Far Fetched Fables

Far Fetched Fables

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Far Fetched Fables episodes

  • FarFetchedFables No 158 Jonathan Laidlow
    "“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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    49 min
  • FarFetchedFables No 157 Michael McGlade
    “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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    30 min
  • FarFetchedFables No 156 Barbara Barnett

    "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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    49 min
  • FarFetchedFables No 155 Claude Laumiere
    "“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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    31 min
  • FarFetchedFables No. 154 - Nisi Shawl
    "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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    51 min
  • FarFetchedFables No 153 Robert Silverberg
    “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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    56 min
  • FarFetchedFables No 152 Premee Mohamad
    "“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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    27 min
  • FarFetchedFables No 151 Scott Huggins
    "“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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    37 min
  • FarFetchedFables No 150 Mattew Hughes
    "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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    1 hr 19 min
  • FarFetchedFables No 149 Laurence Raphael Brothers and Alex Shvartsman
    “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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    35 min

About Far Fetched Fables

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Explore fantastical lands with Far-Fetched Fables! Do you sometimes wonder how things could be different, should be different? Do you feel the call of the bizarre and surreal? Each week, Nicola…