Fantasy – The Drabblecast

This, of course, is what comes of being overly friendly with strange mangoes. One day you’re a wide-eyed virgin, with nary a care in the world; the next, you find yourself most unexpectedly and all but inexplicably burdened in a manner that afflicts virgins only once every two thousand years or so, to the best […]

Achtromagk shuddered, lost in nightmare images: crimson lightning dotting a wasteland, twilight despair and feeble railings, isolation in a mewling throng. It thrashed and twisted but could not escape, could not stop the unwanted vistas in its mind. It was silent. And soft. And dark… Next up in Lovecraft month, a heart-warming tale of an […]

Another in the Drabblecast trifecta series. This time, we dip in to the Alphabet Quartet collection.

The sound of running water came from ahead. The trail emerged from the woods and he looked up at the side of a rocky hill. A narrow waterfall trickled down the side of the rock, splashing into a pool of water. His father claimed the water here was the most amazing color he’d ever seen […]

The witness was beautiful, in a way that was almost hard to look at. His face was abstract and fashionable, all eyes and angles, with a luminous innocence too perfect to be entirely sincere…

And so came Creature out of the wasteland and into the city, bouncing from hilltop to hilltop like a bulbous ballerina skipping across the knuckles of a great hand. He was big as the moon and black as the night, and he came crashing into the city like a silent meteor. The cityfolk watched his […]

The ship had no name of her own, so her human crew called her the Lavinia Whateley. As far as anyone could tell, she didn’t mind. At least, her long grasping vanes curled—affectionately? — when the chief engineers patted her bulkheads and called her “Vinnie,” and she ceremoniously tracked the footsteps of each crew member […]

One day when a surge of dying summer heat roiled through the waterways, spoiling my fishing, I punted home to find Mama running down the grassy swell towards my docking-place. Hope died in her face when she saw my punt empty and I knew then what had happened…

“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen tomorrow, Davie. In the orning the priest will come here to see your box. It’ll be still there because nobody dares to touch it…” This episode of Drabblecast deals with fear and rationality. The feature takes us to a world where fear of knowledge and how it can […]

They needed a virgin to make a bargain with the sea monster who hunted the waters off their coast, and they were not willing to sacrifice their daughters… With the theme this week being about freedom, this episode of Drabblecast sees Norm musing about the irony of song about freedom written by a man name […]

Tompkins sighed. “What happens is this: You pay me my fee. I give you an injection which knocks you out. Then, with the aid of certain gadgets which I have in the back of the store, I liberate your mind…” This episode of Drabblecast starts with Norm recommending and playing an excerpt from Frank Key’s […]

The episode begins with a DrabbleNews segment on blow-up weaponry (it’s Nerf or Nothing!). Next, a drabble from Kelley Zanfardino. on What follows is a doubleheader from Hugo nominated, cognitive psychologist, author Lawrence M. Schoen (with author’s notes), as read by Phil Rossi. In A Fool’s Death we follow a man as he attempts a […]

“They will come on bicycles and by balloon, they will arrive in mailboxes and packages of cake batter. They will come like fleas on the dogs and like giants over the moon. The dull shall be turned into nothing by the coming of the angels…” Norm presents this week’s Drabblecast in the form of a […]

This episode of Drabblecast is another Trifecta special, with the of: Identity. Norm debates how our perceptions of optical illusions reflect how each person views things in their own, personal way. Evil Robot Monkey looks at the life of Sly, a micro-chip enhanced chimpanzee who creates pottery in order to deal with the stress of […]

A puppet’s words infect. They taint. They do this without ever sounding like a thing, without the listener realizing they have been spoken. A true ventriloquist, as those who are educated and informed may or may not choose to tell you, is an adept in the art of keeping those mouths shut… On this episode […]

You are to imagine, Twigling, the Red Bride to be a human, such as yourself, although she is in truth a creature of the Var...

“This is the one I wanted to show you,” Rando said to his blind date, Maya, who had an artificial eye that drooped slightly, but was otherwise very cute in a chipmunk sort of way. “Make her blonde,” Rando said, while Maya peered over his shoulder. The woman’s hair changed from brown to golden blonde…

The Drabblecast brings you “Go Beep” by Aliya Whiteley. Aliya Whiteley is a writer of dark tales in science fiction and fantasy, and was the winner of the Drabblecast People’s Choice award for Jelly Park! She has also been shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson, BSFA, and British Fantasy Society Awards. Story Excerpt: I’m a fan […]

Trifecta 13, oh yeh, the end of all things

You couldn’t describe a rath. You couldn’t even look at one for more than a few seconds before you started getting a migraine aura. Rovers were just blots of shadow. The breeder was massive, armored, and had no recognizable features, save for its hideous, drooling, ragged edged maw. Irizarry didn’t know if it had eyes, […]

Izrael Irizarry stepped through a bright-scarred airlock onto Kadath Station, lurching a little as he adjusted to station gravity. On his shoulder, Mongoose extended her neck, her barbels flaring, flicked her tongue out to taste the air, and colored a question. Another few steps, and he smelled what Mongoose smelled, the sharp stink of toves, […]

If the snowman, whose name was Wink, had known that the meat man would invent such a rotten thing, he never would have built the man in the first place… 3rd Annual Nigerian Scam Spam Contest Ducks are Bastards: Part I:

Thousands of fish — dead, dying, or flopping in the shallows — littered the shore. A dozen people in their nightgowns, pajamas, or hastily-thrown-on street clothes moved along the shore, bending, exclaiming, whistling, laughing. Some had flashlights, but most worked by moonlight, scooping up flounder, blue crab, and shrimp. This was a jubilee, as I […]

The baby list is not very long. Babies only come in about six colors — we’re getting one that matches Mother and me. Humans are a lot less interesting than Legos or iBots…

Once a month, on a Sunday, Mum and me and my little brother Zubby would dress up in our best clothes, Mum would put ribbons in my hair, and we’d all walk into town to go to church…

An apocalyptic trio of stories on this week’s Drabblecast featuring works by authors G.A. Semones, Douglas Warrick, and M. Thomas.

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…

Although she was tired, Wu was careful not to show it. Her pregnancies were progressing nicely. The eldest foetus, Hoo, was about to be born, and she was getting too big for parties, but the Senate elections were only months away and her visible pregnancy gave her an advantage she could not afford to waste… […]

Maeve stepped into his study. She took a moment to remember the smell, the scent of old leather and hot meat, of tea and savagery. Archie held a delicate forearm out which, carefully, she took, shaking the lead claw once. … … “If there’s one thing they teach you in podcasting school, it’s that you […]

“I’m going to cut to the chase,” Zephyr said. “You’ll never make it as a magician. You just don’t have the moustache for it…” Ig Awards Josh Roseman

It was clown-hunting weather. It was time to gather the musty costumes, clean the slide whistles, bag up the guns, and spin the lures of cotton candy…

The other gamblers ignored her. They were a mixed bunch– middle aged men in ties and shiny suits, women in evening gowns, young men with gleaming teeth and haunted expressions. Roulette was a sucker’s game. Unless you were Cassie…

The Drabblecast brings you Teddy Bears and Tea Parties written by S. Boyd Taylor. It’s a heart-breaking horror story about little girls, stuffed animals, and hunger. It’s a bit of a graphic one, folks, so make sure to put the ear muffs on the kids. Excerpt: Shadows move on the mantelpiece and the end […]

This sounds ridiculous, I know. It’s like watching an old movie where everyone has a British accent, even if they’re supposed to be in ancient Rome or something. God is just impossible to translate… Magpie Yarns

This week The Drabblecast presents “The Golden Age of Fire Escapes” by John Aegard who lives in Seattle, Washington with his blind dog. We also meet a slew of cryptids as we continue the adventures of Connor Choadsworth in “In Search of the Mongolian Death Worm.” A festive special, to be sure! Story Excerpt: The […]

“Why do you remember the books?” he finally asks. She smiles again. “O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what state I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere, Till pride and worse ambition threw me down…”

The Drabblecast presents “Storm Comes A’ Callin'” by Jeremiah Tolbert. We also introduce cryptozoologist Connor Choadsworth in his hunt across the Gobi Desert for the Mongolian Deathworm. Jeremiah has had an impact in the Science Fiction world since 2001 and is currently the editor of Escape Pod. Story Excerpt: I heft the axe. Lighter now, […]

Trifecta 9, dinosaurs, love, monsters, everything you need. Featuring works by Bruce Holland Rogers, Steve Calvert and Bruce Boston.

Annabelle’s mother closed her eyes. “Get it sharp,” she said. “Very sharp, so it doesn’t hurt much. I’ll boil some water.” Somewhere in the house, far from the green places she’d known, baby Annabelle lay on her stomach and cried…

His years away from me had bled any belief he once had in the old ways. I had thought to educate him, to make him wise in the ways of science and the world. I thought after he graduated he would return and learn the way of the angatquq, the shaman, and take his place […]

Angels, fallen or otherwise, weren’t known for their appreciation of human art… On this episode of the Drabblecast, a Gaiman’esque tale of the urban supernatural from fan favorite Tim Pratt. How will a pair of fallen angels behave on a visit to New Orleans?

A series aquatically oriented tales make up the Drabblecast’s 8th Trifecta.

We reach the rocky banks, out of breath. We do not speak. We can barely hear our voices over water raging against the rocks. Our breath makes white clouds. I buckle my helmet and cinch my gloves tighter… Leading off this episode of the Drabblecast is a Drabble about a child drowning, or a child […]

Damascus started to object, but feeling the stares from those in the infinite line behind him, he angrily flipped open his courier’s bag and grabbed two bloody, dripping muslin bags. He slapped them on the counter and huffed away… A special episode of the Drabblecast podcast. For each of the seven deadly sins: gluttony, envy, […]

He folds his barely eaten burrito away in its paper wrapper and regards me seriously with his warm, friendly eyes. “I have a *lot* of frequent flier miles. I’d be more than happy to share them.” I understand that we’re not talking about the kind of miles the airlines give you. This has nothing to […]

The village of Kriegerwald on the shores of Lake Teufel high in the Swiss Alps couldonly be reached by foot or ski lift, which suited the villagers. Each villager possessed broadforeheads and flat noses with strange guttural accents even the people in the valley below barelyunderstood. They also had a singular tourist attraction, popular enough […]

The wicked witch business wasn’t what it used to be. It had been such a simple thing, to lure children with candy; back in the old days when candy had been hard to come by… In this episode’s Drabble, a moth eloquently expresses her attraction to a bright light and her own subsequent destruction. The […]

“How often does it do that?” the faun asked. “Most of the time. The poor thing’s totally neglected. They never speak to it or interact with it– except for when the kids are throwing rocks at it…” This episode of the Drabblecast begins with a Drabble News story about an employee finding a Brazilian wandering […]

She’d been hunting full-grown pies for four years now. The little hand-held fruit pies were for kids– the preservatives made them slow and stupid– but pies in the wild, they were the true treasure, they had formed the culture of her people… This episode of the Drabblecast features two pie-themed stories set in one fantasy […]

Though the boy’s birthdays occurred weeks apart, Mother combined their gift to please Father. “You may choose your present this year, boys,” said she. “Something to fulfill your destiny, perhaps.” The boys were born to change the world… The winners of the Drabblecast People’s Choice Award are announced: Best Drabble “Please Allow the Door to […]