TALL TALE TV - Sci-Fi and Fantasy Short Stories

Mechanistry 5 ep.610 Nalt has a surefire plan to graduate this time, nothing could possibly go wrong. Mechanistry 5 was written to celebrate Tall Tale TV's 6th anniversary! My first-ever Episode featured Nalt and Master Stokes, and I try (somewhat unsuccessfully) to write a new story in the Mechanistry universe every year. It's a fun little measure to track my progress as a narrator and celebrate...

Learning Curve ep.609 In the future, the young must 'Juice' to stay relevant. Andrew Rucker Jones is a former IT dweeb and American expatriate living in Germany with his Georgian wife and their three children. His greatest literary achievement to date is authoring ninety-eight iCloud reminders for every household chore from cleaning sinks to checking smoke detectors.  Author Website: http://selfde...

Of Portals and Portents, Ch. 29 (book 4) ep.608 Desperation can give rise to the worst ideas. Listen to the book four playlist here https://talltaletv.com/series-of-portals-and-portents/ or listen to book one http://talltaletv.com/series-monsters-mushrooms/ listen to book two http://talltaletv.com/series-of-tyrants-and-teakettles/ Listen to book three http://talltaletv.com/series-of-bandits-and-ba...

The Right Answer ep.607 Trying to defend the human race is hard even when you're not black-out drunk. During the day, James A. Miller works as Director of Engineering helping his team to make the machines do what they are supposed to. At night, he spends time with his family and does his best to come up with fun and creative fiction. He is a first reader for Allegory e-zine and the UFO (Unidentifi...

Of Portals and Portents, Ch. 28 (book 4) ep.608 Situations rarely play out as we expect them to. Listen to the book four playlist here https://talltaletv.com/series-of-portals-and-portents/ or listen to book one http://talltaletv.com/series-monsters-mushrooms/ listen to book two http://talltaletv.com/series-of-tyrants-and-teakettles/ Listen to book three http://talltaletv.com/series-of-bandits-and...

Marrak's Chest ep.605 When a locked star drive gifts the crew with virtual immortality Marrak and Guin discover that they have a long time to consider whether or not some gifts might be better not given. Bob Johnston has been a science fiction and horror fan since childhood. He started scribbling after a too early introduction to the likes of Michael Moorcock, H P Lovecraft, and Algis Budrys and h...

Gone Hunting ep.604 Their village starving, a desperate hunting party sets off in search for food. Trailing their prey to the foot of Horn Forest, the trio find themselves faced with two choices: turn back in shame with nothing, or, venture into the woods of the hooved folk. A native of San Antonio, Texas, C. W. "Clint" Stevenson resides there with his wife, son, and their retinue of furry compani...

Three Girls in a Hut  ep.603 If it seems too good to be true, it is. Joe Giordano was born in Brooklyn. He and his wife Jane now live in Texas. Joe's stories have appeared in more than one hundred magazines including The Saturday Evening Post, and Shenandoah, and his short story collection, Stories and Places I Remember. His novels include, Birds of Passage, An Italian Immigrant Coming of Age Stor...

"Mr. Cuddlekins' Fortune" ep.602 The Devil by any other name is still the Devil. Andrew Rucker Jones is a former IT dweeb and American expatriate living in Germany with his Georgian wife and their three children. His greatest literary achievement to date is authoring ninety-eight iCloud reminders for every household chore from cleaning sinks to checking smoke detectors.  Author Website: http://sel...

The Good, The Bad, and The Scaly ep.601 Carson just wants to go home to his beloved Carabelle, and he's not going to let anything get in his way. Not even an eight foot, mind-controlling lizard with a grudge. Nikki Blakely enjoys writing fiction of all shapes, sizes and genres from her home in the San Francisco Bay Area. By day she is a mild-mannered commercial loan underwriter, but by night (and...

Of Portals and Portents, Ch. 27 (book 4) ep.600 The decisions that are most important are often the ones that leave us hollow. Listen to the book four playlist here https://talltaletv.com/series-of-portals-and-portents/ or listen to book one http://talltaletv.com/series-monsters-mushrooms/ listen to book two http://talltaletv.com/series-of-tyrants-and-teakettles/ Listen to book three http://tallta...

Can A.I. Write Like Terry Pratchett? ep.599 I had Chat GPT try and write like Terry Pratchett, one of the greatest authors of all time. We see how it stacks up, and then discuss some of the implications of AI in creative fields. Watch this episode on YouTube to see the AI artwork and animation: https://youtu.be/9EnvKaOEVW4 Programs used to make this episode: Chat GPT (writing) https://chat.openai....

The Unexamined Life ep.598 Is the Unexamined Life worth living? This government agency will look into it. John Willems is a practicing attorney in West Virginia who writes speculative fiction on the side. He lives in Charleston, WV with his wife, Rachel, and his son, Francis. He's been published in Synthetic Reality Magazine and in Literally Stories and in addition to recently publishing a science...

Two Robots  ep.597 Two judgment bots reminisce about all those they executed. While studying for his undergraduate degree, Joseph was a finalist in the Beacon Essay Contest and presented his essay to a panel of judges. This sparked his love for storytelling. Recently, he decided to take up the pen once again and explore his passion. Joseph has had two works previously published in Fairfield Scribe...

Of Portals and Portents, Ch. 26 (book 4)  ep.596 Vel gets one step closer to the kids, while Errik slides several steps back from his goal. Listen to the book four playlist here https://talltaletv.com/series-of-portals-and-portents/ or listen to book one http://talltaletv.com/series-monsters-mushrooms/ listen to book two http://talltaletv.com/series-of-tyrants-and-teakettles/ Listen to book three...

The Last of Mr. Benjimen  ep.595 Witnesses at an inquiry into a ship wreck relate the weird and contradictory final moments of one of the passengers. Rick Kennett has five books on Amazon - two novels: The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea and Presumed Dead . A novella:  In Quinn's Paddock. And two collections: The Dark and What It Said and Thirty Minutes for New Hell, which now includes an additional n...

Night Lights  ep.594 When the lights come on at night, the demons come out. Joe Prosit writes sci-fi, horror, and psycho fiction. "Machines Monsters and Maniacs" is a self-published collection of sixteen of his short stories. You can find it on Amazon or at his website, at  www. JoeProsit.com . If you're an adept stalker, you can find him on one of the many lakes and rivers or lost deep inside the...

Solaris  ep.593 After a space station cuts contact, clues lead to a horrifying discovery. Emma Scoble is a young author from Ontario, Canada. She can be found watching anything sci-fi and deleting two words for every word she types.   ---- Listen Elsewhere ---- YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/TallTaleTV Website: http://www. TallTaleTV.com   ---- Story Submission ---- Got a short story you'd li...

Of Portals and Portents, Ch. 25 (book 4)  ep.592 Out of the ashes, new opportunities arise. Listen to the book four playlist here https://talltaletv.com/series-of-portals-and-portents/ or listen to book one http://talltaletv.com/series-monsters-mushrooms/ listen to book two http://talltaletv.com/series-of-tyrants-and-teakettles/ Listen to book three http://talltaletv.com/series-of-bandits-and-bad-...

Hazards of Faster-Than-Light Travel  ep.591 Beware the unknown. David Rogers' interests include all forms of science fiction, fantasy, and the generally weird and strange, from Poe to Stephen King, Shirley Jackson to Ursula K. Le Guin and N. K. Jemisin. David's poems, stories, and articles have been published by various outlets, including Star*Line, Third Flatiron, and Daily Science Fiction. His c...

Christina  ep.590 A sudden power to heal is a double-edged sword. Ever since reading John Bellairs when he was ten or eleven, W. M. Pienton wanted to be a writer. He worked as a ghostwriter and wrote for the local paper, The Sturbridge Villager. For about a year, he worked as a freelance writer. He has a self published novel, "Swampscott Fitzgerald" available on Amazon.   ---- Listen Elsewhere ---...

Broken Dolls  ep.589 A tragic event is more than it seems. Melissa R. Mendelson is a Poet and Horror, Science-Fiction and Dystopian Short Story Author.  Her stories have been published by Sirens Call Publications, Dark Helix Press, Altered Reality Magazine, Transmundane Press, Owl Canyon Press, Wild Ink Publishing, and The Yard: Crime Blog.  Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3jG2qpU (associate l...

The Continuing (Superpositional) Adventures Of Schrödinger's Cat  ep.588 Erwin Schrodinger's famous thought experiment in quantum theory proposed that a cat sealed in a dangerous iron box can be considered both dead and alive, until an observer opens the box to check. But "alive" vs. "dead" is only the beginning of the story for this unpredictable feline. This story was originally published in the...

An Extremely Wrong Number  ep.587 Things start to spiral quickly after replying to a wrong number text. Nils is the lead singer of the Canadian electro-punk band, Uncle Outrage. He's been writing science fiction on the side as a hobby with a few that have been published in various magazines in the past ten years. His literary idol is Robert Sheckley. Uncle Outrage has a few music videos you can ch...

Green to the East  ep.586 Technological advances aren't necessarily a good thing. Jason P. Burnham loves to spend time with his wife, kids, and dog. His work has appeared in Mixtape:1986, Nature: Futures, and Strange Horizons, among others. You can find him on Twitter at @AndGalen. Other TTTV stories by Jason P. Burnham https://talltaletv.com/tag/jason-p-burnham/   ---- Listen Elsewhere ---- YouTu...