Fiction.)

The rain has stopped shortly before the dismissal bell rings, and the ground is spongy and quivering with worms. Someone taps Gage’s shoulder. He spins around and sees Dasha, her mouth upturned at some private joke.

“We’re playing the pixie game. Want to come?”

It’s the third time someone has talked to him at this school and the first time he’s been invited to do anything. He follows her, half running, to the hedges surrounding the playground.

Iver and Jack are already waiting at the greenest part of the hedge. Gage has never spoken to either of them, but he’s noticed that everyone laughs at Iver’s jokes whether they’re funny or not, that even fifth-graders defer to him in the lunch line.

Iver nods at Dasha and turns to Gage. He grins. “Hey, new kid. You go first.”

“Okay.” Gage approaches the hedge, ready to thrust his hand through the branches on the count of three. “Am I going against you?”

“What? Didn’t you ever play before? Show him, Jack.”

Anna Zumbro lives in Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared in Cricket, Daily Science Fiction, Fantasy Scroll, and other publications. You can find her online at annazumbro.com.

Main Story: “Greener Pastures” by Michael J. Martineck

(Originally published in The Urban Green Man.)

Esther’s pine-green boots swung together from the cab, planted on the curb, and let her blossom from the door. She stretched and opened and engulfed what pitiful level of sunlight managed to ricochet down to street level in this song of concrete, glass and steel they called a city.

“Loveless,” she said, looking up at her destination. She adjusted her skirt and jacket, greens so dark as to seem black in the dull autumn day. Primping? Her left upper lip curled like ivy ‘round a twig. She never primped. Usually. Except, she admitted, for today. Esther jangled her blond curls. The flow of pedestrians crossing the sidewalk paused, curious and smiling.

Seven pigeons landed before her, limning a runway between her and the gray revolving door she eyed.

The door rotated to match her stride. She crossed the tiled lobby, toward a white plastic arch, attended by 220 pounds of male muscle obstructed by a blue shirt and badge. She winked. The guard smiled.

“How sad,” she said passing under the arch. “A trellis with no roses.”

Michael J. Martineck’s latest novel — The Milkman (EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy), a murder mystery set in a world with no governments — won a gold medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards and was also a finalist in the Eric Hoffer awards, given each year for salient writing from small presses. His previous novel, Cinco de Mayo, was a finalist for an Alberta Reader’s Choice Award. He has written for DC Comics, several magazines (fiction and non-fiction), the Urban Green Man anthology, and two urban fantasy novels for young readers. Michael has a degree in English and Economics, but has worked in advertising for several years. He lives with his wife and two children on Grand Island, New York. He can be found online at michaelmartineck.com.

About the Narrators:

Bennie Matesich was born during the information age of the second millennium. She is a graduate of Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, where she studied Theatre, English and Creative Writing while playing with power tools on a daily basis. (Her favorite is the skill saw.) Bennie has primarily worked as a stage actress and is new to the world of voice acting. Currently, she resides in Northern Michigan, where she is a mere mortal by day and one of the world’s best waitresses by night. She loves good beer, good stories, and bad jokes. “Why did the psychic decide to start podcasting? She had a very positive aural sense.”

Catherine Logan had many years of training in theatre and voice in her youth, and then many years of teaching acting, drama, writing, and English literature as a grown-up. She has taken plenty of workshops and has studio experience in narration, commercial and animation voiceover work. Catherine is now involved in a second career which takes her back to her first love. She can be reached at catherineloganvoice.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 111 Julie Frost

Tue, 21 Jun 2016 08:00:41 GMT

Featured Story: “The Cow & The Beanstalk” by Julie Frost

(Originally published in Azure Valley, April 2013)

Once upon a time, I was unfaithful to my fiancée. That went… aye, about as well as you’d expect.

“You traitorous varlet!” Mary screamed at me.

“Please, beloved! This isn’t what it looks like — ” I dodged the chamberpot she flung at my head. Fortunately, it was empty. Unfortunately, this was in fact exactly what it looked like.

“With my own sister?”

Katherine, the sister in question, waved a languid hand.

“You should be pleased with how long it took me to wear him down. Quite noble, your young man, ‘struth. I finally had to bespell him before he’d give in, and even that wasn’t easy.”

Mary growled, a noise I’d never heard her make before.

“You’ve always hated me, witch, and tried to steal every bit of happiness away that you could. I should have killed you in your cradle.” She leaped on top of the bed and aimed her nails at Katherine’s eyes, while I struggled off the other side and fell to the floor, fumbling with my clothes.

Katherine caught Mary’s wrists and flung her backwards.

She seemed rather amused by the whole thing. “You silly cow,” she said, leaning out of the way when Mary came back with a wild swing of a delicate fist. “Mmm, yes.”

She flicked her fingers, and suddenly a whitish-cream, doe-eyed Jersey cow stood on the bed where Mary had. “Much more suitable, I think,” Katherine said.

Julie Frost writes every shade of speculative fiction and lives in Utah with her family, which consists of an equal number of guinea pigs and people, and a collection of anteaters and Oaxacan carvings, some of which intersect. Her short fiction has appeared in Cosmos, Unlikely Story, Plasma Frequency, Stupefying Stories, and others, and was a finalist at Writers of the Future and the Hidden Prize for Prose. Her first novel, Pack Dynamics, was released at Salt Lake ComicCon 2015 by WordFire Press, and sold out there, much to everyone’s delight. She whines about writing, a lot, at agilebrit.livejournal.com.

About the Narrator:

Rish Outfield is a writer, actor, and podcaster who can be heard as co-host of The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, which presents genre stories with a full cast. He also performs audiobooks for Audible, and occasionally becomes a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms, and the moon is full and bright.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 110 Krystal Claxton and Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold

Tue, 14 Jun 2016 08:00:13 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Golden Unicorn” by Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold

(“Tales of the Rose Knights” #4, originally published in Daily Science Fiction.)

Jay Lake lived in Portland, Oregon until his death in 2014, shortly before his 50th birthday. His books include Kalimpura from Tor and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime. His short fiction appeared regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay was a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. In 2015, he posthumously received the Locus Award for his collection Last Plane to Heaven.

Learn more about him and his work at jlake.com.

Ruth Nestvold has published widely in science fiction and fantasy, her fiction appearing in such markets as Asimov’s, F&SF, and Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Tiptree, and Sturgeon Awards. In 2007, the Italian translation of her novella Looking Through Lace won the Premio Italia award for best international work. She maintains a web site at ruthnestvold.com and blogs at ruthnestvold.wordpress.com.

Jay and Ruth’s collection of short stories, Almost All the Way Home from the Stars, is available at Amazon and via iTunes.

Main Story: “Heartless” by Krystal Claxton

(Originally published in Fantastic Stories of the Imagination #224.)

I should leave the man in the dark, face­down on the dirt path where I find him. Entangling myself in the affairs of a Shebeast is high on my list of things to avoid. But the chance that he still lives draws me in. Grunting, I roll his limp form to rest on his back, my breath turning to puffs of fog in the chill air.

His heartstrings splay from the wound in his chest like delicate red ribbons. Drained of heat and color, his face is lifeless­­handsome with amber hair and strong brow, but empty nonetheless. She left him here for dead.

Krystal Claxton was tragically born with a miscalibrated sense of humor and lived in nine US states before the age of thirteen. The combination of the two has left her with an oscillating accent and a habit of laughing at things that aren’t funny. She currently lives in Georgia with her long-suffering spouse, a dog who thinks she’s a cat, and a number of children that is subject to change. She enjoys breaking Heinlein’s Rules, getting distracted by Dragon Con, and feverishly researching whichever random topic has just piqued her interest. Keep up with her at krystalclaxton.com and on Twitter via @krystalclaxton.

About the Narrators:

Andrea Richardson is a British singer and actress. With extensive stage and film performances to her name, she began narration and voiceover work in 2014 but enjoys using her existing skills in a different way. You can find Andrea at andrea-richardson.co.uk and on Facebook.

Karen Bovenmeyer earned an MFA in Creative Writing: Popular Fiction from the University of Southern Maine in 2011. She has published approximately 25 poems, short stories, and novellas and has a novel coming out next year. She teaches and mentors students at Iowa State University and serves as the Nonfiction Assistant Editor of Escape Artists’ Mothership Zeta Magazine. Karen’s narrations can be heard on the Strange Horizons, StarShip Sofa, Gallery of Curiosities, and Pseudopod podcasts. You can find her online at karenbovenmyer.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 109 Pat Bowne

Tue, 07 Jun 2016 08:00:48 GMT

Fiction: “Want’s Master” by Pat Bowne

(Originally published in Tales of the Unanticipated, 2002.)

When William Harrison Gracile came in to work at four-thirty in the afternoon looking as if he had aged twenty years overnight, his suit hanging loose on a wizened frame, his secretary wished him good day and went back to her typing. Gracile was offended. He had never been late to work before; he had never come in with a hair out of place. He deserved better from his secretary, he thought. She should make shocked noises, ask after his health, give unsought advice; she should stop him, as he went into his office. “I’m sorry,” she should say, “I don’t want to intrude, but…”

“Oh, by the way,” said his secretary, “a package came for you. I put it on your desk.” 

A package was exciting, even to someone of an age and station that begged for unsolicited, meaningless packages.

Pat Bowne missed graduate school, so she made up her own university: The Royal Academy of the Arcane Arts and Sciences at Osyth, where “battling your demons” is more than a figure of speech. Folks at the Royal Academy have been suffering through meetings, attending ill-fated conferences, and pursuing their research into denizens of the netherworld ever since. Fans of academic satire can follow them through three novels’ worth of adventure (Advice From Pigeons, A Lovesome Thing, and Swept and Garnished), and a variety of reissued novellas, either standalone or in the collection Want’s Master and Other Stories from Osyth. The best place to keep up with all things Osyth is the Royal Academy’s website at raosyth.com.

About the Narrator:

Dan Kelly is an artist allowing the universe to deliver his wildest dreams. Other than a high school diploma and a few random certificates for esoteric skills like Steadicam operation and freediving, Dan is giddily sans credentials and credibility. Born just before all those iconic Americans were rubbed out, he now thrives at the northern edge of the USA amidst paranoid prepper enclaves and socialist sleeper cells. Dan likes movies and with a little luck, he’ll be releasing his first open source inspired featurette, a post-apocalyptic romantic comedy titled Daughter of God sometime in the late summer of 2016. You can learn more at dankelly.sexy.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 108 Ed Ahern and Tony Pi

Tue, 31 May 2016 08:00:06 GMT

This month’s cover art is “Abyssal” by Jason Deem, a designer, art director, and illustrator who mostly creates fantasy and horror art, and is the resident cover artist for Grimdark Magazine. You can find him online at spiralhorizonart.com, or in real life in Dallas, TX.

First Story: “Raikou and the Shi-Ten Doji” by Ed Ahern

(Originally published in Eternal Haunted Summer, Autumn Equinox 2013)

A long time ago the capital of Japan was Kyoto, the city of blossoms. The Mikado and his court lived in Kyoto, a place of beautiful shrines and temples. But the capital was troubled with many thieves and murderers who snuck through the city gates at night.

Even worse were the evil imps, called onis, with horns, and long fangs, and tiger skin loin cloths. These onis would prowl the Kyoto streets by night, grab people by their hair, drag them through the Rajo-mon gate into the mountains, rip the meat from their bones, and eat it. The young women they did not eat they kept as slaves.

The bravest captain of the Mikado’s city guard was Yorimitsu of the Minamoto family, called most often Raikou. And the bravest of Raikou’s guardsmen was Watanabé Tsuna. It was Tsuna that Raikou ordered to guard the Rajo-mon gate at night.

Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty-odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He has his original wife, but advises that after forty-eight years they are both out of warranty. Ed has had more than ninety stories and poems published so far, and two books. You can find him on Twitter as @bottomstripper and online at swampgasworks.com.

Second Story: “The Miscible Imp” by Tony Pi

(Originally published in When the Villain Comes Home.)

Treg’s new bottle was tall, narrow, and square, and he hated it. It was cramped inside, and the thick flint glass distorted his view of the outside world. But Myrina had been adamant: he must ride inside this bottle or not come at all. “I hain’t carrying a prissy vial that’ll break from a sneeze, and if it’s round it’ll roll underfoot when I set you down,” she said. “You don’t want to spill, do you?”

The magic that gave Treg life came with a curse that trapped his essence inside bottles and jars. Within the confines of a glass prison, he could possess and animate any liquid it held, but he could never hold thought or shape beyond the vessel’s mouth. Therefore he needed Myrina to retrieve Old Man Reeve’s notebook from its hiding place; without notes, he’d never learn how his former master made him. If he had the formula, he might discover how to halt the strange decline of his genius. To live simpleminded was a doom worse than death to Treg, and Myrina was living proof.

Tony Pi is a Canadian science fiction and fantasy writer whose short fiction has been thrice-nominated for the Aurora Awards, and was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2009. Visit his website at tonypi.com.

About the Narrators:

Seth Williams is the avatar for a three-kilometer sentient starship that is parked (probably uncomfortably) close to the third planet. Surprisingly he has not yet been discovered. He is very happy that the inhabitants have discovered enough technology to that he can communicate in this limited fashion. Any communications can be directed to theboojum.org.

Brian Rollins was born in California and grew up in and around the Western US. He currently resides in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, where he works as a voice artist primarily focused on audiobooks. He is best known as the voice of the “Glen and Tyler” series of audiobooks written by J.B. Sanders. You can find him onstage in the Denver area with Magic Moments, a non-profit theater group that brings theater professionals together with people with special needs to create an original show every year. You can hire Brian to narrate your next audiobook at TheVoicesInMyHead.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 107 Peter Orullian and Jeremy Szal

Tue, 24 May 2016 08:00:57 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Old Blood” by Jeremy Szal

(Originally published in Saturday Night Reader, September 2015)

They said you couldn’t kill Old Blood, direct descants from the First Men, blessed with wisdom and the ability to peer into the future. It seemed that a blade between the ribs did just the trick. I doubted Lord Commander Roran had predicted that move.

I stood in the Commander’s place, leading the Amelleus army. My army.  There were thousands of men bathed in the morning’s pale glow, standing silently in the frosty fields as snow gathered on their helmets. They held shields of Dwenish metal, brandished their swords and flatbows, the arrow tips swathed in poison. They twisted spears that glinted in the sun, maces and warhammers from the far south of Ikbsah, where death was an art and red was the artist’s colour.

Born in 1995 with a twisted sense of humor and a taste for craft beer, Jeremy Szal’s fiction and nonfiction has appeared or is forthcoming in such venues as Nature, Nature: Physics, Abyss & Apex, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and others. He is the fiction editor for a rubbish little-known podcast you probably haven’t heard of called StarShipSofa, a Writers of the Future Finalist, and also has a useless BA in Film Studies and Creative Writing. He’s written multiple novels and is on the hunt for literary representation. He carves out a living in Sydney, Australia. Find him on Twitter at @jeremyszal or at his blog, jeremyszal.com.

Main Story: “A Fair Man” by Peter Orullian

(Originally published in Grimdark Magazine #6.)

Pit Row reeked of sweat. And fear.

Heavy sun fell across the necks of those who waited their turn in the pit. Some sat in silence, weapons like afterthoughts in their laps. Others trembled and chattered to anyone who’d spare a moment to listen. Fallow dust lazed around them all. The smell of old earth newly turned. Graves being dug constantly for those who died fighting in the pit. Mikel walked the row, one hand on his blade, the other holding the day’s list.

He passed a big man sitting in a spray of straw. The fellow wore several brands across his chest. A prisoner. More than forty fights. Each win burned into his flesh with a simple hash. He’d die in chains. Or die in the pit. Blood caked his left foot below an iron manacle that had torn up the flesh of his ankle. Dust clung to his sweaty skin. The prisoner didn’t look up at Mikel, any more than he blinked away the fly drinking at the corner of his eye. But there was something foreign about the man. And something menacing. Indifference?

Further down, a young man practiced thrust and parry combinations, his boots lifting more dust into the hot haze. The fellow narrated each movement, the tone of his voice like a man trying to convince himself he’d survive the pit. Mikel hated this type. Not because they sought glory. No one was that stupid. It was desperation. The pup had a bit of training and had almost certainly wagered on his own victory, hoping to turn a few thin plugs. The young man’s sad, nicked sword told the story of his need.

Peter Orullian has worked at Xbox for more than a decade, which is good, because he’s a gamer. He’s toured internationally with various bands and been a featured vocalist at major rock and metal festivals, which is good, because he’s a musician. He’s also learned when to hold his tongue, which is good, because he’s a contrarian. Peter has published several short stories, which he thinks are good. The Unremembered and Trial of Intentions are his first novels, which he hopes you will think are good. He lives in Seattle, where it rains all the damn time. He has nothing to say about that. Visit Peter at orullian.com.

About the Narrators:

Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head. He looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. He currently resides in Houston, Texas, but is in the process of relocating to Minnesota. He can be found on Google Plus.

Mark “The Encaffeinated One” Kilfoil loves fiction, so much so that he’s written some (such as the Parsec-nominated Tainted Roses), read quite a lot (a library of over a thousand half-read books and growing), and now narrates it (sometimes actually recorded for others). He’s found that volunteering for a dozen years in radio was a decent way to get a full-time job as a Program Director at a community radio station in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, but not such a great way to finish his thesis, so he stopped at a Masters in Computer Science. He can be heard frequently on CHSRfm.ca, and two of his shows regularly appear as podcasts, and can be found at encaffeinated.ca and theweirdshow.com. He likes cats enough to pet them but not enough to own one, and computers enough to own several but pet none of them. He will someday write a million words, but at this rate, that will require life extension, so he eagerly awaits the ability to upload into a computer, if that hasn’t already happened and this is all only a simulation.

This month’s cover art is “Abyssal” by Jason Deem, a designer, art director, and illustrator who mostly creates fantasy and horror art, and is the resident cover artist for Grimdark Magazine. You can find him online at spiralhorizonart.com, or in real life in Dallas, TX.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 106 Lake and Nestvold, Cherie Priest, and Kelly Sandoval

Tue, 17 May 2016 08:00:50 GMT

“Rosaraie de l’Hay” by Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold

(“Tales of the Rose Nights” #3, originally published at Daily Science Fiction.)

In the steep-walled country of Hy Rugosa, where the women guard their swords and the men guard their tongues, dwelt a daughter of the fey named Roseraie de l‘Hay. She had been born to gentility, armored in beetle carapaces and twinkling magic while still in her willow-wood cradle, and grown slowly in the manner of the fair folk into a woman of subtle beauty and profound power.

Jay Lake lived in Portland, Oregon until his death in 2014, shortly before his 50th birthday. His books include Kalimpura from Tor and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime. His short fiction appeared regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay was a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. In 2015, he posthumously received the Locus Award for his collection Last Plane to Heaven.

Learn more about him and his work at jlake.com.

Ruth Nestvold has published widely in science fiction and fantasy, her fiction appearing in such markets as Asimov’s, F&SF, and Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Tiptree, and Sturgeon Awards. In 2007, the Italian translation of her novella Looking Through Lace won the Premio Italia award for best international work. She maintains a web site at ruthnestvold.com and blogs at ruthnestvold.wordpress.com.

Jay and Ruth’s collection of short stories, Almost All the Way Home from the Stars, is available at Amazon and via iTunes.

“The Immigrant” by Cherie Priest

(Originally published in Mythic 2.)

Found among the papers of Ryder Neal, on the day after his funeral, July 30, 1996, Jonesboro, Tennessee.

“Venez m’aider,” he said.

With a jaw like that, so long and underbitten like boxer dog, you wouldn’t have thought he could speak at all. His face wasn’t made for talking, but he forced the words out. He said it again, quiet-like.

“Venez m’aider.”

[Author’s note: “A number of years ago, an old and dear friend from Memphis shared a bit of family lore that stuck with me; and eventually (with her blessing) this lore became a story called ‘The Immigrant’. In short, according to my friend there was a farm in West Tennessee — and upon this farm was a dragon… or so the kids were told. They never saw this dragon, but they could leave it presents and it would leave them notes in return, singed around the edges from the fire it breathed when no one was looking. Apparently this dragon reigned over the valley sometime after the second World War, but beyond that, details were fuzzy. Even so, this skeleton of a tale was enough to build ‘The Immigrant’ upon. I do hope you enjoy it.”]

Cherie Priest is the author of 19 books and novellas, most recently I Am Princess X, Chapelwood, and the Philip K. Dick Award nominee Maplecroft; but she is perhaps best known for the steampunk pulp adventures of the Clockwork Century, beginning with Boneshaker. Her works have been nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards for science fiction, and have won the Locus Award (among others) – and over the years, they’ve been translated into nine languages in eleven countries. Cherie lives in Chattanooga, TN, with her husband and a small menagerie of exceedingly photogenic pets. She can be found online at cheriepriest.com.

“All the Lovely Brides” by Kelly Sandoval

(Originally published in Grimdark Magazine #3.)

Sariana’s touch is gentle as she slides the last ruby pin into Lydra’s hair. Still, Lydra flinches. Soon, Sariana’s sure fingers will draw a blade across Lydra’s throat. Will she be so gentle then? The knife is more difficult, in Lydra’s experience. When she slit her own Mistress’s throat, her hands would not stop shaking.

That was five years ago. Her Wedding Day. She remembers the blood on her skin, warm as the Lord’s smile. She remembers believing he loved her. That she would be the one he kept.

For a time, he let her believe. He danced with her on the surface of Bride’s Lake and visited her bed. Everything bloomed. Now the farmers complain of their weak harvest, and she shrivels as his hunger consumes her. She believes very little, anymore.

Kelly Sandoval lives in Seattle, Washington, with her patient husband, demanding cat, and temperamental tortoise. She attended Clarion West in 2013 and lived to tell more tales. Her fiction has appeared in Shimmer, Asimov’s, and Flash Fiction Online. You can find her online at kellysandovalfiction.com.

About the Narrators:

Deanna Sanchez is a voiceover talent and actress who has performed professionally for 14 years. She has voiced various commercials, industrials, and characters, and specializes in the “sexy voice” of powerful female roles. Deanna also consults in Geographical Information Systems and develops custom mapping applications for real estate and other industries. Three-dimensional visualization of spatial data is a favorite pastime, and she has spent many hours translating real-Earth elevation data into unique 3D worlds. Deanna’s voice over demo can be heard at the Lambert Studios website, an outstanding full service recording studio.

Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head. He looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. He currently resides in Houston, Texas, but is in the process of relocating to Minnesota. He can be found on Google Plus.

Andrea Subissati is a sociologist, journalist, and podcaster. In 2010, her Master’s thesis on the social impact of zombie cinema was published under the title When There’s No More Room In Hell: The Sociology of the Living Dead. She joined the staff of Rue Morgue magazine in 2014, to which she is a frequent contributor. Her writing has also been published in The Undead and Theology (2012) and The Canadian Horror Film: Terror of the Soul (2015). In addition to writing, Andrea is the co-host and producer of The Faculty of Horror podcast with writer Alexandra West. She has made guest appearances on the Rue Morgue Podcast and Pseudopod, and is co-curator of The Black Museum, a Toronto-based monthly horror lecture series she founded with Canuxploitation creator Paul Corupe. Lady Hellbat lives and works out of Toronto, Ontario. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Heads up! Nominations are open for the 2016 Parsec Awards through May 31st. If you’ve been particularly impressed by one of stories we’ve presented over the past year, feel free to nominate it in the Best Speculative Fiction Story – Small Cast (Short Form) category. Visit the Parsec Awards website for details. Thanks for the support!

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Far Fetched Fables No. 105 Jon Michael Kelley and David Annandale

Tue, 10 May 2016 08:00:37 GMT

“Wednesday’s Child” by Jon Michael Kelley

(Originally published in Father Grim’s Storybook.)

“Good morning, Miss M.”

The voice, lecherous as a dank cellar draft, seemed to travel low to the ground, as if slithering out from beneath a rock. She instantly froze, the spoon halfway to her mouth. She’d heard that voice once before, here on this very same glade, and knew that it originated from a primal and universally shared nightmare. Her skin, pupils, every follicle of hair reacted protectively as icy adrenaline surged to oil her limbs. She dared not turn around, as she knew with all certainty that what had crept upon her was a lethal, liquid-black grotesquery unparalleled in her world.

Highly venomous, but not a snake. Not any reptile.

“Sorry to interrupt your breakfast,” said the Spider, “but I‘ve again intentions to make you my own.”

Jon Michael Kelley resides in a gold-mining town in the mountains of Colorado, where he does his writing. His stories have recently appeared in such literary anthologies as Qualia Nous (winner of the IBPA’s Benjamin Franklin Gold Award for Best in Science Fiction and Fantasy, and a 2014 Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Best Anthology) and Chiral Mad 1 & 2 by Written Backwards Press; Sensorama by Eibonvale Press; Trigger Warning: Short Stories with Pictures edited by Neil Gaiman; and Triangulation: Lost Voices by Parsec Ink.

“The Right Hand of Decay” by David Annandale

(Originally published in Grimdark Magazine #5.)

They were building the mound when she arrived on the battlefield. The corpses were piled higher than the trees that girded the plain below Barragano, but there were many more yet to be gathered. The executions had not started yet. All in good time.

It was midday, but overcast, clouds hanging low and so dark that they bathed the land in a hard twilight. Smoke rose from campfires and from inside the walls of Barragano. The stench of blood, thick and pungent as grief, rolled in waves over the field. The Grey Queen breathed in the smell and contemplated the growing mound. She must not take the loss for granted. The sacrifices must be noted and given meaning.

She was conscious of how rote the ritual was becoming for her. Make note of that too, she thought. Watch yourself. This should not be easy.

David Annandale writes Warhammer 40,000 and Horus Heresy fiction for the Black Library, including the recent novels Yarrick: The Pyres of Armageddon and The Damnation of Pythos. He is also the author of the horror novel Gethsemane Hall (Dundurn Press and Snowbooks). For Turnstone Press, he has written a series of thrillers featuring rogue warrior Jen Blaylock (Crown Fire, Kornukopia, and The Valedictorians). His short fiction has appeared in such anthologies as Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters and Occult Detective Monster Hunter: A Grimoire of Eldritch Inquests. David’s non-fiction has appeared in Black Treacle and such collections as Roman Catholicism in Fantastic Film: Essays on Belief, Spectacle, Ritual and Imagery and The Meaning and Culture of Grand Theft Auto. He writes film reviews for The Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope. He teaches film, creative writing, and literature at the University of Manitoba. Follow David at his website and on Twitter as @David_Annandale.

About the Narrators:

Tatiana Gomberg is a critically acclaimed actress of stage, screen, and the audio booth. She has been nominated for dozens of fancy awards but hasn’t won a single damned thing. She lives in New York City. See more about her at tatianagomberg.com.

Nikolle Doolin is a writer and a voice actor. Her fiction, poetry, and plays have been published and presented; and her voice has appeared in various mediums. Nikolle has performed numerous narrations for a number of popular and award-winning podcasts, such as The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify, and Far-Fetched Fables. She also narrates classic literature by the likes of Austen, Poe, James, and more in her own podcast, Audio Literature Odyssey. To learn more about Nikolle, visit her website at nikolledoolin.com.

Hey Fablers! Nominations are open for the 2016 Parsec Awards through May 31st. If you’ve been particularly impressed by one of stories we’ve presented over the past year, feel free to nominate it in the Best Speculative Fiction Story – Small Cast (Short Form) category. Visit the Parsec Awards website for details. Thanks for the support!

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Far Fetched Fabes No. 104 John R. Fultz and C.L. Holland

Tue, 03 May 2016 08:00:04 GMT

First Story: “When the Harlequin Dances” by C.L. Holland

(Originally published in Bards and Sages Quarterly, January 2010.)

The bells rang out over the city. They sounded mournful, at odds with the carnival brightness in the streets below me.

I was perched on the ledge halfway up the Azielto Tower, watching as the city folk thronged through the streets to find the best spot to see the Harlequin Parade. A better view could be had from higher up the tower, but to go any closer while the bells rang was to risk deafness. And madness, so the stories said.

C.L. Holland is a British writer of fantasy and science fiction, and winner of Writers of the Future. Sometimes she writes poetry under an assumed name. She has a BA in English with Creative Writing, and MA in English, and likes to learn things for fun. She lives with her long-suffering partner and two cats who don’t understand why they can’t share her lap with the laptop. Her recent collection, A World in Clockwork and Other Stories, is available through Amazon.

Main Story: “The Rude Mechanicals and the Highwayman” by John R. Fultz

(Originally published in Fungi #22.)

It wasn’t the seasonal gravity maelstroms or the swarms of psychic predators that kept us away from the Great Thoroughfare. It was the widespread tales of the highwayman known as the Surgeon.

Rumors of his perfidy rippled like ultrasonic waves from the Greater Urbille to the outer Affinities. In those distant territories where the living and the undead mingled, where villages of despair rotted at the feet of carven mountains, we heard tales from wounded travellers and weeping merchants. He stood tall and lithe as any Beatific, they said, and wielded an ancient blade faster than death. A dark cloak wrapped him like a shroud, and he wore a cruel face of sculpted bronze.

To look into his burning opticals was to see your own demise, or so claimed the survivors of his attacks. One constant ran like a silver thread among the scattered tales of his infamy: Each robbery ended with a single execution. These victims, they said, were chosen specifically by the highwayman. Others claimed they were chosen entirely at random. This point was often debated with dreadful passion.

John R. Fultz lives in the North Bay Area of California, but he grew up in Kentucky. His fourth novel is The Testament of Tall Eagle (2015, Ragnarok Publications). John’s Books of the Shaper trilogy includes Seven Princes, Seven Kings, and Seven Sorcerers (2012/2013 Orbit Books). John’s work has also appeared in Year’s Best Weird Fiction Vol. 1, Weird Tales, Black Gate, Weirdbook, That is Not Dead, Shattered Shields, Lightspeed: Year One, Way of the Wizard, Cthulhu’s Reign, The Book of Cthulhu II, and other fine publications.

Learn more about him at johnrfultz.com, or find him on Twitter as @JohnRFultz.

About the Narrators:

Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head. He looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. He currently resides in Houston, Texas, but hastens to add that it was not his idea. He can be found on Google Plus.

Seth Williams is the avatar for a three-kilometer sentient starship that is parked (probably uncomfortably) close to the third planet. Surprisingly, he has not yet been discovered. He is very happy that the inhabitants have discovered enough technology to that he can communicate in this limited fashion. Any communications can be directed to theboojum.org.

Guess what! Nominations are open for the 2016 Parsec Awards through May 31st. If you’ve been particularly impressed by one of stories we’ve presented over the past year, feel free to nominate it in the Best Speculative Fiction Story – Small Cast (Short Form) category. Visit the Parsec Awards website for details. Thanks for the support!

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Far Fetched Fables No. 103 Sarina Dorie

Tue, 26 Apr 2016 08:00:44 GMT

Featured Story: “The Forest Lord” by Sarina Dorie

(Originally published in The Urban Green Man.)

The summer day I moved into my cabin in the woods, I knew something wasn’t quite right. It started with the way the aspens and alders scratched against the wood paneling of the house, sounding like words, and swaying when there was no wind. During the process of unpacking, I set my glass of orange juice on the porch railing. It disappeared and later reappeared in the same spot, only empty.

I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched when I walked along the long driveway to my mailbox. As I picked strawberries from the overgrown garden, I saw a figure move out of the corner of my eye, but no one was there when I looked up.

By day, Sarina Dorie is a public school art teacher, artist, belly dance performer and instructor, copy editor, fashion designer, event organizer and probably a few other things. By night, she writes. As you might imagine, this leaves little time for sleep.

She is the author of award-winning YA paranormal romance novel, Silent Moon. Her Puritan and alien love story, Dawn of the Morning Star, was released this year with Wolfsinger Publications. She has sold about 100 short stories to markets like Daily Science Fiction, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, Cosmos, and Sword and Laser. Her steampunk romance series The Memory Thief, and her collections, Fairies, Robots and Unicorns — Oh My! and Ghosts, Werewolves and Zombies — Oh My! are available on Amazon.

You can find info about her short stories and novels on her website: sarinadorie.com. To sign up for newsletter to hear updates, news on free downloads, and book giveaways, please go here.

About the Narrator:

Deanna Sanchez is a voiceover talent and actress who has performed professionally for 14 years. She has voiced various commercials, industrials, and characters, and specializes in the “sexy voice” of powerful female roles. An avid fan of science fiction since her grandfather gave her a copy of Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky when she was 9, she feels greatly privileged to help bring this story to life. While pursuing a voice talent and acting career, Deanna also consults in Geographical Information Systems and develops custom mapping applications for real estate and other industries. Her background in I.T. management does not prevent her from owning multiple old computers, some with Windows 98 still running. Three-dimensional visualization of spatial data is a favorite pastime, and she has spent many hours translating real-Earth elevation data into unique 3D worlds. Deanna’s voice over demo can be heard at the Lambert Studios website, an outstanding full service recording studio.

Guess what! Nominations are open for the 2016 Parsec Awards through May 31st. If you’ve been particularly impressed by one of stories we’ve presented over the past year, feel free to nominate it in the Best Speculative Fiction Story – Small Cast (Short Form) category. Visit the Parsec Awards website for details. Thanks for the support!

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Far Fetched Fables Anniversary Episode: Joe R. Lansdale

Tue, 19 Apr 2016 08:00:43 GMT

“The Dark Down There” by Joe R. Lansdale

(Originally published in Dead Man’s Road, October 2010.)

Reverend Jebidiah Mercer smelled them before he saw them. They came out of the brush along both sides of the trail. There were four of them. One had a pistol, one a shotgun, the other two were carrying digging tools, a shovel and a pick.

His hand went swiftly inside his coat, pulled his .36 Navy Colt. Before the fellow with the shotgun could lift it, the Reverend shot him right between the eyes, spraying blood and brains out the back of his head in a mess that looked like vomited strawberries.

A pistol shot whizzed by Reverend Mercer’s head. He shifted in the saddle and fired twice, aiming low and letting the revolver buck. The first shot caught the shootist in the balls. The second shot found a spot on the center of his chest and nestled there like a horrible chest cold.

Champion mojo storyteller Joe R. Lansdale is the author of more than forty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in more than two dozen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited more than a dozen anthologies. He is a recipient of the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, a recent Spur Award for Best Historical Western Novel, and many others.

His novella Bubba Ho-Tep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, and the film adaptation of his novel Cold in July was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. A television series based on his Hap and Leonard novels debuted recently on SundanceTV.

He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman; and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero (The Walking Dead). He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, the Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, with his wife, dog, and two cats.

Learn more about him at joerlansdale.com.

Far Fetched Fables’ interview with Joe R. Lansdale from September 2015. (Transcript of interview here.)

About the Narrator:

Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake, the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman, and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV. His current project, Interference, a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook… that kills, is now available on Audible.com.

Guess what! Nominations are open for the 2016 Parsec Awards through May 31st. If you’ve been particularly impressed by one of stories we’ve presented over the past year, feel free to nominate it in the Best Speculative Fiction Story – Small Cast (Short Form) category. Visit the Parsec Awards website for details. Thanks for the support!

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Far Fetched Fables No. 102 Aliette de Bodard and Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold

Tue, 12 Apr 2016 08:00:21 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Green Ice” by Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold

(“Tales of the Rose Nights” #2, originally published at Daily Science Fiction.)

The Moon is mistress of the tides, which means she controls the blood of men, for their red-washed veins flow with salt, echoing the sea that is mother to us all. When she calls men to her, they rise to her attendance. When she refuses them, they drown in tears of sorrow. Women, though, follow a flow and rhythm of their own, still in Sister Moon’s power, but free from her compulsions.

So it was that among the greatest of the Rose Knights serving under the Moon’s banner in her wars with the Army of the Sun were the flowers of womanhood. Green Ice stood strong among them as the Green Knight, her armor a shade so pale as to be nearly white, her eyes the piercing color of a mountain meadow in spring, her hair silver-white as the streams that flow downward into the cathedral-forests.

Jay Lake lived in Portland, Oregon until his death in 2014, shortly before his 50th birthday. His books include Kalimpura from Tor and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime. His short fiction appeared regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay was a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. In 2015, he posthumously received the Locus Award for his collection Last Plane to Heaven.

Learn more about him and his work at jlake.com.

Ruth Nestvold has published widely in science fiction and fantasy, her fiction appearing in such markets as Asimov’s, F&SF, and Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Tiptree, and Sturgeon Awards. In 2007, the Italian translation of her novella Looking Through Lace won the Premio Italia award for best international work. She maintains a web site at ruthnestvold.com and blogs at ruthnestvold.wordpress.com.

Jay and Ruth’s collection of short stories, Almost All the Way Home from the Stars, is available at Amazon and via iTunes.

Main Story: “Against the Encroaching Darkness” by Aliette de Bodard

(Originally published in Grimdark Magazine #5.)

Eugénie lay in state in the small, pathetic chapel that they’d never had time to finish, her eyes towards the blank, unpainted ceiling. From time to time, the distant echo of a magical conflagration shook the room, and dust fell on her chest, covering her clothes in a fine, white layer that slowly and irretrievably
obscured the insignia of House Lazarus.

Victoire would not cry. She’d done so earlier in the privacy of her room, but now it wasn’t about love or grief; merely what would carry them forward, what would ensure the newly founded House would survive the death of her founder. Most Houses, she knew, didn’t. And Lazarus, that bastard child of Eugénie’s ideals — her place of refuge, her small band of dependents patiently gathered through the years — was no exception.

Aliette de Bodard lives and works in Paris, where she has a day job as a System Engineer. In her spare time, she writes speculative fiction: her Aztec noir trilogy Obsidian and Blood is published by Angry Robot, and her short stories have appeared in markets such as Clarkesworld Magazine, Asimov’s, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction. She has won a Nebula, a Locus, and a British Science Fiction Association Award. Her latest release is The House of Shattered Wings. Visit aliettedebodard.com for more information.

About the Narrators:

Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements. She also hosts this podcast…

Andrea Richardson is a British singer and actress with extensive stage and film performances to her name. She began narration and voiceover work in 2014, but enjoys using her existing skills in a different way. You can find Andrea at andrea-richardson.co.uk and on Facebook.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 101 Richard Bowes

Tue, 05 Apr 2016 08:00:29 GMT

Story: “There’s a Hole in the City” by Richard Bowes

(Originally published in Sci Fiction, June 15, 2005)

Wednesday 9/12

On the evening of the day after the towers fell, I was waiting by the barricades on Houston Street and LaGuardia Place for my friend Mags to come up from Soho and have dinner with me. On the skyline, not two miles to the south, the pillars of smoke wavered slightly. But the creepily beautiful weather of September 11 still held and the wind blew in from the north east. In Greenwich Village the air was crisp and clean with just a touch of fall about it.

I’d spent the last day and a half looking at pictures of burning towers. One of the frustrations of that time was that there was so little most of us could do about anything or for anyone.

Downtown streets were empty of all traffic except emergency vehicles. The West and East Villages from Fourteenth Street to Houston were their own separate zone. Pedestrians needed identification proving they lived or worked there in order to enter.

The barricades consisted of blue wooden police horses and a couple of unmarked vans thrown across LaGuardia Place. Behind them were a couple of cops, a few auxiliary police and one or two guys in civilian clothes with I.D.’s of some kind pinned to their shirts. All of them looked tired, subdued by events.

At the barricades was a small crowd, ones like me waiting for friends from neighborhoods to the south, ones without proper identification waiting for confirmation so that they could continue on into Soho, people who just wanted to be outside near other people in those days of sunshine and shock. Once in a while, each of us would look up at the columns of smoke that hung in the downtown sky then look away again.

A family approached a middle aged cop behind the barricade. The group consisted of a man, a woman, a little girl being led by the hand, a child being carried. All were blondish and wore shorts and casual tops.  The parents seemed pleasant but serious people in their early thirties, professionals. They could have been tourists. But that day the city was empty of tourists.

The man said something and I heard the cop say loudly, “You want to go where?”.

Richard Bowes was born in Boston in 1944 and has lived for most of the last 50 years in Manhattan. Bowes has published six novels, four story collections, and seventy-five short stories. He has won two World Fantasy and a Lambda Award.

“There’s a Hole In the City” won The Million Writer and International Horror Guild Awards when it appeared in 2005, and was nominated for a Nebula Award in 2006. The story has been reprinted in many anthologies and translated into a dozen languages. WBAI Radio in New York City annually broadcasts the author reading his own story on the anniversary of 9/11.

The story appears in Richard’s most recent book, Dust Devil on a Quiet Street, and it and his other writings are available on Amazon.com. Learn more about him here.

About the Narrator:

Chris Lade is a Leipzig-based orchestral conductor, pianist, and English teacher by day, and an avid reader by night. When not doing either of the four, you can usually find him listening to music, reading classical music blogs, riding his bike, or trying to cook something Italian in his kitchen. Life goals include motorcycling through Europe on a Triumph Bonneville and owning a Bernese Mountain Dog, preferably at the same time.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 100 Michael Moorcock

Tue, 29 Mar 2016 08:00:19 GMT

“While the Gods Laugh” by Michael Moorcock

(Originally published in Science Fantasy, October 1961.)

One night, as Elric sat moodily drinking alone in a tavern, a wingless woman of Myyrrhn came gliding out of the storm and rested her lithe body against him.

Her face was thin and frail-boned, almost as white as Elric’s own albino skin, and she wore flimsy pale-green robes which contrasted well with her dark red hair.

The tavern was ablaze with candle-flame and alive with droning argument and gusty laughter, but the words of the woman of Myyrrhn came clear and liquid, carrying over the zesty din.

“I have sought you twenty days,” she said to Elric who regarded her insolently through hooded crimson eyes and lazed in a high-backed chair, a silver wine-cup in his long-fingered right hand and his left on the pommel of his sorcerous runesword Stormbringer.

“Twenty days,” murmured the Melnibonéan softly, speaking as if to himself, mockingly rude. “A long time for a beautiful and lonely woman to be wandering the world.” He opened his eyes a trifle wider and spoke to her directly: “I am Elric of Melniboné, as you evidently know. I grant no favours and ask none. Bearing this in mind, tell me why you have sought me for twenty days.”

Michael Moorcock’s bibliography includes more than 50 novels and countless short stories, and his creations include Jerry Cornelius, Dorian Hawkmoon, and – perhaps his best known character – Elric of Melniboné, a seminal influence on fantasy fiction during the 1960s and 1970s.

Michael was editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds from 1964-1971 and again from 1976-1996, where he was instrumental in the science fiction “New Wave”. In 2008, The Times named Moorcock as one of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945”.

A feature-length documentary film exploring his six-decade career, Michael Moorcock: Faith, Hope, and Anxiety, is scheduled for release later this year.

Born in London, he currently divides his time between Texas and Paris.

About the Narrator:

Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements. She also hosts this podcast…

StarShip Sofa is eligible for this year’s Hugo Awards! If you like, you can nominate it here.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 99 Julie Frost and David Steffen

Tue, 22 Mar 2016 08:00:00 GMT

First Story: “Unraveling” by David Steffen

(Originally published in the July 2014 Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.)

He passed from his study to his map room. One full wall of the room was covered in a map of the world. A red light pulsed in Michigan. That’s where the alarm had happened. On his own turf, where no other weaver had been known to establish themselves for two hundred years.

From the drawer he pulled out smaller maps and found the glowing light there. The address was only a hundred miles away from his own house. A quick Internet search found that the address was registered to Hilda Freitag. Of the dozen weavers in the world who could make a soulbox, she was the most crafty. No one seemed to know her age, but Cavendish suspected that she was the oldest of them all. She had already been powerful when Cavendish was raised up some six hundred years before. He had died at her hands two dozen times, and he had never once bested her.

David Steffen is a writer, editor, and software engineer. He edits Diabolical Plots, which began publishing original fiction in 2015. He runs the Submission Grinder, a tool for writers to find markets for their work. He recently published The Long List Anthology, which is a collection of 21 stories from the longer Hugo Award nomination list last year. His own stories have been published in many nice places, including Escape Pod, Podcastle, Daily Science Fiction, and StarShipSofa.

Main Story: “Showing Faeries for Fun and Profit” by Julie Frost

(Originally published in the July 2013 Stupefying Stories Showcase.)

I dodged through picketers into the Expo Center, dragging a cart loaded with four aquariums and a box of tiny furniture, and swearing under my breath. Greg Carson waved to me from across the show floor, and I made my way over to him through the general chaos that always attended the Annual Clearfield County Faerie Show. “I saved you a spot, Emily,” he said.

“Thanks.” I rolled my eyes as I set my aquariums on the table. “The faerie rights activists give you any problems?”

Greg drew himself up to his full six-foot, four-inch height, flexed his considerable arms, and deepened his voice.

“Most of them don’t want to mess with me.” Then he laughed, white teeth flashing in his dark face. “They get a rude awakening when they realize that Faerie Show people aren’t just elderly grannies with bifocals and bonnets.”

Julie Frost writes every shade of speculative fiction and lives in Utah with her family, which consists of an equal number of guinea pigs and people, and a collection of anteaters and Oaxacan carvings, some of which intersect. Her short fiction has appeared in Cosmos, Unlikely Story, Plasma Frequency, Stupefying Stories, and others, and was a finalist at Writers of the Future and the Hidden Prize for Prose. Her first novel, Pack Dynamics, was released at Salt Lake ComicCon 2015 by WordFire Press, and sold out there, much to everyone’s delight. She whines about writing, a lot, at agilebrit.livejournal.com.

About the Narrators:

Jonathan Sharp lives and works in a sleepy southern New Mexico town alongside his exceedingly talented wife, Paige. When he is free from the mountains of organic vegetables under which he works, he plays in front of the microphone in the hope it may one day talk back to him. You can reach him online at sharpandvoice.com.

Amy Robinson is a voice artist with a wide range of vocal styling, inflections, and accents. She can be heard in a wide array of radio announcer spots, audiobook narrations, animated series, and even telephone IVR systems, and is a featured player on the Rookery Radio Hour Podcast. You can find her online at amyrobinsonvo.com.

StarShip Sofa is eligible for this year’s Hugo Awards! If you like, you can nominate it here.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 98 Kate O’Connor and Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold

Tue, 15 Mar 2016 08:00:18 GMT

Cover art for this month is by Kassandra Leigh, a photographer, model, and self-professed dweeb with no social skills, chronic ailments, and a supreme appreciation of “me” time. She likes to take peectures of pretty, sexy, and creepy things, soft tacos with no lettuce, spooky supernatural anything, playing mages in Smite, heavy metal, the Sith Code, and things that start with the letter “C”: cats, camera gear, cold weather, cosmetics, clothing, and caffeine — but not candids.

Flash Fiction: “Osiana” by Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold

(“Tales of the Rose Nights” #1, originally published at Daily Science Fiction.)

She did not come to her life with intention. Few do, but less so for Osiana. She had been born a bondswoman in a time and place where freedwomen were rarer than talking hens. That she had good hands and clear eyes was apparent even in her extreme youth, so when the Proctors came to winnow the girl-children in her third summer, Osiana was taken aside to be raised on red meat and rough exercise, to see if she could grow into the Kingsguard.

Jay Lake lived in Portland, Oregon until his death in 2014, shortly before his 50th birthday. His books include Kalimpura from Tor and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime. His short fiction appeared regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay was a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. In 2015, he posthumously received the Locus Award for his collection Last Plane to Heaven.

Learn more about him and his work at jlake.com.

Ruth Nestvold has published widely in science fiction and fantasy, her fiction appearing in such markets as Asimov’s, F&SF, and Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Tiptree, and Sturgeon Awards. In 2007, the Italian translation of her novella Looking Through Lace won the Premio Italia award for best international work. She maintains a web site at ruthnestvold.com and blogs at ruthnestvold.wordpress.com.

Jay and Ruth’s collection of short stories, Almost All the Way Home from the Stars, is available at Amazon and via iTunes.

Main Story: “Salt and Sand” by Kate O’Connor

(Originally published in Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show #39.)

The blood­ orange sun was slumping towards the western horizon when the funeral boat came ashore, groaning in defeat as it crested onto the sand. Saesa had watched the boat throughout the day, tracking its slow progress in between settling her other visitors. The little boat had teased her, coming close and then drifting back out with the tide, but it had finally arrived.

Saesa held still, savoring the moment before she went to peel back flesh and crack bones to reveal this next visitor’s story. Her pointed teeth ached with wanting and her mouth watered. There was a lifetime of thought and emotion that would be waiting just beneath the skin of the next corpse.

A board creaked and Saesa froze. There shouldn’t be any noise. Funeral ships only brought one thing. The sound had been sharp and immediate – too sudden for Saesa’s beach and the long line of empty vessels left by her day’s work.

Something shifted just beyond the boat’s railing. Before Saesa had time to react, a thin figure lurched upwards, sprawling over the rail and tumbling down onto the hot sand. Saesa jumped back, her heart thundering in her chest. She had seen living people countless times in memories, but to have one in front of her was another matter entirely.

Kate O’Connor has written science fiction and fantasy since 2011. In between telling stories, she flies airplanes, digs up artifacts, and manages a dog kennel. Her short fiction has most recently appeared in StarShip Sofa, InterGalactic Medicine Show, and Escape Pod.

About the Narrators:

Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements. She also hosts this podcast…

Nikolle Doolin is a writer and a voice actor. Her fiction, poetry, and plays have been published and presented; and her voice has appeared in various mediums. Nikolle has performed numerous narrations for a number of popular and award-winning podcasts, such as The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify, and Far-Fetched Fables. She also narrates classic literature by the likes of Austen, Poe, James, and more in her own podcast, Audio Literature Odyssey. To learn more about Nikolle, visit her website at nikolledoolin.com.

StarShip Sofa is eligible for this year’s Hugo Awards! If you like, you can nominate it here.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 97 Siobhan Carroll, M.K. Hutchins, and Amy H. Sturgis

Tue, 08 Mar 2016 08:00:30 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Genie from the Gym” by M.K. Hutchins

(Originally published at Daily Science Fiction.)

First Wish:
I wasn’t stupid. Someone had abandoned that lamp in the gym locker room for a reason. I thought about just wishing to lose weight, but the genie might vaporize my arm or something to meet that requirement. So I wished that I could lose weight.

Overnight, chocolate disappeared from the world. Anyone attempting to bake cookies would open their ovens to find cold, crisp slices of cucumber.

M.K. Hutchins is the author of the YA fantasy novel Drift and numerous short stories. She often draws on her background in archaeology when writing. Find her at mkhutchins.com.

A Look Back at Genre History with Amy H. Sturgis: “The Demon of Brockenheim; or The Enchanted Ring” by Anonymous (part two)

Amy H. Sturgis holds a Ph.D. in Intellectual History and specializes in the fields of Science Fiction/Fantasy and Native American Studies. She lives with her husband, Dr. Larry M. Hall, in the foothills of North Carolina, USA. She can be found online at amyhsturgis.com.

A pdf copy of “The Demon of Brockenheim” is available on Amy’s blog.

Main Story: “In the Gardens of the Night” by Siobhan Carroll

(Originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #74.)

In the open court they call her Nakshedil, “Embroidered on the Heart,” as the prince does. But in the shadows they call her “the Great Whore” or “the Viper,” and they watch her with narrowed eyes. She is beautiful. Nobody can deny that, though there are many beautiful concubines in the palace and many who are less ambitious than Nakshedil. But when she dances, she is more than beautiful. Even those like me, who wish her dead, cannot help but love her a little.

When not globetrotting in search of dusty tomes, Siobhan Carroll lives and lurks in Delaware. She is a graduate of Clarion West, the indefatigable OWW, and the twin ivory towers of Indiana University and U.B.C. Her fiction can be found in such magazines as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Realms of Fantasy, and Lightspeed. Sometimes she writes under the byline “Von Carr”. Both versions of herself firmly support the use of the Oxford Comma. For more, visit voncarr-siobhan-carroll.blogspot.com.

About the Narrators:

Chris Lade is a Leipzig-based orchestral conductor, pianist, and English teacher by day, and an avid reader by night. When not doing either of the four, you can usually find him listening to music, reading classical music blogs, riding his bike, or trying to cook something Italian in his kitchen. Life goals include motorcycling through Europe on a Triumph Bonneville, and owning a Bernese Mountain Dog, preferably at the same time.

Katherine Inskip weighs galaxies for a living, and builds worlds in her spare time. She is addicted to chocolate and Japanese logic puzzles.

StarShip Sofa is eligible for this year’s Hugo Awards! If you like, you can nominate it here.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 96 Weston Ochse, Molly Flynn, and Amy H. Sturgis

Tue, 01 Mar 2016 08:00:15 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Daddy’s Glasses” by Molly Flynn
(Originally published at Every Day Fiction.)

I peer into my drawer of glasses, deciding, and empty eyes stare back. Most people don’t notice the images pressed into the lenses, like the negatives of old photographs, but Daddy and I do. He keeps his glasses in the garage, but I’m not allowed in there.

I select my pink ones with scratches on the lenses and Hello Kitty printed on the arms. They creak as I force them to fit and the plastic presses into my skin, but the memories are worth it. While Mummy watches TV, I watch snippets of old time imprinted in the glass.

Molly Flynn is a writer from Lincolnshire, UK, and is currently studying a BA in English Literature at the University of Sheffield. She is a part-time artist, writer, and procrastinator, and is seeking representation for her first novel.

A Look Back at Genre History with Amy H. Sturgis: “The Demon of Brockenheim; or The Enchanted Ring” by Anonymous (part one)

Amy H. Sturgis holds a Ph.D. in Intellectual History and specializes in the fields of Science Fiction/Fantasy and Native American Studies. She lives with her husband, Dr. Larry M. Hall, in the foothills of North Carolina, USA. She can be found online at amyhsturgis.com.

A pdf copy of “The Demon of Brockenheim” is available on Amy’s blog.

Main Story: “American Golem” by Weston Ochse

(Originally published in Operation Arcana, published by Baen Books and edited by John Joseph Adams. Also available at Audible.com.)

On Tuesday, I stalked the old section of Kabul where the minarets stand impervious to the constant bombings. Men halted their chatter and peered at me as if they knew what I was about. Women sheathed in powder blue burqas hurried away. Even children scattered as I limped through their gaggles, worried at what seemed to be a white man trolling through their midst, his face wrapped in a black and white shemagh, body clothed in Pashtun long shirt and pants, but unmistakably American to those who would know the difference.

I ignored them. Purpose-­made, I was on mission to kill the man who’d killed my brother. Not my real brother, of course, but the one from whom my existence derived. He, the child of Shira and Emil Drachamn, me the man raised from the mud and sand of New Mexico — ­­land of his birth, land of my birth, and the land where he was buried on the same day I was born.

Weston Ochse is a former intelligence officer and special operations soldier who has engaged enemy combatants, terrorists, narco smugglers, and human traffickers. His personal war stories include performing humanitarian operations over Bangladesh, being deployed to Afghanistan, and a near miss in being cannibalized in Papua New Guinea. His fiction and non-fiction has been praised by USA Today, The Atlantic, the New York Post, the Financial Times of London, and Publishers Weekly. The American Library Association labeled him one of the Major Horror Authors of the 21st Century. His work has won the Bram Stoker Award, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and won multiple New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. A writer of more than 26 books in multiple genres, his military-supernatural series SEAL Team 666 has been optioned for a movie starring Dwayne Johnson. His military sci-fi series, which starts with Grunt Life, has been praised for its PTSD-positive depiction of soldiers in peacetime and at war.

He blogs at Blogspot and can also be found online at westonochse.com.

About the Narrators:

Lauren Swan Edwards has made a name for herself on the operatic and concert stages as a “capitivating young mezzo-soprano with serious chops”. She is a District Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Award and a first-place District Winner of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Originally from Los Angeles, she currently resides in Leipzig, Germany.

She can be found online at laurenedwardsmusic.com.

Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake, the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman, and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV. His current project, Interference, a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook… that kills, is now available on Audible.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 95 Aidan Moher and Kat Otis

Tue, 23 Feb 2016 08:00:28 GMT

Flash Fiction: “An Old Warrior’s Final Countdown” by Kat Otis

(Originally published at Every Day Fiction.com.)

Ten spiraling stone steps led down to the dungeon. I dashed down them, the flames of the wall sconces wavering with the wind of my passage. Although I still held my sword at the ready, I found no one left to fight. When I reached the bottom, I sheathed my sword and drew my lock-picks instead.

Nine brave warriors had given their lives to get me this far. One by one they had fallen to our enemies’ arrows and bolts, spears and axes, swords and daggers. If the tower had been better defended, we would never have stood a chance. But if the tower had been better defended, more obviously significant, it also wouldn’t have taken us so long to find.

Eight weeks it took, for me to realize this squalid tower on the edge of the king’s lands was the place he had fortified to hold his greatest prize. They were the worst weeks of my life, in which I vacillated between the blackest of rage and despair. Now, I lived with a hope so painful I feared my aging heart might burst.

Kat Otis lives a peripatetic life with a pair of cats who enjoy riding in the car as long as there’s no country music involved. Her fiction has appeared in Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, Daily Science Fiction, and Flash Fiction Online. She can be found at katotis.com or on Twitter as @kat_otis.

Main Story: “A Night For Spirits and Snowflakes” by Aidan Moher

(Originally published in Sword & Laser Anthology.)

The dead man watched with glazed eyes as I dug his grave. My blade bit into the frozen earth. I pulled hard and it came grudgingly free. I struck again and hit a stone — a new dent in the dull sword. I was too cold to feel the shock, too tired to care.

The grave — the first of four — came slowly, revealed one swing at a time.

The forest was still, a twisted play on the chaos that had whipped through the trees just hours before. Those moments of slaughter, that maelstrom of death’s laughter, were over. The only reminder of the battle was me, weary and digging graves for my fallen brothers. It is what my long-dead, never-buried father would have done.

The other bodies, those of the barbarians who had set upon us, could rot — picked clean by howling wolves until they were nothing more than the skeletal remains of fathers, brothers, and sons.

For all I cared, they could feed the spirits of the dead and be forgotten.

Aidan Moher is the author of Tide of Shadows and Other Stories and founder of the Hugo Award-winning A Dribble of Ink. A regular contributor to Tor.com and the Barnes & Noble SF&F Blog, Aidan has written about science fiction and fantasy since 2007. Raised among the selkies and sirens of British Columbia’s Gulf Islands, Aidan now lives with his family in Victoria, BC, where he works as a web developer for the Royal British Columbia Museum. Visit him online at aidanmoher.com and on Twitter at @adribbleofink.

About the Narrators:

Martin Reyto is an educator, writer, and musician. He has worked in an eclectic variety of fields, including 18 years as a technical writer and software developer; 16 years as a teacher of creative writing, computer science, and business communication; and shorter stints as a symphony musician and audiobook narrator. He has published short fiction and two collections of his poetry.

Alex Weinle writes and narrates from a bunker in Fulbourn, an isolated village of cthulian professors. You can find him on Twitter as @alexweinle.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 94 Russell Blackford

Tue, 16 Feb 2016 08:00:03 GMT

“Manannan’s Children” by Russell Blackford

(Originally published in Dreaming Again.)

Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose…

— W.B. Yeats

They’d chased a deer, which had bolted in terror from the forest, then run to a round grassy hill and vanished over the top. At the top of the hill, Finn and Oisin pulled back on their horses’ reins and wrapped their heavy cloaks more tightly against the bitter cold wind from the sea. Down on the shore was a lady, also on horseback, with the lapping waves and the sinking red sun behind her.

Oisin’s breath caught and his heart seemed to melt like heated gold within his ribs. She was incomparable!

The lady rode a majestic, shimmering stallion, as black as adamant. She called out to the heroes, father and son, and they rode down to meet her, white-bearded Finn going ahead. Oisin couldn’t take his eyes from her.

Her horse had a jeweled bridle of fine leather, but she rode without a saddle. She wore a long white gown, embroidered in crimson, which she’d gathered around her thighs, leaving her legs bare and free. Sea water dripped from her pale feet. Her hair was long and yellow, woven with gaudy flowers, crimson, gold and purple. Her eyes were blue as mountain ice, her lips full and red. On a golden chain slung round her neck, she wore a silver horn, scarcely longer than a man’s hand.

She seemed to gaze into Oisin’s heart, as she spoke. “You are sad, heroes.”

Russell Blackford is a philosopher, literary critic, and author of many books, short stories, articles, op-ed pieces, and other publications. His published fiction includes an original trilogy of novels for the Terminator franchise, Terminator 2: The New John Connor Chronicles. With Van Ikin and Sean McMullen, he is coauthor of Strange Constellations: A History of Australian Science Fiction. He is editor-in-chief of The Journal of Evolution and Technology, and holds a conjoint appointment in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle. He can be found online at russellblackford.com.

About the Narrator:

Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head. He looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. He currently resides in Houston, Texas, but hastens to add that it was not his idea. He can be found on Google Plus.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 93 Heather Lindsley and Oliver Buckram

Tue, 09 Feb 2016 08:00:56 GMT

Short Fiction: “Darkening Skies” by Oliver Buckram

Main Story: “The Angel of Death Has a Business Plan” by Heather Lindsley

(Originally published in The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination: Original Short Fiction for the Modern Evil Genius.)

Carl has a pair of purple knee-length boots in one hand and a black PVC codpiece in the other. “Sorry, Angie, I’m running late,” he says. “I just need to get changed.”

“We can do it in street clothes, Carl.”

“No, no — it’s not the same without the costume. I’ll be quick, I promise.”

Carl is a regular client, and one of my first, so I cut him some slack. I should have been able to help him years ago, but I keep coming because he seems to get closer every week. Or maybe that’s just what I tell myself. Living in Megapolis is damn expensive, and a little steady income doesn’t hurt.

I take seat on Carl’s couch, clearing away a stack of Commander Justice comics first. He says he’ll be quick, but I’ve seen him struggle in and out of those boots too many times to believe him.

The comic on the top of the stack catches my eye. Is this the end for Commander Justice?  I wish, but of course it isn’t. I flip through the first few pages before tossing the candy-colored propaganda aside.

“You really shouldn’t read this crap,” I tell Carl when he finally comes back into the room. “It can’t be doing anything for your confidence.”

“I need to keep up with his latest crime fighting techniques.”

Heather Lindsley’s stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, and Lightspeed, as well as John Joseph Adams’s dystopian anthology Brave New Worlds. She has been featured on Escape Pod as a writer and on Podcastle as a reader, and her stories have been published in Polish, Romanian, Russian, and French translations. She currently lives in Brighton and works in London, which gives her more time to write her novel on the train.

You can follow her on Twitter as @RandomJane.

About the Narrators:

Nikolle Doolin is a writer and a voice actor. Her fiction, poetry, and plays have been published and presented; and her voice has appeared in various mediums. Nikolle has performed numerous narrations for a number of popular and award-winning podcasts, such as: The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify, and Far-Fetched Fables. She also narrates classic literature by the likes of Austen, Poe, James, and more in her own podcast Audio Literature Odyssey. To learn more about Nikolle, visit her website at nikolledoolin.com.

Janice Joos hails from the Midwestern United States where she lives in a constant state of motion with her husband, two children, one dog, two cats and a turtle. Trained and working as a classroom teacher of all levels, she realized she talked all the time or read stories so why not become a voice talent too. Since 2013 she has been listening to herself talk. For more information contact her at janicejoos@sbcglobal.net.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 92 Danny Adams and Michael Canfield

Tue, 02 Feb 2016 08:00:30 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Junk Silver” by Michael Canfield

(Originally published at Daily Science Fiction.com.)

Albe ignored Tic, who exclaimed “huh!” after stabbing another Wikipedia article in his usual overly-enthusiastic way. Albe then watched Tic push the article off the sharp end of his poker into the bag. Tic wiped his hand on his leg, as he did every time he cleared his poker of trash.

Albe had gotten himself knee-deep in Myspace pages, which had started to seep through his garments and cling to his skin, so he didn’t care what Tic chose to vociferate about.

“Junk silver,” said Tic, unswayed by Albe’s lack of response. “That one was about junk silver. Know what that is?”

Albe didn’t, and he didn’t care.

He knew Tic would tell him anyway.

Michael Canfield writes about monsters, superheroes, couples, bank robbers, babies, astronauts, paranoids, background artists, obsessives, and other people. He has published mystery, fantasy, science fiction, horror and just-plain-odd stories in the magazines Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Realms of Fantasy, Black Gate, Flytrap, and others.

You can find him on Twitter as @michaelcanfield and at MichaelCanfield.net.

Main Story: “The Wind-Catching Wizard” by Danny Adams

(Originally published in Mythic 2.)

Ogrin nearly turned himself to stone to keep from recoiling in horror when the old wizard offered him a pouch of gold.

The wizard chuckled at his bodyguard’s reluctance. “What’s the matter, Sergeant Venn? You’ve earned it. Your men have earned it. This is your reward for good service.”

The warrior shifted as if straightening a sword stance. “Ogrin, sire,” he corrected, though he had been in Gettir’s service for four years. Venn was Gettir’s bodyguard generations before Ogrin was born.

“Yes, so I said. My apologies if I was mumbling again.”

“And sire,” the warrior said even more quietly than usual, “you have already paid us for this month.”

Gettir’s sag-­wrinkled eyes blinked under his single white brow. He straightened the simple violet sleeping robe that he had taken to wearing throughout the course of every day.

“Don’t be foolish, Ogrin. I’m not losing my mind. I… I’m…” He stared at the bag in his hand as if it were about to come alive and bite him. “You misunderstand me. This is a — bonus.”

Danny Adams is the co-author, with the late Philip Jose Farmer, of the short science fiction novel The City Beyond Play (PS Publishing). His shorter work has appeared in Abyss & Apex, Asimov’s, Ideomancer, Mythic Delirium, Not One of Us, Paradox, Space & Time, Star*Line, and Strange Horizons. He lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where he is a librarian at Ferrum College and a reviewer of science fiction and fantasy books for Publishers Weekly.

You can find him on Goodreads.

About the Narrators:

Kenny Park is a video editor by trade, but having trained and worked as an actor, director and writer, he maintains it’s all just storytelling. He’s been involved with Starship Sofa since the early days of Tony and Ciaron, filming their interview with the legendary Michael Moorcock in Paris, and he still does narrations and wee video intros when Tony can pin him down. He can be found online at KennyPark.com.

Graeme Dunlop is a software solution architect and voice actor living in Melbourne, Australia. He is the co-editor of the fantasy podcast Podcastle, and used to host the YA podcast Cast of Wonders. You can find him on Google+ and he occasionally tweets as @kibitzer on Twitter.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 91 Fred Van Lente and Christie Yant

Tue, 26 Jan 2016 08:00:34 GMT

The cover art for this month is Icaria by Tomislav Tikulin, whose distinctive and stylish art is very reminiscent of the ’70s and ’80s and has graced the covers of many legendary SF, fantasy, and horror books, including Larry Niven’s Ringworld Engineers, Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama, Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine (50th anniversary edition), and Stephen King’s Carrie. He can be found online at tomtikulin-art.com.

(Both of our stories for this week were originally published in the anthology Dead Man’s Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West.)

Short Fiction: “Dead Man’s Hand” by Christie Yant

Deadwood, Dakota Territory, 1876

The whisper of the cards as they’re shuffled is a deception, a ritual enacted to make you believe that your hand will be fairly dealt.

The fly that lands on the whiskey glass by the dealer’s hand means that the deck is cut three cards deeper than it would have been. The hand you’re dealt is not the one that would have been dealt a moment before.

Your cards are dealt anew every moment of every day. So are the cards of the other players.

A ♦ A ♣ 8 ♠ 8 ♣

Christie Yant is a science fiction and fantasy writer, Associate Publisher of Lightspeed Magazine and Nightmare Magazine, and editor of the Women Destroy Science Fiction! special issue of Lightspeed, which won the British Fantasy Award for Best Anthology in 2015. Her fiction has appeared in in print and on the internet in such places as Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011 (Horton), Armored, Analog, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, io9, Wired.com, and China’s premier science fiction magazine, Science Fiction World. She lives on the central coast of California with two writers, one editor, two dogs, three cats, and a very small manticore.

For more information about Lightspeed‘s special double-issues devoted to showcasing the work of underrepresented and marginalized creators, visit destroysf.com.

Main Story: “Neversleeps” by Fred Van Lente

Monument Valley, Near Navajo Territory, Northbound on the Northwest Pacific Express, 120 years after the Awakening:

There were three Pinkertons. There were always three. One was a white man, one was black, and the other was a Celestial. They may have been something else before, but now they were Pinkertons. Same brownish- grey tweed suits, same bowler hats, same obese-caterpillar mustaches lurking below their noses.

Simon Leslie was playing hold-’em in the parlor car when the train slowed between two mesas in Monument Valley with a puff of steam and a sigh. Through the window he saw the Pinkertons get off and march in a flawless triangular phalanx up the nearest brick-red ridge. From the looks of it, they emerged from the express car in the center of the train; maybe the railroad kept them stacked in crates with the sacks of parcels and the safe where they laid, stiff-necked, their tattooed eyes open and unblinking, waiting to be needed. They were nicknamed “Neversleeps” for a reason. Simon Leslie knew. It had not been so long since he was one of them.

Fred Van Lente is the #1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning writer of comics such as Archer & Armstrong (Harvey Award nominee, Best Series), Action Philosophers! (American Library Association Best Graphic Novel for Teens), and Cowboys & Aliens (with Andrew Foley), the basis for the feature film. His many other titles include Resurrectionists, The Comic Book History of Comics, The Incredible Hercules (with Greg Pak), Taskmaster, Marvel Zombies, and The Amazing Spider-Man. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, the playwright Crystal Skillman, and some mostly ungrateful cats. Fred loves hearing from readers at fred.vanlente@gmail.com. You can find him online at fredvanlente.com.

“Neversleeps” was shortlisted for the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy in 2015.

About the Narrator(s):

Seth Williams is the avatar for a three-kilometer sentient starship that is parked (probably uncomfortably) close to the third planet. Surprisingly he has not yet been discovered. He is very happy that the inhabitants have discovered enough technology to that he can communicate in this limited fashion. Any communications can be directed to theboojum.org.

Tim Maroney has an endless fascination with ideas and invention, the things that keep life spicy and interesting! He believes everyone’s got a tale to tell and enjoys “Talking Story!” He enjoys playing music, mostly on guitar. He’s even been the opening act for a 10-band rock concert. Learning new things, like podcasting, excites him. He’s been on four of the seven continents and has seen some of the wonders of our Earth. While in the Navy, he earned the rare and coveted dual Snake Plisskin Award: he escaped from New York AND LA, same as Snake (though they were two of the five submarines he served on). Not too bad for a guy from a small town in North-Central Florida!

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Far Fetched Fables No. 90 David Steffen and Dale Bailey

Tue, 19 Jan 2016 08:00:55 GMT

First Story: “Never Idle” by David Steffen

(Originally published in Specutopia, July 2012).

Jeremiah listened to each car as he walked through the busy mall parking lot, looking for one who could serve as both transportation and companion.  A minivan dreamt of frequent trips with her family to the soccer fields to watch the children play.  No, her family needed her, and they treated her well.  A sports car dreamt of blurred landscape and the feel of the wind pushing her to the ground.  No, too impulsive.  He needed someone dependable.  She might leave him at any time and never come back. 

An aged sedan caught his eye.  The poor thing showed more rust than paint and her oil hadn’t been changed as often as it should have been.  Her seats were littered with trash.  She dreamt of an owner who was more neglectful than abusive, but she was ready for a change, before lack of maintenance was the end of her.

Jeremiah placed his hands on her hood and closed his eyes.  The warmth grew deep in his gut and spread through his fingertips into the car.

The car woke.

David Steffen is a writer, editor, and software engineer. He edits Diabolical Plots, which began publishing original fiction in 2015. He runs the Submission Grinder, a tool for writers to find markets for their work. He recently published The Long List Anthology, which is a collection of 21 stories from the longer Hugo Award nomination list last year. His own stories have been published in many nice places, including Escape Pod, Podcastle, Daily Science Fiction, and StarShipSofa.

Second Story: “This is How You Disappear” by Dale Bailey

(Originally published in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan/Feb 2013).

This is how you disappear:

Twilight, Kristina at the stove, Amanda at her homework at the kitchen table. She’s a willowy twelve years old by then, sixth grade, with her mother’s dark eyes and hair, her mother’s ready smile. Susan too is an echo of her mother, and now that she has gone away—a sophomore, you can hardly believe it—you feel her absence like a hollow place inside your heart. The years fly by. Amanda too will soon be gone, leaving you and Kristina to rattle around in a suddenly too-big house. Beyond that decline and death.

How you long to cling to this moment in the kitchen even as it slips like rain through your outstretched hands: the smell of garlic and onions simmering in olive oil, lights in the windows, the cat curled up nose to tail upon the sofa. You’ve made a salad: a bed of tomatoes, arcs of purple onions, topped with perfect white spheres of mozzarella cheese. The leftovers will go into a plastic container, the container will go into the refrigerator—but no one will eat them, no one ever does. Soon enough, you’ll scrape the remnants into the disposal, tomatoes white and soft, cheese slick with some unpleasant exudate. This is you, this is how your mind works. “Why worry?” Kristina sometimes says, and how you long to tell her how thin the world is, how deep is the abyss. But there are no words, there are never any words.

A winner of both the Shirley Jackson Award and the International Horror Guild Award, Dale Bailey published two books last year, The End of the End of Everything: Stories and The Subterranean Season, a novel. He is also the author of The Fallen, House of Bones, Sleeping Policemen (with Jack Slay, Jr.), and The Resurrection Man’s Legacy and Other Stories. His work has twice been a finalist for the Nebula Award and once for the Bram Stoker Award, and has been adapted for Showtime Television’s Masters of Horror. He lives in North Carolina with his family and can be found online at dalebailey.com.

About the Narrators:

Seth Williams is the avatar for a three-kilometer sentient starship that is parked (probably uncomfortably) close to the third planet. Surprisingly he has not yet been discovered. He is very happy that the inhabitants have discovered enough technology to that he can communicate in this limited fashion. Any communications can be directed to theboojum.org.

Rish Outfield is a writer, actor, and podcaster that can be heard as host of The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, which presents genre stories with a full cast. He also performs audiobooks for Audible, and occasionally becomes a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms, and the moon is full and bright.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 89 Jack William Finley and Mel Staten

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 08:00:22 GMT

Flash Fiction: “An Episode Below” by Mel Staten

Her bare feet lightly touch down on the bed of coals, moving forward. They should stop in heated agony, but onwards they move despite burning soles as she counts steps toward blistering burns.

How oddly beautiful it is, a lake made of flames, so different from usual cool waters, so different from what she was used to but no less serene. Her feet move forward, toward the heat, not backwards away from it, and the flames lick the inky blackness all around them. Never had she imagined it would be like this, so oddly calming in all the oblivion.

Mel Staten is a storyteller born and raised in Massachusetts who peddles her art for a living. This story, which first appeared at Every Day Fiction on October 22, 2015, is her first short story publication. Armed with a degree in Studio Art, she accepts freelance work through her website melstaten.com, and is in the process of editing her first novel. She currently resides in Natick with her partner and three remarkably fluffy mammals. You can find her on Twitter: @melanixies.

“An Episode Below” originally appeared at Every Day Fiction on October 22, 2015.

Main Story: “The Magnificent Roadside Attraction” by Jack William Finley

Ancient ’Dora sat rocking in her chair by the window of DORA’s Emporium of Wonders and Mysteries and watched the trio of strangers approach: Shunned even in hell, they straggled along the sulfur yellow trail of Route 666.

One was Judas Iscariot, his hanging tree dragging behind him; the rope biting into the flesh of his throat; his thirty pieces of silver hung around his neck, making every step an agony. Beside him shuffled Pontius Pilate, his hands forever covered in blood no water could wash away; his soul forever tormented by ‘what ifs’ and ‘might have beens: if only he had known; if only he could go back, change things, make things right…. The third was Salome, daughter of Herodias, the head of John the Baptist hanging from her neck, endlessly preaching the ways of salvation and redemption eternally denied to the three of them. She traveled with those other two for they were the only ones who would have her.

’Dora studied them as they came down the road toward her, oblivious to all the tacky, ratty tourist crap that littered both sides of the infamous Route 666. Her own shop was perhaps the sturdiest and most welcoming, being made of whitewashed stone, but even it was tired and worn after all these long centuries. The biblical outcasts trudged onward, ever closer. She could see by their expressions they were overcome with hopelessness and despair, remarkable even in hell.

Jack William Finley has delivered pizza, stocked various shelves worked as an actor, a photographer, a stunt man, a short order cook, washed cars professionally, helped build computer hard drives, driven a forklift, and been a small arms repairman for the U.S. Army. He is a proud graduate of the Borderland Press Writers Boot Camp, which he enthusiastically recommends to anyone serious about writing stories for money, or just wants to be a lot better at it. He has lived in Indiana, California, Arizona, and Germany, and now he writes stories he hopes will entertain people. His fiction is available through Amazon.

“The Miraculous Roadside Attraction”, written by Jack William Finley; copyright (c) 2011, Janet Morris. Permission, Perseid Press.

About the Narrators:

Heidi Hotz is a voiceover artist with a range of personalities who has been in the industry for more than 10 years, and has worked on TV commercials, radio, documentaries, audio fiction, and narration in general. She resides online at HeidiHotz.com.

Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake, the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman, and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV. His current project, Interference, a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook… that kills, is now available on Audible.com.

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Far Fetched Fabled No. 88 Desirina Boskovich and Melody Marie Sage

Tue, 05 Jan 2016 08:00:12 GMT

Flash Fiction: “The Alchemist’s Wife” by Melody Marie Sage

Melody Marie Sage’s writing has recently appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Quaint Magazine, The Conium Review, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the 2014 Scott Imes Award and was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. To view more of her work, including a portfolio of her visual art, please visit melodysage.com.

Main Story: “Love is the Spell That Casts Out Fear” by Desirina Boskovich

(Originally published in The Way of the Wizard.)

Long ago, far away, in another time, and another place.

In this world, there lives a wizard.

She is old, but not that old.

She is young, but not that young.

The wizard lives alone in a tiny house at the forest’s edge. To the north are the tangled woods, home to unlikely zoological and botanical specimens the wizard has spent several lifetimes cataloging; she plans to spend several more. To the south lies the city: Perta Perdida, the City of Lost Girls.

The girls of Perta Perdida call the wizard Hanna D’Forrest, when they think of her at all. She’s charged with their protection. Whether this responsibility is one for which she volunteered, or one forced upon her, they no longer remember. Neither does she. Time moves differently here, languid as a summer stream. A place of refuge, this city was built to elude change. If they could trap this world like a leaf in amber, they would. But in the absence of that kind of magic, they settle for slowed clocks. They cling to their world as tightly as they can.

Still, occasionally time gets tangled, and change slips through the loops in the knots. Dangers force their way in through the cracks.

A wizard’s job is to untangle time, to retie the ropes. And to fight the danger they’re facing now.

Desirina Boskovich’s short fiction has been published in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Nightmare, Kaleidotrope, PodCastle, Drabblecast, and anthologies such as The Way of the Wizard, Aliens: Recent Encounters, and The Apocalypse Triptych. Her nonfiction pieces on music, literature, and culture have appeared in Lightspeed, Weird Fiction Review, the Huffington Post, Wonderbook, and The Steampunk Bible. She is also the editor of It Came From the North: An Anthology of Finnish Speculative Fiction (Cheeky Frawg, 2013), and together with Jeff VanderMeer, co-author of The Steampunk User’s Manual (Abrams Image, 2014). Find her online at desirinaboskovich.com.

About the Narrators:

Catherine Logan had many years of training in theatre and voice in her youth — then many years of teaching acting, drama, writing, and English literature as a grownup. She has taken plenty of workshops and has studio experience in narration, commercial, and animation voiceover work. Catherine is now involved in a second career which takes her back to her first love. Find her online at catherineloganvoice.com.

Heidi Hotz is not just another voice. She’s a voiceover artist with a range of personalities that varies from mom to the business corporate, to the friendly girl next door. She has been in the industry for more than 10 years, and has worked on TV commercials, radio, documentaries, audio fiction, and narration in general. Her website is HeidiHotz.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 87 Adam Browne and Andrew Kozma

Tue, 29 Dec 2015 08:00:54 GMT

Flash Fiction: “The Judges” by Andrew Kozma

Andrew Kozma is from Yorktown, Virginia, and currently “lives” in Houston, Texas. He is a graduate of George Washington University, with an M.F.A. from the University of Florida and a Ph.D. from the University of Houston. He writes most everything creative, though currently focuses on Young Adult science fiction and fantasy novels. His work has been or will be published by Drabblecast, Daily Science Fiction, Albedo One, and Stupefying Stories. You can find him online here.

“The Judges” first appeared at Daily Science Fiction on September 14, 2015.

Main Story: “Honeymoon” by Adam Browne

Bob Rally wasn’t crazy about the band. It wasn’t their music that bothered him — a light dinner-jazz so inoffensive you didn’t even hear it after a while — nor was it the musicians themselves, who were standard-issue in every way.

Bob’s problem was with the drum kit.

It was biological. The bass drum was fitted with a big transgenic heart, the percussionist adjusting the beat by feathering hormone and adrenal flow.

And Bob, who had been employed as a waiter for the evening, didn’t like it. He gave it a wide berth whenever he had to serve the table near the stage. He was always aware of the heart beating away, its loping cadence infusing the general conversation. Creepy. Like being back in the womb, he shuddered. All he wanted was to finish his shift, hit the strip, and score. Dope, a trip, something — the specifics didn’t matter. As always, Bob Rally was ready to party. Unfortunately, for the next few hours, he was stuck here, at someone else’s party.

The dinner was served on the veranda of a sprawling mansion modelled after the antebellum architecture of the American South. The other waiters moved easily about its latticed expanses, filling glasses and dispensing war-pills to sixty crisp and shining suitors, the sons of the sons of the men who had wrested the planet from the native Jovians. Breeding showed in their sharp eyes, whipcord muscles, and proud carriage. They sat square-shouldered in their refurbished military uniforms, everything dress-right-dress, chatting easily — unperturbed that soon they would be trying to kill one another.

Adam Browne lives in Melbourne, Australia. His story “Neverland Blues” originally appeared in 2008 in Dreaming Again: Thirty-Five New Stories Celebrating the Wild Side of Australian Fiction, and won the 2009 Chronos Award for Best Short Fiction. His first novel, Pyrotechnicon: Being a True Account of the Further Adventures of Cyrano de Bergerac among the States and Empires of the Stars, by Himself (Dec’d), was published by Coeur de Lion in 2012, and is still available as a print-on-demand illustrated hardcover. His collection of short stories, Other Stories and Other Stories, was published by Satalyte in 2014, and is available as an audio book. His website can be found at adambrowne.blogspot.com.au.

About the Narrators:

Seth Williams is a reader, sailor, and retail banker, in that order, who lives on the south coast of Massachusetts. Not a writer but a lover of genre fiction and the spoken word. He can be contacted at theboojum.org.

Geoffrey Welchman writes, produces, and voices The Reigning Lunatic podcast, a medieval sitcom. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. You can find him online at geoffreywelchman.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 86 Martha Wells and Aidan Doyle

Tue, 22 Dec 2015 08:00:13 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Remembering the Dragon” by Aidan Doyle

Do you remember me? I was once a great adventurer, journeying to distant lands, exploring lost ruins and chronicling momentous events. Now I’m trapped in a decaying ruin. If I show any weakness, my fellow prisoners will try to take everything from me.

“You’re sitting in my chair, Henry. I reserved it because it has a view of the driveway and I want to know when my family arrives.”

It was the anniversary of your mother’s death yesterday. Alice used to get annoyed when I told my stories, but now they’re all I have left. Most of my captors assume that because I’m old I must be stupid and torture me with cruel games.

“Residents are reminded that bingo starts at two o’clock.”

Aidan Doyle is an Australian writer and computer programmer. He has visited more than 90 countries and his experiences include teaching English in Japan, interviewing ninjas in Bolivia and going ten-pin bowling in North Korea. His stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Fireside.

His website is at aidandoyle.net.

“Remembering the Dragon” first appeared at Every Day Fiction on September 16, 2015.

Main Story: “The Potter’s Daughter” by Martha Wells

The potter’s daughter sat in the late afternoon sun outside the stone cottage, making clay figures and setting them out to dry on the flat slate doorstep. A gentle summer breeze stirred the oak and ash leaves and the dirty grey kerchief around her dirty blond hair.

Someone was coming up the path.

She could hear that he was without horse, cart, or company, and as he came toward her through the trees she saw that he was tall, with dark curly hair and a beard, with a pack and a leather case slung over one shoulder. He was unarmed, and dressed in a blue woolen doublet, faded and threadbare, brown breeches and brown top boots. The broad-brimmed hat he wore had seen better days, but the feathers in it were gaily colored. Brief disappointment colored her expression; she could tell already he wasn’t her quarry.

Boots crunched on the pebbles in the yard, then his shadow fell over her and he said, “Good day. Is this the way to Riversee?”

She continued shaping the wet clay, not looking up at him. “Just follow this road to the ford.”

“Thank you, my lady Kade.”

Now she did look up at him, in astonishment. Part of the astonishment was at herself, that she could still be so taken by surprise. She dropped the clay and stood, drawing a spell from the air.

Martha Wells has written well over a dozen fantasy novels, including the Books of the Raksura series (The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, The Siren Depths, Stories of the Raksura Vol. I, Stories of the Raksura Vol. II), The Wizard Hunters, Wheel of the Infinite, and the nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer, as well as YA fantasies, short stories, and non-fiction. She has had stories in Black Gate, Realms of Fantasy, Stargate Magazine, Lightspeed, and in the anthologies Elemental, Tales of the Emerald Serpent, The Other Half of the Sky, and The Gods of Lovecraft. She has also written the media-tie-ins Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary, Stargate Atlantis: Entanglement, and Star Wars: Razor’s Edge. Her new book in the Raksura series, The Edge of Worlds, will be out in April 2016.

You can find her online at marthawells.com.

About the Narrators:

Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake, has written the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman, and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV. His current project Interference, a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook… that kills, is now available on Audible.com. For further information on creative projects go to Quillhammer.com.

Diane Sieverson has been involved in the SF Poetry Scene (yes, it’s a thing) since 2010, is a staff blogger for Amazing Stories Magazine, and is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. She contributes the audio feature Poetry Planet to StarShip Sofa, and narrates stories for it and Tales to Terrify. The best place to find her is on the web because she tends to pick up and move to another country at the drop of a hat. She and her family currently reside in Germany.

You can find her online at divadiane.eu.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 85 Richard Ford

Tue, 15 Dec 2015 08:00:44 GMT

Story: “The Halfwyrd’s Burden” by Richard Ford

Around early autumn the border trail west out of Valdor was windy as a nobleman’s trap and cold as a devil’s heart. It was two hundred leagues of forested inclines and boggy descents, with bears and wolves and worse lying in wait to fill their bellies before the long, hard weeks of winter set in. Sometimes there wasn’t even a path to see, and anyone who didn’t know the way would be lost quicker than a priest in a whorehouse. It was hard land, untamed by cities or farms, and it was a rare kind of man had any business making a trade in a place so remote, when the rain pissed down like it was trying to drown you, and the wind howled and roared till it frayed your wits.

A rare kind of man indeed would make his business in such a place.

But then Oban Halfwyrd was one of the rarest.

“The Halfwyrd’s Burden” originally appeared in Grimdark Magazine #4.

Richard Ford originally comes from Leeds in the United Kingdom, but now resides in the sunny Cotswold countryside. His first novel, Kultus, was published by Solaris Books in 2011. Herald of the Storm, book one in the Steelhaven Trilogy was published in 2013, followed by The Shattered Crown in 2014. The concluding volume, Lord of Ashes, was released in May 2015.

About the Narrator:

Mark “The Encaffeinated One” Kilfoil loves fiction, so much so that he’s written some (such as the Parsec-nominated Tainted Roses), read quite a lot (a library of over a thousand half-read books and growing), and now narrates it (sometimes actually recorded for others). He’s found that volunteering for a dozen years in radio was a decent way to get a full-time job as a Program Director at a community radio station in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, but not such a great way to finish his thesis, so he stopped at a Masters in Computer Science. He can be heard frequently on CHSRfm.ca, and two of his shows regularly appear as podcasts, and can be found at encaffeinated.ca and theweirdshow.com. He likes cats enough to pet them but not enough to own one, and computers enough to own several but pet none of them. He will someday write a million words, but at this rate, that will require life extension, so he eagerly awaits the ability to upload into a computer, if that hasn’t already happened and this is all only a simulation.

About the Artist:

This month’s cover art is Fairies Land by Sara Ambrosini. Her passion for digital art started in 2007. She had been a professional ballet dancer for many years and when she stopped, she felt the need to find a new way to express herself. Fractals have always been her first love when it comes to making art, her images are bright and colorful, they speak of joy and the sweet things in life. She also accepts commissions.

You can find her online at artofsaretta.weebly.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 84 David Jón Fuller

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 08:00:51 GMT

Story: “A Deeper Echo” by David Jón Fuller

The smoky-grey dire wolf loped between darkened hulks of wooden box-cars on the sprawling CPR train yards of Winnipeg. The early June air was already warm and the sun had yet to rise. Warehouse doors clanged open at the looming Canadian Pacific station.

The wolf came to an abrupt halt, sniffing the air. The scent of human body odor grew stronger through the heady mix of diesel and tar stench. A faint smell of pines tinged with oil lingered beneath.

The wolf’s stocky shoulders were as tall as the tops of the massive, grimy wheels, and he knew what would come next: a hostile shout, warning off strangers; or worse, a cry of alarm at the sight of a wolf the size of a bear. He’d been shot at enough in the war. Best to hurry, then. Thomas Greyeyes shivered his thick fur to adjust the army-issue satchel that hung beneath his torso.

“A Deeper Echo” was originally published in Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction From the Margins of History from Crossed Genres Publications.

David Jón Fuller was born and raised in Winnipeg, but he has also lived in Edmonton and Iceland. He works a copy editor for the Winnipeg Free Press and writes short fiction. His work has also appeared in Kneeling in the Silver Light: Stories From the Great War (Alchemy Press, 2014), which featured a prequel story to “A Deeper Echo”, as well as Accessing the Future (The Future Fire Publications, 2015) and Tesseracts 18: Wrestling With Gods (Hades Publications, 2014).

You can find him online at davidjonfuller.com.

About the Narrator:

Martin Reyto is an educator, writer, and musician. He has worked in an eclectic variety of fields, including 18 years as a technical writer and software developer, 16 years as a teacher of creative writing, computer science, and business communication, and shorter stints as a symphony musician and audiobook narrator. He has published short fiction and two collections of his poetry.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 83 Beth Cato and Seanan McGuire

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 08:00:14 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Bless This House” by Beth Cato

Beth Cato hails from Hanford, California, but currently writes and bakes cookies in a lair west of Phoenix, Arizona. She shares the household with a hockey-loving husband, a numbers-obsessed son, and a cat the size of a canned ham. She’s the author of The Clockwork Dagger (a 2015 Locus Award finalist for First Novel) and The Clockwork Crown from Harper Voyager. Follow her at BethCato.com and on Twitter via @BethCato.

“Bless This House” first appeared at Daily Science Fiction on October 12, 2010.

Main Story: “Well Will Not Be Undersold!” by Seanan McGuire

“Dan?”  Nimh looked around the employee break room, allowing her eyes to skirt past the slack-faced stockroom workers sitting slumped in their gray plastic chairs. Their cheery green and yellow vests were painfully bright against the industrial beige walls and floor. Not for the first time, Nimh made a note to talk to the store manager about getting some decorations in. Maybe a few cheery posters with kittens and motivational slogans ($4.99, home décor). Those always sold well, so people obviously liked them.

None of the dead-eyed employees were Dan. Only two of them were even male. With a sunny smile and a wave for everyone (stay positive; positivity enhances profitability), Nimh chirped, “Have a fantastic shopping day, everybody!” and turned to leave the room while the workers were still trying to formulate their response. It was always best to leave a situation on a high note.

Seanan McGuire is the author of a whole bunch of things, both under her name and the name “Mira Grant”. She used to try to list all those things in her bios, but has dismissed that as a fool’s errand, and now suggests checking the bibliography on her website for the list of things. It’s a very nice list. Seanan lives in a potentially haunted farmhouse in Northern California, along with her vast collections of comic books and creepy dolls, and her two abnormally large blue Maine Coon cats, which regularly startle house guests by being the size of cocker spaniels. When not writing, Seanan enjoys travel, Disney Parks, and lurking in the local corn maze and scaring anyone who happens to wander by. Keep up with her at seananmcguire.com, or on Twitter as @seananmcguire. She’s a little odd, and she doesn’t sleep much, but she’s mostly friendly.

About the Narrators:

Catherine Logan had many years of training in theatre and voice in her youth, and then many years of teaching acting, drama, writing, and English literature as a grown-up. She has taken plenty of workshops and has studio experience in narration, commercial and animation voiceover work. Catherine is now involved in a second career which takes her back to her first love.

Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements. She also hosts this podcast…

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Far Fetched Fables No. 82 Laurence Raphael Brothers and Pauline J. Alama

Tue, 24 Nov 2015 08:00:31 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Innumerate” by Laurence Raphael Brothers

The sorcerer stands in the center of a magic circle, a conservative gray business suit showing under his white ritual mantle, the traditional rod of blasting in his hand. I’m off to the side, in the triangle of summoning.“Come not in that form! I adjure thee. In the holy name of–“

Okay, so maybe the roiling nest of cobras was a bit over the top. But I hate this slow, grainy material world. These sorcerers think we’ve got nothing better to do than wait on them.

“Hold on,” I say. “How’s this?” Now I’m a rotating polyhedron, Kepler’s stella octangula. I didn’t mind it when Johannes summoned me. At least he knew his geometry and orbital mechanics.

“Not in that form, either,” says the sorcerer.

I’d roll my eyes if I had them. Maybe if they’d tell me up front what form they wanted, I wouldn’t have to go through this every time. I try again.

Laurence Raphael Brothers has worked in R&D at such firms as Bell Communications Research and Google. His stories have appeared in the Sockdolager and Daily Science Fiction. Follow him on Twitter @lbrothers. The S.E.5a on his Twitter profile page is in honor of his first novel, a WWI-era fantasy currently seeking representation.

“Innumerate” first appeared at Daily Science Fiction on July 18, 2015.

Main Story: “The Damsel in the Garden” by Pauline J. Alama

The dragon was bad enough, but when I’d cut off the last of its heads, I still had the bridge before me. And that was worse than a herd of dragons.

Over a burning river, the only footholds were hovering sword blades spaced so far apart, and so unevenly, that a mountain goat could have lost its footing. To make it a bit more interesting, the fire below the bridge had an annoying habit of spurting up at intervals perfectly timed to set one’s nerves off-key. Crossing it would be like a caper with death. Luckily, I’d learned capering from the jongleurs who sometimes stopped at my father’s hall along the way to more illustrious castles. I fancied I might have a better chance on the Bridge of Blades and Flame than a knight whose chivalric training had been more regular.

I considered leaving my armor and sword on the bank; they’d weigh me down as I leapt, and if I were really unlucky, they might get hot as branding irons. But I dared not trust that the Bridge of Blades and Flame was the last layer of deviltry wound around the Garden of Delights. Whatever bloodthirsty strategist had placed the dragon on the bank of the icy torrent, and the gulf of flame just beyond the dragon, might set a hungry lion or an assassin on the other side of the bridge. I kept my armor on. Muttering a quick prayer — God guard fools! — I leapt to the first blade-thin foothold, just missing the first jet of flame.

Pauline J. Alama, once a medieval scholar, escaped the ivory tower to an enchanted land called New Jersey. Her novel The Eye of Night (Bantam Spectra, 2002) was a finalist for the Compton Crook Award. The heroine of “The Damsel in the Garden” will return in “Liars’ Tournament” in Sword & Sorceress 30, and if you want a glimpse of the Damsel in middle age check out “No Tale for Troubadours”, first published in Realms of Fantasy and currently available online in Fantasy Scroll Magazine #7.

A full list of her publications is available here.

“The Damsel in the Garden” was originally published in Sword and Sorceress XXVIII, edited by Elisabeth Waters (Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust, 2013).

About the Narrators:

Nikolle Doolin is a writer and a voice actor. Her fiction, poetry, and plays have been published and presented; and her voice has appeared in various media. Nikolle has performed numerous narrations for a number of popular and award-winning podcasts, such as The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify, and Far-Fetched Fables. She also narrates classic literature by the likes of Austen, Poe, James, and more in her own podcast, Audio Literature Odyssey.

To learn more about Nikolle, visit her website at nikolledoolin.com.

Katherine Inskip weighs galaxies for a living, and builds worlds in her spare time. She is addicted to chocolate and Japanese logic puzzles.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 81 Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette and Angela Slatter

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 08:00:32 GMT

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Novel excerpt: An Apprentice to Elves by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette

Even as a grown woman of fifteen, Alfgyfa never stopped thinking about the wolves she had encountered as a child. Sometimes she tried to speak to them, stretching out into the pack-sense as far as she could. Once she thought she caught a whisper of mice-under-snow; sometimes she was sure she caught the trailing edge of the wild konigenwolf’s thoughts. But if they heard her, they never answered. And even as a grown woman of fifteen, Alfgyfa did not give over her visits to the trellwarrens. At first, Tin’s warnings and the almost-fate of the dog wolf had cowed her for a while. But Alfgyfa was not much-cowable by nature. And once discovered, the lure of those tunnels and their slick, shaped, twisted stone like the boles of ancient trees was beyond her power to resist. She’d seen stone worked like this before, though it hadn’t had this twisting sense of otherness, of being a little dislocated in space between what her eyes told her and what her hands — or feet — felt.

Elizabeth Bear was the recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She has won two Hugo Awards for her short fiction, a Sturgeon Award, and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. You can visit her online at elizabethbear.com.

Sarah Monette is the acclaimed author of Mélusine and The Virtue as well as award-nominated short fiction. Her most recent fantasy novel – written under the pseudonym Katherine Addison – The Goblin Emperor, won the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. You can visit her online at sarahmonette.com.

Together, they are the authors of A Companion to Wolves, The Tempering of Men, and An Apprentice to Elves, the third book in their Iskryne series, currently available on Amazon.com.

Second Story: “The Jacaranda Wife” by Angela Slatter

Angela Slatter has won five Aurealis Awards, one British Fantasy Award, been a finalist for the Norma K. Hemming Award, and a finalist the World Fantasy Award twice (for Sourdough and Bitterwood). Her short stories have appeared in numerous  Australian, UK, and US Best Of anthologies.

Angela has an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing, is a graduate of Clarion South 2009 and the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop 2006, and in 2013 she was awarded one of the inaugural Queensland Writers Fellowships. Her novellas, Of Sorrow and Such (from Tor.com), and Ripper (in the Stephen Jones anthology Horrorology, from Jo Fletcher Books) were released in October 2015, and her urban fantasy novel, Vigil, will be released by Jo Fletcher Books in 2016, and the sequel, Corpselight, in 2017.

You can find her online at angelaslatter.com.

About the Narrators:

Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements. She also hosts this podcast…

Graeme Dunlop is a software solution architect and voice actor living in Melbourne Australia. He is the co-editor of the fantasy podcast Podcastle, and used to host the YA podcast Cast of Wonders. You can find him on Google Plus and he occasionally tweets as @kibitzer on Twitter.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 80 Steph Swainston and Patrick Samphire

Tue, 03 Nov 2015 08:00:03 GMT

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First Story: “The Wheel of Fortune” by Steph Swainston

Tuesday morning in May, bright sunshine. I came out of the shop, carrying a pole to pull the awning down. I was whistling. The shop door banged behind me and the cat fled off the step. The whole street was vibrant with the spring sun. There, sitting on the pavement and huddled against the terrace wall, was Serin. She was a pitiful sight, gin-dimmed eyes and head to foot in gutter dirt. I had last seen her Saturday, on stage at the Campion Vaudeville, and she was wearing the same dress now, a voluminous costume made of gold foil. Her reddish wings stuck out the back and bunched up against the bricks. The feathers rustled when she moved.

I knelt next to her. ‘Serin? …Are you all right?’

She shook her head and looked away. She was on the spiral downwards, that much was obvious.

(Author’s Note: This story tells of Jant’s early life when a mortal, in Hacilith city, in the year 1818.)

Steph Swainston has written tales set in the Fourlands since she was five years old. Her novels published to date are collected in The Castle Omnibus. The next book, Fair Rebel, will be published by Gollancz in 2016, and is available on Amazon. She’s halfway through the next book in the sequence, and she’s expanding this story into a novel. There are more to come…

Second Story: “Crab Apple” by Patrick Samphire

I saw her first the day I found Dad on the kitchen floor. The new girl. The wild girl.

At first I thought Dad had been drinking again. There were beer cans scattered across the floor. But the cans were still full, and I couldn’t smell alcohol.

There was something strange about the way Dad was lying. He was too still. His stick-thin arms and legs were sprawled loosely across the tiles. I thought for a moment he was dead.

He was still breathing, though, a wheezy, tight sound, as though a plastic whistle was stuck in his throat. He didn’t wake when I shook him.

I’d begun taking first aid classes at school when Dad started losing weight and coughing. There was no one else at home to help. But they had never shown us how to deal with this. I put him in the recovery position and called an ambulance.

The girl was there when I went outside to wait for the ambulance. She was squatted on our garden wall like a wild-haired monkey. She had on a dirty white T-shirt and shorts that showed scratched legs. I guessed she was about fourteen, the same age as me. Her eyes were as brown as oak and her cheeks were freckled and sunburnt. There were leaves in her tangled hair.

“What’s your name?” she said. “You, what’s your name?”

“Josh,” I said.

“Joshua,” she laughed. “Stupid name.”

She winked down at me. Her grin was as wide as her face.

Then she leapt from the wall and dashed away up the hill, her wild hair streaming behind her like a comet’s tail. I watched her disappear.

In the distance I heard the ambulance siren approaching.

Patrick Samphire drinks green tea, designs cool websites and book covers, and writes thrilling books and magical stories. His first novel, Secrets of the Dragon Tomb, will be published by Henry Holt/Macmillan in January 2016. He lives with his wife (fellow writer Stephanie Burgis), their two sons, and their border collie in Wales. To find out more, visit his website: patricksamphire.com.

About the Narrators:

Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head. He looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. He currently resides in Houston, Texas, but hastens to add that it was not his idea. He can be found on Google Plus.

Alex Weinle writes short fiction for magazines and podcasts and author of the anthology of shock-comedic-tragic stories, The Decapaphiliac, and the science fiction novel Border. A long-time Sofanaut, he has finally got up the courage to narrate. He lives in Fulbourn, England, in a cottage that consumes bulbs of unusual wattage. He can be found on Twitter as @alexweinle.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 79 Sofia Samatar and Elizabeth Archer

Tue, 27 Oct 2015 08:00:45 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Percy’s Crossing” by Elizabeth Archer

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Sir Percival Pettigrew saw things other men did not see until it was too late.

“I should have named you Cassandra,” said Lady Pettigrew. “Pity you were male.” Only his mother understood him. Sadly, she died in a hunting accident, mistaken by Lord Pettigrew for a pheasant.

“Shame about that damned hat of hers,” Lord Pettigrew lamented to Sir Percival and his siblings. He drank himself to oblivion, and left everything to Percival’s brother Thomas.

Being a second son was dreadful.

Sir Percival decided to affect a large turban, with an enormous pheasant feather, in honor of his Mum. He wore a jeweled silk caftan, and performed at fashionable parties as The All-Seeing Panocculi.

***

“You know your name is redundant, don’t you?” said Lady Beatrice Bumbleshoot. “I suppose you must.”

She was a short, dark woman with the hint of moustache and very keen grey eyes.

“Perhaps I do,” said Sir Percival.

“Tell me,” said Beatrice. “In my dirigible Titanic, I plan to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. Will I be successful?”

Sir Percival shut his eyes, and put the back of his right hand dramatically upon his forehead.

“No. I see that you are going to hit an iceberg on your maiden voyage.”

Elizabeth Archer writes flash fiction, short stories, and poetry. Her work has appeared in Every Day Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, Every Day Poets, and many other places. She lives in the Texas Hill Country. Her blog, Let Me Tell You a Story, can be found on Wordpress.

“Percy’s Crossing” first appeared at Every Day Fiction on September 21, 2015.

Main Story: “Olimpia’s Ghost” by Sofia Samatar

My Dear S.,

Emil says you will not come to Freiberg this year; but Mother says you will. Who is right? We all know you hate Vienna with a passion; that is, Mother and Emil know it, and I know it through them, for Mother reads your letters aloud, and sometimes Emil, too, shares a few lines. Pray do not be angry! It is such a little thing, to hear of your successes, and it makes me very happy. And then, your sallies on your masters are so droll, and your remarks on Vienna — St. Stephen’s steeple like a “greatrolled-up umbrella” — Mother can hardly read for laughing.

I am sure you will not begrudge me this diversion, my dear S. On the days when there is no letter from you, life continues just as usual. The weather has been fine. There is fruit on the peach trees. In the long twilight, while Emil reads, I go up and down, up and down the stairs.

A few days ago I did have a new amusement: a marionette theater sprang up overnight in the square, like a white mushroom. I watched the marionettes for several hours, even though a light rain was falling, and the children screamed mercilessly. I suppose you would not have liked the noise, or the look of the dirty little boy who came around afterward, hat extended to gather our coins. As I left I saw him sharing a cigar behind the theater with the puppet-master, a rough, disreputable-looking fellow, undoubtedly his father. Oh, but the marionettes were so beautiful! The little Pierrot had a spangled coat, and two great tears shone under his eyes. He wore his heart on the outside, like any fool. As for Columbine, she carried a hand mirror that reflected her lavender hair.

I looked for them today, but they are gone..

Sofia Samatar is the author of the novel A Stranger in Olondria and winner of the John W. Campbell Award, the Crawford Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the World Fantasy Award. Her second book, The Winged Histories, is forthcoming in 2016 from Small Beer Press. She co-edits the journal Interfictions and lives in California.

“Olimpia’s Ghost” appeared in the inaugural volume of Year’s Best Weird Fiction.

About the Narrators:

Rish Outfield is a writer, actor, and podcaster that can be heard as co-host of the Parsec Award-winning Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, which presents genre stories with a full cast. He also performs audiobooks for Audible, and occasionally becomes a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the moon is full and bright.

Nikolle Doolin is a writer and a voice actor. Her fiction, poetry, and plays have been published and presented; and her voice has appeared in various media. Nikolle has performed numerous narrations for a number of popular and award-winning podcasts, such as The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify, and Far-Fetched Fables. She also narrates classic literature by the likes of Austen, Poe, James, and more in her own podcast, Audio Literature Odyssey.

To learn more about Nikolle, visit her website at nikolledoolin.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 78 Melanie Tem and Gary Budgen

Tue, 20 Oct 2015 08:00:19 GMT

First Story:

“Mr. Green” by Gary Budgen

Rust fell on Maiden Road, falling in tiny flakes borne by the wind and covering the ground with burnt red like a carpet of autumn leaf. The rust covered the parked cars, the folds and intricacies of privet hedges, the broken concrete surfaces of the front yards.

I saw this on the day I visited my mother for the first time in a year, tail between my legs — basically skint — in hope of at least a Sunday lunch. Mr Jutley had been washing his white BMW and was standing, shaking his head at the covering of rust grains that had come from the sky. It was everywhere, even on Mr Jutley’s turban.

Gary Budgen grew up and lives in London, UK. He has had fiction published in many magazines and anthologies. Recent stories are in Sensorama from Eibonvale Press and We Can Improve You from Boo Books. He is a member of Clockhouse London Writers and can be found at garybudgen.wordpress.com

Second Story:

“Changelings” by Melanie Tem

Bridget sat quietly in the house of the creature who had stolen her child.

In her hand was a mug of the best coffee she’d ever tasted: strong and aromatic, and Still hot even though she’d been mostly ignoring it for some time. On the table at her elbow was a bowl of dry-roasted peanuts, which even under the circumstances she had a hard time resisting; they nearly filled a dark, thick wooden bowl of an odd shape, whose polished planes made her want to keep running her fingertips over it. An old Waylon-and-Willie tape of love songs was playing, one of her favorites. The creature knew.

Melanie Tem’s work received the Bram Stoker, International Horror Guild, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy Awards, and a nomination for the Shirley Jackson Award. She published over one hundred short stories, twelve solo novels, two collaborative novels with Nancy Holder, and two collaborative novels and a short story collection with her husband, Steve Rasnic Tem. Among her novels were Prodigal, Wilding, Revenant, The Yellow Wood (her latest), and Black River, a fictional exploration of grief as a hero’s journey. She was also a published poet, an oral storyteller, and a playwright. As a social worker and administrator she worked for the elderly, the disabled, and adoptive children and their parents. A speech of hers on unconditional commitment is still used in parts of the country in the training of prospective adoptive parents. She had four children and six grandchildren.
Melanie passed away in February of this year from metastatic breast cancer.

Of Melanie’s love of oral storytelling, Steve had this to say:

Those stories can be heard here.

About the Narrators:

Chris Mack is an enigmatic actor, voice artist, acting coach, father, and a New Yorker-turned-Parisienne. His credits include the animated feature Persepolis and the best-selling videogame Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. Find out more at chrismack.net.

Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements. She also hosts this podcast…

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Far Fetched Fables No. 77 Matthew Kressel

Tue, 13 Oct 2015 08:00:14 GMT

This month’s cover art is Plains of a Different World by Leon Tukker. For more of his work, visit www.artstation.com/artist/leontukker or tryingtofly.deviantart.com/

Novel excerpt: “King of Shards” by Matthew Kressel

The demon had saved Daniel, but the fool didn’t know it yet.

They fell.

They fell.

No matter existed in this place before places, not a single atom in this void of voids. If he had a mouth to scream, the demon would have, because he remembered this terror, remembered tumbling into the Abyss, when the Creator had ripped his world apart and tossed her screaming children into the Great Deep.

Our mother, the demon thought. Our destroyer.

The blind idiot tumbled beside him, a spark of unsteady light, flashing in panic as they went down and down and down.

They fell.

They fell.

Milton had it wrong. It wasn’t nine days. It was nine eternities. Ages crept past them in a silence that had lain undisturbed since before the first universe. The demon was more ancient than the oldest mountains, older than Earth, but the Great Deep mocked such notions of duration.

It could swallow all the years of his life a trillion, trillion, trillion times. When he had been thrust into the Abyss the first time, he had known only fear. But he had been a child then. Now, he fell with purpose.

They fell.

They fell.

Time passed. An eon or a nanosecond. All was meaningless in the breadth of eternity. An orange pinprick formed in the emptiness below, a miniscule spark of light. They fell towards it.

Flowing out from its glare, in currents long and wispy, came ballads of forgotten kings, cries from the death of children, a dying man’s last breath. Like smoke, the currents drifted into the vastness to be forgotten, the broken sounds of a broken people in a broken universe.

Matthew Kressel is a multiple Nebula Award finalist and World Fantasy Award finalist. His first novel, King of Shards, debuted October 13th from Resurrection House. His fiction has or will soon appear in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Nightmare, io9.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Interzone, Apex Magazine, and many other markets. He was the former editor and publisher of the acclaimed ‘zine Sybil’s Garage and he published the World Fantasy Award-winning Paper Cities. Alongside veteran editor Ellen Datlow, he co-hosts the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series in New York City. He has been a member of the Altered Fluid writers group for more than a decade, studies the Yiddish language in his spare time, and is preternaturally obsessed with the film Blade Runner. Find him on Twitter as @mattkressel and his blog at matthewkressel.net.

King of Shards is currently available on Amazon.com.

About the Narrators:

Sarah Frederickson was born in Oregon in the United States, and was raised in beautiful Minnesota. At a young age she realized her passion for musical performance and the creative arts. Sarah spent most of her childhood singing and acting – both onstage and off – and affecting various accents for fun.

Sarah graduated with a degree in Music business and Audio Production from Bethel University in St.Paul Minnesota. Shortly after graduation she traveled to Australia for a one-year holiday. During that time she became smitten with an Australian man who asked her to stay, and the couple — now married — live and work in Australia, go on adventures, write music, and read stories to their cat.

Matthew Frederickson is in his mid-30s, living in Memphis, Tennessee, with a rockstar plastic surgeon wife. He reads and writes and runs in his spare time. He loves to brew beer, and he’d love to make that his career. He will soon start the second season of his podcast, Freddy’s Fan Fiction. You can find him on Twitter as @swami.

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Far Fetched Fables No 76 Kellie Wells

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 08:00:20 GMT

Story: “The Rabbit Catcher of Kingdom Come” by Kellie Wells

One sudden spring, when trees and flowers, bamboozled by warmth, began budding in January, the prematurely honeyed air flatly refusing to chill again until late December, the town of Kingdom Come, Kansas, was beset by a plague of black-tailed jack rabbits that were not only many but jumbo, bigger than great danes they were, gargantuan rabbits, suspiciously well-fed, slavering over the zoysia, plump middles heaving, back feet long and brawny as a sailor’s forearm and ears you could fan a fainting princess with. And not at all timid, never darting under privet or disappearing behind fences at the last minute, but glaring tauntingly at cats and hobbled crones, whom the town feared would be dragged away to an unspeakable end in the riparian thickets whence these strapping rabbits multiplied, their numbers seeming to double each week. They licked their paws and stroked their ears and whiskers while leveling a menacing eye and leering toothily at any passerby bold enough to look them in their flea-bitten mugs. They stood up on their whopping hoppers and waggled their ears, as though receiving a communiqué from jack rabbit HQ, the air crackling with animal electricity, and then they’d charge a neighbor’s chihuahua, the javelin of their ears at a determined tilt, and the runt mutt would leap with a shriek through its doggy door. They hopped defiantly into busy intersections, and station wagons and pick-up trucks, afraid a collision with one of these sturdy lagomorphs would surely cause their vehicles to crumple like beer cans against an obdurate forehead, hit one another and rolled in ditches instead, coming to rest tires-up among the cattails. At night the rabbits drummed their feet so rhythmically the earth seemed to growl and the sleepless citizens of Kingdom Come locked and relocked their doors and windows until the thumping ceased at sunrise. The town was in a pickle, had a big-eared crisis on its hands, fast multiplying pestilence, cotton-tailed epizootic, and, well, it feared for its safety and solitude.

Which is why when the man in the parti-colored coat appeared and claimed he could, for a nominal, one-time fee, rid the town of this nuisance forever, the drowsy burghers fell gratefully at his feet.

Kellie Wells is the author of a collection of short fiction Compression Scars (winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award) and the novels Compression Scars, Skin, and the Paterson Prize finalist Fat Girl, Terrestrial. She’s the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and the GLCA New Writers Award for Fiction. “Rabbit Catcher of Kingdom Come” was chosen by Kevin Brockmeier for inclusion in the 2010 Best American Fantasy anthology. She teaches in the MFA Programs at the University of Alabama and Pacific University.

You can find her online at kelliewells.com, via Twitter as @KellieWells, at Instagram as mugwump.ink, and at her comics blog blunderbussandmugwump.tumblr.com.

About the Narrator:

Martin Reyto is an educator, writer, and musician. He has worked in an eclectic variety of fields, including 18 years as a technical writer and software developer, 16 years as a teacher of creative writing, computer science, and business communication, and shorter stints as a symphony musician and audiobook narrator. He has published short fiction and two collections of his poetry.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 75 Peter Fugazzotto and Adrian Chamberlin

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 08:00:06 GMT

First Story: “The King Beneath the Waves” by Peter Fugazzotto

Werting could not break free.

The frigid sea held the boy, his feet churning, tired arms paddling. The rocky shore, so close, taunted him with every swell. His lame foot felt heavy as a stone.

Just as he was ready to give up, a wave lifted him. The water folded and he tumbled head over heels against sand and stone, grey sky replaced by a veil of bubbles and froth.

His hands dug at broken shells and shiny weed and he crawled out of the embrace of the sea. The water pulled at him but it could no longer drag him back. He would not join Hreoth and the long ship in the depths.

Peter Fugazzotto is a writer of fantasy and science fiction. His short stories have been published in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and Grimdark Magazine. His gritty fantasy series The Hounds of North was launched with The Witch of the Sands in 2014. He is a lifelong martial artist and a World Champion in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Visit peterfugazzotto.com to learn more and get a free book.

This story originally appeared in Grimdark Magazine #3.

Second Story: “Serpents of Albion” by Adrian Chamberlin

Bedevere rode into the sunrise, leaving Arthur alone with the slain warriors and the creature that had caused their deaths.

The knight’s helm and mail armour flared gold in the rising sun, briefly hiding the scarlet gore of battle and bloodshed. It reminded Arthur of his brotherhood of knights’ former glory: how they were like shining gods riding to battle evildoers, to uphold the laws of Arthur’s kingdom and ensure the land prospered for all. 

The dream of Camelot had ended. This was the reality of Arthur’s reign: a charnel pit of twitching corpses, of man and horse bleeding their last together, of raptors gorging on the flesh of fallen warriors and flies secreting eggs into the flesh wounds of dead knights. The realisation it was all over, that Albion would become chaos once more, pained Arthur more than the head wound from Mordred’s broadsword.

Oh Merlin. Did you not foresee this end? Why did I not listen to you, old friend?

Adrian Chamberlin is a British writer of dark fiction and lives in the small south Oxfordshire town of Wallingford that serves as a backdrop to the UK television series Midsomer Murders, not far from where Agatha Christie lies buried, dreaming in darkness. He is the author of the critically acclaimed supernatural thriller The Caretakers as well as numerous short stories in a variety of anthologies, mostly historical or futuristic based supernatural horror. He co-edited Read the End First, an apocalyptic anthology with Suzanne Robb (author of the acclaimed thriller Z-Boat) and has many other projects in the pipeline.

His next release will be “This Envious Siege”, a Lovecraftian account of the Battle of Trafalgar, in Exaggerated Press’s After the War, a collection of supernatural warfare novellas scheduled for October 2015.

He is aware of the concept of “spare time” but swears it’s just a myth.

Further information can be found on his website, archivesofpain.com.

About the Narrators:

Graeme Dunlop is a software solution architect and voice actor living in Melbourne Australia. He is the co-editor of the fantasy podcast Podcastle, and used to host the YA podcast Cast of Wonders. You can find him on Google Plus and he occasionally tweets as @kibitzer on Twitter.

Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head. he looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. He currently resides in Houston, Texas, but hastens to add that it was not his idea. He can be found on Google Plus.

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Far Fetched fables No. 74 Alex Shvartsman

Tue, 15 Sep 2015 08:00:57 GMT

Story: “A Shard Glows in Brooklyn” by Alex Shvartsman

One by one, I set off car alarms.

I walked along the curb and methodically gave each parked car a gentle kick, just hard enough to trigger the siren. Behind me, a dozen violated vehicles already blared out of tune.

The prospect hung back, sullen and quiet. He was having a tough week, and my erratic behavior wasn’t helping his mood any. With each siren adding its voice to the cacophony, the prospect got a little twitchier. To his credit, he hadn’t cut and run. Yet.

“Philippine Energy Beetles are nasty critters,” I lectured him as we walked, straining to be heard over the noise. “They nest by the power lines and feed off the electricity. Those flickering lights the power company says are caused by faulty wiring are often caused by an infestation.”

Having finished with the cars, I fumbled with the lock on the front door of a vacant house.

“This place is lousy with beetles,” I explained. “We’re gonna have to fumigate.”

“That’s just great,” said the prospect. “I can’t stand bugs. Now you tell me the Watch is in the exterminator business? This couldn’t possibly get any worse.”

Alex Shvartsman is a writer and game designer from Brooklyn, NY. More than 60 of his short stories have appeared in Nature, InterGalactic Medicine Show, Galaxy’s Edge, Daily Science Fiction, and many other venues. He’s the winner of the 2014 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction. He edits Unidentified Funny Objects, an annual anthology of humorous SF/F. His short story collection, Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma, is available at amazon.com.

You can find him online at alexshvartsman.com.

About the Narrator:

Mark “the Encaffeinated One” Kilfoil loves fiction, so much so that he’s written some (such as the Parsec-nominated Tainted Roses), read quite a lot (a library of over a thousand half-read books and growing), and now narrates it (sometimes actually recorded for others). He’s found that volunteering for a dozen years in radio was a decent way to get a full-time job as a Program Director at a community radio station in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, but not such a great way to finish his thesis, so he stopped at a Masters in Computer Science. He can be heard frequently on CHSRfm.ca, and two of his shows regularly appear as podcasts, and can be found at encaffeinated.ca and theweirdshow.com. He likes cats enough to pet them but not enough to own one, and computers enough to own several but pet none of them. He will someday write a million words, but at this rate, that will require life extension, so he eagerly awaits the ability to upload into a computer, if that hasn’t already happened and this is all only a simulation.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 73 Laird Barron

Tue, 08 Sep 2015 08:00:04 GMT

Story: “Blood and Stardust” by Laird Barron

Three years later, as I hike my skirt to urinate in a dark alley in the slums of Kolkata, my arms are grasped from behind. The Doctor whispers, “So, we meet again.” His face was ruined in the explosion — its severe, patrician mold is melted and crudely reformed as if an idiot child had gotten his or her stubby fingers on God’s modeling clay. I can’t see it from my disadvantaged perspective, but that’s not necessary. I’ve been following him and Pelt around since our original falling out.

Speaking of the Devil… Pelt slips from the shadows and drives his favorite dirk, first through my belly, then, after he smirks at the blood splattering onto our shoes, my heart. He grins as he twists the blade like he’s winding a watch.

“— and this time the advantage is mine.” I laugh with pure malice, and die.

Laird Barron is the author of several books, including The Croning, Occultation, and The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All. His work has also appeared in many magazines and anthologies. An expatriate Alaskan, Barron currently resides in upstate New York. His limited edition reprint collection A Little Brown Book of Burials is currently available from Borderlands Press.

You can find him online at lairdbarron.wordpress.com.

About the Narrator:

Nikolle Doolin is a writer and a voice actor. Her fiction, poetry, and plays have been published and presented; and her voice has appeared in various media. Nikolle has performed numerous narrations for a number of popular and award-winning podcasts, such as The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify, and Far-Fetched Fables. She also narrates classic literature by the likes of Austen, Poe, James, and more in her own podcast Audio Literature Odyssey.

To learn more about Nikolle, visit her website at nikolledoolin.com.

Featured Artist

Jason Rainville is a freelance Fantasy and Scifi illustrator living in Ontario, Canada. He works in the tabletop/card game industry for small and large publishers such as Rite Publishing, Paizo Publishing, and Wizards of the Coast. If you want to view Jason’s work, purchase prints or have your Magic Cards/prints signed, you can visit his website; http://www.jasonrainville.com/ You can see more art and updates from Jason if you follow him on Facebook or Twitter – https://www.facebook.com/Rhineville https://twitter.com/rhineville

This piece is called Lyssa, which is one of five winners of the ArtOrder Evolution Challenge.

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Far Fetched Fables No 72 Dean Francis Alfar and Edward M. Erdelac

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 08:00:03 GMT

First Story: “The Kite of Stars” by Dean Francis Alfar

The night when she thought she would finally be a star, Maria Isabella du’l Cielo struggled to calm the trembling of her hands, reached over to cut the tether that tied her to the ground, and thought of that morning many years before when she’d first caught a glimpse of Lorenzo du Vicenzio ei Salvadore: tall, thick-browed and handsome, his eyes closed, oblivious to the cacophony of the accident waiting to occur around him.

Maria Isabella had just turned sixteen then, and each set of her padrinos had given her (along with the sequined brida du caballo, the dresses of rare tulle, organza, and seda, and the diadema floral du’l dama – the requisite floral circlet of young womanhood) a purse filled with coins to spend on anything she wanted.  And so she’d gone past the Calle du Leones (where sleek cats of various pedigrees sometimes allowed themselves to be purchased, though if so, only until they tired of their new owners), walked through the Avenida du’l Conquistadores (where the statues of the conquerors of Ciudad Meiora lined the entirety of the broad promenade) and made her way to the Encantu lu Caminata (that maze-like series of interconnected streets, each leading to some wonder or marvel for sale), where little musical conch shells from the islets near Palao’an could be found. Those she liked very much.

In the vicinity of the Plaza Emperyal, she saw a young man dressed in a coat embroidered with stars walk almost surely to his death.  In that instant, Maria Isabella knew two things with the conviction reserved only for the very young:  first, that she almost certainly loved this reckless man; and second, that if she simply stepped on a dog’s tail — the very dog watching the same scene unfold right next to her — she could avert the man’s seemingly senseless death.

Dean Francis Alfar is a fictionist and advocate of speculative fiction. His stories have been published and anthologized in the Philippines and abroad in Strange Horizons, The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, The Apex Book of World SF, The Time Traveler’s Almanac, and the Exotic Gothic series among many others.
His books include the novel Salamanca; short fiction collections The Kite of Stars and Other Stories, How to Traverse Terra Incognita, East of the Sun and Other Stories, and A Field Guide to the Roads of Manila and Other Stories; and the children’s book How Rosang Taba Won A Race. He has edited or co-edited volumes of the Philippine Speculative Fiction annuals, Horror: Filipino Fiction for Young Adults, The Farthest Shore: Fantasy from the Philippines, Outpouring: Typhoon Yolanda Relief Anthology, and Maximum Volume: Best New Philippine Fiction.
Dean lives in Manila with his wife and tango partner, award-winning fictionist Nikki Alfar, and their daughters Sage and Rowan.

Second Story: “The Wood of Ephraim” by Edward M. Erdelac

2 Samuel 18:8 — For the battle was there spread over the face of all the country; and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword.

The Judean soldiers had run all day previously from Mahanaim, plunging into the wooded hill country of Gilead, where they surprised the massing forces of the rebel prince Absalom.

The fighting was bitter and terrible. The outnumbered Judean loyalists of King David drove into the heart of the wayward Israelite tribes, beguiled by the king’s son into open revolt. All day they fought a confused, bloody skirmish. By nightfall Absalom’s forces broke and scattered across the countryside.

Just what had brought about their overwhelming victory was a matter of excited debate between the ten Gibborim, David’s elite warriors who had spearheaded the attack behind General Joab.

They talked around the fire as they broke their evening bread, stuffing their bellies with old Barzillai’s kine cheese, there being no game to be found.

“We’ve the craftiness of the king to thank for this victory,” Zalmon the Ahohite mumbled as he chewed. “Had he not secretly sent his man Hushai into Absalom’s council, the old wizard Ahithophel would surely have advised the prince to run us down as we fled Jerusalem.”

“Be careful when you mention Ahithophel, idiot,” hissed Elez the Paltite, who looked up just then from rubbing balm into a cut on his forearm. “You know the wizard’s son Eliam fought for us today. I hear Ahithophel went home and hung himself because he knew what David would do to him when Absalom failed.”

“What you don’t see with your eyes, don’t say with your mouth,” Zalmon admonished, waving Elez off. “Anyway, Eliam is loyal to David. He can’t help his father was a sorcerer or a traitor.”

Edward M. Erdelac is the author of eight novels, including the acclaimed Judeocentric/Lovecraftian weird western series Merkabah Rider and Andersonville from Random House. His fiction has appeared in dozens of anthologies and periodicals, including most recently the Stoker Award-winning After Death, Atomic Age Cthulhu, Edge Of Sundown, and Star Wars Insider Magazine. Born in Indiana, educated in Chicago, he lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife and a bona fide slew of kids.

News of his work and excerpts may be found at emerdelac.wordpress.com.

About the Narrators:

Deanna Sanchez is a voiceover talent and actress who has performed professionally for 14 years. She has voiced various commercials, industrials, and characters, and specializes in the “sexy voice” of powerful female roles. An avid fan of science fiction since her grandfather gave her a copy of Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky when she was 9, she feels greatly privileged to help bring this story to life. While pursuing a voice talent and acting career, Deanna also consults in Geographical Information Systems and develops custom mapping applications for real estate and other industries. Her background in I.T. management does not prevent her from owning multiple old computers, some with Windows 98 still running. Three-dimensional visualization of spatial data is a favorite pastime, and she has spent many hours translating real-Earth elevation data into unique 3D worlds. Deanna’s voice over demo can be heard at the Lambert Studios website, an outstanding full service recording studio.

Rish Outfield is a writer, actor, and podcaster that can be heard as co-host of The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, which presents genre stories with a full cast. He also performs audiobooks for Audible, and occasionally becomes a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms, and the moon is full and bright.

The music featured in “The Wood of Ephraim” is “Past the Edge” by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com, used under Creative Commons License 3.0.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 71 Lee Battersby and Caroline M. Yoachim

Tue, 25 Aug 2015 08:00:43 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Dancing with Fire” by Caroline M. Yoachim

The pond where I grew up was swampy and buzzing with insects. I slept in a bed of stargrass, and Mother whispered lullabies in the gentle current. Mother grew up in the ocean, and she hated our pond. Too many memories of Father lingered beneath the surface, long after drought had stolen him away.

“Why don’t we go back to the ocean?” I asked.

“I’m too old,” she said. “I don’t flow as smoothly anymore, and cloud hopping is for the young. Go play.”

There weren’t any other water spirits, so I did mud magic with the earthy kids. We made soldiers from dirt and water and green swamp sludge. Every night, the soldiers got soggy and fell apart, ending the war until we remade them the next morning.

Caroline M. Yoachim lives in Seattle and loves cold, cloudy weather. She is the author of dozens of short stories, appearing in Lightspeed, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and Daily Science Fiction. For more about Caroline, check out her website carolineyoachim.com, and via Twitter as @CarolineYoachim.

Main Story: “In From the Snow” by Lee Battersby

It is snowing outside the house. Snow is dangerous. You leave tracks, and tracks can be used to follow you. I am to stay inside. Father will not permit me outside, not until I am fully trained. The Darrington boy went out last winter and brought the weight of the gallows down upon his whole family. There are few families left. Snow is too great a risk.

Lee Battersby is the author of the novels Magrit (Walker Books, forthcoming) and The Corpse-Rat King and Marching Dead (Angry Robot Books, 2012 and 2013), as well as more than 80 short stories in the US, Australia and Europe. A collection of his shorter works, titled Through Soft Air has been published by Prime Books (US). He lives in Western Australia with his wife, author Lyn Battersby, and blogs irregularly at The Battersblog.

About the Narrators:

Geoffrey Welchman is a voice actor, writer, and producer who lives in Baltimore, Maryland (USA). You can find him online at geoffreywelchman.com.

Martin Reyto is an educator, writer, and musician. He has worked in an eclectic variety of fields, including 18 years as a technical writer and software developer, 16 years as a teacher of creative writing, computer science, and business communication, and shorter stints as a symphony musician and audiobook narrator. He has published short fiction and two collections of his poetry.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 70 John R. Fultz

Tue, 18 Aug 2015 08:00:07 GMT

Story: “Flesh of the City, Bones of the World” by John R. Fultz

The Surgeon’s hands are his most delicate instruments.

From the slim silver bones of the ten fingers to the minute arrays of gears, cogs, and springs set for agility and precision, to the pale elastic skin that stretches over the whole array, his hands are marvels of science. The rest of his body is no less amazing, no less detailed in its construction, a silver skeletal scaffold filled with organs of bronze and copper sheathed in that same supple skin without blotch or blemish.

His patients take these things for granted, ignorant of the miracles of design that sustain their existence. But he is a Surgeon and he knows the secrets of human biology as intimately as he knows the body and mind of his own wife.

While prepping for the operation, he recalls her silver skull laid bare and glimmering as she removed the demure porcelain mask that is her public face. The memory is from last night. They had danced in the courtyard of glass sculptures, baring body and soul beneath a canopy of stars. Tonight they will celebrate the return of their son from five years at the Ministère de Education. In a few days the boy will enter this chamber and at last become a man.

John R. Fultz lives in the North Bay area of California, but grew up in Kentucky. His latest novel, The Testament of Tall Eagle, arrives in June 2015 from Ragnarok Publications. John’s Books of the Shaper trilogy includes Seven Princes, Seven Kings, and Seven Sorcerers (Orbit Books). His first short story collection is The Revelations of Zang, a series of interrelated tales born in the pages of Weird Tales and Black Gate. John’s work has also appeared in Year’s Best Weird Fiction (Vol. 1), That Is Not Dead, Shattered Shields,Lightspeed: Year One, Way of the Wizard, Cthulhu’s Reign, The Book of Cthulhu II, and other fine publications.

Learn more about him at johnrfultz.com, or find him on Twitter as @JohnRFultz.

About the Narrator:

Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements.  She also hosts this podcast…

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Far Fetched Fables No. 69 Darin Bradley and Wendy Wagner

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 08:00:40 GMT

First Story: “They Would Only Be Roads” by Darin Bradley

Prester fingered the chain–he’d pulled it from the tank behind one of the commodes downtown, in Idio, the old feed-mill turned nightclub near the depot. The chain had absorbed such faith in the dank water, pulling endlessly as expected–as the clubbers believed it would. Prester imagined each flushing synapse exhausting its neural blast all the way through the chain and into the water, where it rippled gently into the lime-scarred porcelain. Idio’s clubbers had no doubt empowered the chain to degrees that, no matter how he found his gnosis, Prester would never fully measure. The tarnished scars on the delicate chain’s aged links reminded him of flowers, complete with rusted stems and lines of calcium like pale roots.

He took a deep breath as he eased out of his reverie, now acutely aware of his apartment’s water-stained breath. With a cough, he eased the chain back into his pocket–it had invaded his thoughts with decay enough for now. 

“I’m going to need more charms,” he said aloud, the phosphor glow of his computer monitor rendering his fingers blue.

Darin Bradley is the author of three novels: Noise (2010), Chimpanzee (2014), and Totem (2015). With a B.A., an M.A., and a Ph.D. in Literature and Theory, he works as an acquisitions and production editor at Resurrection House, having previously spent a number of years teaching writing and literature at several universities. He also worked as the full-time video-game writer at id Software for two years and served in various editorial and design capacities for a number of independent presses and journals. He lives in Texas with his wife, where he dreams of empty places.

You can find him online at darinbradley.com.

Second Story: “The Secret of Calling Rabbits” by Wendy N. Wagner

The breeze shifted as Rugel ran, and he caught a scent upon it, sweet and strong, a scent that reached into the depths of his memories and twanged them. He lost his footing at the power of it, and he threw himself into a bush beside the path, gasping. He preferred running to hiding, but he couldn’t run with that scent thickening the air.

His pursuer shouted again. “Wait! Show me how you did that!” Her voice distracted him from the smell of the past; it focused his mind on the pressing problem of survival. He should have never come back to this place.

She came closer, and Rugel peeked out at the little girl in the path. At his eye level, her knees, bared by her too-short shift, were scabbed and grass stained as she spun a slow searching circle. The little man — no, dwarf, although “dwarf” was a generous measure of someone his size — crouched further down inside the currant bush. He had a gift for going unseen. Perhaps the girl would lose sight of him.

“Please!” She stopped in front of the bush, picking out his gnarled face from the tangle of undergrowth. “I saw you call the rabbit.”

Rugel cursed to himself. He should never have summoned the hare, or at least if he called it, he ought to have killed it. Now he’d go hungry, and this Big creature had seen him.

Wendy N. Wagner is the author of Skinwalkers, a Pathfinder Tales novel inspired by Viking lore. Her short fiction has appeared in many anthologies, including Shattered Shields, Armored, and The Way of the Wizard, and the magazines Beneath Ceaseless Skies and The Lovecraft eZine. She is the guest editor of Nightmare Magazine‘s Queers Destroy Horror! special issue, due out October 2015, and the nonfiction editor of Lightspeed’s Women Destroy Science Fiction!, which was named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2014. She lives in Oregon with her very understanding family. Her next release is a story in Cthulhu Fthagn!, a Lovecraftian anthology due out in mid-August, edited by Ross Lockhart.

Visit her at winniewoohoo.com.

About the Narrators:

Alex Weinle (@alexweinle) writes short fiction for magazines and podcasts and author of of the anthology of shock-comedic-tragic stories, The Decapaphiliac, and science fiction novel Border. A long-time Sofanaut, he has finally got up the courage to narrate. He lives in Fulbourn, England, in a cottage that consumes bulbs of unusual wattage.

Rish Outfield is a writer, actor, and podcaster that can be heard as host of The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, which presents genre stories with a full cast. He also performs audiobooks for Audible, and occasionally becomes a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms, and the moon is full and bright.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 68 Django Wexler and Michelle Muenzler

Tue, 04 Aug 2015 08:00:47 GMT

This month’s cover art is “The Mechanic Magmin” by Kyle Anderson

Flash Fiction: “This is the Story That Devours Itself” by Michelle Muenzler

This is not a regular story. This is a hungry story, built of words with tongues of glass and cracked marbles for eyes. You think you know this story, you think you’ve heard it before… but you haven’t.

Michelle Muenzler also known at local conventions as “The Cookie Lady,” writes fiction both dark and strange to counterbalance the sweetness of her baking. Her fiction and poetry have been published in magazines such as Daily Science Fiction, Crossed Genres, and Electric Velocipede, and she takes immense joy in crinkling words like little foil puppets. Find her online via facebook.com/michelle.muenzler.

Main Story: “Guns of the Wastes” by Django Wexler

The six days it took the mail cutter to traverse the pass at Rusthead were the longest of Pahlu Venati’s life. The slope and the rocky ground cut the landship’s speed to a crawl, her eight fat tires bouncing and shuddering in their pods at the ends of her long, articulated legs. The ceaseless chug of the engine was his constant companion, faster than a heartbeat, broken every so often by the whistling hiss of venting steam.

Vegetation petered out as they gained altitude, the scrub woods along the side of the road turning to weedy grass, which became patchy and finally disappeared altogether. At night, shielding his eyes from the ship’s lanterns, he could see a great wheel of stars marching overhead, far outshining the handful he’d been able to make out from his window at the Academy. They seemed distant and cold, and he would have gladly traded the view for the smoky, overcast sky of home.

On the fourth day, they began descending again, the cutter’s engines straining to keep her from careening wildly down the rock-strewn slope. Pahlu was surprised to see grass on this side, too, and even a few stunted trees; this was the edge of the Waste, after all. But of course it was only the edge, and few of the Enemy ever made it as far as the passes.

Django Wexler graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh with degrees in creative writing and computer science, and worked for the university in artificial intelligence research. Eventually he migrated to Microsoft in Seattle, where he now lives with two cats and a teetering mountain of books. When not writing, he wrangles computers, paints tiny soldiers, and plays games of all sorts. He recently released the fantasy novel The Price of Valor.

You can find him online at djangowexler.com and via Twitter as @DjangoWexler.

About the Narrators:

Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements.  She also hosts this podcast…

Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake, the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman, and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV. His current project Interference, a meta-horror audiobook about an audiobook… that kills, is available free on iTunes and at Quillhammer.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 67 A.C. Wise and Gerri Leen

Tue, 28 Jul 2015 08:00:54 GMT

Flash Fiction: “One Hundred Years” by Gerri Leen

She wanders the castle late at night like a haunt.  She startles the servants when she finds them flesh to flesh in the darker corners of the place.  She doesn’t mean to interrupt their trysts; she just can’t sleep.

She slept for a hundred years.  Most thought that was the curse of the evil fairy, but it wasn’t.  Not for her, at any rate.  The years passed in a heartbeat, dreams keeping her company as she lay unchanging behind the forest of thorns while the world grew colder and uglier.

Gerri Leen lives in Northern Virginia and originally hails from Seattle. She has stories and poems published or accepted in Escape Pod, Grimdark, Spellbound, Sword and Sorceress XXIII, Spinetinglers, She Nailed a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror, and others. When she’s not writing, she volunteers at a local animal rescue and is editing an anthology, A Quiet Shelter There, which will benefit homeless animals and is due out in 2015 from Hadley Rille Books. She can found online at gerrileen.com.

Main Story: “The Thief of Precious Things” by A.C. Wise

Their shadows are crows.

They are two men, standing at the mouth of an alleyway, watching the night with dark, guarded eyes. Their long, black coats flap in the wind, and their shadows have wings. They have feathers and beaks and claws.

When the moon reaches the apex of the sky, they crush their cigarettes against the bricks. Their shadows break into a dozen birds each and take flight.

They have been waiting for her.

She is a fox-girl, running swift over the close rooftops. Up here, the world smells of dust and feathers. Fresh-washed laundry hangs from obsolete radio relays, satellite dishes, and cellphone towers, which sprout like mushrooms atop every building. Sheets and shirts flap in the wind, flags to mark her passing.

A.C. Wise’s short fiction has appeared in numerous publications over the years, including Apex, Shimmer, Uncanny, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: 2015, among others. In addition to her fiction, she co-edits Unlikely Story and contributes a monthly Women to Read: Where to Start column to SF Signal. Her debut collection, The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron Saves the World Again, will be published by Lethe Press in October 2015. Find her online at acwise.net and on twitter as @ac_wise.

About the Narrators:

Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements.  She also hosts this podcast…

Sarah Frederickson was born in Oregon in the United States, and was raised in beautiful Minnesota. At a young age she realized her passion for musical performance and the creative arts. Sarah spent most of her childhood singing and acting – both onstage and off – and affecting various accents for fun.

She soon found herself competing in local, state and national forensics competitions (that’s competitive speaking). Her experience and awards landed her a forensics scholarship to Bethel University in St.Paul Minnesota, where she continued to compete as well as train other speakers at the collegiate level. Sarah graduated with a degree in Music business and Audio Production. Shortly after graduation she traveled to Australia for a one-year holiday. During that time she became smitten with an Australian man who asked her to stay, and four years later the couple live and work in Australia, going on adventures, writing music and reading stories to their cat.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 66 Mark Teppo and A. Merc Rustad

Tue, 21 Jul 2015 08:00:31 GMT

Main Story: “The One That Got Away” by Mark Teppo

A haven for raconteurs and fabulists, the Alibi Room was a velvet-lined sanctuary where suggestion and persuasion were the watchwords and truth was such a devalued coin that it couldn’t purchase a condom from the dispenser in the men’s room. Once through the unassuming door and the voluminous coat check where racks of costumes, disguise and false uniforms waited, the patrons redrafted their pasts and invented possible futures. The promise of narrow stools at the mahogany bar, the graceful and discrete staff, the liars grouped around lacquered tables or sprawled on plush brick and the old growth timber was the fantasy. The only reality that mattered was the invented one wrapped in velvet drapery and limned with orange light.

Mark Teppo is the publisher of Resurrection House, an independent genre publishing house. When he’s not making books, he’s writing them. He’s written nearly a dozen novels, ranging across a number of genres, and his latest effort is the non-fiction guide, Jumpstart Your Novel. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with many books and one cat.

Learn more about him at markteppo.com.

Flash Fiction: “The Sorcerer’s Unattainable Garden” by A. Merc Rustad
Wrought iron fences loop around the gardens: six deep, the outer three progressively higher, more elaborate, and with more spikes atop, while the inner three create a mirror effect. Say you make it over all six fences without impaling yourself or falling or getting trapped between iron bars that suddenly constrict or twist or move. Say you avoid the fourth fence, the electric one, or the second one with the poisoned varnish, or the sixth one with a taste for blood.

A. Merc Rustad is a robot in disguise who lives in the Midwest United States. Between college, filmmaking, and playing video games, Merc writes stuff. Their fiction has appeared before in Daily Science Fiction, as well as Flash Fiction Online, Scigentasy, and Ideomancer. You can visit Merc at their website (amercrustad.com) or on Twitter as @Merc_Rustad.

About the Narrators:

Matthew Frederickson is in his mid-30s, living in Memphis, Tennessee, with a rockstar plastic surgeon wife. He reads and writes and runs in his spare time. He loves to brew beer, and he’d love to make that his career. He will soon start the second season of his podcast, Freddy’s Fan Fiction. You can find him on Twitter as @swami.

Cynthia P. Colby is a Canadian voice artist whose career began by winning an international public speaking contest while she was still in high school. She then spent 15 years as a radio news announcer, reaching a national venue. Her voice was so flexible that she began doing commercials at the radio stations and her ability for doing character voices was recognized. Now as a freelance voice artist and script writer, she lends her voice to numerous short stories, books, game characters, training programs, videos, commercials, phone answering services and accessible websites. She can be reached at cynthiapcolby@sympatico.ca.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 65 Aliette de Bodard and Jennifer R. Donohue

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 08:00:57 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Adventuring” by Jennifer Donohue

Sometimes, you can stop to breathe.

Sometimes, you repack that worn leather pack, which has been with you longer than any companion, and find the detritus from when you started, from before you bled so much. From when you were just goofing off in an inn, or at a trail marker.

A whetstone, from before you had a magical sword which never needs honing.

That last bottle of lamp oil. A forgotten healing potion, always a fortuitous find.

A cheap trail ration, long hardened beyond edible use.

The dog-eared book you meant to keep a diary in, or writer letters home. Did you ever write letters home? Maybe on holidays. Did you ever return home? Not even for a visit.

Jennifer R. Donohue has a degree in psychology, though she’s mostly used that to teach her Doberman useful and amusing tricks. She works at her local library in central New York, where she lives with her fiancé. She blogs about dog ownership at The Elka Almanac and about writing and whatever else catches her fancy at Authorized Musings.

Main Story: “As the Wheel Turns” by Aliette de Bodard

In the Tenth Court of Hell stands the Wheel of Rebirth.Its spokes are of red lacquered wood; it creaks as demons pull it, dragging its load of souls back into the world.And before the Wheel stands the Lady.

Every soul who goes to the Wheel must endure her gaze. Every soul must stop by her, and take from her pale hands the celadon cup, and drink.

The drink is herbs gathered from the surfaces of ponds, tears taken from the eyes of children, scales shed from old, wise dragons. To drink is to forget, for no soul can come back into the world remembering past lives, or the punishments meted out to it within the other Courts of Hell.

No soul.

Save one.

Aliette de Bodard lives and works in Paris, where she has a day job as a System Engineer. In her spare time, she writes speculative fiction: her Aztec noir trilogy Obsidian and Blood is published by Angry Robot, and her short stories have appeared in markets such as Clarkesworld Magazine, Asimov’s, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction. She has won a Nebula, a Locus, and a British Science Fiction Association Award. Her latest release is the Vietnamese space opera On a Red Station, Drifting. Visit aliettedebodard.com for more information.

About the Narrators:

Sarah Frederickson was born in Oregon in the United States, and was raised in beautiful Minnesota. At a young age she realized her passion for musical performance and the creative arts. Sarah spent most of her childhood singing and acting – both onstage and off – and affecting various accents for fun.

She soon found herself competing in local, state and national forensics competitions (that’s competitive speaking). Her experience and awards landed her a forensics scholarship to Bethel University in St.Paul Minnesota, where she continued to compete as well as train other speakers at the collegiate level. Sarah graduated with a degree in Music business and Audio Production. Shortly after graduation she traveled to Australia for a one-year holiday. During that time she became smitten with an Australian man who asked her to stay, and four years later the couple live and work in Australia, going on adventures, writing music and reading stories to their cat.

Nikolle Doolin is a writer and a voice actor. Her fiction, poetry, and plays have been published and presented; and her voice has appeared in various media. Nikolle has performed numerous narrations for a number of popular and award-winning podcasts, such as The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify, and Far-Fetched Fables. She also narrates classic literature by the likes of Austen, Poe, James, and more in her own podcast, Audio Literature Odyssey. To learn more about Nikolle, visit her website at nikolledoolin.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 64 Chris Roberson and Malcolm Chandler

Tue, 07 Jul 2015 08:00:24 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Frankenstein’s Monster” by Malcolm Chandler

I want Mandy out of my head.

They say the Dream Doctor is the man for the job.

He is a small, hunched man of vaguely Central European origins. He wears small rectangular glasses perched on the end of his nose. He is the timeless kind of withered man who could be 70 years old or 7,000.

“Her name, again?” he asks, adjusting his glasses on the end of his nose.

“Mandy.”

“Mandy,” he repeats, pecking at a tablet with his crooked index fingers. “Symptoms?”

“I can’t sleep without dreaming about her.”

It used to be one or two nights a year. Then once a week. Now it’s every night. Every night the same dream. Mandy on the beach with the wind teasing her straight, black hair. Mandy smiling her thousand watt smile. Mocking me. Or maybe inviting me. Impossible to tell which.

Each time I wake in a cold sweat, trembling. And each time Rachel is there beside me, asking about my nightmares.

“I have a wife,” I explain. “I love her to death…”

The Dream Doctor holds up a palsied, skeletal hand. Again he adjusts his glasses. “Cash or credit?” he asks politely.

Malcolm Chandler‘s fiction has appeared on Every Day Fiction, hackwriters.com, Bewildering Stories, and elsewhere. His indie short, “Vampire Brides from Planet Hell!” is available on Amazon.com. He lives and writes in Western Pennsylvania.

You can find him online at malcolmchandler.com.

Main Story: “And Such Small Deer” by Chris Roberson

Letter to Frédéric Lerne, student, c/o University of Paris, Sorbonne, July 15, 1860

Monsieur Lerne, I am writing in regards to your recent correspondence on the inheritance of characteristics from one generation to another. I would like to thank you for your kind and insightful words, and I only wish that my recently published paper had been as well received here at home in England. Sadly, it was not, and I am forced temporarily to look beyond the arena of pure research for employment. Luckily, I have received an offer to practice medicine in the Dutch East Indies, and has only this past week accepted. Bidui luminosua praeursionis, in my bad, schoolboy Latin. Brighter days ahead!

                                                                                                                                  – F.A.M.

Abraham Van Helsing’s Journal (translated from the Dutch)

1 Mar., 1861. Belawan – After a journey of several days from the northern coast of Borneo, past Singapore and through the Strait of Malacca, I arrived this morning at the newly built port of Belawan, in the North Sumatran province of Deli. The region has only recently come under the colonial jurisdiction of my countrymen, so I had hoped to find some relative comfort in my brief stay here. The ship which makes the regular circuit between the Dutch East Indies and India, though, is not due to arrive for another week, and I am finding conditions less hospitable than I might have expected. I wonder now whether I might have been better off waiting in Sarawak for the next ship to England, but to do so would have meant another week in the company of the mad Raja Brooke, and any deprivation is better than that.

Chris Roberson is a New York Times bestselling writer best known for the Eisner-nominated series iZombie, co-created with artist Mike Allred; for multiple Cinderella mini-series set in the world of Bill Willingham’s Fables; his creator-owned series Edison Rex with artist Dennis Culver, and his work on Superman, Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes, and Elric: The Balance Lost, among others. He has written more than a dozen novels, three dozen short stories, and numerous comic projects. Chris and his wife, Allison Baker, are the co-publishers of Monkeybrain Comics, and the couple lives with their daughter in Portland, Oregon.

Learn more about him at cmxl.gy/cRoberson.

About the Narrators:

Rish Outfield is a writer, actor, and podcaster that can be heard as host of The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, which presents genre stories with a full cast. He also performs audiobooks for Audible, and occasionally becomes a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms, and the moon is full and bright.

Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head. he looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. he currently resides in Houston, Texas, but hastens to add that it was not his idea. He can be found on Google Plus.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 63 Dan Chaon

Tue, 30 Jun 2015 08:00:00 GMT

Story: “The Bees” by Dan Chaon

Gene’s son Frankie wakes up screaming. It has become frequent, two or three times a week, at random times: midnight — 3 AM — five in the morning. Here is a high, empty wail that severs Gene from his unconsciousness like sharp teeth. It is the worst sound that Gene can imagine, the sound of a young child dying violently — falling from a building, or caught in some machinery that is tearing an arm off, or being mauled  by a predatory animal. No matter how many times he hears it he jolts up with such  images playing in his mind, and he always runs, thumping into the child’s bedroom to find Frankie sitting up in  bed, his eyes closed, his mouth open in an oval like a Christmas caroler. Frankie appears to be in a kind of peaceful trance, and if someone took a picture of him he would look like he was waiting to receive a spoonful of ice cream, rather than emitting that horrific sound.

“The Bees” is from Dan Chaon’s most recent book, the short story collection Stay Awake (2012), which was a finalist for the Story Prize. Other works include the national bestseller Await Your Reply and Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award. Chaon’s short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize Anthologies, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. A new novel, Ill Will, is due out in Summer 2016.

Learn more about him at danchaon.tumblr.com.

About the Narrator:

Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake, the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman, and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV. His current project Interference, a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook… that kills, is available free on iTunes and at Quillhammer.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 62 Andrew J. McKiernan

Tue, 23 Jun 2015 08:00:39 GMT

Story: “Calliope: A Steam Romance” by Andrew J. McKiernan

Her voice is of a host angelic, but fallen. Her every breath breeds melodious paeans that tear at my soul — in ways both tender and cruel — and I weep with pain and joy to hear them. For, as surely as Eros struck Apollo and Daphne, am I so sorely wounded by her song. But be that barb of gold or lead? Ah, now therein lies the tale.

I first saw her down at the Quay or, more rightly should I say, I heard her…

Andrew J. McKiernan is an author and illustrator from the Central Coast of New South Wales. First published in 2007, his stories have since been short-listed for multiple Aurealis, Ditmar, and Australian Shadows awards and reprinted in a number of Year’s Best anthologies. Last Year, When We Were Young, a collection of his short stories, won the 2014 AHWA Australian Shadows Award for Collected Work.

He can be found online at andrewmckiernan.com.

About the Narrator:

Kenny Park is is a video editor by trade, but having trained and worked as an actor, director and writer, he maintains it’s all just storytelling. He’s been involved with Starship Sofa since the early days of Tony and Ciaron, filming their interview with the legendary Michael Moorcock in Paris, and he still does narrations and wee video intros when Tony can pin him down.

New artwork this week is courtesy of Daniel Kamarudin and is called Shyvana. Daniel lives in Brunei and specializes in fantasy-based concept art and illustration, but is flexible with the subject matter. Kind of a mysterious guy, but an absolutely kick-ass artist! You can see more of his art by going to his Facebook page or following these links: thedurrrrian.tumblr.com and danielkamarudin.artstation.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 61 Peter M. Ball and Donald V.S. Duncan

Tue, 16 Jun 2015 08:00:17 GMT

First Story: “The Last Great House of Isla Tortuga” by Peter M. Ball

She enters my name as Tobias Truman. I watch her ink the delicate curve of the capitals, the ostrich feather quill dancing as she writes. My name is entered below Mr. Drummond’s, his below the Captain; two of the three marked with the swooping X that denotes status as paying guest, a true patron of the house rather than tagalong visitor.

The Madam ends with a final flourish that leaves the quill poised above a well of ink. Her needle-sharp eyes study me, peering through the thick veil of her lashes. I fidget beneath her gaze until she smiles and turns towards the Captain with a raised eyebrow.

‘And the boy?’

The Captain spins on his unsteady legs, stares at me through the haze of rum and ruin that accompanies him whenever we put ashore. He considers the question for a few moments, mocking finger to his pursed lips, the barest hint of a smile visible through the tangled mane of his beard.

“The boy? What do you say, Benjamin? Should we give the boy his first tumble?”

Peter M. Ball lives in Brisbane, Australia, where he manages The Australian Writers Marketplace and coordinates the biennial GenreCon writers conference. His most recent book is Frost, the second novella in the Flostam series about Ragnarök and the Gold Coast, and his short stories have appeared in publications such as Apex Magazine, Eclipse 4, and Daily Science Fiction. He can be found online at petermball.com and on Twitter: @petermball.

Second Story: “The Green Square” by Donald V.S. Duncan

Soon enough it would all be sorted out.

The giggle came again followed by more rustling.

“Katie, what are you doing?”

Katherine’s response lilted through the interposed green, ignoring the command implied in her father’s tone. “Playing with my friend.”

Donald V.S. Duncan lives in the fine city of New Westminster, British Columbia with his wife and a mischievous cat. He holds degrees in English and Landscape Architecture but life has taught him far more than university ever could. Ask about his stories and he will tell you that they are all true, though not factual. Make of that what you will.

More information can be found on his web page, dvsduncan.com/speculative-writing.

About the Narrators:

Matthew Frederickson is in his mid-30s, living in Memphis, Tennessee, with a rockstar plastic surgeon wife. He reads and writes and runs in his spare time. He loves to brew beer, and he’d love to make that his career. He will soon start the second season of his podcast, Freddy’s Fan Fiction. You can find him on Twitter as @swami.

Graeme Dunlop is a software solution architect and voice actor living in Melbourne Australia. He is the co-editor of the fantasy podcast Podcastle, and used to host the YA podcast Cast of Wonders. You can find him on Google+ and he occasionally tweets as @kibitzer on Twitter.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 60 John R. Fultz

Tue, 09 Jun 2015 08:00:34 GMT

Story: “The Key to Your Heart is Made of Brass” by John R. Fultz

Wake up. Something is wrong.

Greasy orange light smears the dark. Only one of your optical lenses is functional. The walls are slabs of corroded metal with rust patterns like dumb staring phantoms. You lie awkwardly across the oily flagstones of an alley where curtains of black chains obscure the night. Bronze lanterns hang from those chains, but most of them are dead. Lightless. Like your left optical.

Struggling to hands and knees, you realize your porcelain face has been shattered. White shards gleam on the alley floor between puddles of greenish scum. You lift a gloved hand to explore your ruined visage; the upper left side took the brunt of the blow. Your fingers brush across the silver skull beneath the missing porcelain.

This won’t do at all. To be seen without one’s face. It could damage your reputation.

It might even be illegal.

John R. Fultz lives in the North Bay area of California, but grew up in Kentucky. His latest novel, The Testament of Tall Eagle, arrives in June 2015 from Ragnarok Publications. John’s Books of the Shaper trilogy includes Seven Princes, Seven Kings, and Seven Sorcerers (Orbit Books). His first short story collection is The Revelations of Zang, a series of interrelated tales born in the pages of Weird Tales and Black Gate. John’s work has also appeared in Year’s Best Weird Fiction (Vol. 1), That Is Not Dead, Shattered Shields, Lightspeed: Year One, Way of the Wizard, Cthulhu’s Reign, The Book of Cthulhu II, and other fine publications.

Learn more about him at johnrfultz.com, or find him on Twitter as @JohnRFultz.

About the Narrator:

Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake, the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman, and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV. His current project Interference, a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook… that kills, is available free on iTunes and at Quillhammer.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 59 John D. Brown

Tue, 02 Jun 2015 08:00:00 GMT

Story: “From the Clay of His Heart” by John D. Brown

John D. Brown is an award-winning novelist and short story writer. He currently lives with his wife and four daughters in the hinterlands of Utah where one encounters much fresh air, many good-hearted ranchers, and the occasional wolf.

Learn more about him at JohnDBrown.com.

About the Narrator:

Deanna Sanchez is a voice over talent and actress who had performed professionally for 14 years. She has voiced various commercials, industrials, and characters, and specializes in the “sexy voice” of powerful female roles. An avid fan of science fiction since her grandfather gave her a copy of Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky when she was 9, she feels greatly privileged to help bring this story to life. While pursuing a voice talent and acting career, Deanna also consults in Geographical Information Systems and develops custom mapping applications for real estate and other industries. Her background in IT management does not prevent her from owning multiple old computers, some with Windows ’98 still running. Three-dimensional visualization of spatial data is a favorite pastime, and she has spent many hours translating real-Earth elevation data into unique 3D worlds.

Deanna’s voiceover demo can be heard at the Lambert Studios website, an outstanding full service recording studio.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 58 Geoffrey A. Landis and Richard Parks

Tue, 26 May 2015 08:00:31 GMT

First Story: “Lazy Taekos” by Geoffrey A. Landis

Once there was a boy named Taekos who lived on a heart farm.

His parents were hardworking people: they grew new hearts for old men, and tiny hearts for babies; they grew strong hearts to plant into young men who had crashed their air-scooters and needed replacements; and they grew rugged working hearts for androids who were grown in a vat. 

But Taekos didn’t want to live on the farm.  He was lazy, and wanted to do something that was more fun and less like work.

One day he slung his pack over his shoulder and told his parents he was off to seek his fortune in the big city.  He hitched a ride with a passing businessman driving an old-fashioned one-wheeled gyro-car, and in a few minutes he was in the big city.

Geoffrey A. Landis is a scientist and a science fiction writer. As a scientist, he is researcher working at the NASA John Glenn Research Center. He works on projects related to advanced power and propulsion systems for space and planetary exploration, and development of technologies for future missions. He is currently a member of the science team for the Mars Exploration rovers mission, which is directing the operation of the “Opportunity” rover on the surface of Mars, and was a member of the Sojourner rover team on the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997. In 2005 and 2006, he was the Ronald E. McNair Visiting Professor of Astronautics at MIT. He holds eight patents, and is the author of 400 scientific papers on subjects ranging from interstellar travel to semiconductor physics.

As a writer, Geoffrey Landis won the Hugo award for best short story in 1992 for the story “A Walk in the Sun,” and again in 2003 for the story “Falling Onto Mars”. He won the Nebula award in 1990 for “Ripples in the Dirac Sea”. His novel Mars Crossing from Tor books won the Locus award for best first novel in 2001. His many science fiction stories has been translated into twenty-two languages, ranging from Chinese through Swedish. His short story collection Impact Parameter (and Other Quantum Realities), published by Golden Gryphon Books, was named as a notable book of 2001 by Publisher’s Weekly. His most recent book is the poetry collection Iron Angels.

He lives in Berea, Ohio, with his wife, writer Mary A. Turzillo, and his cats Azrael and Tyrael.

More information can be found on his web page, www.geoffreylandis.com.

Second Story: “Courting the Lady Scythe” by Richard Parks

Jassa son of Noban was a handsome young man of limited ambition, which was to say he had only one–to woo and to win the girl called Lady Scythe. It was a frustrating ambition, to say the very least.

It was noon on Culling Day and the crowd along the Aversan Way was barely a crowd at all, by the standards of the city. Most citizens kept off the streets of

Thornall during this time if they could. Those who didn’t were either the unfortunates who had friends and relatives given to Lady Scythe or the unfortunates with business that could not be delayed or the triply unfortunate with lives so wretched they enjoyed the spectacle of any sorrow they did not share. Whatever their reasons, they made way quickly for the Watchers, the traditional Guardians of the Emperor’s Justice.

Richard Parks has been writing and publishing sf/f longer than he cares to remember… or probably can remember. His work has appeared in Asimov’s, Realms of Fantasy, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and several Year’s Bests. The third book in his Yamada Monogatari series, The War God’s Son, is due out in October 2015 from Prime Books.

He blogs at “Den of Ego and Iniquity Annex #3”, also known as richard-parks.com.

About the Narrators:

Matthew Frederickson is in his mid-30s, living in Memphis, Tennessee, with a rockstar plastic surgeon wife. He reads and writes and runs in his spare time. He loves to brew beer, and he’d love to make that his career. He will soon start the second season of his podcast, Freddy’s Fan Fiction. You can find him on Twitter as @swami.

Graeme Dunlop is a software solution architect and voice actor living in Melbourne Australia. He is the co-editor of the fantasy podcast Podcastle, and used to host the YA podcast Cast of Wonders. You can find him on Google+ and he occasionally tweets as @kibitzer on Twitter.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 57 Paul G. Tremblay and Vajra Chandrasekera

Tue, 19 May 2015 08:00:59 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Caul” by Vajra Chandrasekera

I only love girls who love to swim, but I don’t like to see them in the water. Like the sea just fine with nobody swimming in it and me with dry sand under me and a cold beer in my hand. They tell me I’m missing something, but I won’t budge. Maybe that’s why they don’t come back.

Vajra Chandrasekera lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka. His short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed and Black Static, among others. You can follow him on Twitter via @_vajra or find more of his stories at vajra.me.

Main Story: “Two-Headed Girl” by Paul G. Tremblay

I have to keep swinging an extra fifteen minutes before I can go downtown and to the Little Red Bookstore, because Mom wants to run the dishwasher and the blender tonight. I wonder if my time on the swing will generate enough extra juice for those appliances, or even if she’s telling me the truth. I’ve been having a hard time with telling-truth or truth-telling.

Anne Frank is on my left again. I only ever get to see her in profile. Whenever I’m around a mirror she is always someone else. Today, she’s the early-in-her diary Anne, the same age as me. Anne spent most of my swinging afternoon pining for Peter, but now she wants to talk to Lies, her best friend before the war.

She says, “I feel so guilty, Lies. I wish I could take you into hiding with me.”

I get this odd, stomach-knotty thrill and I pretend that she really knows me and she is really talking to me. But at the same time, I don’t like it when she calls me Lies. I say, “I’m sorry, Anne, but I’m Veronica.” The words come out louder than I intended. I’m not mad at her. I could never be mad at Anne. It’s just hard to speak normally when on the downswing.

Paul G. Tremblay is the author of A Head Full of Ghosts, coming from William Morrow on June 2nd. He is also the author of The Little Sleep, No Sleep Till Wonderland, and In the Mean Time. His fiction and essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Times and numerous “year’s best” anthologies. Paul has served as the president of the board of directors for the Shirley Jackson Awards.

You can find him online at paultremblay.net.

About the Narrators:

Rish Outfield is a writer, actor, and podcaster that can be heard as host of The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, which presents genre stories with a full cast. He also performs audiobooks for Audible, and occasionally becomes a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms, and the moon is full and bright.

Janice Joos hails from the Midwestern United States where she lives in a constant state of motion with her husband, two children, one dog, two cats and a turtle. Trained and working as a classroom teacher of all levels, she realized she talked all the time or read stories — so why not become a voice talent too? Since 2013 she has been listening to herself talk. For more information contact her at janicejoos@sbcglobal.net.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 56 Daniel Quinn and Mark Morris

Tue, 12 May 2015 08:00:30 GMT

First Story: “The Frog King, or Iron Henry” by Daniel Quinn

What is to be remembered, I suppose I remember; everything else dissolves and vanishes: breath on an icy mirror.

I am alone now. There is no one. A rectangle of moonlight blazes on the floor like a shield—this is all that’s left of my visitor.

Nevertheless, without any real feeling of hope, I call out into the darkness: “Iron Henry?”

His departure is something I feel in my blood, now dry as dust in my veins. Beside the window, a shadow stirs in the darkness, and it is he, slipping away into the night.

“Iron Henry,” I whisper, knowing that, for all that he loves me, he will not stop for my sake: “Please.”

He hesitates and mutters, “I may not.”

“Speak to me more.”

“It will soon be dawn,” he says, “and the queen will be sighing in her bed.”

“That hardly matters, Iron Henry; what little I haven’t actually forgotten has become meaningless to me.”

Daniel Quinn is best known as the author of the novel Ishmael, published in more than 25 languages and winner of the 1991 Turner Tomorrow Award, the largest prize ever given a single literary work, established to encourage authors to seek “creative and positive solutions to global problems.” He and his wife, painter Rennie MacKay Quinn, have lived in Chicago, Madrid, New Mexico, and Austin, TX, and currently reside in Houston. “The Frog King” was published in 1994 in the collection Black Thorn, White Rose.

Learn more about him at www.ishmael.org.

Second Story: “The Scariest Place in the World” by Mark Morris.

Holly resented daytime callers. Most of them weren’t to know that she worked at home, but even so, her first response when someone rang the bell or banged on the door was to grit her teeth and ball her hands into fists, as if in imitation of the tight knot of resentment she felt clenching in her belly. It had been several weeks after moving in before the old lady who lived next door had got the message. The first time she turned up she’d been clutching a dented biscuit tin containing one of those old-fashioned sponge cakes, the ones with jam and cream in the middle and a light dusting of icing sugar on top.

“Hello, dear,” she’d said, her thin shoulders hunched like vestigial wings within her pale green cardigan and her grey hair drifting like a wind-stirred mass of cobwebs. “I’m Mrs Bartholomew. I’m your new neighbour – or rather, I suppose you’re mine, as I’ve been here for donkey’s years. I just thought I’d pop round to see how you’re settling in.”

Holly had kept the door half-closed, and positioned herself firmly behind it, as if wary the old lady might try to force her way inside. When Mrs Bartholomew smiled, her face crumpled like a brown paper bag and her beige-yellow teeth sprang forward, reminding Holly of a row of clothes pegs on a washing line.
“We’re fine, thanks,” Holly had replied, responding to her neighbour’s grin with a half-hearted grimace. “We’re a bit busy just now. Lots to do.”

She’d begun to push the door shut. Quickly the old woman said, “Just the two of you are there?

”Holly had hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, me and my husband, Mike.”

“No children?”

“No.”

“Ah.” The old woman looked thoughtful. “Well, it’ll be a lovely house to bring up little ones. When the time comes.”

“Yes.” Holly inched the door further closed. “Well, thanks for coming round, but we really are busy.”

“Oh, I brought you this.” Mrs Bartholomew raised the biscuit tin as though making an offering to an arcane god. “A little house-warming present. Home-made.”

Holly had thought of the old woman’s bird’s-claw, liver-spotted hands buried in cake mix, perhaps even scraping it from under her yellowing fingernails, and her stomach turned over. Mustering a smile she’d said, “That’s very kind of you, but Mike and I don’t really eat cake.”

“Oh.” Mrs Bartholomew looked crest-fallen.

“Sorry,” said Holly. “Well, goodbye.”

She’d pushed the door shut, and then tensed as, from the other side, she heard the old woman call, “Goodbye for now, dear. Perhaps I’ll pop round again when you’re less busy.”

Mark Morris became a full-time writer in 1988 on the Enterprise Allowance scheme and a year later saw the release of his first novel Toady. He has since published a further 16 novels, among which are Stitch, The Immaculate, The Secret of Anatomy, Fiddleback, The Deluge, and four books in the popular Doctor Who range. His short stories, novellas, articles and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines, and he is editor of the highly acclaimed Cinema Macabre. His most recently published or forthcoming work includes a novella titled It Sustains for Earthling Publications, a Torchwood novel titled Bay of the Dead, several Doctor Who audios for Big Finish Productions, a follow-up volume to Cinema Macabre titled Cinema Futura, and a new short story collection, Long Shadows, Nightmare Light.

About the Narrators:

James Silverstein is a budding author and role-playing game designer, with credits from the 7th Sea and Stargate RPG lines. He’s working on the upcoming ‘Cairn’ RPG, as well as a series of stories about a 1940s private eye in a city of the undead. James feels that there are always more amazing stories that need to be told, and he writes, narrates, and runs games to share them with the world. He loves speculative fiction, noir detective tales, and pulp fantasy, and is honored to be a returning reader in the District of Wonders.

Katherine Inskip weighs galaxies for a living, and builds worlds in her spare time. She is addicted to chocolate and Japanese logic puzzles.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 55 Michael H. Payne

Tue, 05 May 2015 08:00:03 GMT

Main Story: “Where There’s Smoke” by Michael H. Payne

Sudden crackling twitched Cluny’s ears, memories sparking through her of harvesting termites from the fallen trees back home on her parents’ nut farm.

The sound kept growing louder, though, its vibrations taking on a supernatural edge that prickled her fur and pulled her out of her notes. Looking up from the floor in front of the bookcase where she lay sprawled across Magistrix Gosstelain’s treatise on the numenistic forces inherent within the mind/brain interface, she said, “Uhh, guys? I think we might have a–“

A cabbage-sized mass of flame burst into the air above Crocker’s desk, made him cry out and nearly tip over in his chair. “The fools!” came a shout, and Shtasith whooshed from the fireplace, his black and gold wings flaring. “They shall rue this attempted invasion of our inmost sanctum!”

Michael H. Payne’s stories about Cluny the Sorceress Squirrel have appeared in every issue of the annual Sword and Sorceress anthology since 2008. He seems to spend most of his time these days writing and drawing 11 pages of webcomics every week for his Daily Grind and Terebinth series as well as putting together fanfiction for the current My Little Pony cartoon series under the name of AugieDog. Check hyniof.livejournal.com to see how it all comes out.

About the Narrator:

Cheryl Phipps was born in Canada and presently resides there, but has also lived in Jamaica and Maryland. By the time she was 16, she had moved 15 times! She used story telling as a way to fit in whenever she was the “new kid” in town. Cheryl obtained her Honours BA in Sociology at the University of Western Ontario. She spent many years teaching call center representatives customer service and communication skills. She wrote a book that won second place in an international literary contest. Cheryl has always loved words, grammar, reading, acting and writing. All of these things came together for Cheryl in the form of voice over work, which she loves!

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Far Fetched Fables No. 54 Kim Lakin-Smith and Cate Gardner

Tue, 28 Apr 2015 08:00:37 GMT

First Story: “Too Delicate for Human Form” by Cate Gardner

A trail of dead goldfish wound towards the pool where Jenny’s aunt drifted face down.

Her aunt’s silver chain, its pendant an iron key, dangled from the prongs of a leaf rake. Jenny put the chain around her neck and wondered if the fish had tried to save her aunt or themselves. The iron key dangled between her breasts, irritating her skin. Following the trail back into the house, she phoned for an ambulance. To the coroner, the fish were a suicide note. To Jenny, they were family.

Cate Gardner is a British horror and fantastical author with more than one hundred short stories published. Several of those stories appear in her collection Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits (Strange Publications 2010). She is also the author of four novellas: Theatre of Curious Acts (Hadley Rille Books, 2011, Barbed Wire Hearts (Delirium Books, 2011), In the Broken Birdcage of Kathleen Fair (Alchemy Press, 2013), and This Foolish & Harmful Delight (Egaeus Press, 2013).

Her chapbooks Nowhere Hall (Spectral Press 2011) and The Sour Aftertaste of Olive Lemon (Bucket ‘O’ Guts Press 2009) have sold out, and she is currently working on a novel.

She can be found online at categardner.net.

Main Story: “The Island of Peter Pandora” by Kim Lakin-Smith

Peter caught the fly between his palms. The insect buzzed and tickled.

“Aren’t you the jolly little irritant!” Peter parted his hands slightly and tried to peep in. When the fly flew out, he snatched at it. A trace of gore stained his hand.

“Funny bug.” Peter didn’t bother to brush off the insect’s remains, but picked up the wrench and plunged his hands into the Lost Boy’s stomach.

“Those Rogues. They’ll do for me one day,” said Nibs in his chiming voice.

“Ha! They’d have to catch me first, and Peter Pandora is not easy to tie down.” Peter lifted his sharp chin a notch. Locating the flywheel under the leather heart, he adjusted the torque. A squeeze of oil from a can and the gears moved smoothly again.

“I am nothing if not exceptional.” Peter slid the bolt plate back across Nibs’ stomach. He cleaned his hands on a rag.

“You’re the bravest and the best, Peter.” Nibs craned in his legs, rocked onto his porthole backside and got up off the grass. Steam oozed from his joints.

Peter nodded sagely. “I am.” When the Lost Boys failed to concur, he shot them a savage look. “What say my men?” He bit his bottom lip.

The animatronic band wheezed into life at the command.

Kim Lakin-Smith attained a first class honors degree in English Lit and Creative Writing from the University of Glamorgan, and was tutored by award winning author Graham Joyce while studying for her MA in Writing at Nottingham Trent. Formerly a copywriter, advertising exec, and website designer, her desire to write fantasy and science fiction novels took precedence.

Her novels include Tourniquet: Tales From the Renegade City, Cyber Circus, and Queen Rat; her stories appear in the anthologies Celebration, MythUnderstandings, Further Conflicts, Pandemonium: Tales of the Apocalypse, and The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women. Her short story “Johnny and Emmie-Lou Get Married” was shortlisted for the 2009 British Science Fiction Association short story award.

Kim is a regular guest speaker at literary events and has run numerous writing workshops at colleges and conventions. She lives in 2/5ths of a Victorian gothic mansion house with her mini-demon of a daughter and dark lord of a husband. She believes she is well placed to connect with her readers, having a hazy attitude to maturity, an eclectic dress sense, and a true zest for the weird and the freakish.

She can be found online at kimlakin-smith.com.

About the Narrators:

Heidi Hotz is not just another voice. She’s a voiceover artist with a range of personalities that varies from mom to the business corporate, to the friendly girl next door. She has been in the industry for more than 10 years, and has worked on TV commercials, radio, documentaries, audio fiction, and narration in general.

She can be found on LinkedIn here.

Peter Nixon is a full-time programmer and full-time student. He is the editor and producer for Green Eggs and Horror, a Dr. Seuss inspired short story anthology. He narrates and writes in his spare time, because he doesn’t believe in normal hobbies.

Find out more at GreenEggsAndHorror.com.

Hey Fablers:

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard from us during the past year and want to sing our praises a little, then please pop on over to their website and nominate us for a 2015 Parsec Award.

We have been nominated in the Best New Speculative Fiction Podcaster/Team category. In addition to that, anything that we have (or will) run from May 1, 2014 to April 30, 2015 is eligible for the Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Short Form) category, and those stories are listed below. So if there was a specific story featured in Far Fetched Fables that blew your mind, please nominate it!

Stories eligible for Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Short Form) are:

Episode 03: Commando Bats by Sherwood Smith, narrated by Summer Brooks; and The Pirate’s True Love by Seana Graham, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 04: The Teashop by Zoran Zivkovic, narrated by Tina Connolly; and Bamboozled by Kelley Armstrong, narrated by Natalie Ross

Episode 05: An Accounting by Brian Evenson, narrated by Sam Walter; and Snowball’s Chance by Charles Stross, narrated by Kenny Park

Episode 06: A Ring of Green Fire by Sean McCullen, narrated by Colin Clews; Rules to Win the Game by Matthew Burnside, narrated by Tim Maroney; and Cloud Eating by Tricia Glock, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 07: Lost Arts by Stephen Dedman, narrated by Geoffrey Welchman; and Nor Iron Bars a Cage by Deborah J. Ross, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 08: The New Deal by Trent Jamieson, narrated by Martin Reyto; and Disillusions by Mike Resnick and Lawrence Schimmel, narrated by Katherine Inskip

Episode 09: A Night in the Tropics by Jeffrey Ford, narrated by Pete Nixon; The Blue Magnolia by Tony Ballantyne, narrated by Anthony Babbington; and Tomorrow Tea by Laurel Winter, narrated by Kimberly Mintz

Episode 10: Neverland Blues by Adam Browne, narrated by James Silverstein; and The Swan Maiden by Barbara A. Barnett, narrated by Rachel Dee

Episode 11: Lost Son by Maurice Broaddus, narrated by Gregory Austin; and 10 Things I Know about the Wizard by Steven Tem, narrated by Shaun Hayworth

Episode 12: Tengu Mountain by Gregory Frost, narrated by the author; and Lost Wax by Leah Bobet, narrated by Bob Raudys

Episode 13: Blood, Oak, Iron by Janny Wurts, narrated by Mark Nelson; and Comber by Gene Wolfe, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 14: Jack Shade in the Forest of Souls part 1 by Rachel Pollack, narrated by Larry Oliver; and Gathering Rosebuds of Rust by Nicola Belte, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 15: Jack Shade in the Forest of Souls part 2 by Rachel Pollack, narrated by Larry Oliver; and Night of the Goblin Girl by Amal El-Mothar, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 16: Of Men and Wolves by An Owomoyela, narrated by Rish Outfield; and Stray by Benjamin Rosenbaum and David Ackert, narrated by David Ackert

Episode 17: The Flying Woman by Laurel Winter, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; Intelligent Design by Ellen Klages, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark; and Act of Penance by Michael Haynes, narrated by Marvin Münstermann

Episode 18: The Funeral, Ruined by Ben Peek, narrated by Kim Mintz; and Poison by Bruce McAllister, narrated by Andrew Leman

Episode 19: Perchance to Dream by Isobelle Carmody, narrated by Cynthia P. Colby; and The Weather Cinema by Adam Browne, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 20: The Shooter at the Heartrock Waterhole by Bill Congreve, narrated by Eric Luke; and The Comb by Marly Youmans, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Calrk

Episode 21: Troll’s Night Out by Jenny Blackford, narrated by Catherine Logan; and A Thousand Waves Beneath the Stars by Brendan Connell, narrated by Matthew Frederickson

Episode 22: Chasing the Wind by Elizabeth Wein, narrated by Rachel Dee; and Surface Tension by KJ Kabza, narrated by Alex Weinle

Episode 23: Compartments by Zoran Zivkovic, narrated by Anthony Babington; and In the Nightmare Garden by Shenoa Carroll-Bradd, narrated by Cherryl Phipps

Episode 24: Save me Plz by David Barr Kirtley, narrated by Katherine Inskip; and Of Melei, of Ulthar by Gord Sellar, narrated by Maria Makis

Episode 25: The Master Miller’s Tale part 1 by Ian McLeod, narrated by Colin Clewes; and Princesses by Jeremy Sim, narrated by Bob Raudys

Episode 26: The Master Miller’s Tale part 2 by Ian McLeod, narrated by Colin Clewes; and Show Me Yours by Robert Reed, narrated by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 27: Public Safety by Matthew Johnson, narrated by Nobilis Reed; and Mrs. Wilson and the Black Arts of Mrs. Beelzebub from Number Six by Steven Pirie, narrated by Veronica Giguere

Episode 28: Riding Shotgun by Charles de Lint, narrated by Eric Luke

Episode 29: Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks, narrated by Pete Nixon; and Blood Drunk by Adam Browne, narrated by James Silverstein

Episode 30: Keeper of Memory by Todd Lockwood, narrated by Sam Walter; and Awakening by Valjeanne Jeffers, narrated by Miss Bee

Episode 31: Nightship by Kim Westwood, narrated by Nikolle Doolin; and Smoke and Mirrors by Amanda Downum, narrated by Catherine Logan

Episode 32: The Swan Pilot by L.E Modesitt Jr., narrated by Gareth Stack; and The Stone Man by Nancy Kress, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 33: America is Coming by Dario Ciriello, narrated by Pete Nixon; and The Forest by Kim Wilkins, narrated by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 34: The Last Worders by Karen Joy Fowler, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Tales from the City of Seams by Greg van Eekhout, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 35: Childrun by Marc Laidlaw, narrated by Larry Oliver

Episode 36: The Price of Glamour by Steve Berman, narrated by Eric Luke; and The Magikkers by Terry Dowling, narrated by Graeme Dunlop

Episode 37: The Effigy Engine: A Tale of the Red Hats by Scott Lynch, narrated by Mark Nelson

Episode 38: Fool’s Fire by Hayley E. Lavik, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Justice by Suzan Harden, narrated by Deanna Sanchez

Episode 39: Dream Eaters by A.M. Dellamonica, narrated by Heidi Hotz; and The Flying Woman by Meghan McCarron, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 40: Forever by Tim Lebbon. Narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 41: Castor on Troubled Waters by Rhys Hughes, narrated by Alex Weinle; Lure by Paul Collins, narrated by Kim Mintz; and A Guided Tour in the Kingdom of the Dead by Richard Harland, narrated by Josh Roseman

Episode 42: Requiem for a Druid by Alex Shvartsman, narrated by Mark Kilfoil; Snow White, Red Rose by Lydia Millet, narrated by James Silverstein.

Episode 43: Spirit Brother by Pamela Sargent, narrated by Pete Nixon

Episode 44: Older, Wiser, Time Traveler by Matthew Bennardo, narrated by Rish Outfield; and Loose in the Wires by John D. Brown, narrated by Eric Luke

Episode 45: The Hum of Refuge by Anna Ilona Mussman, narrated by Heidi Hotz; and Sinking Among the Lilies by Cory Skerry, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 46: Infinity Syrup by Laurel Winter, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark; and Isle of Women by Jacqueline Carey, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 47: Dream Logic by Barbara A. Barnett, narrated by Gareth Stack; and The Title of This Story by Stephanie Campisi, narrated by Tim Maroney

Episode 48: Clockwork Fairies by Cat Rambo, narrated by Anthony Babington; and When Robot Mermaids Attack by Oliver Buckram, narrated by Chris Mack

Episode 49: A Dark, Beautiful Force by Jessica May Lin, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Canadian Blood Diamonds by Kristi Charish. Read by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 50: The Guardian of the Egg by Christopher Barzak, narrated by Tobias Queen

Episode 51: Space Operetta by Adam Browne, narrated by Mark Kilfoil; and Endgame by Lev Grossman, narrated by Katherine Inskip

Episode 52: The Mask of ’67 by David Prill, narrated by Matthew Frederickson; and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Monsters by Alex Shvartsman, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 53: The Tower of the Elephant by Robert E. Howard, narrated by Mark Kilfoil

Episode 54: Too Delicate for Human Form by Cate Gardner, narrated by Heidi Hotz; and The Island of Peter Pandora by Kim Lakin-Smith, narrated by Peter Nixon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Direct MP3 link

Far Fetched Fables No. 53 Robert E. Howard

Tue, 21 Apr 2015 08:00:07 GMT

Story: “The Tower of the Elephant” by Robert E. Howard

“You are no soldier,” hissed the stranger at last. “You are a thief like myself.”

“And who are you?” asked the Cimmerian in a suspicious whisper.

“Taurus of Nemedia.” The Cimmerian lowered his sword. “I’ve heard of you. Men call you a prince of thieves.” A low laugh answered him. Taurus was tall as the Cimmerian, and heavier; he was big-bellied and fat, but his every movement betokened a subtle dynamic magnetism, which was reflected in the keen eyes that glinted vitally, even in the starlight. He was barefooted and carried a coil of what looked like a thin, strong rope, knotted at regular intervals. “Who are you?” he whispered.

“Conan, a Cimmerian,” answered the other. “I came seeking a way to steal Yara’s jewel, that men call the Elephant’s Heart.”

Robert E. Howard is considered by many as the father of the sword and sorcery genre. Born to a traveling country physician in 1906, spent most of his brief life in the boomtown of Cross Plains, Texas, where the violence and larger-than-life locals he encountered informed much of his writing, as did his careers as an amateur boxer and sports reporter. Howard authored more than 500 stories for the pulp magazines in genres ranging from fantasy, horror, detective, and historical fiction to humor, western, and sports tales, and created such memorable characters as Conan the Cimmerian, Kull of Atlantis, Pictish chieftain Bran Mak Morn, and avenging Puritan adventurer Solomon Kane. Frustrated by career woes and distraught over his mother’s declining health, Howard took his life at age 30.

About the Narrator:

Mark “The Encaffeinated One” Kilfoil loves fiction, so much so that he’s written some (such as the Parsec-nominated Tainted Roses), read quite a lot (a library of over a thousand half-read books and growing), and now narrates it (sometimes actually recorded for others). He’s found that volunteering for a dozen years in radio was a decent way to get a full-time job as a Program Director at a community radio station in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, but not such a great way to finish his thesis, so he stopped at a Masters in Computer Science. He can be heard frequently on CHSRfm.ca, and two of his shows regularly appear as podcasts, and can be found at encaffeinated.ca and theweirdshow.com. He likes cats enough to pet them but not enough to own one, and computers enough to own several but pet none of them. He will someday write a million words, but at this rate, that will require life extension, so he eagerly awaits the ability to upload into a computer, if that hasn’t already happened and this is all only a simulation.

Hey Fablers:

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard from us during the past year and want to sing our praises a little, then please pop on over to their website and nominate us for a 2015 Parsec Award.

We have been nominated in the Best New Speculative Fiction Podcaster/Team category. In addition to that, anything that we have (or will) run from May 1, 2014 to April 30, 2015 is eligible for the Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Short Form) category, and those stories are listed below. So if there was a specific story featured in Far Fetched Fables that blew your mind, please nominate it!

Stories eligible for Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Short Form) are:

Episode 03: Commando Bats by Sherwood Smith, narrated by Summer Brooks; and The Pirate’s True Love by Seana Graham, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 04: The Teashop by Zoran Zivkovic, narrated by Tina Connolly; and Bamboozled by Kelley Armstrong, narrated by Natalie Ross

Episode 05: An Accounting by Brian Evenson, narrated by Sam Walter; and Snowball’s Chance by Charles Stross, narrated by Kenny Park

Episode 06: A Ring of Green Fire by Sean McCullen, narrated by Colin Clews; Rules to Win the Game by Matthew Burnside, narrated by Tim Maroney; and Cloud Eating by Tricia Glock, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 07: Lost Arts by Stephen Dedman, narrated by Geoffrey Welchman; and Nor Iron Bars a Cage by Deborah J. Ross, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 08: The New Deal by Trent Jamieson, narrated by Martin Reyto; and Disillusions by Mike Resnick and Lawrence Schimmel, narrated by Katherine Inskip

Episode 09: A Night in the Tropics by Jeffrey Ford, narrated by Pete Nixon; The Blue Magnolia by Tony Ballantyne, narrated by Anthony Babbington; and Tomorrow Tea by Laurel Winter, narrated by Kimberly Mintz

Episode 10: Neverland Blues by Adam Browne, narrated by James Silverstein; and The Swan Maiden by Barbara A. Barnett, narrated by Rachel Dee

Episode 11: Lost Son by Maurice Broaddus, narrated by Gregory Austin; and 10 Things I Know about the Wizard by Steven Tem, narrated by Shaun Hayworth

Episode 12: Tengu Mountain by Gregory Frost, narrated by the author; and Lost Wax by Leah Bobet, narrated by Bob Raudys

Episode 13: Blood, Oak, Iron by Janny Wurts, narrated by Mark Nelson; and Comber by Gene Wolfe, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 14: Jack Shade in the Forest of Souls part 1 by Rachel Pollack, narrated by Larry Oliver; and Gathering Rosebuds of Rust by Nicola Belte, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 15: Jack Shade in the Forest of Souls part 2 by Rachel Pollack, narrated by Larry Oliver; and Night of the Goblin Girl by Amal El-Mothar, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 16: Of Men and Wolves by An Owomoyela, narrated by Rish Outfield; and Stray by Benjamin Rosenbaum and David Ackert, narrated by David Ackert

Episode 17: The Flying Woman by Laurel Winter, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; Intelligent Design by Ellen Klages, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark; and Act of Penance by Michael Haynes, narrated by Marvin Münstermann

Episode 18: The Funeral, Ruined by Ben Peek, narrated by Kim Mintz; and Poison by Bruce McAllister, narrated by Andrew Leman

Episode 19: Perchance to Dream by Isobelle Carmody, narrated by Cynthia P. Colby; and The Weather Cinema by Adam Browne, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 20: The Shooter at the Heartrock Waterhole by Bill Congreve, narrated by Eric Luke; and The Comb by Marly Youmans, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Calrk

Episode 21: Troll’s Night Out by Jenny Blackford, narrated by Catherine Logan; and A Thousand Waves Beneath the Stars by Brendan Connell, narrated by Matthew Frederickson

Episode 22: Chasing the Wind by Elizabeth Wein, narrated by Rachel Dee; and Surface Tension by KJ Kabza, narrated by Alex Weinle

Episode 23: Compartments by Zoran Zivkovic, narrated by Anthony Babington; and In the Nightmare Garden by Shenoa Carroll-Bradd, narrated by Cherryl Phipps

Episode 24: Save me Plz by David Barr Kirtley, narrated by Katherine Inskip; and Of Melei, of Ulthar by Gord Sellar, narrated by Maria Makis

Episode 25: The Master Miller’s Tale part 1 by Ian McLeod, narrated by Colin Clewes; and Princesses by Jeremy Sim, narrated by Bob Raudys

Episode 26: The Master Miller’s Tale part 2 by Ian McLeod, narrated by Colin Clewes; and Show Me Yours by Robert Reed, narrated by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 27: Public Safety by Matthew Johnson, narrated by Nobilis Reed; and Mrs. Wilson and the Black Arts of Mrs. Beelzebub from Number Six by Steven Pirie, narrated by Veronica Giguere

Episode 28: Riding Shotgun by Charles de Lint, narrated by Eric Luke

Episode 29: Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks, narrated by Pete Nixon; and Blood Drunk by Adam Browne, narrated by James Silverstein

Episode 30: Keeper of Memory by Todd Lockwood, narrated by Sam Walter; and Awakening by Valjeanne Jeffers, narrated by Miss Bee

Episode 31: Nightship by Kim Westwood, narrated by Nikolle Doolin; and Smoke and Mirrors by Amanda Downum, narrated by Catherine Logan

Episode 32: The Swan Pilot by L.E Modesitt Jr., narrated by Gareth Stack; and The Stone Man by Nancy Kress, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 33: America is Coming by Dario Ciriello, narrated by Pete Nixon; and The Forest by Kim Wilkins, narrated by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 34: The Last Worders by Karen Joy Fowler, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Tales from the City of Seams by Greg van Eekhout, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 35: Childrun by Marc Laidlaw, narrated by Larry Oliver

Episode 36: The Price of Glamour by Steve Berman, narrated by Eric Luke; and The Magikkers by Terry Dowling, narrated by Graeme Dunlop

Episode 37: The Effigy Engine: A Tale of the Red Hats by Scott Lynch, narrated by Mark Nelson

Episode 38: Fool’s Fire by Hayley E. Lavik, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Justice by Suzan Harden, narrated by Deanna Sanchez

Episode 39: Dream Eaters by A.M. Dellamonica, narrated by Heidi Hotz; and The Flying Woman by Meghan McCarron, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 40: Forever by Tim Lebbon. Narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 41: Castor on Troubled Waters by Rhys Hughes, narrated by Alex Weinle; Lure by Paul Collins, narrated by Kim Mintz; and A Guided Tour in the Kingdom of the Dead by Richard Harland, narrated by Josh Roseman

Episode 42: Requiem for a Druid by Alex Shvartsman, narrated by Mark Kilfoil; Snow White, Red Rose by Lydia Millet, narrated by James Silverstein.

Episode 43: Spirit Brother by Pamela Sargent, narrated by Pete Nixon

Episode 44: Older, Wiser, Time Traveler by Matthew Bennardo, narrated by Rish Outfield; and Loose in the Wires by John D. Brown, narrated by Eric Luke

Episode 45: The Hum of Refuge by Anna Ilona Mussman, narrated by Heidi Hotz; and Sinking Among the Lilies by Cory Skerry, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 46: Infinity Syrup by Laurel Winter, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark; and Isle of Women by Jacqueline Carey, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 47: Dream Logic by Barbara A. Barnett, narrated by Gareth Stack; and The Title of This Story by Stephanie Campisi, narrated by Tim Maroney

Episode 48: Clockwork Fairies by Cat Rambo, narrated by Anthony Babington; and When Robot Mermaids Attack by Oliver Buckram, narrated by Chris Mack

Episode 49: A Dark, Beautiful Force by Jessica May Lin, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Canadian Blood Diamonds by Kristi Charish. Read by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 50: The Guardian of the Egg by Christopher Barzak, narrated by Tobias Queen

Episode 51: Space Operetta by Adam Browne, narrated by Mark Kilfoil; and Endgame by Lev Grossman, narrated by Katherine Inskip

Episode 52: The Mask of ’67 by David Prill, narrated by Matthew Frederickson; and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Monsters by Alex Shvartsman, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 53: The Tower of the Elephant by Robert E. Howard, narrated by Mark Kilfoil

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Direct MP3 link

Far Fetched Fables No. 52 David Prill and Alex Shvartsman

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 08:00:11 GMT

Flash Fiction: “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Monsters” by Alex Shvartsman

It isn’t easy being green, scaly, or abominable these days. Humanity turned the tables on the apex predators of the food chain, and has been exterminating us with extreme prejudice.

We’re still faster and stronger than they are, but we’re prone to defeat by bad judgment. Heed the lessons of our vanquished brethren; learn from their mistakes and remain successful, extant, and satiated.

1. Don’t Rely on Henchmen

Alex Shvartsman is a writer and game designer from Brooklyn, New York. More than 60 of his short stories have appeared in Nature, InterGalactic Medicine Show, Galaxy’s Edge, Daily Science Fiction, and many other venues. He’s the winner of the 2014 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction. He edits Unidentified Funny Objects, an annual anthology of humorous SF/F. His short story collection Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma was released earlier this year.

Learn more about him at alexshvartsman.com.

Main Story: “The Mask of ’67” by David Prill

Our Hollywood star comes home. You know the drill. Small-town girl makes it big, returns to her priceless past to grin and bear the locally crafted gifts and blessings.

It began at the train station, where all decent homecoming stories begin. The station is usually a yawny place, Pete the ticket man, Griff the baggage man, the usual loafers laying odds on the arrival and departure times. Crazy times would have been more the ticket.

But on the day she came back, we smalltowned it up like hadn’t been seen around here since the sesquicentennial. The Fire Hall Band. Banners. Clowns. Politicians. Ice cold…well, you get the idea.

Welcome Home, Betty Lynn Ballmer!

David Prill is the author of The Unnatural, Serial Killer Days, Second Coming Attractions, Dating Secrets of the Dead, and numerous off-trail stories which have appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Subterranean magazine, various Ellen Datlow projects, and a number of fine anthologies.

The New York Times Book Review said The Unnatural was “the funniest book about the funeral business since Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One.” Serial Killer Days was purchased by Paramount Pictures. The Des Moines Register called David Prill “one of the funniest, most astute writers in America.”

“The Mask of ’67” was part of the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology Salon Fantastique. Elizabeth Hand (writing in F&SF) called “The Mask of ’67” “one of the most memorable stories I’ve read in years… it alone is worth the price of admission to this collection.”

You can find out more about David at davidprill.net.

About the Narrators:

Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements.  She also hosts this podcast…

Matthew Frederickson is in his mid-30s, living in Memphis, Tennessee, with a rockstar plastic surgeon wife. He reads and writes and runs in his spare time. He loves to brew beer, and he’d love to make that his career. He will soon start the second season of his podcast, Freddy’s Fan Fiction. You can find him on Twitter as @swami.

Hey Fablers:

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard from us during the past year and want to sing our praises a little, then please pop on over to their website and nominate us for a 2015 Parsec Award.

We have been nominated in the Best New Speculative Fiction Podcaster/Team category. In addition to that, anything that we have (or will) run from May 1, 2014 to April 30, 2015 is eligible for the Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Short Form) category, and those stories are listed below. So if there was a specific story featured in Far Fetched Fables that blew your mind, please nominate it!

Stories eligible for Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Short Form) are:

Episode 03: Commando Bats by Sherwood Smith, narrated by Summer Brooks; and The Pirate’s True Love by Seana Graham, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 04: The Teashop by Zoran Zivkovic, narrated by Tina Connolly; and Bamboozled by Kelley Armstrong, narrated by Natalie Ross

Episode 05: An Accounting by Brian Evenson, narrated by Sam Walter; and Snowball’s Chance by Charles Stross, narrated by Kenny Park

Episode 06: A Ring of Green Fire by Sean McCullen, narrated by Colin Clews; Rules to Win the Game by Matthew Burnside, narrated by Tim Maroney; and Cloud Eating by Tricia Glock, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 07: Lost Arts by Stephen Dedman, narrated by Geoffrey Welchman; and Nor Iron Bars a Cage by Deborah J. Ross, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 08: The New Deal by Trent Jamieson, narrated by Martin Reyto; and Disillusions by Mike Resnick and Lawrence Schimmel, narrated by Katherine Inskip

Episode 09: A Night in the Tropics by Jeffrey Ford, narrated by Pete Nixon; The Blue Magnolia by Tony Ballantyne, narrated by Anthony Babbington; and Tomorrow Tea by Laurel Winter, narrated by Kimberly Mintz

Episode 10: Neverland Blues by Adam Browne, narrated by James Silverstein; and The Swan Maiden by Barbara A. Barnett, narrated by Rachel Dee

Episode 11: Lost Son by Maurice Broaddus, narrated by Gregory Austin; and 10 Things I Know about the Wizard by Steven Tem, narrated by Shaun Hayworth

Episode 12: Tengu Mountain by Gregory Frost, narrated by the author; and Lost Wax by Leah Bobet, narrated by Bob Raudys

Episode 13: Blood, Oak, Iron by Janny Wurts, narrated by Mark Nelson; and Comber by Gene Wolfe, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 14: Jack Shade in the Forest of Souls part 1 by Rachel Pollack, narrated by Larry Oliver; and Gathering Rosebuds of Rust by Nicola Belte, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 15: Jack Shade in the Forest of Souls part 2 by Rachel Pollack, narrated by Larry Oliver; and Night of the Goblin Girl by Amal El-Mothar, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 16: Of Men and Wolves by An Owomoyela, narrated by Rish Outfield; and Stray by Benjamin Rosenbaum and David Ackert, narrated by David Ackert

Episode 17: The Flying Woman by Laurel Winter, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; Intelligent Design by Ellen Klages, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark; and Act of Penance by Michael Haynes, narrated by Marvin Münstermann

Episode 18: The Funeral, Ruined by Ben Peek, narrated by Kim Mintz; and Poison by Bruce McAllister, narrated by Andrew Leman

Episode 19: Perchance to Dream by Isobelle Carmody, narrated by Cynthia P. Colby; and The Weather Cinema by Adam Browne, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 20: The Shooter at the Heartrock Waterhole by Bill Congreve, narrated by Eric Luke; and The Comb by Marly Youmans, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Calrk

Episode 21: Troll’s Night Out by Jenny Blackford, narrated by Catherine Logan; and A Thousand Waves Beneath the Stars by Brendan Connell, narrated by Matthew Frederickson

Episode 22: Chasing the Wind by Elizabeth Wein, narrated by Rachel Dee; and Surface Tension by KJ Kabza, narrated by Alex Weinle

Episode 23: Compartments by Zoran Zivkovic, narrated by Anthony Babington; and In the Nightmare Garden by Shenoa Carroll-Bradd, narrated by Cherryl Phipps

Episode 24: Save me Plz by David Barr Kirtley, narrated by Katherine Inskip; and Of Melei, of Ulthar by Gord Sellar, narrated by Maria Makis

Episode 25: The Master Miller’s Tale part 1 by Ian McLeod, narrated by Colin Clewes; and Princesses by Jeremy Sim, narrated by Bob Raudys

Episode 26: The Master Miller’s Tale part 2 by Ian McLeod, narrated by Colin Clewes; and Show Me Yours by Robert Reed, narrated by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 27: Public Safety by Matthew Johnson, narrated by Nobilis Reed; and Mrs. Wilson and the Black Arts of Mrs. Beelzebub from Number Six by Steven Pirie, narrated by Veronica Giguere

Episode 28: Riding Shotgun by Charles de Lint, narrated by Eric Luke

Episode 29: Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks, narrated by Pete Nixon; and Blood Drunk by Adam Browne, narrated by James Silverstein

Episode 30: Keeper of Memory by Todd Lockwood, narrated by Sam Walter; and Awakening by Valjeanne Jeffers, narrated by Miss Bee

Episode 31: Nightship by Kim Westwood, narrated by Nikolle Doolin; and Smoke and Mirrors by Amanda Downum, narrated by Catherine Logan

Episode 32: The Swan Pilot by L.E Modesitt Jr., narrated by Gareth Stack; and The Stone Man by Nancy Kress, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 33: America is Coming by Dario Ciriello, narrated by Pete Nixon; and The Forest by Kim Wilkins, narrated by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 34: The Last Worders by Karen Joy Fowler, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Tales from the City of Seams by Greg van Eekhout, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 35: Childrun by Marc Laidlaw, narrated by Larry Oliver

Episode 36: The Price of Glamour by Steve Berman, narrated by Eric Luke; and The Magikkers by Terry Dowling, narrated by Graeme Dunlop

Episode 37: The Effigy Engine: A Tale of the Red Hats by Scott Lynch, narrated by Mark Nelson

Episode 38: Fool’s Fire by Hayley E. Lavik, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Justice by Suzan Harden, narrated by Deanna Sanchez

Episode 39: Dream Eaters by A.M. Dellamonica, narrated by Heidi Hotz; and The Flying Woman by Meghan McCarron, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 40: Forever by Tim Lebbon. Narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 41: Castor on Troubled Waters by Rhys Hughes, narrated by Alex Weinle; Lure by Paul Collins, narrated by Kim Mintz; and A Guided Tour in the Kingdom of the Dead by Richard Harland, narrated by Josh Roseman

Episode 42: Requiem for a Druid by Alex Shvartsman, narrated by Mark Kilfoil; Snow White, Red Rose by Lydia Millet, narrated by James Silverstein.

Episode 43: Spirit Brother by Pamela Sargent, narrated by Pete Nixon

Episode 44: Older, Wiser, Time Traveler by Matthew Bennardo, narrated by Rish Outfield; and Loose in the Wires by John D. Brown, narrated by Eric Luke

Episode 45: The Hum of Refuge by Anna Ilona Mussman, narrated by Heidi Hotz; and Sinking Among the Lilies by Cory Skerry, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 46: Infinity Syrup by Laurel Winter, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark; and Isle of Women by Jacqueline Carey, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 47: Dream Logic by Barbara A. Barnett, narrated by Gareth Stack; and The Title of This Story by Stephanie Campisi, narrated by Tim Maroney

Episode 48: Clockwork Fairies by Cat Rambo, narrated by Anthony Babington; and When Robot Mermaids Attack by Oliver Buckram, narrated by Chris Mack

Episode 49: A Dark, Beautiful Force by Jessica May Lin, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Canadian Blood Diamonds by Kristi Charish. Read by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 50: The Guardian of the Egg by Christopher Barzak, narrated by Tobias Queen

Episode 51: Space Operetta by Adam Browne, narrated by Mark Kilfoil; and Endgame by Lev Grossman, narrated by Katherine Inskip

Episode 52: The Mask of ’67 by David Prill, narrated by Matthew Frederickson; and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Monsters by Alex Shvartsman, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

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Far Fetched Fables No. 51 Lev Grossman and Adam Browne

Tue, 07 Apr 2015 08:00:46 GMT

First Story: “Space Operetta” by Adam Browne

It’s the tenthday of March in the year of our lord 1453 and Cardinal Bessarion is lofting on rotors of gold and spun silver like some godlet in his Romanesque conch shellicopter, dazzling his way over the Alps, from upper airs to lower, purposed to drop in on Vienna, where he visits with Frederick III, Holy Emperor of Germany, Prussia and Austria.

And although Frederick’s happy to see the Cardinal, receiving him with splendours of many types and fruits artificed to exhale mists of auspicious reverie, the Cardinal, who’s not much of a merry andrew at the best of times, is in no mood for such diversions. He’s here to request German military assistance against the Turks, who took Constantinople the month before…

Inconstant Constantinople! — a city due for a name change, thinks the Emperor, who has got a trifle less hail-fellow-well-met. He’s very (shall we say) respectful of Turkey, mainly due to what he’s been hearing from Greece: airborne malevolences drifting across the Aegean; phlegmatick infirmities; stools loose and rank as carrion; lesions equipped with tongues to whisper blasphemies into your dreams…

And so on.

Adam Browne, 50, lives in Melbourne, Australia. His story “Neverland Blues” originally appeared in 2008 in Dreaming Again: Thirty-Five New Stories Celebrating the Wild Side of Australian Fiction. It won the 2009 Chronos Award for Best Short Fiction. His first novel, Pyrotechnicon: Being a True Account of the Further Adventures of Cyrano de Bergerac among the States and Empires of the Stars, by Himself (Dec’d), was published by Coeur de Lion in 2012, and is still available as a print-on-demand illustrated hardcover. His collection of short stories, Other Stories and Other Stories, was recently published by Satalyte, and is available as an audio book.

You can find out more at adambrowne.blogspot.com.au.

Second Story: “Endgame” by Lev Grossman

It was morning rush hour and the subway station was packed. The platform was choked with people: they bunched up at the stairs and wherever construction made the space too narrow and they had to walk in single file. Some of them had thought it necessary to bring an umbrella and some of them hadn’t.

They were all trying to hurry while at the same time not touch each other or look directly at each other or acknowledge in any way that there was anybody else on the platform with them. They made themselves human black holes: no information about their interior lives, if they had any, escaped through their faces.

A train pulled in, and everybody raised their hands to their ears in unison at the scream of metal on metal.

Lev Grossman is the author of the New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy and a staff writer at Time magazine.

Visit him online at levgrossman.com.

About the Narrators:

Mark “the Encaffeinated One” Kilfoil loves fiction, so much so that he’s written some (such as the Parsec-nominated Tainted Roses), read quite a lot (a library of over a thousand half-read books and growing), and now narrates it (sometimes actually recorded for others). He’s found that volunteering for a dozen years in radio was a decent way to get a full-time job as a Program Director at a community radio station in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, but not such a great way to finish his thesis, so he stopped at a Masters in Computer Science. He can be heard frequently on CHSRfm.ca, and two of his shows regularly appear as podcasts, and can be found at encaffeinated.ca and theweirdshow.com. He likes cats enough to pet them but not enough to own one, and computers enough to own several but pet none of them. He will someday write a million words, but at this rate, that will require life extension, so he eagerly awaits the ability to upload into a computer, if that hasn’t already happened and this is all only a simulation.

Katherine Inskip weighs galaxies for a living, and builds worlds in her spare time. She is addicted to chocolate and Japanese logic puzzles.

Hey Fablers:

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard from us during the past year and want to sing our praises a little, then please pop on over to their website and nominate us for a 2015 Parsec Award.

Since this is our first year in existence, we are eligible for the Best New Speculative Fiction Podcaster/Team category. We’ll only get the one shot, and by golly we’re going to take it.

Also, anything that we have (or will) run from May 1, 2014 to April 30, 2015 is eligible for the Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Short Form), and those stories are listed below. So if there was a specific story featured in Far Fetched Fables that blew your mind, please nominate it as well!

Stories eligible for Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Short Form) are:

Episode 03: Commando Bats by Sherwood Smith, narrated by Summer Brooks; and The Pirate’s True Love by Seana Graham, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 04: The Teashop by Zoran Zivkovic, narrated by Tina Connolly; and Bamboozled by Kelley Armstrong, narrated by Natalie Ross

Episode 05: An Accounting by Brian Evenson, narrated by Sam Walter; and Snowball’s Chance by Charles Stross, narrated by Kenny Park

Episode 06: A Ring of Green Fire by Sean McCullen, narrated by Colin Clews; Rules to Win the Game by Matthew Burnside, narrated by Tim Maroney; and Cloud Eating by Tricia Glock, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 07: Lost Arts by Stephen Dedman, narrated by Geoffrey Welchman; and Nor Iron Bars a Cage by Deborah J. Ross, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 08: The New Deal by Trent Jamieson, narrated by Martin Reyto; and Disillusions by Mike Resnick and Lawrence Schimmel, narrated by Katherine Inskip

Episode 09: A Night in the Tropics by Jeffrey Ford, narrated by Pete Nixon; The Blue Magnolia by Tony Ballantyne, narrated by Anthony Babbington; and Tomorrow Tea by Laurel Winter, narrated by Kimberly Mintz

Episode 10: Neverland Blues by Adam Browne, narrated by James Silverstein; and The Swan Maiden by Barbara A. Barnett, narrated by Rachel Dee

Episode 11: Lost Son by Maurice Broaddus, narrated by Gregory Austin; and 10 Things I Know about the Wizard by Steven Tem, narrated by Shaun Hayworth

Episode 12: Tengu Mountain by Gregory Frost, narrated by the author; and Lost Wax by Leah Bobet, narrated by Bob Raudys

Episode 13: Blood, Oak, Iron by Janny Wurts, narrated by Mark Nelson; and Comber by Gene Wolfe, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 14: Jack Shade in the Forest of Souls part 1 by Rachel Pollack, narrated by Larry Oliver; and Gathering Rosebuds of Rust by Nicola Belte, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 15: Jack Shade in the Forest of Souls part 2 by Rachel Pollack, narrated by Larry Oliver; and Night of the Goblin Girl by Amal El-Mothar, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 16: Of Men and Wolves by An Owomoyela, narrated by Rish Outfield; and Stray by Benjamin Rosenbaum and David Ackert, narrated by David Ackert

Episode 17: The Flying Woman by Laurel Winter, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; Intelligent Design by Ellen Klages, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark; and Act of Penance by Michael Haynes, narrated by Marvin Münstermann

Episode 18: The Funeral, Ruined by Ben Peek, narrated by Kim Mintz; and Poison by Bruce McAllister, narrated by Andrew Leman

Episode 19: Perchance to Dream by Isobelle Carmody, narrated by Cynthia P. Colby; and The Weather Cinema by Adam Browne, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 20: The Shooter at the Heartrock Waterhole by Bill Congreve, narrated by Eric Luke; and The Comb by Marly Youmans, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Calrk

Episode 21: Troll’s Night Out by Jenny Blackford, narrated by Catherine Logan; and A Thousand Waves Beneath the Stars by Brendan Connell, narrated by Matthew Frederickson

Episode 22: Chasing the Wind by Elizabeth Wein, narrated by Rachel Dee; and Surface Tension by KJ Kabza, narrated by Alex Weinle

Episode 23: Compartments by Zoran Zivkovic, narrated by Anthony Babington; and In the Nightmare Garden by Shenoa Carroll-Bradd, narrated by Cherryl Phipps

Episode 24: Save me Plz by David Barr Kirtley, narrated by Katherine Inskip; and Of Melei, of Ulthar by Gord Sellar, narrated by Maria Makis

Episode 25: The Master Miller’s Tale part 1 by Ian McLeod, narrated by Colin Clewes; and Princesses by Jeremy Sim, narrated by Bob Raudys

Episode 26: The Master Miller’s Tale part 2 by Ian McLeod, narrated by Colin Clewes; and Show Me Yours by Robert Reed, narrated by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 27: Public Safety by Matthew Johnson, narrated by Nobilis Reed; and Mrs. Wilson and the Black Arts of Mrs. Beelzebub from Number Six by Steven Pirie, narrated by Veronica Giguere

Episode 28: Riding Shotgun by Charles de Lint, narrated by Eric Luke

Episode 29: Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks, narrated by Pete Nixon; and Blood Drunk by Adam Browne, narrated by James Silverstein

Episode 30: Keeper of Memory by Todd Lockwood, narrated by Sam Walter; and Awakening by Valjeanne Jeffers, narrated by Miss Bee

Episode 31: Nightship by Kim Westwood, narrated by Nikolle Doolin; and Smoke and Mirrors by Amanda Downum, narrated by Catherine Logan

Episode 32: The Swan Pilot by L.E Modesitt Jr., narrated by Gareth Stack; and The Stone Man by Nancy Kress, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 33: America is Coming by Dario Ciriello, narrated by Pete Nixon; and The Forest by Kim Wilkins, narrated by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 34: The Last Worders by Karen Joy Fowler, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Tales from the City of Seams by Greg van Eekhout, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 35: Childrun by Marc Laidlaw, narrated by Larry Oliver

Episode 36: The Price of Glamour by Steve Berman, narrated by Eric Luke; and The Magikkers by Terry Dowling, narrated by Graeme Dunlop

Episode 37: The Effigy Engine: A Tale of the Red Hats by Scott Lynch, narrated by Mark Nelson

Episode 38: Fool’s Fire by Hayley E. Lavik, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Justice by Suzan Harden, narrated by Deanna Sanchez

Episode 39: Dream Eaters by A.M. Dellamonica, narrated by Heidi Hotz; and The Flying Woman by Meghan McCarron, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 40: Forever by Tim Lebbon. Narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 41: Castor on Troubled Waters by Rhys Hughes, narrated by Alex Weinle; Lure by Paul Collins, narrated by Kim Mintz; and A Guided Tour in the Kingdom of the Dead by Richard Harland, narrated by Josh Roseman

Episode 42: Requiem for a Druid by Alex Shvartsman, narrated by Mark Kilfoil; Snow White, Red Rose by Lydia Millet, narrated by James Silverstein.

Episode 43: Spirit Brother by Pamela Sargent, narrated by Pete Nixon

Episode 44: Older, Wiser, Time Traveler by Matthew Bennardo, narrated by Rish Outfield; and Loose in the Wires by John D. Brown, narrated by Eric Luke

Episode 45: The Hum of Refuge by Anna Ilona Mussman, narrated by Heidi Hotz; and Sinking Among the Lilies by Cory Skerry, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 46: Infinity Syrup by Laurel Winter, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark; and Isle of Women by Jacqueline Carey, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 47: Dream Logic by Barbara A. Barnett, narrated by Gareth Stack; and The Title of This Story by Stephanie Campisi, narrated by Tim Maroney

Episode 48: Clockwork Fairies by Cat Rambo, narrated by Anthony Babington; and When Robot Mermaids Attack by Oliver Buckram, narrated by Chris Mack

Episode 49: A Dark, Beautiful Force by Jessica May Lin, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Canadian Blood Diamonds by Kristi Charish. Read by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 50: The Guardian of the Egg by Christopher Barzak, narrated by Tobias Queen

Episode 51: Space Operetta by Adam Browne, narrated by Mark Kilfoil; and Endgame by Lev Grossman, narrated by Katherine Inskip

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Direct MP3 link

Far Fetched Fables No. 50 Christopher Barzak

Tue, 31 Mar 2015 08:00:08 GMT

Story: “The Guardian of the Egg” by Christopher Barzak

My sister was the girl with the tree growing out of her head. You’ve probably heard of her. You might have seen her on TV. Her picture was plastered all over the place for a while. That shock of wheat ruffling around her face like a great golden mane, the weeping willow tree growing out of the top of her head, her skin white as chalk and smooth as porcelain, those tiny tiger lilies that grew between her eyelashes. And all of those geese she kept under her mossy cloak! A freak show, really. I understand why everyone thought she might be working with a foreign government, or that she’d been irradiated by the local nuclear power plant. But, really, she was just another ordinary teenager under all of that flora. I know because she was my older sister.

Christopher Barzak is the author of the Crawford Fantasy Award-winning novel One for Sorrow, which was made into the major motion picture Jamie Marks is Dead. His second novel, The Love We Share Without Knowing, was a finalist for the Nebula and James Tiptree Jr. Awards. He is also the author of two collections: Birds and Birthdays and Before and Afterlives, which won the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Collection. Christopher grew up in rural Ohio, has lived in a southern California beach town, the capital of Michigan, and has taught English outside of Tokyo, Japan, where he lived for two years. His next novel, Wonders of the Invisible World, will be published by Knopf in Septemeber 2015. Currently he teaches fiction writing in the Northeast Ohio MFA program at Youngstown State University.

Learn more about Chris at christopherbarzak.com.

About the Narrator:

Father, husband, narrator, and voice talent at your service, Tobias Queen has been talking to himself in a small padded room since about 2008, when people started paying him to do so. If you’d like to contact him, just go to tobiasqueen.com or email him at teqstudios@gmail.com.

Hey Fablers:

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard from us during the past year and want to sing our praises a little, then please pop on over to their website and nominate us for a 2015 Parsec Award.

Since this is our first year in existence, we are eligible for the Best New Speculative Fiction Podcaster/Team category. We’ll only get the one shot, and by golly we’re going to take it.

Also, anything that we have (or will) run from May 1, 2014 to April 30, 2015 is eligible for the Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Short Form), and those stories are listed below. So if there was a specific story featured in Far Fetched Fables that blew your mind, please nominate it as well!

Stories eligible for Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Short Form) are:

Episode 03: Commando Bats by Sherwood Smith, narrated by Summer Brooks; and The Pirate’s True Love by Seana Graham, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 04: The Teashop by Zoran Zivkovic, narrated by Tina Connolly; and Bamboozled by Kelley Armstrong, narrated by Natalie Ross

Episode 05: An Accounting by Brian Evenson, narrated by Sam Walter; and Snowball’s Chance by Charles Stross, narrated by Kenny Park

Episode 06: A Ring of Green Fire by Sean McCullen, narrated by Colin Clews; Rules to Win the Game by Matthew Burnside, narrated by Tim Maroney; and Cloud Eating by Tricia Glock, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 07: Lost Arts by Stephen Dedman, narrated by Geoffrey Welchman; and Nor Iron Bars a Cage by Deborah J. Ross, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 08: The New Deal by Trent Jamieson, narrated by Martin Reyto; and Disillusions by Mike Resnick and Lawrence Schimmel, narrated by Katherine Inskip

Episode 09: A Night in the Tropics by Jeffrey Ford, narrated by Pete Nixon; The Blue Magnolia by Tony Ballantyne, narrated by Anthony Babbington; and Tomorrow Tea by Laurel Winter, narrated by Kimberly Mintz

Episode 10: Neverland Blues by Adam Browne, narrated by James Silverstein; and The Swan Maiden by Barbara A. Barnett, narrated by Rachel Dee

Episode 11: Lost Son by Maurice Broaddus, narrated by Gregory Austin; and 10 Things I Know about the Wizard by Steven Tem, narrated by Shaun Hayworth

Episode 12: Tengu Mountain by Gregory Frost, narrated by the author; and Lost Wax by Leah Bobet, narrated by Bob Raudys

Episode 13: Blood, Oak, Iron by Janny Wurts, narrated by Mark Nelson; and Comber by Gene Wolfe, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 14: Jack Shade in the Forest of Souls part 1 by Rachel Pollack, narrated by Larry Oliver; and Gathering Rosebuds of Rust by Nicola Belte, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 15: Jack Shade in the Forest of Souls part 2 by Rachel Pollack, narrated by Larry Oliver; and Night of the Goblin Girl by Amal El-Mothar, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 16: Of Men and Wolves by An Owomoyela, narrated by Rish Outfield; and Stray by Benjamin Rosenbaum and David Ackert, narrated by David Ackert

Episode 17: The Flying Woman by Laurel Winter, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; Intelligent Design by Ellen Klages, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark; and Act of Penance by Michael Haynes, narrated by Marvin Münstermann

Episode 18: The Funeral, Ruined by Ben Peek, narrated by Kim Mintz; and Poison by Bruce McAllister, narrated by Andrew Leman

Episode 19: Perchance to Dream by Isobelle Carmody, narrated by Cynthia P. Colby; and The Weather Cinema by Adam Browne, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark

Episode 20: The Shooter at the Heartrock Waterhole by Bill Congreve, narrated by Eric Luke; and The Comb by Marly Youmans, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Calrk

Episode 21: Troll’s Night Out by Jenny Blackford, narrated by Catherine Logan; and A Thousand Waves Beneath the Stars by Brendan Connell, narrated by Matthew Frederickson

Episode 22: Chasing the Wind by Elizabeth Wein, narrated by Rachel Dee; and Surface Tension by KJ Kabza, narrated by Alex Weinle

Episode 23: Compartments by Zoran Zivkovic, narrated by Anthony Babington; and In the Nightmare Garden by Shenoa Carroll-Bradd, narrated by Cherryl Phipps

Episode 24: Save me Plz by David Barr Kirtley, narrated by Katherine Inskip; and Of Melei, of Ulthar by Gord Sellar, narrated by Maria Makis

Episode 25: The Master Miller’s Tale part 1 by Ian McLeod, narrated by Colin Clewes; and Princesses by Jeremy Sim, narrated by Bob Raudys

Episode 26: The Master Miller’s Tale part 2 by Ian McLeod, narrated by Colin Clewes; and Show Me Yours by Robert Reed, narrated by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 27: Public Safety by Matthew Johnson, narrated by Nobilis Reed; and Mrs. Wilson and the Black Arts of Mrs. Beelzebub from Number Six by Steven Pirie, narrated by Veronica Giguere

Episode 28: Riding Shotgun by Charles de Lint, narrated by Eric Luke

Episode 29: Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks, narrated by Pete Nixon; and Blood Drunk by Adam Browne, narrated by James Silverstein

Episode 30: Keeper of Memory by Todd Lockwood, narrated by Sam Walter; and Awakening by Valjeanne Jeffers, narrated by Miss Bee

Episode 31: Nightship by Kim Westwood, narrated by Nikolle Doolin; and Smoke and Mirrors by Amanda Downum, narrated by Catherine Logan

Episode 32: The Swan Pilot by L.E Modesitt Jr., narrated by Gareth Stack; and The Stone Man by Nancy Kress, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 33: America is Coming by Dario Ciriello, narrated by Pete Nixon; and The Forest by Kim Wilkins, narrated by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 34: The Last Worders by Karen Joy Fowler, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Tales from the City of Seams by Greg van Eekhout, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 35: Childrun by Marc Laidlaw, narrated by Larry Oliver

Episode 36: The Price of Glamour by Steve Berman, narrated by Eric Luke; and The Magikkers by Terry Dowling, narrated by Graeme Dunlop

Episode 37: The Effigy Engine: A Tale of the Red Hats by Scott Lynch, narrated by Mark Nelson

Episode 38: Fool’s Fire by Hayley E. Lavik, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Justice by Suzan Harden, narrated by Deanna Sanchez

Episode 39: Dream Eaters by A.M. Dellamonica, narrated by Heidi Hotz; and The Flying Woman by Meghan McCarron, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 40: Forever by Tim Lebbon. Narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 41: Castor on Troubled Waters by Rhys Hughes, narrated by Alex Weinle; Lure by Paul Collins, narrated by Kim Mintz; and A Guided Tour in the Kingdom of the Dead by Richard Harland, narrated by Josh Roseman

Episode 42: Requiem for a Druid by Alex Shvartsman, narrated by Mark Kilfoil; Snow White, Red Rose by Lydia Millet, narrated by James Silverstein.

Episode 43: Spirit Brother by Pamela Sargent, narrated by Pete Nixon

Episode 44: Older, Wiser, Time Traveler by Matthew Bennardo, narrated by Rish Outfield; and Loose in the Wires by John D. Brown, narrated by Eric Luke

Episode 45: The Hum of Refuge by Anna Ilona Mussman, narrated by Heidi Hotz; and Sinking Among the Lilies by Cory Skerry, narrated by Anthony Babington

Episode 46: Infinity Syrup by Laurel Winter, narrated by Nicola Seaton-Clark; and Isle of Women by Jacqueline Carey, narrated by Sarah Frederickson

Episode 47: Dream Logic by Barbara A. Barnett, narrated by Gareth Stack; and The Title of This Story by Stephanie Campisi, narrated by Tim Maroney

Episode 48: Clockwork Fairies by Cat Rambo, narrated by Anthony Babington; and When Robot Mermaids Attack by Oliver Buckram, narrated by Chris Mack

Episode 49: A Dark, Beautiful Force by Jessica May Lin, narrated by Sarah Frederickson; and Canadian Blood Diamonds by Kristi Charish. Read by Nikolle Doolin

Episode 50: The Guardian of the Egg by Christopher Barzak, narrated by Tobias Queen

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Direct MP3 link

Far Fetched Fables No. 49 Kristi Charish and Jessica May Lin

Tue, 24 Mar 2015 08:00:58 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Dark, Beautiful Force” by Jessica May Lin

I met you the summer I was nineteen. You were a shadow on the wall, tall and intimidating in a way I could never be, and you were all that stood between my first supervillain and me.

You grinned and leapt down in your black domino mask and high-top sneakers, before I even stepped past the mouth of the alley.

I hated you, because you knocked the villain out before I could, and smirked at me over the popped collar of your leather jacket as you handcuffed him.

They printed our pictures in the newspaper side by side. You, in your leather and your sneakers. Me, in my thigh-high boots and red latex skirt. The new superstars on the block.
But I was jealous and told our mentors that your superhero name made me think of candy bars, your costume of freeze-dried bats.
We kept running into each other.

Jessica May Lin is a student at the University of California, Berkeley, where she lives with a giant stuffed sushi and spends absurd hours of the night writing. She also pole dances (the acrobatic variety). Jessica graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop 2012, and her fiction also will appear in Nature. More details can be found at jessicamaylin.com.

Main Story: “Canadian Blood Diamonds” by Kristi Charish

Kristi Charish is the author of Owl and the Japanese Circus (Simon and Schuster Canada/Pocket Books), an urban fantasy about a modern-day “Indiana Jane” who reluctantly navigates the hidden supernatural world. She writes what she loves; adventure heavy stories featuring strong, savvy female protagonists, pop culture, and the occasional RPG fantasy game thrown in the mix. The second installment,Owl and the City of Angels, is scheduled for release in January 2016. Her second urban fantasy series, Kincaid Strange (Random House Canada), about a voodoo practitioner living in Seattle, is scheduled for release mid 2016.

Kristi is also a scientist with a BSc and MSc  in Molecular Biology and Biochemistryfrom Simon Fraser University, and a PhD in Zoology from the University of British Columbia. Her specialties are genetics, cell biology, and molecular biology, all of which she draws upon in her writing. She is represented by Carolyn Forde at Westwood Creative Artists.

About the Narrators:

Sarah Frederickson was born in Oregon in the United States, and was raised in beautiful Minnesota. At a young age she realized her passion for musical performance and the creative arts. Sarah spent most of her childhood singing and acting – both onstage and off – and affecting various accents for fun.

She soon found herself competing in local, state and national forensics competitions (that’s competitive speaking). Her experience and awards landed her a forensics scholarship to Bethel University in St.Paul Minnesota, where she continued to compete as well as train other speakers at the collegiate level. Sarah graduated with a degree in Music business and Audio Production. Shortly after graduation she traveled to Australia for a one-year holiday. During that time she became smitten with an Australian man who asked her to stay, and four years later the couple live and work in Australia, going on adventures, writing music and reading stories to their cat.

[D’oh! Due to the chaos of completing this week’s episode, we inadvertently failed to properly credit Sarah for reading “Dark, Beautiful Force”. in this week’s recording. We regret the error.]

Nikolle Doolin is a writer and a voice actor. Her fiction, poetry, and plays have been published and performed; and her voice has appeared in various mediums, including a number of popular and award-winning podcasts. Nikolle has narrated horror, fantasy, crime, and science fiction for Tales to Terrify, The NoSleep Podcast, StarShipSofa, and Crime City Central. You can also listen to Nikolle narrate classic literature in her podcast Audio Literature Odyssey. To learn more about Nikolle, visit her website at nikolledoolin.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 48 Cat Rambo and Oliver Buckram

Tue, 17 Mar 2015 08:00:19 GMT

Main Story: “Clockwork Fairies” by Cat Rambo

Mary the Irish girl let me in when I knocked at the door in my Sunday best, smelling of incense and evening fog. Gaslight flickered over the narrow hall. The mahogany banister’s curve gleamed with beeswax polish, and a rosewood hat rack and umbrella stand squatted to my left.

I nodded to Mary, taking off my top hat. Snuff and baking butter mingled with my own pomade to battle the smell of steel and sulfur from below.

“Don’t be startled, Mr. Claude, sir.”

Before I could speak, a whir of creatures surrounded me.

At first I thought them hummingbirds or large dragonflies. One hung poised before my eyes in a flutter of metallic skin and isinglass wings. Delicate gears spun in the wrist of a pinioned hand holding a needle-sharp sword. Desiree had created another marvel, bee-winged, glittering like tinsel. Who would have dreamed such things, let alone made them real? Only Desiree.

Mary chattered, “They’re hers. They won’t harm ye. Only burglars and the like.”

Cat Rambo lives, writes, and teaches by the shores of an eagle-haunted lake in the Pacific Northwest. Her 150-plus fiction publications include stories in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld Magazine, and Tor.com. Her short story “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain,” from her story collection Near + Far (Hydra House Books), was a 2012 Nebula nominee. Her editorship of Fantasy Magazine earned her a World Fantasy Award nomination in 2012. She is the current vicepresident of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers or America. For more about her, as well as links to her fiction, see kittywumpus.net.

Flash Fiction: “When Robot Mermaids Attack” by Oliver Buckram

When robot mermaids attack, you should flee. Go inland.

When robot mermaids attack, don’t pause to wonder why they’re attacking. Don’t stand on the beach gawking, orange Popsicle melting in your hand, as the ocean roils with metal fins. Don’t ask who made the robot mermaids and why do they have stainless steel fangs and why are they decapitating that lifeguard? Just run.

Oliver Buckram, Ph.D., lives in the Boston area where (under an assumed name) he teaches social science to undergraduates. His work has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Interzone, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF), among other places.

Find out more about him at oliverbuckram.com.

About the Narrators:

Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head. he looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. he currently resides in Houston, Texas, but hastens to add that it was not his idea. He can be found on Google Plus.

Chris Mack is an enigmatic actor, voice artist, acting coach, father, and a New Yorker-turned-Parisienne. His credits include the animated feature Persepolis and the best-selling videogame Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. Find out more at chrismack.net.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 47 Stephanie Campisi and Barbara A. Barnett

Tue, 10 Mar 2015 08:00:11 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Dream Logic” by Barbara A. Barnett

Keith touches a hand to his nose, and I’m not sure what surprises him more: the blood my left hook drew, or the fact that his boxing gloves have suddenly disappeared.

“How did you–“

I slug Keith again. Keith doesn’t get dream logic, which is why he shouldn’t be narco-boxing. But it’s the latest fad so he just has to get on board with it, a badge of cool to add to his generically perfect looks and the girlfriend he cheats on and that big fat promotion because he’s got leadership potential, while I’m just bossy and shrill.

Barbara A. Barnett is a writer, musician, librarian, Odyssey Writing Workshop alum, coffee addict, wine lover, bad movie mocker, and all-around geek. Her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Intergalactic Medicine Show, Shimmer, Daily Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Online, Fantasy Magazine, Black Static, and Wilde Stories 2011: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction. Barbara lives with her husband in southern New Jersey and has been known to frequently burst into song.

You can find her online at www.babarnett.com, or babbling as a member of the Star-Dusted Sirens writing group at stardustedsirens.wordpress.com.

Main Story: “The Title of This Story” by Stephanie Campisi

In Downtown, between the hypodermic fringes of Sitter Park, where the junkies walk a prickly carpet of needle-tipped glass and crumpled foil, and the painful gloom of the domed Helltricks complex that pollutes the Skendgrotian skyline with its void reflective windows and vast wooden landing platforms, lay a sickle-shaped swathe of religion and spirituality, and similar things long-illicit. A trickle of residences and warehouses and gutted ex-churches, hammered together as one with irrationally-added cement facades, drooping and spiking in architectural curlicues and messes of starved ivy that drank the moisture from the porous walls.

Stephanie Campisi is an author of the strange and wondrous. Her short fiction and poetry has been published in magazines and anthologies worldwide. She tweets at @readinasitting and keeps a poetry journal at poetdeploriate.tumblr.com.

About the Narrators:

Gareth Stack is a writer and performer who creates comedy series and documentaries for Irish radio. He has been published in Analogue Music Magazine, This Is Not Where I Belong, In Transit, Piranha! Magazine, Explore Magazine, Blue Ireland, and Albedo One. You can find him on the web at garethstack.com, and on twitter @Garethstack.

Tim Maroney has an endless fascination with ideas, and invention; the things that keep life spicy and interesting! He believes everyone’s got a tale to tell and enjoys “Talking Story!”. He enjoys playing music, mostly on guitar. He’s even been the opening act for a ten-band rock concert. Learning new things, like podcasting, excites him. He’s been on four of the seven continents and has seen some of the wonders of our Earth. While in the Navy he earned the rare and coveted dual Snake Plisskin Award: He escaped from New York and LA, same as Snake (though these were two of the five submarines he served on). Not too bad for a guy from a small town in North-Central Florida!

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Far Fetched Fables No. 46 Laurel Winter and Jacqueline Carey

Tue, 03 Mar 2015 08:00:59 GMT

First Story: “Infinity Syrup” by Laurel Winter

Fay was Zen shopping, something she had learned when she worked swing shift in card assembly at IBM. The effort of plugging six components into the right holes on four hundred cards had always left her too tired to think.

Too tired to think, but too wired to sleep. So she usually stopped at a twenty-four-hour grocery on her way home and let her hands do the shopping for her. Hands reaching mindlessly, plucking items off the shelves. And she was always surprised to find — when she got home and unpacked the paper bags — that she had exactly what she needed.

Odd combinations, perhaps. Who would have paired avocado and Kashi, kippered herring and strawberries? But the four basic food groups were always represented. No unappealing leftovers, tastebuds tantalized in wonderful ways.

And so, even when she worked her way from swing shift to first and from manufacturing to management, she still practiced Zen shopping. Like now. Totally absorbed in the moment.

Laurel Winter grew up in the mountains of Montana and attended a one-room country grade school with 12 to 25 students in grades 1 through 8. She then went 30 miles one way on the bus to Absarokee High School, where there were 33 in her graduating class. Since then she’s acquired an eclectic education, including credits in English, physics, and psychology from Montana State and numerous writing and art classes. A number of high school literature textbooks contain “egg horror poem” and she’s hoping her novel Growing Wings gets a baby sister this year. Her current passion is playing poker. Her first novel, Growing WIngs, was a finalist for the Mythopoeic Award for children’s fantasy and she’s won back-to-back Rhysling and Asimov’s Readers’ Poll Awards for best poem, a World Fantasy Award for best Novella (“Sky Eyes”), and the 2003 McKnight Artist Fellowship for children’s fiction.

Second Story: “The Isle of Women” by Jacqueline Carey

We are nameless in the stories told by men.

Even the Lady, my gracious Lady, who wore her beauty as lightly as a garment of the finest-combed wool, on whose shoulders the mysteries perched like twin doves. It is no wonder they hailed her as Queen, although it was not what she was. For that, there is no word. Lady, we called her. But she had a name, too, although it was seldom spoken aloud. In the stories they told afterward, none of us have names.

I saw them first, from the ramparts. I saw their hide-bound curragh riding the green swell of the waves, a curragh so vast it might have been a small whale, making its way to our shores. Truly, it was a mighty vessel to hold such men; seventeen, bold and fearless, and boldest of all was their leader, Máel Dúin.

Jacqueline Carey is the bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Kushiel’s Legacy series of historical fantasy novels and The Sundering epic fantasy duology.

An avid reader, Jacqueline began writing fiction as a hobby in high school. After receiving B.A. degrees in psychology and English literature from Lake Forest College, she took part in a work exchange program and spent six months working in a bookstore in London. While living abroad, the desire to write professionally emerged as a driving passion. Upon returning she embarked in earnest on a writing career, which came to fruition a decade later. During this time she worked at the art center of an area college, gaining a strong background in the visual arts. Jacqueline enjoys doing research on a wide variety of arcane topics, and an affinity for travel has taken her from Finland to Egypt to date.

She currently lives in west Michigan, where she is a member of the oldest Mardi Gras krewe in the state. Although often asked by inquiring fans, she does not, in fact, have any tattoos.

You can find out more about her at jacquelinecarey.com.

About the Narrators:

Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements.  She also hosts this podcast…

Sarah Frederickson was born in Oregon in the United States, and was raised in beautiful Minnesota. At a young age she realized her passion for musical performance and the creative arts. Sarah spent most of her childhood singing and acting – both onstage and off – and affecting various accents for fun.

She soon found herself competing in local, state and national forensics competitions (that’s competitive speaking). Her experience and awards landed her a forensics scholarship to Bethel University in St.Paul Minnesota, where she continued to compete as well as train other speakers at the collegiate level. Sarah graduated with a degree in Music business and Audio Production. Shortly after graduation she traveled to Australia for a one-year holiday. During that time she became smitten with an Australian man who asked her to stay, and four years later the couple live and work in Australia, going on adventures, writing music and reading stories to their cat.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 45 Cory Skerry and Anna Ilona Mussmann

Tue, 24 Feb 2015 08:00:52 GMT

Flash Fiction: “The Hum of Refuge” by Anna Ilona Mussmann

On her couch in an apartment at the top of a building that used to be a lingerie factory, Skye Hindley tried to capture the soul of nature. She wrote, sketched in charcoal and once (in a black fit) crafted faerie dolls. She had not found her niche. A loser boyfriend told her that she didn’t have the artistic vision of a walrus, but that was during their break-up, after she said his novel must have been written by a drunken redneck.

Anna Ilona Mussmann loves folktales, Jane Austen, the Oxford comma, and dark chocolate. She blogs at annailonamussmann.blogspot.com.

Main Story: “Sinking Among the Lilies” by Cory Skerry

I studied the village of Keyward from the packed gravel by the water. Judging by the skulls roped to the pylons in the estuary, the people here knew how to take care of themselves. But even if there was no fight to be had, perhaps the townsfolk would be interested in the one and only book I had to sell.

I peered at one of the skulls as I passed. It had been there long enough to have lost the lower jaw and most of the teeth; mussels the size of my thumbnails had attached themselves to the sides like bristling purple sideburns.

Cory Skerry lives in a hundred-year-old house with a menagerie that includes a bonafide dragon. He spends his time painting what he shouldn’t, writing about impossible things, and metaphorically treasure hunting. When he dies, he would like science to put his brain into a giant octopus body, with which he promises to be very responsible and not even slightly shipwrecky. Pinky swear.

More of his nonsense can be found at plunderpuss.net/skerry.

About the Narrators:

Heidi Hotz is not just another voice. She’s a voiceover artists with a range of personalities that varies from mom to the business corporate, to the friendly girl next door. She has been in the industry for more than 10 years, and has worked on TV commercials, radio, documentaries, audio fiction, and narration in general.

You can find her online at LinkedIn.

Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head. He looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. He currently resides in Houston, Texas, but hastens to add that it was not his idea. He can be found on Google Plus.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 44 John D. Brown and M. Bennardo

Tue, 17 Feb 2015 08:00:20 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Older, Wiser, Time Traveler” by M. Bennardo

First off, step one — commit a crime of passion.

You shouldn’t plan this, obviously. In fact, you can’t plan this. The defining characteristic of a crime of passion is precisely that it’s unplanned. Oh sure, there are tendencies. There are indications. A crime of passion doesn’t have to be a surprise–it just has to be unplanned.

In addition to Daily Science Fiction, M. Bennardo’s stories have also appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and others. He is co-editor of the Machine of Death series of anthologies. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio, but people anywhere can find him online at www.mbennardo.com.

Main Story: “Loose in the Wires” by John D. Brown

John D. Brown is an award-winning novelist and short story writer. He currently lives with his wife and four daughters in the hinterlands of Utah where one encounters much fresh air, many good-hearted ranchers, and the occasional wolf.

You can find him online at www.johndbrown.com.

About the Narrators:

Rish Outfield is a writer, actor, and podcaster that can be heard as host of The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, which presents genre stories with a full cast. He also performs audiobooks for Audible, and occasionally becomes a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms, and the moon is full and bright.

Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake, the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman, and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV. His current project Interference, a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook… that kills, is available free on iTunes and at Quillhammer.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 43 Pamela Sargent

Tue, 10 Feb 2015 08:00:43 GMT

Story: “Spirit Brother” by Pamela Sargent

The flat land below him was white, the color of purity and luck. Jamukha flew in the form of an eagle, feeling the wind under his wings. The steppe and mountains had also been covered by snow on the day he had first met Temujin, the companion and comrade in arms who had later become his greatest enemy.

But all of that had happened when he was a boy, years ago, in the world of the living.

Pamela Sargent has won the Nebula and Locus Awards and was honored in 2012 with the Science Fiction Research Association’s Pilgrim Award, given for lifetime contributions to science fiction and fantasy scholarship. Her many novels include Venus of Dreams, The Shore of Women, The Golden Space, The Sudden Star, and The Alien Upstairs.

About Ruler of the Sky, Sargent’s historical novel of Genghis Khan, told largely from the points of view of women, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has commented: “Scholarly without ever seeming pedantic, the book is fascinating from cover to cover and does admirable justice to a man who might very well be called history’s single most important character.” The Washington Post has called Sargent “one of the genre’s best writers,” and Michael Moorcock has said of her work: “If you have not read Pamela Sargent, then you should make it your business to do so at once. She is in many ways a pioneer, both as a novelist and as a short story writer. . . . She is one of the best.”

Sargent is the editor of the Women of Wonder anthologies, the first collections of science fiction by women. Her novel Climb the Wind, set in the United States after the Civil War, was a finalist for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and her novel Earthseed has been optioned by Paramount Pictures. Melissa Rosenberg, the scriptwriter for all five Twilight films, is set to write and produce the movie through her company Tall Girls Productions.

Her next novel, Season of the Cats, will be published in 2015 by Wildside Press.

Her personal website is www.pamelasargent.com.

Visit her Open Road Media page at www.openroadmedia.com/pamela-sargent

her SF Gateway page at www.sfgateway.com/authors/s/sargent-pamela/

and her page at Tor/Macmillan at us.macmillan.com/author/pamelasargent

About the Narrator:

Pete Nixon is a full-time programmer and full-time student. He is the editor and producer for Green Eggs and Horror, a Dr. Seuss-inspired short story anthology. He narrates and writes in his spare time, because he doesn’t believe in normal hobbies.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 42 Alex Shvartsman and Lydia Millet

Tue, 03 Feb 2015 08:00:09 GMT

First Story: “Requiem for a Druid” by Alex Shvartsman

My job that morning was to banish a demon, but I was determined to finish my cup of coffee first.

I sipped my java in front of Demetrios’ warehouse in Sunset Park, enjoying the panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline and the New York harbor. Next to me, Demetrios was shaking like a leaf.

“What in the world are you thinking, Conrad?” Demetrios spoke in his typical rapid­fire fashion. “You’re just going to go in there, alone, to face this infernal thing? Without any help or backup from others at the Watch? Without even a priest? This is all kinds of crazy.”

“I can handle it.” I said, trying to project casual confidence. “You did ask for this to be resolved quickly, and it’s not like I haven’t dealt with an occasional demon before.”

Alex Shvartsman is a writer and game designer from Brooklyn, NY. More than 60 of his short stories have appeared in Nature, InterGalactic Medicine Show, Galaxy’s Edge, Daily Science Fiction, and many other venues. He’s the winner of the 2014 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction. He edits Unidentified Funny Objects, an annual anthology of humorous SF/F. His short story collection, Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma, was released on February 1st and is available at amazon.com. It appears on FFF courtesy of Alex, editors Kate Bernheimer and Carmen Giménez Smith, and publisher Penguin Books.

You can find him online at alexshvartsman.com.

Second Story: “Snow White, Rose Red” by Lydia Millet

I met the girls and instantly liked the girls. Of course I liked the girls. A girl is better than a feast.

This was before the arrest, before the indictment and the media stories.

The girls were sisters, as you may know, and lived, during the summer, in one of those upstate mansions built by the robber barons who made their fortunes off railroads and steel and unfair business practices. It was in the Lower Peaks of the Adirondacks—the southern part with glassy lakes and green slopes and white-spotted fawns. The girls, who were innocent in the glut of their wealth because they’d never known anything else, called their summer house “the cottage” to distinguish it from “the apartment,” which was a ten-thousand-square-foot penthouse on Fifth Avenue near Washington Square Park.

Their father was in real estate, but no one ever saw him. Correction: from time to time we caught sight of him briefly, the girls and I, getting in or out of a long gleaming car. Once, from the woods, I spotted him walking down to the dock in a pale-gray suit, his phone held to his ear.

He looked like a groom doll on a wedding cake. I wanted to tear his legs off.

Lydia Millet is the author of 13 works of fiction, most recently Mermaids in Paradise (2014), a satire about a couple honeymooning in the Caribbean who discover strange creatures in a coral reef. Her previous books include the novel Magnificence (2012), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle and Los Angeles Times book awards; My Happy Life (2002), which won the PEN-USA fiction award; and a story collection called Love in Infant Monkeys that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She lives in the Arizona desert and works at the Center for Biological Diversity.

You can find her online at www.lydiamillet.net.

About the Narrators:

Mark “the Encaffeinated One” Kilfoil loves fiction, so much so that he’s written some (such as the Parsec-nominated Tainted Roses), read quite a lot (a library of over a thousand half-read books and growing), and now narrates it (sometimes actually recorded for others). He’s found that volunteering for a dozen years in radio was a decent way to get a full-time job as a Program Director at a community radio station in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, but not such a great way to finish his thesis, so he stopped at a Masters in Computer Science. He can be heard frequently on CHSRfm.ca, and two of his shows regularly appear as podcasts, and can be found at encaffeinated.ca and theweirdshow.com. He likes cats enough to pet them but not enough to own one, and computers enough to own several but pet none of them. He will someday write a million words, but at this rate, that will require life extension, so he eagerly awaits the ability to upload into a computer, if that hasn’t already happened and this is all only a simulation.

James Silverstein s a budding author and role-playing game designer, with credits from the 7th Sea and Stargate RPG lines. He’s working on the upcoming ‘Cairn’ RPG, as well as a series of stories about a 1940s private eye in a city of the undead. James feels that there are always more amazing stories that need to be told, and he writes, narrates, and runs games to share them with the world. He loves speculative fiction, noir detective tales, and pulp fantasy, and is honored to be a returning reader in the District of Wonders.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 41 Rhys Hughes, Paul Collins, and Richard Harland

Tue, 27 Jan 2015 08:00:08 GMT

First Story: “Castor on Troubled Waters” by Rhys Hughes

He’s almost fifty years of age, Castor Jenkins is, which for a stereotypical Welshman must be reckoned venerable, if not ancient. Not that he takes kindly to being considered a stereotype. He likes to point out that real Welshmen don’t live exclusively on a diet of beer and chips, nor do they avoid exercise, work and responsibility every waking minute of the day; the fact he does those things is a mark of his uniqueness and it’s just a coincidence that the cliché and his individualism are the same.

Rhys Hughes was born in 1966 and began writing from an early age. His first short story was published in 1991 and his first book, the now legendary *Worming the Harpy*, followed four years later. Since then he has published more than thirty books and his work has been translated into ten languages and he is currently one of the most prolific and successful authors in Wales. Mostly known for absurdist works, his range in fact encompasses styles as diverse as gothic, experimental, science fiction, magic realism, fantasy and realism. His main ambition is to complete a grand sequence of exactly one thousand linked short stories, a project he has been working on for more than two decades. Each story is a standalone piece as well as a cog in the grand machine. He is finally three-quarters of the way through this opus.

His blog can be found at rhysaurus.blogspot.co.uk.

Second Story: “Lure” by Paul Collins

The metaverse had become a minefield.

The dossier in my hands made me want to puke. I popped a dozen ‘ludes’, the kind that fool you into thinking everything’s okay. The main question before me was whether or not it’s permissible by law to kill an avatar ─ a digital manifestation ─ and if not, can perpetrators be tried for murder.

Paul Collins has written more than 140 books and 140 short stories. He is best known for The Quentaris Chronicles (The Spell of Undoing is book #1 in the new series), which he co-edits with Michael Pryor; The Jelindel Chronicles; The Earthborn Wars; and The World of Grrym trilogy in collaboration with Danny Willis. Paul’s latest series is The Warlock’s Child in collaboration with Sean McMullen. (The Burning Sea is book #1.) He is also the publisher at Ford Street Publishing.
Paul has been short-listed for many awards and won the Aurealis, William Atheling, and the inaugural Peter McNamara awards. He received the A Bertram Chandler Award for lifetime achievement in Australian science fiction.

He has black belts in both ju jitsu and taekwondo – this experience can be seen in The Jelindel Chronicles and The Maximus Black Files.

He can be found online at www.paulcollins.com.au, www.quentaris.com, and www.fordstreetpublishing.com.

Third Story: “A Guided Tour in the Kingdom of the Dead” by Richard Harland

‘The things I have seen!’ he croaked ‘You must hear everything, everything.’

He went off into a fit of coughing, as dry as sandpaper. In the short time I knew him, Gordon Sturman could never utter more than a few sentences without that cough rising up in his throat. Yet he was desperate to tell his experiences to an English-speaking listener. I think he expected me to envy his tourist marvels.

Richard Harland lives south of Sydney near Wollongong, between green escarpment and golden beaches, with wife Aileen and cat Habibi. He migrated to Australia at the age of 22, played folk-rock music around Sydney, lectured for ten years in English at the  University of Wollongong, then finally fulfilled his oldest dream in 1997 and became a full-time author of speculative fiction. His seventeen novels have ranged across adult, YA and children’s, and across fantasy, SF, horror and steampunk. He achieved international success with his steampunk fantasy Worldshaker (2009-10), followed by the sequel Liberator. His latest novel, Song of the Slums, is a gaslight romance variant of steampunk, and is based on an  alternate history premise “What if they’d invented rock ‘n’ roll way back in the middle of the Victorian Age?”.

Richard’s short stories have appeared in anthologies and magazines in Australia, US, Canada, and France. His story “A Guided Tour in the Kingdom of the Dead” was published in Jack Dann’s Dreaming Again anthology and re-published in David G. Hartwell’s Year’s Best Fantasy #9 from Tor (US). Richard has collected six Aurealis Awards for novels and short stories, the A. Bertram Chandler Award in Australia, and the prestigious Tam-Tam Je Bouquine award in France.

His author website is at www.richardharland.net. He has also put up free 145-page guide to writing speculative fiction at www.writingtips.com.au.

About the Narrators:

Alex Weinle (@alexweinle) writes short fiction for magazines and podcasts. His anthology of shock-comedic-tragic stories, The Decapaphiliac, is available now and his science fiction novel Border is currently in editing. A long-time Sofanaut, he has finally got up the courage to narrate. He lives in Fulbourn, England, in a cottage that consumes bulbs of unusual wattage.

With a background in theater and an English degree that didn’t lead to teaching or full-time novel writing, Kim Mintz turned to the persuasive arts known as sales and heard multiple clients say: “You have a great voice. I would listen to you all day!” Finally, she decided to marry these skills together and enter the world of professional voice acting. Employing a wide range of voices and expressions in commercial and narrative work, she contributed to the financial, travel, and health insurance industries, utilizing clear, direct articulation. She is currently expanding her repertoire with audio book passages by exhibiting a range of emotions, including warm, sultry, cheerful, sarcastic, and many others. She is also working on scripts with her writing partner for animated projects to which she hopes to give a voice.

For more information, please visit her website at kimmintzvoiceactor.com.

Josh Roseman (not the trombonist; the other one) lives in Georgia (the state, not the country). His writing has appeared in Asimov’s, Escape Pod, and the Crossed Genres anthology Fat Girl in a Strange Land. His fiction has been reprinted by the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine and StarShipSofa, and his voice has been heard on two Escape Artists and all five District of Wonders podcasts. He is a 2013 graduate of the Taos Toolbox writing workshop. When not writing, he mostly complains about the fact that he’s not writing.

Find Josh online at roseplusman.com, or on twitter @listener42.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 40 Tim Lebbon

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 08:00:33 GMT

This week’s story: “Forever” by Tim Lebbon

On Dana’Man the cold bit hard, ice informed thought, frost froze dreams of freedom, and duty and supplication were the way. On Dana’Man there was preparation for a war long in coming, with no sign of its beginning yet in sight. On Dana’Man – island of the damned, natural home only to glaciers and snow demons and the ice people – life was hard, but death was harder. The mages needed every man and woman for their army; death was unpardonable.

Tim Lebbon is a New York Times-bestselling horror and fantasy writer from South Wales. He’s had over thirty novels published to date, as well as dozens of novellas and hundreds of short stories. His most recent releases include the apocalyptic Coldbrook (a Publishers Weekly Book of the Year), Alien: Out of the Shadows, Into the Void: Dawn of the Jedi (Star Wars), and the Toxic City trilogy from Pyr in the USA. Future novels include The Silence (Titan UK/USA), the Relics trilogy also from Titan, and the thriller The Hunt. He has won four British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Scribe Award, and has been a finalist for World Fantasy, International Horror Guild and Shirley Jackson Awards.

About the Narrator:

Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head. He looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. He currently resides in Houston, Texas, but hastens to add that it was not his idea. He can be found on Google Plus.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 39 A.M. Dellamonica and Meghan McCarron

Tue, 13 Jan 2015 08:00:51 GMT

First Story: “The Dream Eaters” by A.M. Dellamonica

Mo Cottonsmith had just turned sixteen when she started Lopside Fashions, with cash she stole from a neighborhood fizz dealer. The money wasn’t enough to sustain a business, but Mo counted on getting lucky. She believed in making her own luck, too: thanks to a roving copcam, her first creation just happened to debut on all the morning news shows.

The dress was daffodil yellow with simulated dewdrops on the bodice and a chainmail hoop skirt. Mo’s pal Juanita Jones was modeling, and the footage showed her fighting off a couple of deviants.

A.M. Dellamonica has recently moved to Toronto, Canada, after 22 years in Vancouver. In addition to writing, she studies yoga and takes thousands of digital photographs. She is a graduate of Clarion West and teaches writing through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

Dellamonica’s first novel, Indigo Springs, won the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. Her most recent book, Child of a Hidden Sea, was released by Tor Books in the summer of 2014. She is the author of more than thirty short stories in a variety of genres; they can be found on Tor.com, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and in numerous print magazines and anthologies.

Her website is at alyxdellamonica.com.

Second Story: “The Flying Woman” by Meghan McCarron

The flying woman is just a little bit glamorous. I don’t know if the flying came before the glamour or vice versa, but her beauty is airy, and her flying has style. In this picture, she wears her hair long and wavy. Her nose flips up at the end, like a ski jump, and her skin is ruddy from the wind. She’s a more beautiful woman than I am. I don’t mind. If the image were a daguerreotype, she would seem mysterious. If it were a bust, she would seem noble. If it were a holy card, she would be a saint. But the image is a photograph on my wall, and when people see it, they all say, Who is that? She looks so far away.

Meghan McCarron’s writing has recently appeared in The Collagist, The Toast, and Gigantic Worlds, and her short fiction has been a finalist for the Nebula and World Fantasy awards. A food and restaurant obsessive, she is the editor of Eater Austin.

You can find her online at meghanmccarron.com and also on Twitter.

About the Narrators:

Heidi Hotz is not just another voice. She’s a voiceover artists with a range of personalities that varies from mom to the business corporate, to the friendly girl next door. She has been in the industry for more than 10 years, and has worked on TV commercials, radio, documentaries, audio fiction, and narration in general.

You can find her online at LinkedIn.

Sarah Frederickson was born in Oregon in the United States, and was raised in beautiful Minnesota. At a young age she realized her passion for musical performance and the creative arts. Sarah spent most of her childhood singing and acting — both onstage and off — and affecting various accents for fun.

She soon found herself competing in local, state and national forensics competitions (that’s competitive speaking). Her experience and awards landed her a forensics scholarship to Bethel University in St. Paul Minnesota, where she continued to compete as well as train other speakers at the collegiate level. Sarah graduated with a degree in Music Business and Audio Production. Shortly after graduation she traveled to Australia for a one-year holiday. During that time she became smitten with an Australian man who asked her to stay, and four years later the couple live and work in Australia, going on adventures, writing music and reading stories to their cat.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 38 Hayley E. Lavik and Suzan Harden

Tue, 06 Jan 2015 08:00:25 GMT

Flash Fiction: “Fool’s Fire” by Hayley E. Lavik

It’s the cold mud that wakes me, and the taste of duckweed in my throat. In my mouth, my nose, my ears. It fills my lungs, creeps behind my eyes. I burst through the slime with a half-formed scream.

I retch until I feel empty, hollow, withered. Stagger to my feet, knee-high in the sticking black mire. The mud keeps oozing from my eyes. Fetid bog slime on my arms, my breasts, my mother’s finest dress. Torn bodice, rent seams in starlight. Embroidered with weed, black mud in a putrid train behind me. But where is he?

Hayley E. Lavik writes fantasy novels and short fiction, most likely involving swords, things with teeth, and women who get shit done. She lives in rainy Vancouver, BC.

You can find her at www.hayleyelavik.com and also on Twitter.

Main Fiction: “Justice” by Suzan Harden

The tinkling bells that lined her cloak announced the girl’s presence as I ate my breakfast. “Justice Anthea, may I speak with you privately?”

Most Orrin inns were incredibly noisy, but the crowd here grew even more boisterous. It wasn’t often a priestess of Love addressed a priestess of Balance in a public business. Not that I could tell if her cloak was the appropriate red silk. At least, not the way most people saw the color. But the clientele went out of their way to speak loudly and ignore us.

The dry musk of pigs underlaid her expensive perfume. I spooned the last bit of eggs into my mouth. Even if her odor hadn’t given her away, she didn’t bother to sit or give her name as an equal should.

Maybe she was too cocky about her deception. Or she was too frightened.

Suzan Harden grew up on a working farm in Ohio Amish country, though she’s not Amish. Mucking out pig stalls gives a girl lots of time to make up stories. She currently lives in southeastern Texas with a husband who believes writing is a practical career option, a kid who thinks she’s too enamored with zombies, and a beagle who wants his belly scratched.

You can find her online at www.SuzanHarden.com

About the Narrators:

Sarah Frederickson was born in Oregon in the United States, and was raised in beautiful Minnesota. At a young age she realized her passion for musical performance and the creative arts. Sarah spent most of her childhood singing and acting — both onstage and off — and affecting various accents for fun.

She soon found herself competing in local, state and national forensics competitions (that’s competitive speaking). Her experience and awards landed her a forensics scholarship to Bethel University in St. Paul Minnesota, where she continued to compete as well as train other speakers at the collegiate level. Sarah graduated with a degree in Music Business and Audio Production. Shortly after graduation she traveled to Australia for a one-year holiday. During that time she became smitten with an Australian man who asked her to stay, and four years later the couple live and work in Australia, going on adventures, writing music and reading stories to their cat.

Deanna Sanchez is a voice over talent and actress, performing professionally for 14 years. She has voiced various commercials, industrials, and characters, and specializes in the “sexy voice” of powerful female roles. An avid fan of science fiction since her grandfather gave her a copy of Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky when she was 9, she feels greatly privileged to help bring this story to life.

While pursuing a voice talent and acting career, Deanna also consults in Geographical Information Systems and develops custom mapping applications for real estate and other industries. Her background in IT management does not prevent her from owning multiple old computers, some with Windows 98 still running. Three-dimensional visualization of spatial data is a favorite pastime, and she has spent many hours translating real-Earth elevation data into unique 3D worlds. Deanna’s voice over demo can be heard at the Lambert Studios website, an outstanding full service recording studio.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 37 Scott Lynch

Tue, 30 Dec 2014 08:00:56 GMT

First Story: “The Effigy Engine: A Tale of the Red Hats” by Scott Lynch

“I took up the study of magic because I wanted to live in the beauty of transfinite mathematical truths,” said Rumstandel. He gestured curtly. In the canyon below us, an enemy soldier shuddered, clutched at his throat, and began vomiting live snakes.

“If my indifference were money you’d be the master of my own personal mint,” I muttered. Of course Rumstandel heard me despite the pop, crackle, and roar of musketry echoing around the walls of the pass. There was sorcery at play between us to carry our voices, so we could bitch and digress and annoy ourselves like a pair of inebriates trading commentary in a theater balcony.

Scott Lynch is best known for the Gentleman Bastard sequence of novels, comprising The Lies of Locke Lamora and its sequels. Scott is a World Fantasy Award nominee and the winner of the 2008 Sydney J. Bounds Best Newcomer award from the British Fantasy Society. He lives in the middle north of the United States, where he has also been a volunteer firefighter since 2005. “The Effigy Engine: A Tale of the Red Hats” was first published in the 2013 anthology Fearsome Journeys, edited by Jonathan Strahan.

He exists online at www.scottlynch.com.

About the Narrator:

Mark Nelson has been recording audiobooks since 2006, starting as a Librivox volunteer and later for such producers as Audible, Audible Frontiers, Hachette, Wonderaudio, and Iambik. Recording as Mark Nelson and as “Harry Shaw”, he’s narrated more than 50 commercial audiobooks, including classics, horror, mysteries, and contemporary and classic science fiction. He still regularly contributes to Librivox, which he credits for getting him out of Human Resources and into something useful.

His website is markdouglasnelson.com

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Far Fetched Fables No. 36 Steve Berman and Terry Dowling

Tue, 23 Dec 2014 08:00:02 GMT

First Story: “The Price of Glamour” by Steve Berman

London, 1844

Tup Smatterpit sat on the back of a chestnut seller’s cart, his back warm from resting against the stove. Tup had sprinkled a pinch of powdered glamour over himself, and the old coster driving the wagon believed him to be one of the countless children that roamed Covent Garden’s marketplace, rather than one of the Folk. As the donkey slowly pulled the cart through the crowd, the gentle sway and the constant tick-tocking of his waistcoat was lulling Tup to sleep.

Steve Berman is the author of nearly a hundred published essays and short stories. His newest collection, Red Caps, features a sequel to “The Price of Glamour”. He lives in southern New Jersey, the only state that has an official devil.

You can find him online at SteveBerman.com.

Second Story: “The Magikkers” by Terry Dowling

Twice upon a time there was someone named Samuel Raven Pardieu. The first to bear the name was a nineteenth century blacksmith who tried his hand as a toother during the Napoleonic War. In the morning following the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, while collecting teeth from the newly killed to sell to dentists in the big cities, he was spotted by an English patrol and shot as a looter.

Terry Dowling is one of Australia’s most respected and internationally acclaimed writers of science fiction, dark fantasy and horror, and author of the multi-award-winning Tom Rynosseros saga. He has been called “Australia’s finest writer of horror” by Locus magazine, its “premier writer of dark fantasy” by All Hallows and its “most acclaimed writer of the dark fantastic” by Cemetery Dance magazine. The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror series featured more horror stories by Terry in its 21-year run than by any other writer.

The award-winning US genre newspaper Locus calls him a “highly original” writer, “the most noted prose stylist in Australian speculative fiction” and regards his work as placing him “among the masters of the field.”

Dowling’s award-winning horror collections are Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear (International Horror Guild Award winner for Best Collection 2007), regarded as “one of the best recent collections of contemporary horror” by the American Library Association; An Intimate Knowledge of the Night (Aphelion 1995) and the World Fantasy Award-nominated Blackwater Days (Eidolon 2000). His most recent titles are Amberjack: Tales of Fear & Wonder (Subterranean 2010) and his debut novel Clowns at Midnight (PS Publishing 2010), which the Guardian called “an exceptional work that bears comparison to John Fowles’s The Magus.”

Dowling has written three computer adventures (Schizm: Mysterious Journey, Schizm II: Chameleon, and Sentinel: Descendants in Time), and co-edited The Essential Ellison and The Jack Vance Treasury among many other titles. He lives in Sydney, Australia.

His homepage can be found at TerryDowling.com.

About the Narrators:

Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake, the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman, and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV. His current project Interference, a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook… that kills, is available free on iTunes and at Quillhammer.com.

Graeme Dunlop is a software solution architect and voice actor living in Melbourne Australia. He is the sound producer for the horror podcast Pseudopod, and used to host the YA podcast Cast of Wonders. You can find him on Google+ and he occasionally tweets as @kibitzer on Twitter.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 35 Marc Laidlaw

Tue, 16 Dec 2014 08:00:47 GMT

“Childrun” by Marc Laidlaw

The first thing Gorlen heard, as he mounted toward the walled village at the top of the rise, was the sound of children, their voices tumbling down the rutted track to greet him long before he saw a single villager. This meant his first sight of the pinched grey roofpeaks and ochre chimneyspikes above the wall came accompanied by the peculiar mix of dread and longing that he always felt at the sound of children playing. Were they laughing in delight or screaming in terror? It was an old question, and in the first and most memorable instance — when the correct answer had actually mattered — he had guessed wrong. He had lived with that mistake ever since.

These days, Marc Laidlaw is mainly known as the writer of the Half-Life videogame series, but early in his career he wrote a handful of novels and many short stories of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. For several decades he has also been telling the occasional, episodic tale of Gorlen, the bard with the gargoyle hand. “Childrun” is the third of them.

He can be found online at marclaidlaw.com

Narrator:

Larry Oliver is a professional voice artist who enjoys reading, hiking, yoga, Zumba, and cooking. He has narrated several audio books available on audible, Amazon, and iTunes, as well as documentary films, commercials, corporate training videos, and much more.

You can find him at LarryOliverVoiceover.com

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Far Fetched Fables No. 34 Karen Joy Fowler and Greg Van Eekhout

Tue, 09 Dec 2014 06:20:08 GMT

First Story: 

“The Last Worders” by Karen Joy Fowler

Charlotta was asleep in the dining car when the train arrived in San Margais. It was tempting to just leave her behind, and I tried to tell myself this wasn’t a mean thought, but came to me because I, myself, might want to be left like that, just for the adventure of it. I might want to wake up hours later and miles away, bewildered and alone. I am always on the lookout for those parts of my life that could be the first scene in a movie. Of course, you could start a movie anywhere, but you wouldn’t; that’s my point. And so this impulse had nothing to do with the way Charlotta had begun to get on my last nerve. That’s my

other point. If I thought being ditched would be sort of exciting, then so did Charlotta. We felt the same about everything.

Karen Joy Fowler is the author of six novels and three short story collections. The Jane Austen Book Club spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list and was a New York Times Notable Book. Fowler’s previous novel, Sister Noon, was a finalist for the 2001 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. Her debut novel, Sarah Canary, was a New York Times Notable Book, as was her second novel, The Sweetheart Season. In addition, Sarah Canary won the Commonwealth medal for best first novel by a Californian, and was listed for the Irish Times International Fiction Prize as well as the Bay Area Book Reviewers Prize. Fowler’s short story collection Black Glass won the World Fantasy Award in 1999, and her collection What I Didn’t See won the World Fantasy Award in 2011. Fowler and her husband, who have two grown children and five grandchildren, live in Santa Cruz, California.

She is the co-founder of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award and is the current president of the Clarion Foundation (also known as Clarion San Diego).

You can find her online here.

Second story:

“Tales from the City of Seams” by Greg Van Eekhout

In the hills above the city, among the ruins of the old zoo, the kids come to screw. They cage themselves inside the animal enclosures and kick away the cigarette butts and the crushed beer cans and the brittle snake-skin condoms, and then, with the city glittering below, they fill the hot-smog nights with their whispers.

They are not alone.

There is a sort of cave in the hillside behind the picnic grounds. It used to be the bear grotto, but over the decades, the cave has grown deeper. It goes far back,

now, and down. Over the grotto’s entrance hangs a sign that says something to the effect of Abandon hope, all ye who enter.

Greg van Eekhout writes fiction for adults and kids. His work includes the “California Bones” contemporary fantasy series,, starting with the novel, California Bones, and continuing in January with Pacific Fire. His other books are The Boy at the End of the World, Kid vs. Squid, and Norse Code. He lives in San Diego and actively trolls the beach for weird creatures.

You can find him online at Writing and Snacks and tweet him at @gregvaneekhout.

Narrators

Sarah Frederickson and Anthony Babington

Sarah was born in Oregon in the United States, and was raised in beautiful Minnesota. At a young age she realized her passion for musical performance and the creative arts. Sarah spent most of her childhood singing and acting — both onstage and off — and affecting various accents for fun.

She soon found herself competing in local, state and national forensics competitions (that’s competitive speaking). Her experience and awards landed her a forensics scholarship to Bethel University in St.Paul Minnesota, where she continued to compete as well as train other speakers at the collegiate level. Sarah graduated with a degree in Music business and Audio Production. Shortly after graduation she traveled to Australia for a one-year holiday. During that time she became smitten with an Australian man who asked her to stay, and four years later the couple live and work in Australia, going on adventures, writing music and reading stories to their cat.

Anthony is a voice in the internet’s head. He looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. He currently resides in Houston, Texas, but hastens to add that it was not his idea. He can be found on Google Plus.

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Far Fetched Fables No. 33 Dario Ciriello and Kim Wilkins

Wed, 03 Dec 2014 06:00:58 GMT

First Story: 

“America is Coming!” by Dario Ciriello

“Nice day for the end of the world. Any sign yet?”

Salvatore’s voice at his side startled Peppino. A few moments ago his friend had been flat on his back on the scrubby ground with his right hand curled around an empty wine bottle, snoring gently. Peppino shook his head.

The two friends watched as the rising sun beat a familiar copper path on the tranquil sea, spilling warmth over the world. Across the gulf, beyond the mountainous headland silhouetted in the rising sun’s glare, the deserted capital of Palermo held its breath and waited for the end of history.

America was coming!

Dario Ciriello is a professional author and editor whose nonfiction book Aegean Dream, the bittersweet memoir of a year spent on the small Greek island of Skopelos (the actual Mamma Mia! island), was a UK travel bestseller in 2012 and has recently been published in Poland. His first novel, Sutherland’s Rules, a thriller with a shimmer of the fantastic, was published in February 2013. A collection of Dario’s short Science Fiction works, Free Verse and Other Stories, was released in June 2014. He is currently working on his second novel, another thriller.

Dario has also edited several novels as well as three critically-acclaimed anthologies for Panverse Publishing LLC (www.panversepublishing.com), of which he is the Executive Editor. He lives with his wife in the Greater Los Angeles Area.

You can read an interview with Dario here, and find him on Facebook and Goodreads.

“America is Coming!” is available for Kindle here.

Second story:

“The Forest” by Kim Wilkins

My brother and I turned fifteen on the same day, but we are not twins.

His mother is my stepmother; his stepfather is my father. We were raised together from the age of seven. We squabbled over toys, mocked each other’s weaknesses, screamed red-faced that we hated each other in one moment and pored over comic books together the next. All this familiarity, however, was not proof against attraction.

My brother’s name is Hansel. On the day he turned fifteen, he was half-boy, half-man. He wore his hair long, and could almost be mistaken for a girl, except that his body had begun to change. His long limbs were becoming dense with muscle.

Kim Wilkins was born in London, and grew up by the seaside in Australia. She is the author of seven supernatural thriller novels for adults, five psychic crime stories for young adults, and five fantasy books for children. She has won Australia’s Aurealis Award four times, and has a PhD in writing. Her novels include The Infernal, Grimoire, The Resurrectionists, Angel of Ruin, and the Gina Champion Mystery series. Her most recent novels are Rosa and the Veil of Gold, Giants of the Frost, and The Autumn Castle.

Visit her official site Fantastic Thoughts.

Narrators

Todd Flatland and Nikolle Doolin

Todd is many things: A lover, a fighter, a comedian, an actor, an improviser, and a film critic. Telling stories is one of his favorite things, so narration naturally felt like a fun and challenging enterprise. He lives in Idaho, and has been married to his amazing wife Kristie for 9 years.

Nikolle writes fiction, poetry, and plays. Her work has appeared in the Wilderness House Literary Review, Tales to Terrify, 3:AM Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, Flashshot, and the literary anthology Wilderness House Literary Review – The Best of Volume 3. Additionally, her stage plays have been presented in festivals.
Nikolle is also a voice actor who has performed for various media. She produces a podcast called Audio Literature Odyssey in which she narrates classic literature by the likes of Austen, Poe, James, and more. Furthermore, Nikolle has performed contemporary narrations for Tales to Terrify, Crime City Central, and The NoSleep Podcast.
She projects herself online at NikolleDoolin.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No 32 L.E. Modesitt Jr. and Nancy Kress

Tue, 25 Nov 2014 08:00:32 GMT

First Story: 

“The Swan Pilot” by L.E Modesitt Jr.

I eased myself into the control couch of the ISS W.B. Yeats, making certain that all the connections were snug, and that there were no wrinkles in anything. Then I pressed the single stud that was manual, and the clamshell descended. You could call a trans-ship a corade or a cockle guided by will across the sea of endless space. You could, and it would be technically wrong. Technically wrong, but impressionalistically right, and certainly the way it feels when you’re alone in the blackness, balancing the harmonics and threading your way from the light matter and dark matter and faerie dust of overspace, guiding the ship and all it contains out from light and into darkness and then on to another minute isle of solid warmth once again. Or you could refuse to call it a ship at all, nor the ocean it sails a sea.

L.E. Modesitt, Jr., is the New York Times best-selling author of more than 65 fantasy and science fiction novels – including four fantasy series, especially the Saga of Recluce and The Imager Portfolio – a number of short stories, and numerous technical and economic articles. His novels have sold millions of copies in the U.S. and world-wide, and have been translated into German, Polish, Dutch, Czech, Russian, Bulgarian, French, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, and Swedish. His first story was published in Analog in 1973, and his most recent book – Heritage of Cyador – was just released. His next book, out next March, will be Madness in Solidar. Read more at www.LEModesittjr.com

Second story:

“The Stone Man” by Nancy Kress

JARED Stoffel never even saw the car that hit him. He ollied off the concrete steps of the Randolph Street Rec Center down onto the street and was coming down on his skateboard when wham! his butt was smacked hard enough to rattle his teeth and Jared went down. A second before the pain registered, he threw up his arms to shield his face. The Bird-house went flying—he saw it in the air, wheels spinning, a moment before his body hit the street. All at once he was smothered under a ton of stones he couldn’t breathe he was going to die and someone was screaming but it was mostly the rocks—God the boulders flying to land on top of him, un­der him, everywhere . . . Everything went black.

Nancy Kress is the author of thirty-three books, including twenty-six novels, four collections of short stories, and three books on writing. Her work has won five Nebulas, two Hugos, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Most recent work is YESTERDAY’S KIN, a short novel about a surprising about genetic inheritance (Tachyon, 2014). In addition to writing, Kress often teaches at various venues around the country and abroad; in 2008 she was the Picador visiting lecturer at the University of Leipzig. Kress lives in Seattle with her husband, writer Jack Skillingstead, and Cosette, the world’s most spoiled toy poodle. You can learn more at http://sff.net/people/nankress/

Narrators

Gareth Stack and Anthony Babington

Gareth is a writer and performer who creates comedy series and documentaries for Irish radio. He has been published in Analogue Music Magazine, This Is Not Where I Belong, In Transit, Piranha! Magazine, Explore Magazine, Blue Ireland and Albedo One. You can find him on the web at http://garethstack.com, and on twitter @Garethstack

Anthony is a voice in the internet’s head. He looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. He currently resides in Houston, Texas, but hastens to add that it was not his idea. He can be found on Google Plus.

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Far Fetched Fables No 31 Kim Westwood and Amanda Downum

Tue, 18 Nov 2014 08:00:44 GMT

First Story: 

“Nightship” by Kim Westwood

Here the linen smells of mice and the men of old boots. I lie beneath a slaughter of ferals, cushioned in my guilty comforts and waiting for this black-caulked hulk to sink; but it glides like death along the briny channels of a shrouded city half-submerged – a Grey Zone, neither sea nor shore.

Past my porthole other nightships slice the mist thickening on dank canals. Blunt-nosed, barnacled, they nudge from lock to lock, deals done and deliveries made under cover of perpetual fog.

Kim Westwood developed her distinctive visual prose style while working as a theatre performer and deviser. Darkly poetic, her stories have a preoccupation with humanity’s capacity for destruction and equal instinct for survival. Most are set in an alternative reality Australia. Of this she says: ‘My imagination has a chemical reaction to living on Terra Australis, and responds strongly to its particular properties.’ Kim won her first Aurealis Award in 2002 for her short story ‘The Oracle’. Since then her stories have been chosen for Year’s Best anthologies in Australia and the US, for ABC radio broadcast, and taken out the Judges’ Prize at the Scarlet Stiletto Women’s Crime Fiction Awards. She is the recipient of a prestigious Varuna Writers House Fellowship for her first novel, The Daughters of Moab (2008). Her second novel, The Courier’s New Bicycle (2011), has been described as a ‘disturbingly credible and darkly noir post-­cyberpunk tale’. It won an Aurealis and a Ditmar award, was shortlisted for both the Ned Kelly and Davitt crime fiction awards, and made it onto the Honor List of the James Tiptree Award. Thanks to a state arts grant, she is currently writing the sequel. You can find out more either at www.kimwestwood.com or at www.harpercollins.com.au

Second story:

“Smoke and Mirrors” by Amanda Downum

The circus was in town.

Not just any circus, either, but Carson & Kindred’s Circus Fabulatoris and Menagerie of Mystical Marvels. The circus Jerusalem Morrow ran away to join when she was nineteen years old. Her family for seven years.

She laid the orange flyer on the kitchen table beside a tangle of beads and wire and finished putting away her groceries. Her smile stretched, bittersweet. She hadn’t seen the troupe in five years, though she still dreamt of them. Another world, another life, before she came back to this quiet house.

Amanda was born in Virginia, and has since then spent time in Indonesia, Micronesia, Missouri, and Arizona, with brief layovers in California and Colorado. In 1990 she was sucked into the gravity well of Texas, and hasn’t managed to escape. Yet.

She lives in a garret in Austin, and can be found haunting absinthe bars. She isn’t dying of consumption, but does suffer from “cedar fever.” Her day job sometimes lets her dress as a giant worm.

She still occasionally mans a derelict blog, but for Proustian minutiae you’re better off finding her on Facebook. She doesn’t speak of herself in the third person there. Usually.

About the Narrators: 

Nikolle Doolin writes fiction, poetry, and plays. Her work has appeared in the Wilderness House Literary Review, Tales to Terrify, 3:AM Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, Flashshot, and the literary anthology Wilderness House Literary Review – The Best of Volume 3. Additionally, her stage plays have been presented in festivals.
Nikolle is also a voice actor who has performed for various mediums. She produces a podcast called Audio Literature Odyssey in which she narrates classic literature by the likes of Austen, Poe, James, and more. Furthermore, Nikolle has performed contemporary narrations for Tales To Terrify, Crime City Central, and The NoSleep Podcast.

Catherine Logan had many years of training in theatre and voice in her youth – then many years of teaching acting, drama, writing and English literature as a grown-up. She has taken plenty of workshops and has studio experience in narration, commercial and animation voiceover work. Catherine is now involved in a second career which takes her back to her first love.

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Far Fetched Fables No 30 Todd Lockwood and Valjeanne Jeffers

Tue, 11 Nov 2014 08:00:48 GMT

First Story: 

“Keeper of Memory” by Todd Lockwood

Daen screamed until the monster’s teeth crushed ribs against ribs. Blood poured from his lungs, a bright flower unfurling  on the pavestones.  He bolted upright. A tree root scraped his back as he tried to crab backwards, but his feet were entangled in his blanket. He sat still, surprised to feel moss and short grass under the heels of his hands. A soft hush surrounded him, the landscape shrouded in fog that deadened sound and confused distance, rendering trees and stones into ghostly shadows ofbthemselves. Panting, he rubbed his face with pale fingers and blinked away the blur in his eyes. His sweat grew cold in the damp air.  Gods, what a dream!

Todd Lockwood creates his images with a mystic combination of acrylics, oils, Corel Painter, Photoshop, blood, epithets, secret incantations, and gin. His designs involve images derived from fantasy and science fiction, fantasy role-playing games, his dragon fetish, years of playing Dungeons & Dragons and watching mother nature, his love of mythology and the transformations of myth in religion. Um…. He is also disturbed by writing about himself in the third person.
Todd Lockwood’s illustration work has appeared on NY Times best-selling novels, magazines, video games, collectible card games, and fantasy role-playing games. It has been honored with multiple appearances in Spectrum and the Communication Arts Illustration Annual, and with numerous industry awards. Always known for the narrative power of his paintings, Todd now turns his hand to writing, and is working on a novel to be published by DAW Books at a date still to be determined.  You may view his art at his website, http://www.toddlockwood.com, keep up with him at http://www.tolo.biz, or get chummy at https://www.facebook.com/artoftoddlockwood

Second story:

“Awakening” by Valjeanne Jeffers

The nine year girl ran to catch up with them. “I want to go Father!” she called. “I want to practice too!”  Adegoke, a muscular giant of man, turned to face his daughter. “You can’t go Nandi,” he said sternly, but there was compassion in his brown  eyes. 

“But why?”

Adegoke took her chin in one of his big hands. “Because my flower, you are a girl.  You’re not meant to fight and the ancestors would be angry with me if I trained you for battle.  Besides, think of how dirty you’d become!”

“I don’t care!”

“Nandi you’re my daughter, the daughter of a king,” Adegoke continued patiently. “One day you’ll marry a handsome prince, he will take you away to live in a new palace. Your every wish will be granted. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“No!” tears rolled down Nandi’s cheeks. “It sounds horrible! I don’t want to leave you and Mama! I want to stay here and fight!”

Valjeanne Jeffers is the author of the SF/fantasy novels: Immortal; Immortal II: The Time of Legend; Immortal III: Stealer of Souls; Immortal IV: Collision of Worlds; The Switch II: Clockwork (includes books 1 and 2); Mona Livelong: Paranormal Detective; Colony: Ascension An Erotic Space Opera; and Voyage of Dreams: A Collection of Otherworldly Stories. She was a contributing author during the 2014 Octavia Butler Arts and Activism Celebration (organized by Tananarive Due); and she was the 2007 semi-finalist for the Rita Dove Poetry Award. Valjeanne’s fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies including: Steamfunk!; Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology; LuneWing; PurpleMag; Genesis Science Fiction Magazine; Possibilities; 31 Days of Steamy Mocha; Pembroke Magazine Issue no. 39; Revelry; The Ringing Ear; Liberated Muse: How I Freed My Soul Volume I; Drumvoices Revue; Say it Loud: Poems About James Brown; and Griots II: Sisters of the Spear. She is co-owner of Q&V Affordable Editing, and more of her work is available at www.vjeffersandqveal.com

Narrators

Sam Walter and Miss Bee

When he is not traveling across the US looking for the finest BBQ, Sam spends his time learning all about the latest and greatest in the world of craft beer. He hosts the West Lot Pirates podcast which focuses on college sports, primarily college football. He lives in Chicago with his wife and their adorable cat.

Miss Bee was introduced to the world of professional narration while working as a studio monitor for the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) in Louisville, Kentucky. While at APH Miss Bee was involved in the production of more than 450 Talking Books for the National Library Service of the Library of Congress. Miss Bee, whose baccalaureate degree is in Mass Media Arts and Mass Communications, has been engaged in providing American Disability Act compliant audio services for the blind and print handicapped as both a vocation and avocation since the 1980s.
She is responsible for introducing Spanish language programming for the blind during her tenure as a radio control board operator for the Georgia Radio Reading Service for the Blind and Print Handicapped (GARRS). In addition to voicing, proofing, editing, mastering and publishing audio files via the Internet as audio books and eBooks, she also creates mp3 audio for eLearning, training, audio signage, tours and mp3 audio devices including CD and computer platforms.
Currently, Miss Bee also hosts a monthly podcast that surveys the African-American press for the Audio Internet Reading Service of Los Angeles (AIRS-LA). Her website is http://MissBee4VO.com

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Far Fetched Fables No 29 Dylan Horrocks and Adam Browne

Tue, 04 Nov 2014 08:00:02 GMT

First Story: 

“Steam Girl” by Dylan Horrocks

The first time I see her, she’s standing alone behind the library, looking at the ground. Faded blue dress, scruffy leather jacket, long lace-up boots and black-rimmed glasses. But what really makes me stop and stare is the hat: a weird old leather thing that hangs down over her ears, with big thick goggles strapped to the front.

Turns out she’s in my English class. She sits right next to me, still wearing the jacket and goggles and hat. She smells like a thrift store.

“Weirdo,” says Michael Carmichael.

“Freak,” says Amanda Anderson.

She ignores the laughter, reaching into her bag for a notebook and pencil. She bends low so no-one can see what she’s writing.

Dylan Horrocks is a cartoonist, writer and illustrator who lives in Auckland, New Zealand. He is the author of the graphic novels Hicksville, Incomplete Works and Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen, as well as the comic book series Pickle and Atlas. He has written comics for DC and Vertigo, including Batgirl and Hunter: the Age of Magic. His website is at hicksvillecomics.com

Second story:

“Blood Drunk” by Adam Browne

The day I ask Josephine out is the same day the media first mentions the disease. Nothing much, just a curiosity piece in a couple of the papers. It gives us something to chat about on our first dates. I think the story is an urban myth, but she’s not so sure. I press the point – even on a biochemical level it seems unlikely. Are we meant to believe in a disease – a virus is it? a bacterium? – that renders serum fats into glycerine, generates nitrates from urea, then blends the two compounds in the correct ratio?

Jesus. Writing it down here, I wonder how she suffered through those first dates.

Adam Browne, 50, lives in Melbourne, Australia. His story ‘Neverland Blues’ originally appeared in 2008 in Dreaming Again: Thirty-five New Stories Celebrating the Wild Side of Australian Fiction. It won the 2009 Chronos Award for Best Short Fiction. His first novel, Pyrotechnicon: Being a True Account of the Further Adventures of Cyrano de Bergerac among the States and Empires of the Stars, by Himself (Dec’d), was published by Coeur de Lion in 2012, and is still available as a print-on-demand illustrated hardcover. His collection of short stories, Other Stories, and Other Stories, was recently published by Satalyte, and will be available as an audio book later this year.  Visit http://adambrowne.blogspot.com.au/ for more.

Narrators

Pete Nixon and James Silverstein

Pete is a full-time programmer and full-time student. He is the editor and producer for Green Eggs and Horror, a Dr. Seuss inspired short story anthology. He narrates and writes in his spare time, because he doesn’t believe in normal hobbies.

James is a budding author and role-playing game designer, with credits from the 7th Sea and Stargate RPG lines. He’s working on the upcoming ‘Cairn’ RPG, as well as a series of stories about a 1940’s private eye in a city of the undead. James feels that there are always more amazing stories that need to be told, and he writes, narrates, and runs games to share them with the world. He loves speculative fiction, noir detective tales, and pulp fantasy, and is honored to be a returning reader in the District of Wonders.

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Far Fetched Fables No 28 Charles de Lint

Tue, 28 Oct 2014 08:00:55 GMT

Halloween Story: 

“Riding Shotgun” by Charles de Lint

I wasn’t surprised to learn that my father had died. He would have been seventy-two this winter and he’d always lived hard–I doubted that had changed after I left the farm. What surprised me was that I was in his will. We hadn’t spoken in twenty-five years. I hadn’t thought of him, except in passing, for maybe half that time. If you’d asked me, I would have said he’d leave his estate to a charity like MADD, considering how it was drunk driving that changed all of our lives.

            I missed the funeral. There are a lot of Coes in the phonebook, so it took the lawyers awhile to track me down.

Charles de Lint is a full-time writer and musician who makes his home in Ottawa, Canada. His many awards include the World Fantasy Award, the Canadian SF/Fantasy Aurora Award, and the White Pine Award, among others. Modern Library’s Top 100 Books of the 20th Century poll (voted on by readers) put eight of de Lint’s books among the top 100. With 37 novels and 18 collections of short fiction published to date, de Lint writes for adults, teens and children. His new middle grade book is Seven Wild Sisters, illustrated by Charles Vess (Little Brown, 2014). His most recent adult novel, The Mystery of Grace (Tor, 2009), is a fantastical ghost story and a heart-wrenching tale of love, passion and faith. His newest young adult novel is Out of This World (Triskell Press, due in the fall of 2014). His latest collection of short fiction is The Very Best of Charles de Lint (Tachyon Publications, 2010). For more information, visit his web site at http://www.charlesdelint.com.

Narrator

Eric Luke

Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film EXPLORERS, which is currently in development as a remake, the comic books GHOST and WONDER WOMAN, and wrote and directed the NOT QUITE HUMAN films for Disney TV. His current project INTERFERENCE, a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook… that kills, is available free on iTunes and at Quillhammer.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No 27 Matthew Johnson and Steven Pirie

Tue, 21 Oct 2014 08:00:53 GMT

First Story: “Public Safety” by Matthew Johnson

Officier de la Paix Louverture folded Quartidi’s Père Duchesne into thirds, fanning himself against the Thermidor heat. The news inside was all bad, anyway: another theater had closed, leaving the Comedie Francaise the only one open in Nouvelle-Orleans. At least the Duchesne could be counted on to report only what the Corps told them to, that the Figaro had closed for repairs, and not the truth — which was that audiences, frightened by the increasing number of fires and other mishaps at the theaters, had stopped coming. The Minerve was harder to control, but the theater-owners had been persuaded not to talk to their reporters, to avoid a public panic. No matter that these were all clearly accidents: even now, in the year 122, reason was often just a thin layer of ice concealing a pre-Revolutionary sea of irrationality.

Matthew Johnson is a writer and educator who lives in Ottawa with his wife and two children. A collection of his short fiction, Irregular Verbs and Other Stories, was published in 2014 and has received starred reviews in Shelf Awareness and Quill and Quire. His work has been collected in several Year’s Best anthologies and has been translated into Danish, Czech and Russian. While not writing or engaged in full-contact parenting he works as the Director of Education for MediaSmarts, an internationally known non-profit source of digital and media literacy resources where he writes lessons and blogs, designs award-winning educational games and occasionally does pirate voices in both English and French. You can learn more at irregularverbs.ca

Second story: “Mrs. Wilson and the Black Arts of Mrs. Beelzebub from Number Six” by Steven Pirie

Mrs Wilson knew they were not Earthly cats. Mr Wilson had thrown his boot at them to shut them up, for a start, and somehow they’d thrown it back. And it was the way their eyes shone piercing green even in the daylight. At night, in their sepulchral wailing and tireless leaping at the moon, they seemed very much otherworldly. It was a worry.

 In the kitchen, at number eight, Mrs Wilson paused in stacking biscuits on her best crockery. She glanced beyond the window and over the fence into Mrs Beelzebub’s garden next door to where the cats still gathered. In the corner, part hidden behind the rickety wooden shed and the glorious apple tree, the vortices to beyond shimmered blue and green in the morning sunshine.

Mrs Wilson sighed; such a crime to sully a garden with the supernatural.

Steven Pirie lives in Liverpool, England with his wife and son. His fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies around the world. His comic fantasy novel, Digging up Donald, published by Immanion Press in 2004 and again in 2007, has attracted excellent reviews. A second novel, Burying Brian, was published also by Immanion Press in December 2010. Steve’s website is: www.stevenpirie.com

About the Narrators:

Nobilis Reed hosts the longest-running erotica podcast in the known universe, Nobilis Erotica. He is also the creative director of Quiver and Arch LLC, a production company that specializes in erotic audio drama. He’s also an author in his own right, with stories published by Circlet Press, Cleis Press, Forbidden Fiction and Logical Lust, as well as a number of self-published titles. You can find his website at nobiliserotica.com.

Veronica “V.” Giguere is a voice artist and author whose work can be heard on a wealth of podcast fiction magazines, fullcasts, and audiobooks across genres such as science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance, and steampunk. She is the narrator and producer, as well as one of four coauthors, of the Secret World Chronicles podcast novel series, currently in its seventh season. Along with Cedric Johnson, she has recently podcast Broken, an inner-city cyberpunk story involving boxing, medical technology, and coffee. When she isn’t bringing the voices in others’ heads to life, V. masquerades as a mild-mannered academic whose specialties include first-year student success, learning strategies, and preparing for the zombie apocalypse.

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Far Fetched Fables No 26 Ian R. MacLeod and Robert Reed

Tue, 14 Oct 2014 08:22:03 GMT

First Story: “The Master Miller’s Tale” Part 2 by Ian R. MacLeod

THERE ARE ONLY RUINS left now on Burlish Hill, a rough circle of stones. The track which once curved up from the village of Stagsby in the valley below is little more than an indentation in the grass, and the sails of the mill which once turned there are forgotten. Time has moved on, and lives have moved with it. Only the wind remains.

Once, the Westovers were millers. They belonged to their mill as much as it belonged to them, and Burlish Hill was so strongly associated with their trade that the words mill and hill grew blurred in the local dialect until the two became the same. Hill was mill and mill was hill, and one or other of the Westovers, either father or son, was in charge of those turning sails, and that was all the people of Stagsby, and all the workers in the surrounding farms and smallholdings, cared to know.

Ian R MacLeod has been selling and writing professionally for more than 20 years. His critically acclaimed novels have been widely translated, whilst his short stories have been reprinted in many Best Of anthologies. He has twice won the World Fantasy Award and the Sidewise Award for alternate history, as well as the Arthur C Clarke and John W Campbell Memorial awards. As well as using the same alternate history background of his two novels, The Light Ages and The House of Storms, he cites Keith Roberts and Thomas Hardy as his two major references in writing The Master Miller’s Tale. He lives with his two dogs and one wife in the river town of Bewdley. You can learn more at www.ianrmacleod.com.

Second story: “Show Me Yours” by Robert Reed

She wears a black felt robe long enough to cover her bare knees and pale pink socks pulled over her ankles; her calves are white and freshly shaved and her shins are even whiter and nicked in two places by razor blades. A red belt is cinched tight, making her waist appear narrow and her hips broad. She isn’t a tall woman. By most measures, she is slender, though the body has a roundness that marks five stubborn pounds–pounds sure to grow over time. She isn’t lovely in the traditional ways, but youth and a good complexion help.

Robert David Reed (born in Omaha, Nebraska) is a Hugo Award-winning American science fiction author. He has a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the Nebraska Wesleyan University. He is an extraordinarily prolific genre short-fiction writer with “Alone” being his 200th professional sale. His work regularly appears in Asimov’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Sci Fiction. He has also published eleven novels.  Mr. Reed lives in Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife and daughter.

About the Narrators:

Colin Clewes is a musician and writer, living in UK. He loves music, reading and movies. Although he’s British, he grew up in Africa and still hasn’t managed to do anything cooler than that – despite studying philosophy and learning to play electric guitar.

Nikolle Doolin writes fiction, poetry, and plays. Her work has appeared in the Wilderness House Literary Review, Tales to Terrify, 3:AM Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, Flashshot, and the literary anthology Wilderness House Literary Review – The Best of Volume 3. Additionally, her stage plays have been presented in festivals.
Nikolle is also a voice actor who has performed for various mediums. She produces a podcast called Audio Literature Odyssey in which she narrates classic literature by the likes of Austen, Poe, James, and more. Furthermore, Nikolle has performed contemporary narrations for Tales To Terrify, Crime City Central, The NoSleep Podcast and now Far Fetched Fables.

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Far Fetched Fables No 25 Ian R. MacLeod and Jeremy Sim

Tue, 07 Oct 2014 08:00:57 GMT

First Story: “The Master Miller’s Tale” Part 1 by Ian R. McLeod

THERE ARE ONLY RUINS left now on Burlish Hill, a rough circle of stones. The track which once curved up from the village of Stagsby in the valley below is little more than an indentation in the grass, and the sails of the mill which once turned there are forgotten. Time has moved on, and lives have moved with it. Only the wind remains.

Once, the Westovers were millers. They belonged to their mill as much as it belonged to them, and Burlish Hill was so strongly associated with their trade that the words mill and hill grew blurred in the local dialect until the two became the same. Hill was mill and mill was hill, and one or other of the Westovers, either father or son, was in charge of those turning sails, and that was all the people of Stagsby, and all the workers in the surrounding farms and smallholdings, cared to know.

Ian R MacLeod had been selling and writing professionally for more than 20 years. His critically acclaimed novels have been widely translated, whilst his short stories have been reprinted in many Best Of anthologies. He has twice won the World Fantasy Award and the Sidewise Award for alternate history, as well as the Arthur C Clarke and John W Campbell Memorial awards. As well as using the same alternate history background of his two novels, The Light Ages and The House of Storms, he cites Keith Roberts and Thomas Hardy as his two major references in writing The Master Miller’s Tale. He lives with his two dogs and one wife in the river town of Bewdley. You can learn more at ianrmacleod.com.

Second story: “Princesses” by Jeremy Sim

To save a princess you will need three things:

A #2 pencil.

A graphing calculator.

An ally, preferably fearless.

You will need an ally because princesses are notoriously difficult to rescue alone. Your ally should be a family member, a mother or sister who fed you and tied your shoes when the ambit of your life whisked you through blown dandelions and video games. The tying of shoes isn’t important; the feeding is. Bread, water, and the quiet feast of stories, bedtime or otherwise, without which you would not exist. If you lack such an ally, stop reading now and go find one. To rescue a princess you must be absolutely chock full of stories. You must gorge yourself on them.

Jeremy Sim is probably the only Singaporean-American science fiction and fantasy writer currently living in Berlin, Germany. If he’s not, please let him know at www.jeremysim.com or on Twitter @jeremy_sim. This story, “Princesses,” originally appeared in Flash Fiction Online, 2013.

About the Narrators:

Colin Clewes is a musician and writer, living in UK. He loves music, reading and movies. Although he’s British, he grew up in Africa and still hasn’t managed to do anything cooler than that – despite studying philosophy and learning to play electric guitar.

Bob Raudys is a voice actor, musician and marketing/advertising guy. He probably should have figured out that voice acting was in his future when he had to do paragraph reads in grade school. The nuns were none too happy with his need to add accents to the stories. Born and raised in the Southwest Side of Chicago (pron. sout-west syde uv shi-kaw-go) as a first generation Lithuanian, he was fortunate to have his first of several European experiences visiting Lithuania, Moscow and Leningrad (now once again St. Petersburg) in 1976. One of the more memorable moments (aside from being arrested in the summer resort town of Palanga) was when he was being chased by an old, screaming Muscovite. Unfortunately Bob didn’t speak Russian, nor did the old woman speak Lithuanian or English. Bob’s migration into voice acting began 2 years ago, but his roots started in 1967 as a classically trained pianist. To his parent’s chagrin, his musical tastes and time moved into blues and rock ‘n roll (and yes, he was a wedding singer at one time). He currently is the keyboard player with the SouthSide Exiles. Performing was, and continues to be in his blood. Bob currently resides in the Chicago area with his wife, daughter and a cat, who is just waiting for the chance to take over the house. Go take a listen to what he can do at www.wordtomouthstudios.com

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Far Fetched Fables No 24 David Barr Kirtley and Gord Sellar

Tue, 30 Sep 2014 08:08:39 GMT

First Story: “Save Me Plz” by David Barr Kirtley

Meg hadn’t heard from Devon in four months, and she realized that she missed him. So on a whim she tossed her sword and scabbard into the back seat of her car and drove over to campus to visit him.
She’d always thought that she and Devon would be one of those couples who really did stay friends afterward. They’d been close for so long, and things hadn’t ended that badly. Actually, the whole incident seemed pretty silly to her now. Still, she’d been telling herself that the split had been for the best — with her working full-time and him still an undergrad. It was like they were in two different worlds. She’d been busy with work, and he’d always been careless about answering email, and now somehow four months had passed without a word.

David Barr Kirtley is the author of several dozen fantasy & science fiction short stories, including “Save Me Plz,” which was featured in the anthology FANTASY: THE BEST OF THE YEAR. He’s also the host of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast on Wired.com, for which he’s interviewed over a hundred guests, including George R. R. Martin, Richard Dawkins, Paul Krugman, Simon Pegg, Margaret Atwood, Philip Pullman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Ursula K. Le Guin. He lives in New York. If you follow the link below you can read what he calls his “favorite fan letter” that he’s ever received. http://www.davidbarrkirtley.com/blog/?p=3273

You can find out more about David and his work at http://www.davidbarrkirtley.com/ and http://geeksguideshow.com/

Second story: “Of Melei, of Ulthar” by Gord Sellar

Haunted went Melei that evening into the streets of Ulthar, haunted by what she had seen in the dream-voyage of the night before; desert fires burning distant across the dark and dusty plain, and an immense black silhouette of some enormous outcropping of rock rising up, upward into the sky to blot out the tiny flickering stars across half of the heavens. In a dream, too, had she heard voices echoing against the stone walls of buildings crammed together along narrow streets, voices laden with care and worry, crying her name out into the blackness of deepening night.

Gord Sellar is a writer, an educator, an avid homebrewer, and occasional musician. His work has appeared in many magazines, anthologies, and journals since 2007, and several of his screenplays have been made into award-winning short films. (See Brutal Rice Productions for more on those.) He was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2009, and attended Clarion West in 2006. Born in Malawi and raised in Canada, and having spent eleven years lecturing in South Korean universities, he is currently living in Vietnam with his wife, while working on a novel. Visit his website at gordsellar.com. Beyond that, it might be perhaps of interest to listeners that I was the screenwriter for the first South Korean Lovecraft film adaptation. We did “The Music of Erich Zann.” Go to http://www.gordsellar.com/ for more.

About the Narrators:

Katherine Inskip weighs galaxies for a living, and builds worlds in her spare time. She is addicted to chocolate and Japanese logic puzzles.

Maria Makis received an MFA in Acting many years ago, but detoured a bit to become a lawyer. She is happily returning to her first and only true calling and is a voice actor in New York City where she lives. She is especially drawn to narration and audiobooks. You can learn more at mariamakisvoiceover.com.

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Far Fetched Fables No 23 Zoran Živković and Shenoa Carroll-Bradd

Tue, 23 Sep 2014 08:00:50 GMT

First Story: “Compartments” by Zoran Živković

I ran as fast as my legs would carry me.

The carriage had just pulled away from the buffer at the end of the track. Even though it was still moving slowly, had I been carrying any luggage, particularly anything heavy, I wouldn’t have made it. Luckily, all I was holding was my coat and hat.

I didn’t know how to get onto a moving carriage. Was I first supposed to jump onto the step on the platform of the last car and then grab hold of the handrail, or the other way around? Who knows what I would have done if the back door hadn’t opened just as I caught up to the car. The conductor came out onto the platform.

“Give me your hand!” he shouted.

Zoran Živković was born in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, in 1948. In 1973 he graduated from the Department of General Literature with the theory of literature, Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade; he received his master’s degree in 1979 and his doctorate in 1982 from the same school. In 2007, Živković was made a professor in the Faculty of Philology at his alma mater, the University of Belgrade, where he now teaches Creative Writing. The author of twenty books of fiction and eight books of nonfiction, Živković continues to push the boundaries of the strange and surreal. His writing belongs to the middle European fantastika tradition, and shares much in common with such masters as Mikhail Bulgakov, Franz Kafka and Stanislaw Lem. Find out more at http://www.zoranzivkovic.com/

Second story: “In the Nightmare Garden” by Shenoa Carroll-Bradd

The neighbor kids called Lucida Cole a witch, partially because she lived in a creaky old house, but mostly because she had a garden of nightmares. It wasn’t really her fault. The garden had come with the house; she’d just kept it up.

The breeze carried soft weeping, but she pretended not to hear it at first. Lucida looked up between the branches of the nearest tree and plucked a fruit, squeezing it to test for ripeness. She bit in and felt one of her bottom teeth wiggle. Lucida carefully chewed the tart bite and swallowed, then spat out the tooth and ran a finger along the rest of her teeth, testing for stability. They all seemed sturdy. She tossed the unripe fruit aside and it rolled out of sight beneath a “naked in public” shrub. The tooth she’d spat out slowly melted away as the nightmare’s astringent taste left her tongue.

Shenoa Carroll-Bradd lives in Southern California with her awesome brother and dancing dog. Her short stories have appeared online and in over two dozen anthologies, and she’s also launched an ebook serial of Victorian occult mysteries featuring her amateur detectives Fidgett and Klein. When not writing, she enjoys crocheting, reading, and bingeing on Netflix ’til her eyes bleed. For more information, visit her homepage at www.sbcbfiction.net. Her Kickstarter project is at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/982539034/lightning-lord-and-the-duplex-of-death.

About the Narrators:

Anthony Babington is a voice in the internet’s head. he looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. He currently resides in Houston, Texas, but hastens to add that it was not his idea. He can be found on Google Plus

Cheryl Phipps was born in Canada and presently resides there, but has also lived in Jamaica and Maryland. By the time she was 16, she had moved 15 times! She used story telling as a way to fit in whenever she was the “new kid” in town. Cheryl obtained her Honours BA in Sociology at the University of Western Ontario. She spent many years teaching call centre representatives customer service and communication skills. She wrote a book that won second place in an international literary contest. Cheryl has always loved words, grammar, reading, acting and writing. All of these things came together for Cheryl in the form of voice over work, which she loves! You can learn more at www.CherylPhipps.ca

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Far Fetched Fables No 22 Elizabeth E. Wein and KJ Kabza

Tue, 16 Sep 2014 08:00:27 GMT

First Story: “Chasing the Wind” by Elizabeth E. Wein

Martha Bennett sat on her trunk in the middle of Nairobi Airport watching the other passengers disperse. She had been sitting there for two hours, waiting for her father, and reading over and over again the terse telegram she had received the day before she left Philadelphia:

MAY NOT MEET. TAXI WILSON AIRPORT. HART ALDEN FLY KWALE.

She was not good at waiting. It made her nervous and irritable, but Martha could not quite believe her urbane Philadelphian parents would absolutely abandon her to her own devices in the middle of Africa, and she thought there must be a chance that her father would turn up at the last minute.

Elizabeth Wein is the holder of a private pilot’s license and an increasing collection of random World War II ephemera. Her story of the friendship between a female spy and pilot, Code Name Verity, won the Edgar Award for Young Adult fiction in 2013. Her most recent novel is Rose Under Fire, another World War II thriller for teens. Elizabeth lives in Scotland with her husband and two children. Her website is www.elizabethwein.com and she tweets as @ewein2412

Second story: “Surface Tension” by KJ Kabza

I hate it when she does this.

Brianna lies in the bathtub on her back, one knee bent and leaning in, making the lines of her hips twist and beckon. She lies in deep water, her eyes in calculating slits, the exhalations from her nose rippling a tiny current atop the surface.

I refuse to acknowledge this. I flip up the toilet seat and take myself out like nothing’swrong.

Brianna’s mouth rises above the waterline. “What are you doing?”

“This is the bathroom. I’m going to it.”

“This is the bathroom, and I’m taking a bath. Can’t you use the other one?”

“What, like you’ve never seen me — ”

“It’s disgusting, Jess.” She gets onto her elbows and the water laps against the sides of her breasts. “And I’m trying to relax.”

KJ Kabza has sold over 50 stories to venues such as Nature, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. He lives in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, where he enjoys being surrounded by thorny cactus instead of thorny people. He invites you to follow him on Twitter @KJKabza and peruse kjkabza.com for links to free fiction and more.

About the Narrators:

Rachel Dee is new to the audio world and excited to step in. She has always enjoyed reading and was the child who read out-loud to her mother, not the other way around. Taking away books was also how she was grounded when she was younger. Currently she lives in the DFW area with her husband, cat, and dog and is pursuing film and television acting.

Alex Weinle writes short fiction for magazines and podcasts, his anthology of shock-comedic-tragic stories The Decapaphiliac is available now and his science fiction novel Border is currently in editing. Long time sofanaut, he has finally got up the courage to narrate. He lives in Fulbourn, England in a cottage that consumes bulbs of unusual wattage. You can find him on Twitter at @alexweinle

New Art

Kirk Quilaquil is a freelance illustrator who lives in Stevenage, Hertfordshire.  You can find him on Facebook or at http://kirkquilaquil.daportfolio.com/

Ferdinand Ladera  is a Fantasy Concept Illustrator who was born in Iligan, the city of majestic waterfalls, situated in the southeastern part of the Philippines.  Have a look at his work at http://ferdinandladera.com/105056/environment-illustration

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Far Fetched Fables No 21 Jenny Blackford and Brendan Connell

Tue, 09 Sep 2014 08:00:34 GMT

First Story:  “Troll’s Night Out” by Jenny Blackford

There was a lot of shrieking and laughing going on at the table behind ours.

“Girls’ night out,” I said, and took a good swig of my glass of red.

David barked out, “What did you say, woman?”

I shouted this time, hoping to penetrate the restaurant sound barrier: “Girls’ night out.”

David snorted. With his impressive snout, that was something.

“Trolls’ night out, more like it,” he said. He bared his long white canines in a toothy grin.

The comment was typical of the David I’d known and hated, before I ran away to Scandinavia. Unfortunately, it’s not considered good form to scream at one’s ex in a good Melbourne restaurant. Instead, I cut off a piece of my salmon cutlet and stuck it in my mouth, fast. The aroma of David’s steak was tormenting me.

Jenny Blackford is an Australian writer and poet whose work has appeared in many places, including Strange Horizons, The Pedestal Magazine, and Penumbra. Pamela Sargent called her historical novella set in classical Athens and Delphi, The Priestess and the Slave, “elegant.” Pitt Street Poetry has recently published an illustrated collection of her cat poems, The Duties of a Cat.
Her website is www.jennyblackford.com, she blogs at jennyblackford.livejournal.com, and she tweets as @dutiesofacat.

Second story: “We Sleep on a Thousand Waves Beneath the Stars” by Brendan Connell

White, hot sand strewn over with shells and then a great sweep of green; an island rich in vegetation, investigation revealing all sorts of tropical fruits, some of which the crew was familiar with, while others none of them had ever seen before – in the shape of stars, swords and crescents. Large brightly-plumed parrots squawked in the trees and small brown-furred monkeys leapt from branch to branch and chattered while, from the depths of huge ferns, the height of a man, came the pleasant scent of land – welcome indeed to those who had been six continual weeks aboard a ship after being thrown off course by a storm.

Brendan Connell was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1970. He has had fiction published in numerous places, including McSweeney’s, Adbusters, and the World Fantasy Award winning anthologies Leviathan 3 (The Ministry of Whimsy 2002), and Strange Tales (Tartarus Press 2003). His published books are: The Translation of Father Torturo (Prime Books, 2005), Dr. Black and the Guerrillia (Grafitisk Press, 2005), Metrophilias (Better Non Sequitur, 2010), Unpleasant Tales (Eibonvale Press, 2010), The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children (Chomu Press, 2011), The Architect (PS Publishing, 2012), Lives of Notorious Cooks (Chomu Press, 2012), Miss Homicide Plays the Flute (Eibonvale Press, 2013), The Cutest Girl in Class (Snuggly Books, 2013), The Galaxy Club (Chomu Press, 2014), and The Metanatural Adventures of Dr. Black (PS Publishing, 2014). Find out more at http://brendanconnell.wordpress.com/

About the Narrators:

Catherine Logan had many years of training in theatre and voice in her youth – then many years of teaching acting, drama, writing and English literature as a grown-up. She has taken plenty of workshops and has studio experience in narration, commercial and animation voiceover work. Catherine is now involved in a second career which takes her back to her first love.

Matthew Frederickson is in his mid-30s, living in Memphis, Tennessee, with a rockstar plastic surgeon wife. He reads and writes and runs in his spare time. He loves to brew beer, and he’d love to make that his career. He will soon start the second season of his podcast, Freddy’s Fan Fiction. You can find him on Twitter as @swami.

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Far Fetched Fables No 20 Bill Congreve and Marly Youmans

Tue, 02 Sep 2014 08:00:30 GMT

First Story: “The Shooter at the Heartrock Waterhole” by Bill Congreve

The rifle kicked, and one of the creatures — the beautiful one — was dead. But the wyrde, as Dad would have called it, began long before then.  Two days ago, I shot and killed two sparrows, and a rabbit I’d called “Attitude.” Right after, I buried them out in the deep sand away from the water.  At dawn yesterday, I smelled them as I woke. The sun filtered through the needles of a lone desert oak straight into my eyes. I rolled onto my stomach, lifted my head, and there they lay, just outside the tent flyscreen.  The corpses had been dug from their half-meter-deep holes and had been laid out on the orange sand and the leaf litter as neatly as you like, half a meter from where my head lay on the pillow.  I hadn’t heard a thing.

Bill Congreve is an award winning writer, editor and independent publisher (MirrorDanse Books). His stories have appeared in a number of countries in publications such as Faerie Reel, Tenebres, Event Horizon, Terror Australis, Aurealis, Borderlands, Bloodsongs, Crosstown Traffic, Monstres! and The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror. His collection of vampire stories is Epiphanies of Blood. His most recent collection is Souls Along the Meridian (2010). He won the Peter McNamara Achievement Award in 2012 and has acted as judge for the Aurealis Awards on nine occasions.
He works as a technical writer and editor in the emergency services sector. You can learn more here.

Second story: “The Comb” by Marly Youmans

People always say stories are true stories, and I suppose they believe it, often enough; this one, though, is true–true as true can be, as my mother used to say. Cross my heart and hope to die, a child says. They do, in the end, all hope to die. Nobody wants to be the moon’s immortal lover, who lives on, thousands of years beyond his youth, a husk of a man: Tithonus, the grasshopper, who rasps in the weeds when the moonlight touches him. Or perhaps I’m wrong; perhaps most people don’t know that a fate can feel more alien than death.

Novelist Sebastien Doubinsky recently said, “I cannot recommend an author more than Marly Youmans, whose fantastic prose is absolutely gorgeous and haunting.” And now September 1st marks the publication of Marly Youmans’s novel Glimmerglass. Margo Lanagan describes the book as “a series of mirrors and panes that splinter and soften to let you fall deeper into the heart of myth and artistic desire. A resonant, beautiful exploration…” Poet Jeffery Beam says, “Nature, architecture, dread, thrill, sexual dilemma, and murder echo against Youmans’ gorgeous prose and terrifying romance, which glides like a serpent―without a single extraneous or boring word.” Marly’s recent books include the novel, A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, winner of the Ferrol Sams Award and the Silver Award in fiction from the ForeWord Book of the Year competition, as well as several books of poetry–the epic post-apocalyptic poem, Thaliad, and collections The Foliate Head and The Throne of Psyche. You can visit her blog http://www.thepalaceat2.blogspot.de/

About the Narrators:

Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film EXPLORERS, which is currently in development as a remake, the comic books GHOST and WONDER WOMAN, and wrote and directed the NOT QUITE HUMAN films for Disney TV. His current project INTERFERENCE, a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook… that kills, is available free on iTunes and at Quillhammer.com.

Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements.  She also hosts this podcast…

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Far Fetched Fables No 19 Isobelle Carmody and Adam Browne

Tue, 26 Aug 2014 08:00:53 GMT

First Story:  “Perchance to Dream” by Isobelle Carmody

Anna woke knowing she had been dreaming, but as so often with dreams, to wake was to forget. Strange to remember vividly that she had dreamed, yet to have no recollection of the dream. On the rare occasion that she did remember, the minute she tried to describe it, the dream would dissolve. Pinning a dream down was like trying to catch hold of a skein of smoke.

Isobelle Carmody wrote her first book, Obernewtyn, when she was 14. It was accepted by the first publisher she sent it to and since then she has written more than thirty books and many short stories, which have been translated and/or won awards including the prestigious CBC Children’s Book of the Year Award. Her most recent book is The Cloud Road, which she also illustrated.
Isobelle is currently working on The Red Queen, the final book in the Obernewtyn Chronicles, and the screenplay for Greylands, on a Film Australia grant. She has also begun a PhD at the University of Queensland. You can learn more at http://www.isobellecarmody.net/ or go to her blog at theslipstream.com.au/

Second story: “The Weather Cinema” by Adam Browne

Yay! It’s the weekend! We’re going to see a movie!

“Movie movie movie!” chanted Mum, doing her silly dance. “We’re going to a movie!”

I sighed and checked her wallet. “Mum,” I said, “there’s hardly any money.”

“Hardly any money!” she chanted. “Hardly any money!”

The newspaper was open on the table. I looked in the cinema listings. “Hey,” I said, “have you heard about this Weather Cinema?”

“Is it cheap?”

“Yep.”

“Weather cinema! Weather cinema!”

“But what is a weather cinema?” I said.

“Don’t know, don’t care. Weather cinema! Weather cinema!”

Adam Browne lives in Melbourne, Australia. His story ‘Neverland Blues’ originally appeared in 2008 in Dreaming Again: Thirty-five New Stories Celebrating the Wild Side of Australian Fiction. It won the 2009 Chronos Award for Best Short Fiction. His first novel, Pyrotechnicon: Being a True Account of the Further Adventures of Cyrano de Bergerac among the States and Empires of the Stars, by Himself (Dec’d), was published by Coeur de Lion in 2012, and is still available as a print-on-demand illustrated hardcover. His collection of short stories, Other Stories, and Other Stories, was recently published by Satalyte, and will be available as an audio book later this year. You can visit his blog at http://adambrowne.blogspot.com.au/

About the Narrators:

Cynthia P. Colby is a Canadian voice artist whose career began by winning an international public speaking contest while she was still in high school. She then spent 15 years as a radio news announcer, reaching a national venue. Her voice was so flexible that she began doing commercials at the radio stations and her ability for doing character voices was recognized. Now as a freelance voice artist and script writer, she lends her voice to numerous short stories, books, game characters, training programs, videos, commercials, phone answering services and accessible websites. She can be reached at cynthiapcolby@sympatico.ca.

Nicola Seaton-Clark lives in the wilds of (almost) Eastern Europe with her long-suffering husband, phenomenal children and a grumpy cat. Trained as an actress and singer, she has worked in entertainment for over 20 years and currently splits her time between writing speculative fiction, helping her husband run their voice-over company, Offstimme, and voicing everything from commercials and documentaries to public transport announcements.  She also hosts this podcast…..

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Far Fetched Fables No 18 Ben Peek and Bruce McAllister

Tue, 19 Aug 2014 08:00:24 GMT

First Story: “The Funeral, Ruined” by Ben Peek

It was the weight that woke Linette. Her weight. The weight of herself.
The flat red sky above Issuer was waiting when she opened her eyes. Five hours before, when she had closed her eyes, it had been a dark, ugly brown-red: the middle of the night. Now it was the clear early morning red, and a thick, muggy warmth was seeping through her open window with the new light. There would be no rain today. Just the heat. Just the sweat. Just that uncomfortable, hot awareness of herself that both brought. The worse was Linette’s short dark hair, dirty with sweat and ash. The ash that had come through the open window during the night. It had streaked her face and settled in her mouth and she could taste it, dry, burnt and unappealing in her gums. Her left arm, with its thick, straight scars across the forearm, felt heavy and ached; but it always ached.

Ben Peek is the Sydney based author of Black Sheep, Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth, Above/Below, and Dead Americans and Other Stories (in which ‘The Funeral, Ruined’, can be found). His most recent novel is the first volume in the Children Trilogy, the Godless.
You can find out more at www.theurbansprawlproject.com

Second Story: “Poison” by Bruce McAllister

In school that day the American boy, whose twelfth birthday was approaching, did just as well as his friends on the Roman history recitation and the spelling test, which included the word stregheria–witchcraft—which could, if you weren’t careful, easily be confused with straggaria, an old-fashioned word for respect.
After school let out, he and his friends celebrated their good fortune by buying new plastic blowguns at the toy store in the fishing village and spending an hour making dozens of little paper cones with sewing needles taped to their points. Every boy in this country had at least one blowgun—they were cheap and no longer than a ruler—so the American boy had one too.

Bruce McAllister’s fantasy and science fiction stories have been published over the years in the science fiction/fantasy/horror field’s major magazines and many “year’s best” volumes (including Best American Short Stories: 2007, Stephen King ed.). His short story “Kin” was a finalist for the Hugo Award; his novelette “Dream Baby” was a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula awards; his novelette “The Crying Child” was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award. His short fiction has been collected in the career-spanning The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories. Four of his short stories—science fiction and horror—are currently under option, in development or in production as films. He is the author of three novels: Humanity Prime, Dream Baby, and most recently The Village Sang to the Sea: A Memoir of Magic. He lives in Orange County, California, with his wife, choreographer Amelie Hunter, and works as a writer, writing coach, and book and screenplay consultant.
Note: “Poison,” in a slightly different form, is from the novel THE VILLAGE SANG TO THE SEA: A MEMOIR OF MAGIC, appeared originally in ASIMOV’S, and was reprinted in the Hartwell/Kramer YEAR’S BEST FANTASY.  Learn more at www.thevillagesang.com

About the Narrators:

With a background in theater and an English degree that didn’t lead to teaching or full-time novel writing, Kim Mintz turned to the persuasive arts known as sales and heard multiple clients say, “You have a great voice. I would listen to you all day!” Finally, she decided to marry these skills together and enter the world of professional voice acting. Employing a wide range of voices and expressions in commercial and narrative work, she contributed to the financial, travel, and health insurance industries, utilizing clear, direct articulation. She is currently expanding her repertoire with audio book passages by exhibiting a range of emotions, including warm, sultry, cheerful, sarcastic, and many others. She is also working on scripts with her writing partner for animated projects to which she hopes to give a voice. For more information, please visit her website at www.kimmintzvoiceactor.com

Andrew Leman is a producer, designer, actor, writer and director, not necessarily in that order. He has appeared on professional stages in Chicago and Los Angeles, and is a member of Theatre Banshee in Burbank, California. He has designed graphics and props for numerous films and TV shows, and a number of digital fonts that have been used extensively by graphic designers worldwide. With his friend & collaborator of many years, Sean Branney, Andrew has been running The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society since 1984, and has developed numerous film, audio, and gaming projects, including the award-winning motion pictures The Call of Cthulhu and The Whisperer in Darkness, musical projects including A Shoggoth on the Roof and Dreams in the Witch House, and several 1930s-style audio dramas in the Dark Adventure Radio Theatre series. He is the author of Lovecraftian Times, a non-scholarly history of the 1920s and ’30s for HPL fans, and is the designer of highly authentic prop documents for Call of Cthulhu gamers. Andrew is pleased also to be a frequent contributor to the H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast. And once upon a time he was a fossil preparator for the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. You can learn more at www.cthulhulives.org and www.hppodcraft.com

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Far Fetched Fables No 17 Laurel Winter, Ellen Klages, and Michael Haynes

Tue, 12 Aug 2014 08:00:41 GMT

First Story: “The Flying Woman” by Laurel Winter

The boats rested uneasily on the surface of the sea, waiting to leave. Chief Loah gripped Raff’s shoulder in one hand and tilted Dannilla’s face up with the other. “Swear you will not use your unnatural power to leave this island,” he said. “Swear on your father’s life.”

His fingers squeezed Dannilla’s chin. Their father sat in one of the boats, his face shiny with tears. “I swear,” she said. “I swear. Please don’t hurt him.”

Raff held silent, and then he gasped as the leader’s hand closed on his arm. “I swear.”

The leader pushed him, hard, and let go of Dannilla. Her eyes blurred and she fell to her knees in the sea.

Laurel Winter grew up in the mountains of Montana and attended a one-room country grade school with 12 to 25 students in grades 1 through 8. She then went 30 miles one way on the bus to Absarokee High School, where there were 33 in her graduating class. Since then she’s acquired an eclectic education, including credits in English, physics, and psychology from Montana State and numerous writing and art classes. A number of high school literature textbooks contain “egg horror poem” and she’s hoping her novel Growing Wings gets a baby sister this year. Her current passion is playing poker.

Second story: “Intelligent Design” by Ellen Klages

God cocked his thumb and aimed his index finger at the firmament.

Ka-pow! Pow! Pow! A line of three perfect glowing pinpoints of light appeared in the black void. He squeezed his eyes almost shut and let off a single shot. Ping! The pinprick of light at the far edge of the firmament, just where it touched the rim of the earth, glowed faintly red.

God got bored. Ratatatatatatatat! He peppered one corner of the sky with tiny specks of light clustered tight together. Each one glowed steadily. God lay down on his back and looked up at what he’d created. It was okay.

Ellen Klages’ short fiction has appeared in science fiction and fantasy anthologies and magazines, both online and in print, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Black Gate, Eclipse, and Firebirds Rising. Her story, “Basement Magic,” won the Best Novelette Nebula Award in 2005. Several of her other stories have been on the final ballot for the Nebula, World Fantasy, and Hugo Awards, and have been reprinted in various Year’s Best volumes.

She was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award, and is a graduate of the Clarion South writing workshop.

In addition to her writing, she serves on the Motherboard of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and is somewhat notorious as the auctioneer/entertainment for the Tiptree auctions at Wiscon.

Ellen was born in Ohio, and now lives in San Francisco. You can read more at http://ellenklages.com/index.html

Flash Fiction: “Act of Penance” by Michael Haynes