PodCastle 233: Study, For Solo Piano
Show Notes
Rated PG
Study, For Solo Piano
by Genevieve Valentine
The Circus waits in leaking trailers while Boss takes her lieutenants through the house.
Then, her lieutenants are Elena from the trapeze, and Panadrome the music man, who presses his accordion bellows tight to his side to keep it from sharp edges, and Alec, their final act, who folds his gleaming wings tight against his back so he can fit through the hole in the wall.
Inside, the ceiling is waterlogged and sagging, but when Alec opens his wings even the nails sing for him.
Alec laughs, and the birds in the rafters scatter as if he’s called them down.
(Alec will be dead in a year; these are the last birds he sees.)
About the Author
Genevieve Valentine
Genevieve Valentine is the author of Two Graves, alongside artists Ming Doyle and Annie Wu. Her novels include Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, Persona, and Icon; she is the recipient of the Crawford Award for best first novel, and has been shortlisted for the Nebula, Locus, Shirley Jackson, and World Fantasy awards. Her comics work includes Catwoman, Ghost in the Shell, and Batman and Robin Eternal. Her short stories have appeared in over a dozen Best of the Year anthologies, including Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her cultural criticism has appeared at http://NPR.org , The AV Club, LA Review of Books, Vice, Vox, and The New York Times, among others.
About the Narrator
