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PodCastle 072: The Exit Sign

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:24 — 23.0MB)

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by Ursula Pflug.
Read by Christiana Ellis.

You and I were different. Making love on sprawling landings we learned that one way of life wasn’t better than another, and that we all shared the same ultimate misery, doomed to be born and die in this building. Who’d made this place? Had we built it ourselves generations ago when we still had legs to run from something fierce and predatory that circled our tower, waiting for travellers: the jumpers, the fliers, those with the twisted bed sheet ropes?

Rated R. for sex and dismemberment in enclosed places.

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PodCastle 71: I’ll Give In

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:52 — 21.9MB)

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by Meghan McCarron.
Read by Rachel Swirsky.

I turned around and found myself face to face with a minotaur.

He was shorter than I would have expected and a bit more — human-y? He had the head of a bull, sure, but he wore a black suit and a skinny black tie, like he had decided to live Pulp Fiction.

“I’m Phil,” he said.

“Phil?” I said.

“It’s easier to say than my real name.”

“Try me.”

Phil grunted something unintelligible. I tried to grunt it back and he started laughing.

“I think your dog would have done a better job,” Phil said. “And you are?”

Rated X. for S-E-X.

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PodCastle 070: The Dybbuk in the Bottle

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:52 — 39.1MB)

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by Russell William Asplund.
Read by Wilson Fowlie.

Avram had no more talent for wonder working than for farming. No matter how hard he prayed, he could not call even a sparrow down from a tree. His Sabbaths were spent at a small synagog in the town, and the rabbi there had no idea of the way to Paradise save the path of a good life. As for Avram’s attempt to animate a golem, the less said about it the better.

Still Avram did not give up. After all, without his books there was only the farm, and the more he worked the farm, the more he wanted to work wonders instead. There was very little glory in cleaning a chicken coop.

And that is how Avram came upon the dybbuk in the bottle.

Rated G. for child-safe dybbuk romping.

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PodCastle 069: The Olverung

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:22 — 31.2MB)

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by Stephen Woodworth.
Read by Paul S. Jenkins (of the Rev Up Review.

The Olverung is an ugly bird.  Its bulbous head juts from the spout of a scrawny neck, and warts dot the bridge of its fat beak.  When it struts upon the ground, its pot-bellied body waddles with the ludicrous gait of a town drunkard.  Its plumage has the black iridescence of a fly’s abdomen and is too coarse even for pillow stuffing.  Yet the fowl possesses one singular attribute that princes and popes have coveted for centuries, and it was for this sole virtue that Lord Atherton entreated me to steal the creature from the King.

Rated R for tugged heartstrings.

Please go to our forums for the story comment thread.

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PodCastle 068: A Heretic By Degrees

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:57 — 30.9MB)

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by Marie Brennan.
Read by Paul Tevis.

The suggestion was heretical, and treasonous to boot.  Two years before, the king had established by sacred decree that there was only one world, and that nothing lay beyond its bounds; anything seen there was a delusion, a final torment sent to test the faithful before their eventual salvation.  And for two years, his Councillors and subjects had respected his word.

Now they faced a choice.  Disobey the king — or lose him.  Commit treason, or let him die, and with him, the last remnant of the sacred royal line.

Rated PG. for actions taken at the end of the worlds.

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PC Miniature 37: Hall of Mirrors

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:00 — 10.4MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG. for reflected nihilism.

Hall of Mirrors

By Bruce Holland Rogers

One afternoon during his lunch hour, Emory wasn’t feeling particularly hungry. It was the monthly free-admission day at the art museum, so instead of getting a sandwich he went in to look at paintings. “This one,” he said to himself, “makes me think of flying, except that the blue is not right for the sky. It is more of a painting about sorrow, I think. Of flying through sorrow.”

Emory was in the habit of mumbling his thoughts aloud, but usually he was so quiet, his words so indistinct, that no one knew what he was saying. This time, however, a woman who stood near him said, “Interesting. Then what do you make of the companion piece?”

He looked at her as she stood waiting, an earnest expression on her face. He nearly apologized, nearly told her that he knew nothing about art. But then he glanced at the second painting and the words were out of his mouth, clearly and distinctly this time. “All that whiteness makes me think of hospitals. The jagged line there, the bucket that is tipped over but isn’t spilling a drop — it must be the psychiatric ward of the hospital. The yellow corners, the dead flies make sure that I know not to take comfort in the whiteness. Fear of insanity. That’s what I see.”

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PC067: Kissing Frogs

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:52 — 17.1MB)

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by http://wordswoman.livejournal.com/ Jaye Lawrence.
Read by Phoebe Harris.

We met near a pond, of course.

“I loved your ad,” I said after we’d finished our introductions. Sharon, meet Jerry. Frog, meet human. “But I have to admit I wasn’t expecting an actual amphibian.

Rated PG. for narratives that play with the Grimm.

To comment please sign up on our forums and go to this thread.

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PC066: One Paper Airplane Graffito Love Note

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:48 — 28.8MB)

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By Will McIntosh.
Read by Christopher Reynaga.

A paper airplane drifted high in the sky above the field. I nearly crashed my bicycle, straining to follow its path as it circled above the treetops at the far edge. It held the wind beautifully. Pausing, it hovered over the field just as a sea bird holds its position above crashing waves.

I slowed to a stop, feeling for the ground with one foot, afraid to take my eye off the craft lest I lose it in the clouds. Neck craned, eyes to the sky, I let the bicycle drop. I tracked the paper’s elegant flight, running this way and that like a boy as it slowly, slowly lost altitude.

As it made its final pass, it gained speed, careening across the field. I loped after it as it tumbled end-over-end and lay still.

I plucked it from the grass.

It was folded in a distinct design–squat and wide, with a hinged belly. It was covered in writing.

Rated PG. for surrealism appearing through several fractured narratives.

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PodCastle Bonus Material: Fantasy Magazine Micro-Fiction Winners

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:36 — 3.9MB)

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By Kelly Stiles, Caren Gussoff, and Lane Bowen.
Read by Marguerite Croft.
Presented in partnership with Fantasy Magazine.

PodCastle is proud to present these three excellent micro-fiction stories in conjunction with Fantasy Magazine. These stories won their recent contest for ten sentence fiction. You can read text versions of them, along with the other seven finalists, at Fantasy Magazine.

We hope PodCastle listeners will enjoy these stories and consider heading over to Fantasy Magazine for more excellent fiction!