Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
Warning:  Violent imagery, some explicit language, sexual encounters.

Cover for Drabblecast 261, The People of Sand and Slag, by John Deberge“Hostile movement! Well inside the perimeter! Well inside!” I stripped off my Immersive Response goggles as adrenaline surged through me. The virtual cityscape I’d been about to raze disappeared, replaced by our monitoring room’s many views of SesCo’s mining operations. On one screen, the red phosphorescent tracery of an intruder skated across a terrain map, a hot blip like blood spattering its way toward Pit 8.

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Episode Art:  John Deberge
Read by:  David Robison, Naomi Mercer, and Mike Boris

Twabble:  “I gave my cat a tinfoil hat and could no longer hear his voice. But, all nearby people collapsed like stringless puppets. ”  by  Algernon Sydney is Dead

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Tuesday, October 9th, 2012

Cover for Drabblecast episode 259, The Last of the O-Forms, by Jacob Wayne BrynerAt the sack’s bottom, beneath an empty donut box, he found the beef jerky. It tasted mostly of pepper, but underneath it had a tingly, metallic flavor he tried not to think about. Who knew what it might have been made from? He doubted there were any original-form cows, the o-cows, left to slaughter…

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Episode Art:  Jacob Wayne Bryner
Read by:  Ken Jordan

Twabble:  “I could feel her eyes on the back of my neck. Then I turned around and her green eyestalks adjusted, pushing into my chest. ”  by  loyaleagle

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  •  Feature:  From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog7  by  Nnedi Okorafor
  •  Drabble:  Moving the Goalposts  by  Nathan Lee
  •  Genre:  Sci-Fi

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

Cover for Drabblecast episode 238, The Lost Diary of TreeFrog7, by Caroline ParkinsonTranslating… Appendix 820 of The Forbidden Greeny Jungle Field Guide. This series of audio files was created by TreeFrog7. It has been automatically translated into text

In this episode of the Drabblecast, heavily pregnant jungle explorer TreeFrog7 keeps a recorded diary of data she and her husband are collecting for the Forbidden Greeny Jungle Field Guide. As they close in on a legendary mature CPU plant (MCPU), a wild version of cultivated CPU plants used as personal computers, they encounter numerous jungle creatures including an enormous flightless moth protecting the plant. Despite its attacks, the explorers do not want to kill the moth in case the MCPU needs it to survive. While treed by the moth in the MCPU, TreeFrog7 gives birth to their daughter while her husband downloads the MCPU’s data. Close enough to see the MCPU’s monitor, they watch a rapidly shifting display of locations and symbols. TreeFrog7 realizes the images are getting closer to their own location and represent another explorer’s collected data. Finally, the scene fades and the monitor shows only two eyes. The diary ends with an entry by an unknown voice that implies the explorers have themselves been collected. In the drabble, a teenage boy fails to convince an uninterested, gum-snapping girl that he understands her feelings of otherness and isolation.

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Episode Art:  Caroline Parkinson
Read by:  Veronica Giguere

Twabble:  “Her whiskers tickled my cheek as she purred and explored my face. Who would have thought grandma was this affectionate? ”  by  TroyStJames

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Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Cover for Drabblecast episode 230, bears Discover Fire, by Matt WasielaWe stayed on the path.  The light seemed to drip down from the canopy of the woods like rain.  The going was easy, especially if we didn’t try to look at the path but let our feet find their own way.
Then through the trees I saw their fire…

This episode of the Drabblecast examines humanity through anthropomorphism. In the drabble, peacefully grazing sheep get unexpected visitors who reveal that the sheep are not exactly what they seem. In the feature, when bears discover fire, stop hibernating, and begin populating highway medians in the southern US, their changing behavior highlights how a family’s members react to changes in their own lives with varying degrees of acceptance and grace.

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Episode Art:  Matt Wasiela
Music by:   Jonny Corndawg (Closing)

Twabble:  “As snakes devoured me, I understood: I never should have shopped at Bed, Bath and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. ”  by  Chris Munroe

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Monday, December 5th, 2011

Cover for Drabblecast episode 225, Trifecta XIX, by Steve SantiagoOnce, at the beginning, you asked why you were brought here. This is what I told you: your parents made a deal. I would rid them of their plague of rats, and they would pay me. I cleared the town of pests, easily done, and returned for my payment. They laughed at me and tried to send me away with less than they promised. Money is not important. Deals are.

The theme of this episode of the Drabblecast is fairy tale child abduction. In David is Six, David cannot wait to be seven. In his desperation, he strikes a bargain with a fairy that appears to him as a talking toad and is taken to the fairy queen. The Best Boy, The Brightest Boy picks up where the Pied Piper of Hamlin left off, following the children and the Piper into his kingdom under the mountain where after a series of cruel games and tests, only one boy remains alive. He becomes the Piper’s apprentice. In Broken, a father stumbles upon a fairy in the act of exchanging his disabled child for her own enchanted brood. A heart-breaking decision follows.

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Spec the Halls, EMP Collective
Episode Art:  Steve Santiago

Twabble:  “"Jesus Christ!" Mary yelled when she saw the muddy sandal prints across the living room, "What were you, born in a barn?" ”  by  Chris Munroe

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  •  Feature:  Hokkaido Green  by  Aidan Doyle
  •  Drabble:  On the Inside  by  Kayla Bashe
  •  Genre:  Drama  Fantasy

Sunday, June 19th, 2011

Cover for Drabblecast episode 208, Hokkaido Green, by Jerel DyeThe 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 – a vivid blue-green he’d dubbed Hokkaido green…

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Drabblecast Art Reclamation Project Sumi-e Painting Daddy Drinks Because You Cry Go the !#@% to Sleep
Episode Art:  Jerel Dye

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Monday, November 8th, 2010

Cover for Drabblecast episode 186, Garkain, by Jerel DyeHis home is in the dense jungle along the banks of the Liverpool River. Should anyone venture into that jungle Garkain, who can fly as well as walk, will wrap himself around the intruder, and smother him with the loose folds of skin which are attached to his arms and legs.

—Charles P. Mountford, The First Sunrise, 1971

In this episode of the Drabblecast podcast, the theme is mythical beasts and creatures, imagined, extinct or otherwise. Norm discuss fantastic animals from down Under (Australia). In the feature we are presented evidence of the existence of the frightful Garkain. The monster’s aspects are recalled in several accounts from eye witnesses and scholars.

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Clowns Bunnies Other Scary Things, Jerel Dye’s new Comic Book Anthology!
Episode Art:  Jerel Dye
Read by:  Graeme Dunlop, Mike Boris, and Delianna Forget

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