Archive for Rated PG-13

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PodCastle 416: Braid of Days and Wake of Nights

Show Notes

 

Rated PG-13

 


Braid of Days and Wake of Nights

by E. Lily Yu

With an immaculate thumbnail, Julia peeled open the ziplock bag in her lap. The coil of hair inside, wide as her thumb and nine feet long, was woven throughout with black and gold strands in equal proportion. When Vivian began chemo last May, her hair had skimmed the lower edge of her scapulae. Three weeks later, her purple stripes had rinsed to blonde, and she had not dyed them again. Vivian had smiled at Julia in the bathroom mirror, eyebrows high and brave, but after the first handful slithered to the floor, she handed the humming razor to Julia and covered her eyes.

“You do it,” she said.

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PodCastle 414: The Men from Narrow Houses

Show Notes

Rated PG-13


The Men from Narrow Houses

by A. C. Wise

The men from narrow houses have smiles like melon rinds, white slices of apple, the sliver of the moon before it disappears. Their clothes smell like earth, and their eyes shine like old coins – copper, silver, and gold. As the wedding draws closer, Gabby begins to see them during the day. They pluck at her with long fingers, like a hard wind worrying at her clothes. They slide around her in subway cars on her way to work; they ride behind her on the elevator on her way to the fifth floor; they lean over her shoulder as she studies spreadsheets on her computer; they dangle their legs over her cubicle wall. They are like reflections on water, always whispering, Tell us, love, tell us everything you’ve seen. You’ve been gone for so long.

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PodCastle 412: For Honor, For Waste


For Honor, For Waste

by Setsu Uzume

Rohnaq tried to rejoin her unit; but only shoved forward by inches, crushed by the crowd. They walked upward en masse, tier by tier, to the palace. One woman slipped a brown hand over her children’s shoulders to pull them out of Rohnaq’s way. Sweat-scent, sea salt, sour incense, and camphor dogged her all the way to the plaza. Wheat barons and merchant ship captains, cobblers, and beggars. All hoping to conclude old business and hear whether or not their prayers would be answered, and at what cost. Last cycle, Manaph ignored the new siege engine offered to her, and took the engineer’s life. Malajine’s army conquered three of their neighbors in exchange. Rohnaq had been proud of those campaigns, once. Now, they only reminded her of dear friends, lost in the name of service. Rohnaq didn’t dare to ask for a blessing.

A city blessed, every cycle. One life destroyed, every cycle.

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PodCastle 411: Hands of Burnished Bronze

Show Notes

Rated PG-13.


Hands of Burnished Bronze

by Rebecca Schwarz

Night after night, I lie awake staring into the darkness, listening for the sound of scrabbling fingers on the flagstones outside my door. Sleep, like a young lover who sees how old and frightened I have become, has left me—I fear for good. I hear only the boy’s regular breaths. A new slave brought back from a recent campaign, he sleeps curled at the foot of my bed. Watery pre-dawn light outlines my narrow window, too weak to enter my chamber; soon dawn will drain the black hours pooled in this room.

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PodCastle 405, ARTEMIS RISING: Beat Softly, My Wings of Steel

Show Notes

Welcome back to Artemis Rising 2!


Beat Softly, My Wings of Steel

by Beth Cato

By the light of the full moon, I crept onto a battlefield mounded with decaying soldiers and horses. Mud squished beneath my boots as I searched for a horse’s soul. This close to the Jen picket lines, they had likely already scavenged for souls of both flesh horses and those that had already been reborn as pegasi, but I was desperate.

Not far away, the campfires of the Jen army flickered, their encampment a living wall across the peninsula. At my back, my own city Sharva repulsed me like the rotten flesh on this battlefield. Holes dotted the magicked dome over the spires like a moth-gnawed veil unable to hide an ugly bride. I would rejoice over Sharva’s imminent fall but not for what that meant for me and Grandmother.

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PodCastle 403, ARTEMIS RISING: Send in the Ninjas

Show Notes

Rated PG-13

Welcome back to Artemis Rising II!


Send in the Ninjas

by Michelle Ann King

The streets are more full of snow than people tonight, lending everything an enjoyably deserted, apocalyptic air. Isabel smiles as she walks home, humming happily to herself. Getting stood up never fails to put her in a good mood.

She always goes on the dates her mother sets up, but she much prefers it when the other person doesn’t show. That way, Isabel still gets credit for trying, while also getting to skip straight to the part where she doesn’t have to go on a second date.

Sexual relationships are a minefield Isabel would rather not have to navigate. She works as a copy-editor for a publisher that specialises in erotic science fiction, and real life never stands up to the sex in the books. She also worries about her left breast being a slightly different shape from the right—her last boyfriend was an artist, and his preoccupation with proportion gave her a bit of a complex. All things considered, it simply doesn’t seem worth it.

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PodCastle 400: Night at the Opera (Giant Episode)

Show Notes

Rated PG-13 for some violence.

With a special full-cast reading!

  • Wilson Fowlie as the Narrator
  • Big Anklevich as Amadel
  • Rish Outfield as Reynard
  • Kevin Powe as Nicolas
  • M.K. Hobson as Lady Shankir-Clare
  • Tina Connolly as Belina Shankir-Clare
  • Dave Thompson as the Mystery Man
  • Graeme Dunlop as Idilane

The story takes place in Martha’s Ile-Rien universe, in which she’s written five novels and several short stories. Find out more!


Night at the Opera

by Martha Wells

Reynard Morane was at his usual table in the Cafe Baudy, a somewhat risqué establishment built on a barge in the Deval Forest pleasure garden’s lake, when a beautiful man approached his table. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence, especially in this cafe, but this beautiful man was a stranger. He said, “Captain Morane?”

From his features and dark skin, the man was Parscian, a little younger than Reynard but not by much, tall and well-built, and dressed in an elegant but understated way which suggested some level of the upper class. The coat was too expensive for the man to be from a university. For some reason, Reynard attracted a high percentage of men of academic persuasions. “Yes.” Reynard smiled warmly. “Please join me.”

The man hesitated, then drew out the opposite chair. “A friend told me about you.”

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PodCastle 399: The Authenticator

Show Notes

Rated PG-13.


The Authenticator

by Greg van Eekhout

My face surprises her when she opens the door to her trailer, but I’m not surprised by hers. I know what I look like. I’ve got the best nose money can buy, but rubber’s no match for bone and flesh. I used to wear glasses so the frames would cover the seam where the nose meets the little bit of bridge I have left, but glasses are a pain in the butt since I lost my ears, so I don’t bother with them anymore.

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PodCastle 397: In the Woods Behind My House

Show Notes

Rated PG-13


In the Woods Behind My House

by Nicolette Barischoff

They were just some seventh grade kids who hung around the handball court and pretended to be playing all the time so no one else could use it. Nate had no idea why he’d told them about his griffin.

He just said it, out of nowhere, like it was something he had just remembered. “So, in the woods, behind my house? There’s a griffin.”

That was how these guys talked, Eric and Dash, and Jackson and all of them. They just started right in with anything that happened to them like it was something they’d just now found in their pocket: “I smoked the fattest fucking blunt yesterday… you guys should see the lazer tag arena I built in back of my dad’s house… you know I already got my pilot’s license? I don’t even need to learn to drive.” And then they’d smash a cigarette under the toe of their shoe, waiting to be challenged.

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PodCastle 396: Spirits of the Wind (Giant Episode)

Show Notes

RatedPG-13

Read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.


Spirits of the Wind

by Brendan Detzner

She was surprised how fast she’d caught herself missing the time that she lived here. She knew that she and Jessica and Rina had been driving each other crazy all cooped up together, and she remembered climbing up to the third floor and down again and how she thought she was going to slip and fall on the ice each winter when the landlord never laid down salt, and she missed it anyway, and could anticipate feel herself looking back and missing it more and more. A simple thing, gone now.

The truth, which she knew and thought everybody in the room had to know too,was that this had been a big year. They’d reached the top of a hill and were on their way down, and some of them were heading towards other hills and maybe some of them weren’t. People’s parents were dying. Guys were going bald, girls were covering up tattoos and using concealer. Mike, who was always a little crazy and fun to have around and who liked to drink, wasn’t around anymore, and still liked to drink and probably was drinking out there somewhere. Kat missed him, but she knew it was better that he was gone. She couldn’t afford to be around a guy like that anymore.