Marissa Lingen | And the Dreams That You Dare to Dream

The nation greeted Vrath with great warmth and approval. The Burnt Empire regarded its liege as nothing less than a demi-god; in a sense, this was not far from the truth: Whether or not the Krushan dynasty was in fact born of stonefire, they were certainly something more than human. In the Krushan tongue, which was the official language of the capitol Hastinaga and the rest of the Empire, there was no word for “lie” or “falsehood.” | Copyright 2019 by Ashok K. Banker. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

21 Helmi 20191h 35min

Okay. So. There’s a time when I’m looking for Coyote, because I need to tell him this story. So, I walk the St. Lawrence River from one end to the other, and I cannot find him. Check the Rockies---he is not there. I even paddle to Baffin Island, because he likes to sleep on it. It is Coyote-shaped, a little. He’s not anywhere. But me, I have a story to tell, and so I look for someone else. Raven is not home, and Muskrat is doing Netflix and chill. | Copyright 2019 by KT Bryski. Narrated by Justine Eyre. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

14 Helmi 201924min

Home. He recognizes the name of the street. But he doesn’t remember the landscape. He recognizes the address on the mailbox. But he doesn’t remember the house. His family is waiting for him on the porch. Everybody looks just as nervous as he is. He gets out. The police cruiser takes back off down the gravel drive, leaving him standing in a cloud of dust holding a baggie of possessions. | Copyright 2019 by Matthew Baker. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

7 Helmi 20191h 5min

Meet Hermes Maleficarum, the reclusive force behind the multiverse’s biggest publishing house. A mystery generations in the making. The first thing I notice about Hermes was how unlike the rest of his family he seems. Hermes’ parents, Taliesin and his wife Morgana, were something of a power couple in the magic business, cutting a twin swath like obsidian blades at every fashionable event. | Copyright 2019 by Meg Elison. Narrated by Pandora Kew. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

24 Tammi 201922min

It’s not unusual to hear music in a spaceport arrival lounge. After all, if aliens didn’t enjoy music, I’d never have been able to travel. But this sounded familiar. Disturbingly familiar. Standing in line, I felt a sinking sensation as the tune wound its way to its conclusion. It was The Beatles. Millions of light years from Earth and I was listening to The Beatles. How did I feel? | Copyright 2019 by Tony Ballantyne. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

17 Tammi 201936min

Born of water, into water, the boy knew no other world. It would not always be thus. Someday, he had been told, he would leave here for another place. His mother had told him this, in a quiet time, her body swollen and expanded to its widest, spanning banks miles apart, trailing enormous skirts of silt. He loved her at these quiet times, when her icy mountain rage had mellowed to a somnolent trawl, flowing majestically down to the ocean. | 2019 by Ashok K. Banker. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

10 Tammi 20191h 8min

Io Destiny is a rich planet, home to three billion lives, built as a faceted gem to honor the Seven Suns. All the gods are worshiped equally here in peace. Temples caress the lower atmosphere and ships dance in celestial orbit; the Seven Suns are honored in effigy in great statues and holograms that mortals adore. Io Destiny is the only neutral world. While the gods chafe and feud with each other, hovering on the cusp of war, this planet is sacrosanct. | Copyright 2019 by A. Merc Rustad. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Tammi 20191h 9min

We have traveled here, to this most innocuous of country landscapes, to make good on a promise made by my grandfather, Carlton Whitmore, to a girl he loved in his youth. How foolish that sounds, writ down so! But it is true. Grandfather met her on the banks of the Bolton Strid, where she stood naked and confused, water drying on her skin. His notes state that she knew no modesty, and that “she was pale as the belly of a deep-river fish." Narrated by Gabrielle de Cuir. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

27 Joulu 201848min