Drabblecast Covers Collage 2018 01

Tag: space opera

Drabbleclassics 31 – Boojum

In this Drabbleclassics episode, author and Drabblefan Weirdo Abbie Hilton breaks down the hit Drabblecast story Boojum, by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette.

The ship had no name of her own, so her human crew called her the Lavinia Whateley. As far as anyone could tell, she didn’t mind. At least, her long grasping vanes curled—affectionately? — when the chief engineers patted her bulkheads and called her “Vinnie,” and she ceremoniously tracked the footsteps of each crew member with her internal bioluminescence, giving them light to walk and work and live by…

Drabblecast Presents: Far Far Away

Drabblecast Presents: Far Far AwayA special throwback episode.  With One week left in the  Drabblecast Reborn Kickstarter, Norm presents one of his favorite surreal stories from deep in the archive by Hootingyard writer and Resonance FM radio personality Frank Key, and gives us a teaser about Frank’s commissioned story for Drabblecast Kickstarter Supporters

The bullet-riddled corpses of our dead crew-mates, all sixteen of them, are coffined up, and the coffins stacked as a makeshift ping pong table…

Drabbleclassics 21 – Mongoose : Part II (171)

Cover for Drabblecast episode 171, Mongoose pt. 2, by Skeet ScienskiYou couldn’t describe a rath. You couldn’t even look at one for more than a few seconds before you started getting a migraine aura. Rovers were just blots of shadow. The breeder was massive, armored, and had no recognizable features, save for its hideous, drooling, ragged edged maw. Irizarry didn’t know if it had eyes, or even needed them…

Drabbleclassics 20 – Mongoose : Part I (170)

Cover for Drabblecast episode 170, Mongoose pt. 1, by Jerel DyeIzrael Irizarry stepped through a bright-scarred airlock onto Kadath Station, lurching a little as he adjusted to station gravity. On his shoulder, Mongoose extended her neck, her barbels flaring, flicked her tongue out to taste the air, and colored a question. Another few steps, and he smelled what Mongoose smelled, the sharp stink of toves, ammoniac and bitter…

Drabbleclassics 9 – The End of the Universe (128)

Cover for Drabblecast episode 128, The End of the Universe, by Bo Kaier“Countdown commencing,” the computer announced. “Termination of the universe in 10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . .”

Eight seconds until the end of everything. No Earth, no galaxy, no existence…

Drabblecast 255 – The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward pt. 2

Looking away from the light that showed the Charles Dexter Ward was no longer entirely dead was as hard as opening a rusted zipper. But Cynthia did it, and didn’t let herself look back She pulled Hester a little further down the corridor and said, “Now we really need to know how she killed him. And whether it’ll work a second time…”

Drabblecast 254 – The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward pt. 1

Cover for Drabblecast 254, The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward, by Bo KaierSix weeks into her involuntary tenure on Faraday Station, Cynthia Feuerwerker needed a job. She could no longer afford to be choosy about it, either; her oxygen tax was due, and you didn’t have to be a medical doctor to understand the difficulties inherent in trying to breathe vacuum.

You didn’t have to be, but Cynthia was one. Or had been, until the allegations of malpractice and unlicensed experimentation began to catch up with her. As they had done, here at Faraday, six weeks ago…

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

Drabblecast 227 – The Star

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

Cover for Drabblecast episode 203, Boojum pt. 2, by Liz

Drabblecast 203 – Boojum Part II

Cover for Drabblecast episode 203, Boojum pt. 2, by LizThe first sign was the chief engineers frowning and going into huddles at odd moments. And then Black Alice began to feel it herself, the way Vinnie was… she didn’t have a word for it because she’d never felt anything like it before. She
would have said balky, but that couldn’t be right. It couldn’t. But she was more and more sure that Vinnie was less responsive somehow, that when she obeyed the captain’s orders, it was with a delay…

Cover for Drabblecast episode 202, Boojum pt. 1, by Caroline Parkinson

Drabblecast 202 – Boojum: Part I

Cover for Drabblecast episode 202, Boojum pt. 1, by Caroline ParkinsonThe ship had no name of her own, so her human crew called her the Lavinia Whateley. As far as anyone could tell, she didn’t mind. At least, her long grasping vanes curled—affectionately? — when the chief engineers patted her bulkheads and called her “Vinnie,” and she ceremoniously tracked the footsteps of each crew member with her internal bioluminescence, giving them light to walk and work and live by…

Cover for Drabblecast episode 200, The Last Question, by Adam S. Doyle

Drabblecast 200 – The Last Question

Cover for Drabblecast episode 200, The Last Question, by Adam S. DoyleIt all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it’ll all have an end when all the stars run down. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that’s all…

On this special episode celebrating the Drabblecast’s 200th episode, we feature sci-fi milestone The Last Question by the ubiquitous genre giant Isaac Asimov. Norm takes listeners along for a thankful, whistful retrospective of the podcast’s history. The episode then moves in to a full cast, sweeping production of the sci-fi epic. The Last Question is an existential piece occurring over a grand timeline in the fullness of outer space, as mankind and artificial intelligence alike consider immortality, the end of all things, and what it means. The episode features chapter illustrations, and announces the 2010 People’s Choice award winners.

Winners of 2010 People’s Choice Awards!
Best Story: Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette
Best Drabble: Chris Munroe
Best Art: Liz

Cover for Drabblecast episode 171, Mongoose pt. 2, by Skeet Scienski

Drabblecast 171 – Mongoose : Part II

Cover for Drabblecast episode 171, Mongoose pt. 2, by Skeet ScienskiYou couldn’t describe a rath. You couldn’t even look at one for more than a few seconds before you started getting a migraine aura. Rovers were just blots of shadow. The breeder was massive, armored, and had no recognizable features, save for its hideous, drooling, ragged edged maw. Irizarry didn’t know if it had eyes, or even needed them…

Cover for Drabblecast episode 170, Mongoose pt. 1, by Jerel Dye

Drabblecast 170 – Mongoose : Part I

Cover for Drabblecast episode 170, Mongoose pt. 1, by Jerel DyeIzrael Irizarry stepped through a bright-scarred airlock onto Kadath Station, lurching a little as he adjusted to station gravity. On his shoulder, Mongoose extended her neck, her barbels flaring, flicked her tongue out to taste the air, and colored a question. Another few steps, and he smelled what Mongoose smelled, the sharp stink of toves, ammoniac and bitter…

Cover for Drabblecast episode 128, The End of the Universe, by Bo Kaier

Drabblecast 128 – The End of the Universe

Cover for Drabblecast episode 128, The End of the Universe, by Bo Kaier“Countdown commencing,” the computer announced. “Termination of the universe in 10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . .”

Eight seconds until the end of everything. No Earth, no galaxy, no existence…

Cover for Drabblecast episode 90, Far Far Away, by Jonathan Wilson

Drabblecast 90 – Far Far Away

Cover for Drabblecast episode 90, Far Far Away, by Jonathan WilsonThe bullet-riddled corpses of our dead crew-mates, all sixteen of them, are coffined up, and the coffins stacked as a makeshift ping pong table…

In Drabble News, Norm congratulates the Harper Collins Dictionary for adding the slang term “meh” (an utterance of indifference). For the Drabble segment, returning author and future editor Matthew Bey (responsible for Drabblecast #58, “Eggs,” among others) allows his strange nocturnal fantasies about pupating locomotives to cross into the listener’s daylight. Next, Norm reads from the work of Frank Key, the British surreal author whose ‘lopsided fiction’ has graced the Drabblecast on numerous occasions, including episode #190. The selection: “The Goat God.” The feature describes the Flying Dutchman space journey of the starship “Corrugated Cardboard,” and the strange transformations of its surviving crew. The crew’s destination: a tiny pink planet where blind, mute, magnetic love monkeys frolic. Do these wonderful mythical creatures even exist, or are they figments of the unreliable narrator’s imagination? Finally, Norm reads from the positive feedback heaped by readers upon Episode #86, “Half Sneeze Johnny.”

Cover for Drabblecast episode 24, Black and White Animals 3, by Bo Kaier

Drabblecast 24 – Black and White Animals Part 3 : Chromatic Conclusions

Cover for Drabblecast episode 24 , Black and White Animals 3, by Bo KaierPart Three of the Black and White Animals Trilogy, Brenda and the Black and White Animals Prepare for the Final Battle with Emperor Mersatz…

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén