Far Fetched Fables

Flash Fiction: “Dark, Beautiful Force” by Jessica May Lin I met you the summer I was nineteen. You were a shadow on the wall, tall and intimidating in a way I could never be, and you were all that stood between my first supervillain and me. You grinned and leapt down in your black domino mask and high-top sneakers, before I even stepped past the mouth of the alley. I hated you, because you knocked the villain out before I could, and smirked at me over the popped collar of your leather jacket as you handcuffed him. They printed our pictures in the newspaper side by side. You, in your leather and your sneakers. Me, in my thigh-high boots and red latex skirt. The new superstars on the block. But I was jealous and told our mentors that your superhero name made me think of candy bars, your costume of freeze-dried bats. We kept running into each other. Jessica May Lin is a student at the University of...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Main Story: “Clockwork Fairies” by Cat Rambo Mary the Irish girl let me in when I knocked at the door in my Sunday best, smelling of incense and evening fog. Gaslight flickered over the narrow hall. The mahogany banister’s curve gleamed with beeswax polish, and a rosewood hat rack and umbrella stand squatted to my left. I nodded to Mary, taking off my top hat. Snuff and baking butter mingled with my own pomade to battle the smell of steel and sulfur from below. “Don’t be startled, Mr. Claude, sir.” Before I could speak, a whir of creatures surrounded me. At first I thought them hummingbirds or large dragonflies. One hung poised before my eyes in a flutter of metallic skin and isinglass wings. Delicate gears spun in the wrist of a pinioned hand holding a needle-sharp sword. Desiree had created another marvel, bee-winged, glittering like tinsel. Who would have dreamed such things, let alone made them real? Only...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Flash Fiction: “Dream Logic” by Barbara A. Barnett Keith touches a hand to his nose, and I’m not sure what surprises him more: the blood my left hook drew, or the fact that his boxing gloves have suddenly disappeared. “How did you–“ I slug Keith again. Keith doesn’t get dream logic, which is why he shouldn’t be narco-boxing. But it’s the latest fad so he just has to get on board with it, a badge of cool to add to his generically perfect looks and the girlfriend he cheats on and that big fat promotion because he’s got leadership potential, while I’m just bossy and shrill. Barbara A. Barnett is a writer, musician, librarian, Odyssey Writing Workshop alum, coffee addict, wine lover, bad movie mocker, and all-around geek. Her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Intergalactic Medicine Show, Shimmer, Daily Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Online, Fantasy Magazine...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

First Story: “Infinity Syrup” by Laurel Winter Fay was Zen shopping, something she had learned when she worked swing shift in card assembly at IBM. The effort of plugging six components into the right holes on four hundred cards had always left her too tired to think. Too tired to think, but too wired to sleep. So she usually stopped at a twenty-four-hour grocery on her way home and let her hands do the shopping for her. Hands reaching mindlessly, plucking items off the shelves. And she was always surprised to find — when she got home and unpacked the paper bags — that she had exactly what she needed. Odd combinations, perhaps. Who would have paired avocado and Kashi, kippered herring and strawberries? But the four basic food groups were always represented. No unappealing leftovers, tastebuds tantalized in wonderful ways. And so, even when she worked her way from swing shift to first and from manufacturing to management, she still practiced Zen...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out infor

Flash Fiction: “The Hum of Refuge” by Anna Ilona Mussmann On her couch in an apartment at the top of a building that used to be a lingerie factory, Skye Hindley tried to capture the soul of nature. She wrote, sketched in charcoal and once (in a black fit) crafted faerie dolls. She had not found her niche. A loser boyfriend told her that she didn’t have the artistic vision of a walrus, but that was during their break-up, after she said his novel must have been written by a drunken redneck. Anna Ilona Mussmann loves folktales, Jane Austen, the Oxford comma, and dark chocolate. She blogs at annailonamussmann.blogspot.com.   Main Story: “Sinking Among the Lilies” by Cory Skerry I studied the village of Keyward from the packed gravel by the water. Judging by the skulls roped to the pylons in the estuary, the people here knew how to take care of themselves. But...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Flash Fiction: “Older, Wiser, Time Traveler” by M. Bennardo First off, step one — commit a crime of passion. You shouldn’t plan this, obviously. In fact, you can’t plan this. The defining characteristic of a crime of passion is precisely that it’s unplanned. Oh sure, there are tendencies. There are indications. A crime of passion doesn’t have to be a surprise–it just has to be unplanned. In addition to Daily Science Fiction, M. Bennardo’s stories have also appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and others. He is co-editor of the Machine of Death series of anthologies. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio, but people anywhere can find him online at www.mbennardo.com.   Main Story: “Loose in the Wires” by John D....  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Story: “Spirit Brother” by Pamela Sargent The flat land below him was white, the color of purity and luck. Jamukha flew in the form of an eagle, feeling the wind under his wings. The steppe and mountains had also been covered by snow on the day he had first met Temujin, the companion and comrade in arms who had later become his greatest enemy. But all of that had happened when he was a boy, years ago, in the world of the living. Pamela Sargent has won the Nebula and Locus Awards and was honored in 2012 with the Science Fiction Research Association’s Pilgrim Award, given for lifetime contributions to science fiction and fantasy scholarship. Her many novels include Venus of Dreams, The Shore of Women, The Golden Space, The Sudden Star, and The Alien Upstairs. About Ruler of the Sky, Sargent’s historical novel of Genghis Khan, told largely from the points of view of women, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

First Story: “Requiem for a Druid” by Alex Shvartsman My job that morning was to banish a demon, but I was determined to finish my cup of coffee first. I sipped my java in front of Demetrios’ warehouse in Sunset Park, enjoying the panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline and the New York harbor. Next to me, Demetrios was shaking like a leaf. “What in the world are you thinking, Conrad?” Demetrios spoke in his typical rapid­fire fashion. “You’re just going to go in there, alone, to face this infernal thing? Without any help or backup from others at the Watch? Without even a priest? This is all kinds of crazy.” “I can handle it.” I said, trying to project casual confidence. “You did ask for this to be resolved quickly, and it’s not like I haven’t dealt with an occasional demon before.” Alex Shvartsman is a writer and game designer from Brooklyn, NY. More than 60 of his short stories have appeared in Nature, InterGalactic...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

First Story: “Castor on Troubled Waters” by Rhys Hughes He’s almost fifty years of age, Castor Jenkins is, which for a stereotypical Welshman must be reckoned venerable, if not ancient. Not that he takes kindly to being considered a stereotype. He likes to point out that real Welshmen don’t live exclusively on a diet of beer and chips, nor do they avoid exercise, work and responsibility every waking minute of the day; the fact he does those things is a mark of his uniqueness and it’s just a coincidence that the cliché and his individualism are the same. Rhys Hughes was born in 1966 and began writing from an early age. His first short story was published in 1991 and his first book, the now legendary *Worming the Harpy*, followed four years later. Since then he has published more than thirty books and his work has been translated into ten languages and he is currently one of the most prolific and successful authors in Wales. Mostly known for absurdist works, his range in...  See acast.com/privacy for

This week’s story: “Forever” by Tim Lebbon On Dana’Man the cold bit hard, ice informed thought, frost froze dreams of freedom, and duty and supplication were the way. On Dana’Man there was preparation for a war long in coming, with no sign of its beginning yet in sight. On Dana’Man – island of the damned, natural home only to glaciers and snow demons and the ice people – life was hard, but death was harder. The mages needed every man and woman for their army; death was unpardonable. Tim Lebbon is a New York Times-bestselling horror and fantasy writer from South Wales. He’s had over thirty novels published to date, as well as dozens of novellas and hundreds of short stories. His most recent releases include the apocalyptic Coldbrook (a Publishers Weekly Book of the Year), Alien: Out of the Shadows, Into the Void: Dawn of the Jedi (Star Wars), and the Toxic City trilogy from Pyr in the USA. Future novels include The Silence...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

First Story: “The Dream Eaters” by A.M. Dellamonica Mo Cottonsmith had just turned sixteen when she started Lopside Fashions, with cash she stole from a neighborhood fizz dealer. The money wasn’t enough to sustain a business, but Mo counted on getting lucky. She believed in making her own luck, too: thanks to a roving copcam, her first creation just happened to debut on all the morning news shows. The dress was daffodil yellow with simulated dewdrops on the bodice and a chainmail hoop skirt. Mo’s pal Juanita Jones was modeling, and the footage showed her fighting off a couple of deviants. A.M. Dellamonica has recently moved to Toronto, Canada, after 22 years in Vancouver. In addition to writing, she studies yoga and takes thousands of digital photographs. She is a graduate of Clarion West and teaches writing through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. Dellamonica’s first novel, Indigo Springs, won the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out informati

Flash Fiction: “Fool’s Fire” by Hayley E. Lavik It’s the cold mud that wakes me, and the taste of duckweed in my throat. In my mouth, my nose, my ears. It fills my lungs, creeps behind my eyes. I burst through the slime with a half-formed scream. I retch until I feel empty, hollow, withered. Stagger to my feet, knee-high in the sticking black mire. The mud keeps oozing from my eyes. Fetid bog slime on my arms, my breasts, my mother’s finest dress. Torn bodice, rent seams in starlight. Embroidered with weed, black mud in a putrid train behind me. But where is he? Hayley E. Lavik writes fantasy novels and short fiction, most likely involving swords, things with teeth, and women who get shit done. She lives in rainy Vancouver, BC. You can find her at www.hayleyelavik.com and also on

First Story: “The Effigy Engine: A Tale of the Red Hats” by Scott Lynch “I took up the study of magic because I wanted to live in the beauty of transfinite mathematical truths,” said Rumstandel. He gestured curtly. In the canyon below us, an enemy soldier shuddered, clutched at his throat, and began vomiting live snakes. “If my indifference were money you’d be the master of my own personal mint,” I muttered. Of course Rumstandel heard me despite the pop, crackle, and roar of musketry echoing around the walls of the pass. There was sorcery at play between us to carry our voices, so we could bitch and digress and annoy ourselves like a pair of inebriates trading commentary in a theater balcony. Scott Lynch is best known for the Gentleman Bastard sequence of novels, comprising The Lies of Locke Lamora and its sequels. Scott is a World Fantasy Award nominee and the winner of the 2008 Sydney J. Bounds Best Newcomer award from the British Fantasy...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out informati

First Story: “The Price of Glamour” by Steve Berman London, 1844 Tup Smatterpit sat on the back of a chestnut seller’s cart, his back warm from resting against the stove. Tup had sprinkled a pinch of powdered glamour over himself, and the old coster driving the wagon believed him to be one of the countless children that roamed Covent Garden’s marketplace, rather than one of the Folk. As the donkey slowly pulled the cart through the crowd, the gentle sway and the constant tick-tocking of his waistcoat was lulling Tup to sleep. Steve Berman is the author of nearly a hundred published essays and short stories. His newest collection, Red Caps, features a sequel to “The Price of Glamour”. He lives in southern New Jersey, the only state that has an official devil. You can find him online at SteveBerman.com.   Second Story: “The Magikkers” by Terry...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

“Childrun” by Marc Laidlaw The first thing Gorlen heard, as he mounted toward the walled village at the top of the rise, was the sound of children, their voices tumbling down the rutted track to greet him long before he saw a single villager. This meant his first sight of the pinched grey roofpeaks and ochre chimneyspikes above the wall came accompanied by the peculiar mix of dread and longing that he always felt at the sound of children playing. Were they laughing in delight or screaming in terror? It was an old question, and in the first and most memorable instance — when the correct answer had actually mattered — he had guessed wrong. He had lived with that mistake ever since. These days, Marc Laidlaw is mainly known as the writer of the Half-Life videogame series, but early in his career he wrote a handful of novels and many short stories of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. For several decades he has also been telling the occasional, episodic tale of...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy an

First Story:  “The Last Worders” by Karen Joy Fowler Charlotta was asleep in the dining car when the train arrived in San Margais. It was tempting to just leave her behind, and I tried to tell myself this wasn’t a mean thought, but came to me because I, myself, might want to be left like that, just for the adventure of it. I might want to wake up hours later and miles away, bewildered and alone. I am always on the lookout for those parts of my life that could be the first scene in a movie. Of course, you could start a movie anywhere, but you wouldn’t; that’s my point. And so this impulse had nothing to do with the way Charlotta had begun to get on my last nerve. That’s my other point. If I thought being ditched would be sort of exciting, then so did Charlotta. We felt the same about everything. Karen Joy Fowler is the author of six novels and three short story collections. The Jane Austen Book Club spent thirteen weeks on the New...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

First Story:  “America is Coming!” by Dario Ciriello “Nice day for the end of the world. Any sign yet?” Salvatore’s voice at his side startled Peppino. A few moments ago his friend had been flat on his back on the scrubby ground with his right hand curled around an empty wine bottle, snoring gently. Peppino shook his head. The two friends watched as the rising sun beat a familiar copper path on the tranquil sea, spilling warmth over the world. Across the gulf, beyond the mountainous headland silhouetted in the rising sun’s glare, the deserted capital of Palermo held its breath and waited for the end of history. America was coming! Dario Ciriello is a professional author and editor whose nonfiction book Aegean Dream, the bittersweet memoir of a year spent on the small Greek island of Skopelos (the actual Mamma Mia! island), was a UK travel bestseller in 2012 and has recently been published in Poland. His...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

First Story:  “The Swan Pilot” by L.E Modesitt Jr. I eased myself into the control couch of the ISS W.B. Yeats, making certain that all the connections were snug, and that there were no wrinkles in anything. Then I pressed the single stud that was manual, and the clamshell descended. You could call a trans-ship a corade or a cockle guided by will across the sea of endless space. You could, and it would be technically wrong. Technically wrong, but impressionalistically right, and certainly the way it feels when you’re alone in the blackness, balancing the harmonics and threading your way from the light matter and dark matter and faerie dust of overspace, guiding the ship and all it contains out from light and into darkness and then on to another minute isle of solid warmth once again. Or you could refuse to call it a ship at all, nor the ocean it sails a sea. L.E. Modesitt, Jr., is the New York Times best-selling author of more than 65 fantasy and science...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and op

First Story:  “Nightship” by Kim Westwood Here the linen smells of mice and the men of old boots. I lie beneath a slaughter of ferals, cushioned in my guilty comforts and waiting for this black-caulked hulk to sink; but it glides like death along the briny channels of a shrouded city half-submerged – a Grey Zone, neither sea nor shore. Past my porthole other nightships slice the mist thickening on dank canals. Blunt-nosed, barnacled, they nudge from lock to lock, deals done and deliveries made under cover of perpetual fog. Kim Westwood developed her distinctive visual prose style while working as a theatre performer and deviser. Darkly poetic, her stories have a preoccupation with humanity’s capacity for destruction and equal instinct for survival. Most are set in an alternative reality Australia. Of this she says: ‘My imagination has a chemical reaction to living on Terra Australis, and responds strongly to its particular...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

First Story:  “Keeper of Memory” by Todd Lockwood Daen screamed until the monster’s teeth crushed ribs against ribs. Blood poured from his lungs, a bright flower unfurling  on the pavestones.  He bolted upright. A tree root scraped his back as he tried to crab backwards, but his feet were entangled in his blanket. He sat still, surprised to feel moss and short grass under the heels of his hands. A soft hush surrounded him, the landscape shrouded in fog that deadened sound and confused distance, rendering trees and stones into ghostly shadows ofbthemselves. Panting, he rubbed his face with pale fingers and blinked away the blur in his eyes. His sweat grew cold in the damp air.  Gods, what a dream! Todd Lockwood creates his images with a mystic combination of acrylics, oils, Corel Painter, Photoshop, blood, epithets, secret incantations, and gin. His designs involve images derived from fantasy and science fiction, fantasy role-playing games, his...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out info