Hugh Howey | Deep Blood Kettle
They say the sky will fill with dust in a bad way if we don’t do something soon. My teacher Mrs. Sandy says that if the meteor hits, it’ll put up enough dirt to block the sun, and everything will turn cold for a long, long while. When I came home and told Pa about this, he got angry. He called Mrs. Sandy a bad word, said she was teaching us nonsense. I told him the dinosaurs died because of dust in the sky. Pa said there weren’t no such thing as dinosaurs. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
23 Huhti 201319min
Karin Tidbeck | A Fine Show on the Abyssal Plain
On a beach by the sea stands a gutted stone tower. A man is climbing up the remains of a staircase that spirals up the tower’s interior. Vivi sits on the roof, oblivious, counting coins that have spilled from her breast pocket: one fiver, three ones, one golden ten. She’s only wearing a worn pair of pajamas, and the damp breeze from the sea is making her shiver. She has no memory of how she arrived, but is vaguely aware of the sound of footsteps. Narrated by Kelly Catey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
16 Huhti 201329min
Kathleen Ann Goonan | A Love Supreme
Ellie Santos-Smith grabs a clean white coat as spring dawn brightens her worn Oriental rug and streaks with sun her only luxury, a grand piano. She runs a comb through her jet-black hair, cut short because she thinks that makes her look older. Her smooth skin glows with 20-ish health, though she is 47. Narrated by Claire Bloom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
9 Huhti 201336min
Christopher Barzak | Smoke City
One night, I woke to the sound of my mother’s voice, as I did when I was a child. The words were familiar to my ear, they matched the voice that formed them, but it was not until I had opened my eyes to the dark of my room and my husband’s snoring that I remembered the words were calling me away from my warm bed and the steady breathing of my children, both asleep in their own rooms across the hall. “Because I could not stop for death,” my mother used to tell me, “he kindly stopped for me.” Narrated by Gabrielle De Cuir. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2 Huhti 201342min
Angélica Gorodischer | The Sense of the Circle
Have you seen those houses on Oroño Boulevard, especially the ones that face east, those dry, cold, serious, heavy houses, with grilles but without gardens, maybe at the most a tile patio paved like the sidewalk? In one of those houses lives Ciro Vázquez Leiva, Cirito. Narrated by Roxanne Hernandez. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
26 Maalis 201355min
Rich Larson | Let’s Take This Viral
Default hadn’t been down in the nocturns for some time, probably half an orbit, but he had just dissolved the geneshare contract with his now-ex-lover and needed to get completely fucking perforated to take his mind off things. His lift was full of revelers all laughing and widecasting the same synthesized whalesong from Old Old Earth. Narrated by Paul Boehmer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
19 Maalis 201336min
Sarena Ulibarri | The Bolt Tightener
“There are one thousand eight hundred bolts total,” the old man said. “You’ll work every night until sunrise. Always go in order. Never skip a bolt.” Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
12 Maalis 201320min
Karen Joy Fowler | Lily Red
One day Lily decided to be someone else. Someone with a past. It was an affliction of hers, wanting this. The desire was seldom triggered by any actual incident or complaint but seemed instead to be related to the act or prospect of lateral movement. She felt it every time a train passed. Narrated by Kimberly Farr. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
5 Maalis 201348min
