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Category: Drabblecast Page 17 of 28

Cover for Drabblecast episode 228, A Fairy Tale of Oakland, by Bo Kaier

Drabblecast 228 – A Fairy Tale of Oakland

On December 27, 2011

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror, Strange

In some parts of the world — Austria, Croatia, Hungary — they still remember. They understand. You can’t have something bright without having something dark to balance it. If you’ve got St. Nicholas, you also need the Krampus…

This episode of the Drabblecast opens with Norm’s reflections on the holidays, Santa Claus, and the origins of flying reindeer. In the drabble, the mayhem of a large family’s holiday dinner leads to a darkly humorous tragedy. In the feature, an unsavory petty criminal has a chance encounter with a dying old man who confides that years ago Santa bestowed upon him a miracle, a wish, to teach the true meaning of Christmas. Unfortunately, as they both learn, it comes with a catch..

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 227, The Star, by Adam S. Doyle

Drabblecast 227 – The Star

On December 24, 2011

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi

It is three thousand light years to the Vatican. Once, I believed that space could have no power over faith, just as I believed that the heavens declared the glory of God’s handiwork. Now I have seen that handiwork, and my faith is sorely troubled. I stare at the crucifix that hangs on the cabin wall above the Mark VI Computer, and for the first time in my life I wonder if it is no more than an empty symbol.

This episode of the Drabblecast concerns creation and destruction. In the drabble, creation after creation questions its creator’s role in its existence before wandering off into cyberspace. In the feature, a Jesuit priest, also an astrophysicist, aboard a space exploration vessel struggles with a crisis of faith. While investigating the remains of a planetary system destroyed when its sun went supernova, the crew unexpectedly discovers one planet that was distant enough to survive the explosion. There, they find an enormous vault containing the complete records of an advanced civilization that, realizing years ahead of time that their sun was going to explode, hoped to preserve their history and culture for someone to find so that their existence and destruction would not be in vain.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 226, The Heroics of Interior Design, by Skeet Scienski

Drabblecast 226 – The Heroics of Interior Design

On December 13, 2011

In Drabblecast, Drama, Fantasy

I can’t fly faster than a speeding bullet. I can’t lift a car. I can’t climb slick surfaces with my bare hands or breath underwater or stop time. All I can do is change blue things to yellow. I didn’t bother to buy a cape or a spandex suit like the others. I just bought a blouse and some slacks and went into interior design…

This episode of the Drabblecast explores the idea of being happy with yourself as a unique individual. In the drabble, the titular imaginary runner is invented as part of a game to pass time in the car, but meets a tragic end. In the feature, a woman with a minor Gift (turning blue things yellow) in a world of high-powered superheroes struggles to find a niche.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 225, Trifecta XIX, by Steve Santiago

Drabblecast 225 – Trifecta XIX

On December 5, 2011

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror

Once, 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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Cover for Drabblecast 224, Doubleheader X, by Mary Mattice

Drabblecast 224 – Doubleheader X

On November 25, 2011

In Comedy, Drabblecast, Fantasy, Strange

James Kennedy had stared at his sock drawer for a good ten minutes that first morning, dumbfounded. He’d never seen it so neat, and he didn’t remember doing it. But there they were: threadbare, but tidy and folded…

Another Drabblecast doubleheader special, featuring two stories from from author John P. Murphy.

Help support Norm’s New CD: The Esoteric Order of Sherman. Pre-order the Order.

Episode Sponsor: The Flash Pulp Podcast, thrice weekly pulp stories for the modern age.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 223, Bearing Fruit, by Alyssa Suzumura

Drabblecast 223 – Bearing Fruit

On November 20, 2011

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Romance

This, of course, is what comes of being overly friendly with strange mangoes. One day you’re a wide-eyed virgin, with nary a care in the world; the next, you find yourself most unexpectedly and all but inexplicably burdened in a manner that afflicts virgins only once every two thousand years or so, to the best of your understanding. It isn’t fair, but folk tales rarely are to young maidens — this is the first thing that you really ought to have known.

This week’s episode of the Drabblecast podcast begins with Norm imploring listeners to chip in for the production of his highly anticipated second CD. The Drabble is Déjà vu, by Ben Parker, concerns old magics and old memories. The feature is a change of pace story, Bearing Fruit by Nikki Alfar, in which a naive lass learns of life and her burgeoning womanhood upon unexpected contact with the supernatural. The show closes with classic bbardle Radioactive Runaways.

Help support Norm’s New CD: The Esoteric Order of Sherman. Agree to contribute, guarantee yourself a copy – Pre-order the Order. Classic Norm Sherman penned and performed “bbardles,” done up proper with the full studio treatment, in a package featuring art work from man of mundane mystery Bo Kaier.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 222, Rules for Living in a Simulation, by Mike Dominic

Drabblecast 222 – Rules for Living in a Simulation

On November 7, 2011

In Comedy, Drabblecast, Sci-Fi

Now if we, like those characters in recent movies, discovered specific clues in the world around us suggesting that we do in fact live in a simulation, we would of course consider those clues carefully to see what they say about how we should live our lives. — Robin Hanson

Norm begins this episode of the Drabblecast with an introduction to the new and improved Drabblecast.org, and thanks the many contributors who made this possible. The Drabble by John Murphy remembers a simpler time in video games, though a time not free of consequence. The feature by Aubrey Hirsch provides, as described in the title, a didactic set of rules for living in a simulation (a universe constructed especially for us).

Episode Sponsor: You Shall Never Know Security by J.R. Hamantaschen.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 221, Year of the Rabbit, by Rick Green

Drabblecast 221 – Year of the Rabbit

On October 30, 2011

In Drabblecast, Horror, Mystery

It used to be that the sun would go down and the streetlamps would come on and make pools of this wet, yellow light. No matter where you stood, you could see the lights on somewhere. You could run from streetlamp to streetlamp and you could look down the streets and you’d never drown in the dark…

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Drabblecast 220 – Trifecta XVIII

On October 26, 2011

In Comedy, Drabblecast, Sci-Fi, Strange

Another of the Drabblecast’s vaunted Trifecta series. Three short stories, each with a unique twist. The episode begins with an interview of author J.R. Hamantaschen, Norm runs fingers through his troubled mind, learning of the seeds from which his horrors spring. The theme of this Trifecta: getting the boot – stories of rejection and alienation. First up, Richard Weems’s Bad Habit, in which a nun and a naked pervert do battle (no, really). Next, author Andrew Gudgel (featured on fellow podcasts such as Escapepod) appears with Tags, as read by Kimi Alexander, a story of teenage dares in a technologically submerged world. Lastly, A Happy Family, by author, novelist Nathaniel Tower, read by Abner Senires, in which a family receives a very unexpected bundle of joy (and puzzlement).

Episode Sponsor: You Shall Never Know Security by J.R. Hamantaschen.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 219, The Big Splash, by Jonathan Wilson

Drabblecast 219 – The Big Splash

On October 13, 2011

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi, Strange

I passed the sign that read Warning: Shark Zone. The sun was setting,
lighting up the tops of the condos sticking out of the water. They had been
swallowed by the swollen ocean, when it spilled over, like everything else:
the skyscrapers, the cars, the fast food joints, the schools and
supermarkets and liquor stores…

Episode Sponsor: You Shall Never Know Security by J.R. Hamantaschen

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 218, Orange, by Rodolfo Arredondo

Drabblecast 218 – Orange

On October 7, 2011

In Action, Drabblecast, Sci-Fi

I take time-lapse photographs of an orange. The result is always the same.
First I remove the previous orange from the spike in front of the black
velvet backdrop and replace it with a new orange. I set an incandescent
spotlight out of frame as a light source…

Episode Sponsor: You Shall Never Know Security by J.R. Hamantaschen

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Drabblecast 217 – Followed

On September 26, 2011

In Comedy, Drabblecast, Horror

This episode of the Drabblecast presents “Followed” by Will McIntosh.

Norm also starts to ponder the nature of the undead. We conclude In Search of the Brain-Eating Nandi Bear serial featuring cryptozoologist Connor Choadsworth.

Following that is our feature story by Will McIntosh, author of Soft Apocalypse and the upcoming Hitchers.

Story Excerpt:

She came wandering down the sidewalk like any other corpse, her herky-jerky walk unmistakable among the fluid strides of the living. She was six or seven, Southeast Asian, maybe Indian, her ragged clothes caked in dried mud. Pedestrians cut a wide berth around her without noticing her at all…

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Drabblecast 216 – The Book of Eternity

On September 10, 2011

In Drabblecast, Horror

Cover for Drabblecast episode 216, The Book of Eternity, by Jan Dennison

Cover for Drabblecast episode 216, The Book of Eternity, by Jan Dennison

His name was Marvin Kasselmeier, though he changed it to Marcus Magnus
because he thought it sounded more impressive. He’d been a bright student,
solitary and humorless, with no friends, and a single obsession: he wanted to live forever…

Is eternal life real worth it? A demonic tale from Mike Resnick explores the question in the final week of Lovecraft months Story features In Search of the Brain-Eating Nandi Bear Part V.

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Drabblecast 215 – Dread Unlocks

On August 26, 2011

In Comedy, Drabblecast, Horror

Okay, no one expects eldritch horror in LA. Not that I know what eldritch horror really is. My old boyfriend (about fifteen boyfriends back) called anything that inspired dread “eldritch horror.” I guess that would describe my entire job, really…

Another story from Lovecraft month – elder horror in LA. Dread Unlocks is on the job!

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Drabblecast 214 – The Wish of the Demon Achtromagk

On August 17, 2011

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror, Strange

Achtromagk shuddered, lost in nightmare images: crimson lightning dotting a wasteland, twilight despair and feeble railings, isolation in a mewling throng. It thrashed and twisted but could not escape, could not stop the unwanted vistas in its mind.

It was silent. And soft. And dark…

Next up in Lovecraft month, a heart-warming tale of an extra-dimensional Lovecraftian horror (an ‘oh so huggable’ one) by Drabblecast favorite Eugie Foster.

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Drabblecast 213 – The Haunter of the Dark

On August 10, 2011

In Drabblecast, Horror

I have seen the dark universe yawning
Where the black planets roll without aim—
Where they roll in their horror unheeded,
Without knowledge or lustre or name…

To kick of Lovecraft Month Norm once again reads an H.P. Lovecraft classic.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 212, Ancient Engines, by Matt Wasiela

Drabblecast 212 – Ancient Engines

On July 28, 2011

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi

“Planning to live forever, Tiktok?”
The words cut through the bar’s chatter and gab and silenced them. The silence reached out to touch infinity and then, “I believe you’re talking to me?” a mech said…

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 211, At the End of the Hall, by Michael Hoskins

Drabblecast 211 – At the End of the Hall

On July 22, 2011

In Drabblecast, Drama, Sci-Fi

My earliest fear, the one I remember anyways, was of great pulp magazine robots with hot water heater bodies and vacuum tube eyes. My brother forbade me to touch his precious magazines, so I wouldn’t. I’d stare and stare at the covers through; hourglassed damsels in diaphanous gowns draped over thick slab altars, and the robots, always the robots with their cylindrical torsos and pincer claws for hands….

In Search of the Brain-Eating Nandi Bear Part III

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 210, The Alphabet Quartet, by Matt Schindler

Drabblecast 210 – Trifecta XVII

On July 6, 2011

In Comedy, Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror

Another in the Drabblecast trifecta series. This time, we dip in to the Alphabet Quartet collection.

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Cover for Drabblecast episode 209, Babyhead, by Johan Lindroos

Drabblecast 209 – Babyhead

On June 27, 2011

In Drabblecast, Horror

Cynthia couldn’t explain what she’d just seen in the vegetable patch.

She didn’t want to look again. She considered going back into the house, crawling back into bed with Mikey, and putting it down as a beer-inspired dream.

But that pinkish dome with the fuzzy down had felt soft under her fingers, and there had been the smell of manufactured newness, like a dusting of talcum powder wafting up to her nostrils, as she had pulled the coarse outer leaves of the cabbage apart…

Tales of parental love gone awry in this week’s unsettling Drabblecast.

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