Drabblecast – The Drabblecast

We kick off Women And Aliens Month with “The Four Generations of Chang E,” by Zen Cho. It’s a dystopian space story steeping in Eastern mythology and tradition. And rabbits. Moon rabbits. Story Excerpt: In the final days of Earth as we knew it, Chang E won the moon lottery. For Earthlings who were neither rich […]

This episode of the Drabblecast presents “Water Spots,” by Rebecca Gomezrueda, a troubling tale of murk, darkness, and the complexity of the human experience. Is it something in the water? Consider yourself warned. Story Excerpt: “They found your brother…” Her mother leaves the sentence unfinished, and she wants to tell her not to go on. He […]

A plate, a plate, another plate burst upon the kitchen tile. This one broke into three large pieces and assorted ceramic crumbs. Giraffe closed her long-lashed eyes and prayed to her many makers. Why in the world would the people make one hard thing that was so likely to smash into a second hard thing? […]

The canary yellow shirt read “Camp Fit,” but it didn’t quite fit the bulbous, pre-adolescent boy cringing in the cabin’s corner. Rows of bunks lined both sides of the room. Standing over the boy, Worgly raised his shaggy brown arms and roared with his terrible roar. “You’re going to eat me!” And the monster gnashed […]

This episode of the Drabblecast brings you “A Last Kiss for Lazarus Winters,” another story in D.K. Thompson’s Saint Darwin’s Spirituals series. D.K. Thompson was the host and co-editor of PodCastle, a fantasy fiction podcast, for five years, and has narrated audiobooks by Tim Pratt, Greg van Eekhout, and James Maxey, among others. Story Excerpt: […]

When it comes to ghosts, my grandmother has one solution: brew a pot of coffee. Like today, in Sadie Lancaster’s kitchen. Sadie clutches her hands beneath her chin and stares at our percolator, her eyes huge. The thing gurgles and hisses as if it resents being pressed into service. My own reflection in its side […]

Anton drew his legs up underneath him. The car seat was huge and puffy, and the leather made a breathy creak when he moved. It sounded like it was sighing. ‘How much longer?’ he said. For a while, nobody answered. He thought maybe they hadn’t heard him, but then his mother said, ‘We’ll be there […]

Sato lay on the cement floor of the workshop in a pool of his own blood and tried desperately to get Kuro-4’s legs working again. The robot, in turn, tried to deal with the gaping wounds in Sato’s smashed leg and pelvis. Useful Objects by Erica L. Satifka   After he passes the age of […]

Earnest was in kindergarten when Jackie the Janitor got fired for “choking the chicken” in the girls’ bathroom. That phrase, along with his best friend Bradley Watson’s accompanying hand gestures, stuck in Earnest’s head so hard that whenever he looked at the thing between his legs, all he could see was a bald, pointed bird […]

There are two things I love, and one is the tiny grey owl outside my window. He is not afraid of me. He hoots and hops to my windowsill so I can stroke his downy head and feed him worms I’ve saved in my pocket. It is hard to get the worms from my pocket, […]