Far Fetched Fables

“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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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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“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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“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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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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“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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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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“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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“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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“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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