Ever feel Déjà vu on the road supposedly less traveled? Truth and lies on this week’s Drabblecast, we bring you an original story from Bob McHugh called “Is This a Plate?” Enjoy!
Produced by Adam Pracht
Read by Dominick Rabrun
Beyond this point, two paths lie
One you live, one you die
Ask one question, yes or no
To determine the road to go
But be warned
There’s more still
One is honest
One speaks swill…
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This week’s show has it all: vampires, evolutionary biology, and quivering jacked up Taylor Swifts.
We bring you three flash fiction pieces about the complications of being in love: Taylor Swift by Hugh Behm-Steinberg, The Evolution of a Breakup by Etgar Keret, and May I Come In by Adrienne Ryan.
Narrations provided by Avery Alexander, Adam Pracht and Norm Sherman.
Art by Anike Kirsten
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Finally, a Drabblecast episode for weird foodies.
We bring you a Drabblecast original called, “How to Impress a Top Food Critic and Put Your Restaurant on the Galactic Map” by P.A, Cornell.
Enjoy…
Episode Sponsor– Mothmen 1966
Cover created by Bo Kaier in concert with the midjourney text-to-image AI (and unidentifiable, scraped contributors).
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The Drabblecast brings you three original stories this week (Modern Fairytales, if you will) from authors Alice Gauntley, Matthew Sanborn Smith, and Kevin D. Anderson.
Enjoy!
Our birthday was the first of March, and for two weeks beforehand it was all Caleb could talk about—cake, presents, and, most importantly, whom to invite. He would chatter about it as we did his homework, as we played his video games, as he went to sleep and I watched over him. Mom had him try different kinds of cakes, and even let me eat some and asked which one I liked best. I liked the carrot cake, but Caleb liked chocolate, so that’s the one she scheduled the kitchen to make fresh for the morning of the party…
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Episode Sponsor: You Know It’s True by J.R. Hamantaschen
This week on the Drabblecast, we bring you a classic story by Flannery O’Conner about simpler times and a summer family vacation gone awry. Enjoy!
Warning: This story is being presented in it’s original form and contains an instance of outdated cultural language.
“Now look here, Bailey,” she said, “see here, read this,” and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. “Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn’t answer to my conscience if I did…”
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Dinosaurs gone awry on this week’s Drabblecast! We bring you an original story by John Wiswell called The Tyrant Lizard (and Her Plus One), enjoy!
Episode Sponsor: J.R. Hamentaschen’s horror anthology, “You Know It’s True” Free on Kindle Unlimited!
Dinosaurs don’t want to kill you; they just don’t care that you’re there. More people have been sat on by brontosauruses than have been eaten by all the theropods combined. Since I joined security on the archipelago, 82% of dinosaur-related human casualties were from tourists who got too close during mating season. And the four times I’ve seen a deinonychus attack someone, they’ve always left them uneaten. Why? For the same reason bears and sharks tend to leave victims alive: because humans taste like shit…
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Who says Drabblecast doesn’t do Young Adult Fiction?
This week we launch Women & Aliens Month with a fresh, original Drabblecast commission by Effie Seiberg.
We’re grateful to be able to bring you this story this week!
On the day I turned nine I didn’t get a pet nebula.
I’d really really wanted one, just like the one Shelly had. And I’d been talking about it FOR-EVER, so Mom could have the time to save up for the one in the pawn shop. I’m not usually patient, but this was important…
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The Drabblecast wraps up HP Lovecraft Month this year with a mythos story unlike any variety you’ve likely heard before! We bring you “The Shallow One,” an original Drabblecast story by Matthew Sanborn Smith.
Norm closes out with a song about awkward romance called “There’s a Fetus in Your Kitchen.”
I first met Madeline at the local drug store, IBS, in the digestive aids aisle. We were both buying constipation products when our hands touched. Electricity passed between us, though it may have been the carpeting. My drone quivered on my shoulder, begging permission to snap a pic…
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This week on the Drabblecast: dirty jobs. We bring you a quirky original tale by Bryan Miller about mad scientists and henchmen gone awry. Enjoy!
The bulletin board posting specifically stated that the internship required “special skills,” “unorthodox hours,” and an “old-fashioned go-getter,” so I can’t really complain as I’m digging up coffins in search of heads.
Even though the graveyard muck is hell on my Cole Haan shoes, I roll up the sleeves of my Oxford shirt and keep working that spade. Dress for the job you want. One day some intrepid young man—or woman!—may be fetching moldering crania for me. Assuming all goes well.
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In the tiny lifeboat, she and the alien eat bacon endlessly, relentlessly.
They each have their own preference. Hers is the usual, crispy but not too crispy, the creamy fat just firm enough to bite through, the salt making grainy little bumps that she licks off her fingers.
The alien is not humanoid. It is not bipedal. It has cilia. It has no bones, or perhaps it does and she cannot feel them. Its muscles, or what might be muscles, are rings and not strands. It seems to like its bacon softer than she does, almost raw even, though sometimes it eats pieces that were left to fry a little too long.
It eats the bacon a thousand ways. She eats it, too.
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We take the classic Mad Libs formula and give it an eldritch twist. On this special B-Sides episode turn your ears up for H.P. Lovecraft inspired purple prose with listener submitted prompts…
Drabblecast B-Sides: <a href="http://www.drabblecast.org/donate/">Donate</a>
Our first Women & Aliens Month commission for 2020– It’s a goodie, a full-cast production of a Drabblecast original by Rachel K. Jones and Khalida Muhammed-Ali. Wash up, it’s time for dinner!
On this diplomatic mission, I, Scholar, have two objectives: first, to advise Master Feeder TikTik on Earth customs and linguistic differences, and second, to accurately record what transpires so we may determine an exchange of gifts…
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On this week’s show Norm makes a case for adult diapers in preparation for the apocalypse before giving us a taste of “The Peoria Plague,” a 1972 radio drama that doesn’t feel so “1972” at all.
The feature story this week, “The Full Moon Group” by Dianne M. Williams is a Drabblecast original and reminds us that creatures of all walks of life need a little support now and then…
Time was running out, and Matt couldn’t stand the thought of driving home for the change. He turned off the car in the parking lot across the street from the stone church and checked the address. The internet ad said: “Shifter Support — we welcome all shifters. We take security seriously…”
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Norm begins this episode with a metacast update on what’s been going on behind the scenes at the Drabblecast lately. He initiates a call to action for all Weird Nation to consider registering as organ donors and to find out more at www.organdonor.gov
Our story this week by short story legend Flannery O’Connor explores the question, “Am I the asshole?” Special thanks to our guest host and narrator, Random Hospital Cafeteria Worker.
The old woman and her daughter were sitting on their porch when Mr. Shiftlet came up their road for the first time. The old woman slid to the edge of her chair and leaned forward, shading her eyes from the piercing sunset with her hand…
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Sweet Valley High and the Babysitters Club meet cult life and H.P. Lovecraft mythos, as we continue our special Lovecraft anthology month this week, bringing you an original story by Shaenon K. Garrity.
The Wakefields were the worst family in Oakes Isle. Even the grown-ups knew it. Whenever a chicken was stolen or the air was let out of a bike tire or a starving hex was chalked on a barn wall to sicken the sheep, there was a Wakefield behind it…
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In this Drabbleclassics episode, fan and audio producer Fred Greenhalgh presents two classic Drabblecast stories by acclaimed author Mur Lafferty exploring the dichotomy of pie and cake.
In “The Blueberry Pie” successfully slaying the titular food item stands as the first rite of passage for a child wishing to officially join the tribe of the pie hunters.
In “The Last of the Pie Hunters,” a peaceful gardener gives care and compassion to a battered warrior in the war between the pie hunters and the eaters of cake…
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…
Mur has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards and most recently published the novelization for “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” She also hosts several podcasts including “I Should Be Writing,” and “Ditch Diggers” which just won the Hugo Award for Best Fancast.
Enjoy the show!
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Today The Drabblecast brings you an original story commissioned by Karen Heuler: “Beauty Tips for the Apocalypse.”
Karen Heuler wrote her first novel when she was eleven, and she’s been worshiping books at the altar ever since.
In times such as these, with the world shaken to its core, it is all too easy to give up on routine cosmetic care. Yet a fresh look in a war zone can do so much to uplift those suffering and dying right in front of your eyes. Consider it a humanitarian obligation that you owe to those around you, no matter the particular effects of the zone of destruction you find yourself in…
Enjoy the show (the full story is printed below the player)!
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Drabbleclassics:
A fan-hosted Series that features fan-picked stories from the Drabblecast archives, remastered and brought to you by fans like our host this week, Bart Epstein. Enjoy!
This week for Drabbleclassics Bart Epstein brings your Primary Pollinator, by Nicole Kimberling.
When Dr. Lopez came for me, I was plunging the geo lab toilet. She carried a red stickle suit in one hand and a spray can of anti-fungal lubricant in the other.
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This week The Drabblecast presents “The Day After the Day the Martians Came” by Frederik Pohl.
Jokes can teach you a lot about the underlying anxieties of a culture. The old line “take me to your leader” was actually a jab at President Eisenhower’s leadership during the Cold War. This story is about jokes and anxiety. Part of what makes it so brilliant is discerning between the two.
Though Frederik Pohl passed away in 2013, his impact on the world of science fiction (and particularly on this podcast) will carry well into the future. His 1977 novel “Gateway” won the Hugo, Locus, Nebula, and John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel. Among many other accolades Pohl became only the 12th recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in 1993 and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. Pohl may not be a household name, but he deserves to be.
On the television screen a hastily edited tape was now showing the return of the Algonquin Nine space probe to Mars, but no one was watching it. It was the third time that particular tape had been repeated since midnight and everybody had seen it at least once; but when it changed to another shot of one of the Martians, looking like a sad dachshund with elongated seal flippers for limbs, one of the poker players stirred and cried: “I got a Martian joke! What’s worse than a martian tryin to fly a spaceship?
“It’s your bet,” said the dealer.
“A martian tryin’ to park one” said the reporter, folding his cards. No one laughed, not even Mr. Mandala, although some of the jokes had been pretty good. Everybody was beginning to get tired of them though, or perhaps just tired.
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Drabbleclassics is a fan-hosted monthly series that features fan-picked stories from the Drabblecast archives.
Our Drabbleclassics host this time around is Jen Fisher, who presents author Aliya Whiteley’s take on mindless marketing, the grunge rock anti-establishment, and the struggles of a young couple trying to fight a bizarre takeover, in her story “Go Beep.”
Oh, and an alternative rock recipe for crème brûlée. Enjoy!
Warning: Excessively catchy jingles.
First appeared on Drabblecast 173.
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