Sci-Fi – The Drabblecast

We’d tested plenty of missiles before, but Teeny was the only one that convulsed when we cut him open. Oh, your listeners need more background? OK, I’ll back up a bit. Lemme tell ya, kids today don’t know their history. Even locked up in here for the past ten years, I can tell. No education. […]

Norm pays tribute and bids farewell to the greatest unsung hero of the podcast for the past two years: editor Sandra Odell. This fantastic story and many others have been brought to your ears through her hard work! Our story is another original Drabblecast commissioned story for Women & Aliens month, this week by Darcie […]

Our first Women & Aliens Month commission for 2020–  It’s a goodie, a full-cast production of a Drabblecast original by Rachel K. Jones and Khalida Muhammed-Ali. Wash up, it’s time for dinner! On this diplomatic mission, I, Scholar, have two objectives: first, to advise Master Feeder TikTik on Earth customs and linguistic differences, and second, […]

The Drabblecast begins it’s 9th Annual Women & Aliens Month”– a full month of original commissioned stories by women about (you guessed it) aliens. First though, the Drabblecast presents a story by author Margaret Atwood about musicals, fungus, aliens and… well, you’ll see! The Martians descend to Earth in their spaceship. They intend to go […]

Episode Sponsor- I’m From Nowhere, a novel by Lindsay Lerman. This week’s Drabblecast explores unrequited love and how relationships, like anything in life, are susceptible to change. We bring you a full cast production of David D. Levine’s space opera story “Love in the Balance,” read to you by Mike Boris, Lauren Synger, Veronica Giguere, Adam […]

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 […]

This week, the Drabblecast presents a full cast production of “1977” by Carrie Vaughn. “Have another one,” the guy said, and Megan did because she was thirsty, though a martini was probably not what she should be drinking. She was too far gone to question. She downed the drink in three swallows while the guy […]

This week on the Drabblecast, something a little different! “Wholesale Solution” is a full cast radio play set in a dystopic science fiction universe where nothing is as it seems. Written and produced by Fred Greenhalgh and Jack Bowman, buckle in for a ride to Europa! Story Excerpt: We are inside a holding cell containing […]

This week the Drabblecast brings you two new, previously unpublished stories by SF genre luminary Robert Reed. Reed published his first novel, The Leeshore in 1987. Since then he has received nominations for both the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award, as well as numerous other literary awards. In 2007, he won his first Hugo […]

Today The Drabblecast brings you an original story commissioned by Karen Heuler: “Beauty Tips for the Apocalypse.” Karen Heuler wrote her first novel when she was eleven, and she’s been worshiping books at the altar ever since. Story Excerpt: In times such as these, with the world shaken to its core, it is all too […]

This week The Drabblecast presents “Wet Fur” by Jeremiah Tolbert. From Jeremiah: “This story came to me wholly formed in a dream one day. I wrote it in a white hot tear, desperate to capture all the details and emotions that had seemed so immediate in the dream. It’s about how our pets live such […]

Closing out Women and Aliens month, The Drabblecast brings you another originally commissioned story: “Witches for Mars” by Eden Royce. It’s a surreal tale about considering greener pastures…   Story Excerpt: No one expected the government to allow it. To acknowledge it even, but Maira was looking at the advertisement above a webpage she was […]

Drabbleclassics: A fan-hosted Series that features fan-picked stories from the Drabblecast archives, remastered and brought to you by fans like our host this week, Bart Epstein.  Enjoy! This week for Drabbleclassics Bart Epstein brings your Primary Pollinator, by Nicole Kimberling. When Dr. Lopez came for me, I was plunging the geo lab toilet. She carried […]

Next up in Women and Aliens month: a Drabblecast original commissioned from author Eboni J. Dunbar, “The Translator.” Eboni Dunbar resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with her partner and specializes in queer and black speculative fiction. She is also a VONA Alum, an associate editor for PodCastle and a freelance reviewer. Story Excerpt: […]

We’re in the thick of Women and Aliens month, and we’re keeping it going with an original commissioned story— “The Moving Stars” by Premee Mohamed. Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and specfic auhor based out of Canada. Her short fiction has appeared in Analog, Pseudopod, Mythic Delirium, Automata Review, and other venues.  Her debut […]

“A Musical on a Submarine” Norm and author Kristine Kathryn Rusch discuss her story from way back in 2008 for Drabblecast #53. This is the “Director’s Cut – Sing.” We also dive into a discussion about unsung women in Science Fiction, like Leigh Bracket and James Tipree Jr. Why use a pen name after all? […]

Women and Aliens Month continues with Part 2 of “We Who Stole The Dream” by James Tiptree Jr., aka Alice Bradley Sheldon. If you have not heard part one, you can find that here. Sadism, slavery, power and oppression… are we ever truly innocent? Or is there the potential of cruelty in all of us? […]

The Drabblecast launches its 8th Annual Women and Aliens Month with Part 1 of “We Who Stole the Dream” by James Tiptree Jr. This is a dark, dystopian tale about sadism and slavery, and the potential for cruelty in all of us. Published postmortem in the 1990 compilation “Her Smoke Rose Up Forever,” this story […]

“My Kids Think I’m Nuts” Norm and Drabblecast Audio Producer Adam Pracht talk about the Maker’s Movement, everything wrong with Gloucester, the finer points of audio production and of course the three stories in this classic Trifecta Special themed around “Things We Made.” Drabblecast Director’s Cut Specials are regular monthly features where we bring back […]

This week The Drabblecast presents “The Day After the Day the Martians Came” by Frederik Pohl. Jokes can teach you a lot about the underlying anxieties of a culture. The old line “take me to your leader” was actually a jab at President Eisenhower’s leadership during the Cold War. This story is about jokes and […]

Today the Drabblecast brings you “Diamante and Strass” by Lucy A. Snyder. Lucy A. Snyder is a five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author, appearing in publications such as Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, and Weird Tales. She lives in Columbus, Ohio and is faculty in Seton Hill University’s MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction.  Our story today has […]

A 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 […]

As the Drabblecast Reborn Kickstarter campaign continues, we bring you another Fan Pick: The Belonging Kind.  Drabblecast fan Kyle Sellers introduces this eerie story about how hard fitting in can be sometimes… It might have been in Club Justine, or Jimbo’s, or Sad Jack’s, or the Rafters; Coretti could never be sure where he’d first […]

The leadup to our Relaunch Kickstarter campaign continues with this Fan Pick: The Last Dog. This was a favorite of one of our newest team members, Jen Fisher, d(r)abbler of all things and master of none. We’ll be doing more of these with opportunities for fans to record their own introductions to their favorite stories […]

“Birds are what come after…” We present to you a special Relaunch Prelaunch episode—”The Director’s Cut: Jimmy’s Roadside Cafe.” This story was written by Ramsey Shehadeh and originally aired back in 2012. In it, Norm and author Ramsey Shehadeh talk about grief, Mr. Rogers, the apocalypse, and his popular story about compassion in the end […]