The Best of Cast of Wonders 2015

written by David Steffen

Cast of Wonders is the young adult fiction podcast. They have a broader definition of YA than you’ll typically find on bookshelves, especially in terms of the protagonist’s demographic–who need not be young adults. The podcast continues to be edited by Marguerite Kenner.

This has been a momentous year for Cast of Wonders. They announced their big news at WorldCon in August, and more widely in metacasts in October. Cast of Wonders is changing owners, from Wolfsbane Publishing to the Escape Artists family of podcasts. Escape Artists, before last year, consisted of Pseudopod, Podcastle, and Escape Pod. The non-audio publication Mothership Zeta launched last year two to make a family of five publications instead of three. Along with this change in ownership comes a major increase in pay for writers whose work is published as well, bringing them up to SFWA’s qualifying rate for original fiction. This change all has gone into effect as of the beginning of 2016.

In 2015, two of my own reprinted stories were published in Cast of Wonders.

“This Is Your Problem, Right Here” which starts out as a plumber explains to the owner of a water park how her pool filters have stopped working because almost all of the trolls are dead.
“Marley and Cratchit”, a steampunk secret history prequel to A Christmas Carol, which begins with Bob Cratchit as an alchemist and Jacob Marley as his business partner and financier.

Cast of Wonders published 30 stories in 2015.

The List

1. “The Mothgate” by J.R. Troughton
A mother and daughter hold their ground against monsters from another dimension.

2. “Wine For Witches, Milk for Saints” by Rachael K. Jones
Puppetism is both a curse and a blessing. It can be transferred but never cured. When a child is inflicted with puppetism, any other medical conditions they have are rendered into a puppet analog of the condition that is much easier to fix. A Christmas story set in an Italy where strategic transfers of puppetism are the basis of the medical system.

3. “Setting My Spider Free” by Caroline M. Yoachim
Humans, living in towers that rise above the clouds, have crafted a symbiosis with a race of giant spiders.

4. “Fairy Bones” by Guy Stewart
Fairy remains are discovered in owl pellets by a scientist and her visiting nephew.

5. “Amicae Aeternum” by Ellen Klages
Before leaving on a generation ship, how can you say goodbye to your best friend?

The Best of Lightspeed (and Fantasy) Podcast 2015

written by David Steffen

Lightspeed is as good as ever, another big source for my award nominations each year. John Joseph Adams continues to edit the magazine. In 2015 they ran the wildly successful Kickstarter for their Queers Destroy Science Fiction special issue. The QDSF special issue was published in May, and the Queers Destroy Fantasy followup was published in the occasionally-resurrected Fantasy Magazine page in December. The QDSF issue was edited by Seanan McGuire, Steve Berman, Sigrid Ellis, Mark Oshiro, and Wendy N. Wagner. The QDF issue was edited by Christopher Barzak, Liz Gorinsky, and Matthew Cheney. Check out the Destroy site for more information about this series of projects (People of Color Destroy Science Fiction is the 2016 special edition upcoming)

Lightspeed publishes about half of their stories in podcast form. The Lightspeed podcast published 52 stories, and the QDF special issues published 2 more.

The List

1. “Nothing is Pixels Here” by K.M. Szpara
Compelled to seek out the rare glitches in a simulated world, a man and his boyfriend decided to visit the real world for the first time since they were kids.

2. “Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World” by Caroline M. Yoachim
A scientist is visited by an entity that calls itself Achron, that exists outside the ordinary stream of time. The story is split into sections based on fantastical versions of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World, which I enjoyed.

3. “Violation of the TrueNet Security Act by Taiyo Fuji”, translated by Jim Hubbert
The original Internet had been abandoned when the search engines went berserk and wiped everyone’s computers, locked everyone out of the Internet. Now there is only TrueNet, the next generation of the Internet, with human safeguards in place to ensure that automated programs can’t overrun everything again. But why did the search engines lock everyone out in the first place?

4. “Ghosts of Home” by Sam J. Miller
Very cool idea for a story, exploring the idea of household spirits in a time after the housing bubble popped. What happens to all the spirits in those empty foreclosed homes?

5. “Veil of Ignorance” by David Barr Kirtley
Based on the theory that difference in perspectives perpetuates inequality because a person is more willing accept bad things happening to people if they’re certain it will only affect other people, a group of friends takes a drug that makes them as a group unable to be certain which one of them they are, to put down a veil of ignorance to see if they will treat each other better from the simple fact of each person not knowing whether they are the one mistreating or being mistreated. Tricky point of view in this one, but I think it was pulled off nicely.

Honorable Mentions

“Werewolf Loves Mermaid” by Heather Lindsley

“Tea Time” by Rachel Swirsky

“The Lily and the Horn” by Catherynne M. Valente

The Best of Clarkesworld 2015

written by David Steffen

Clarkesworld Magazine has had an incredible year. As I wrote these lists I was considering my own Nebula and Hugo nomination ballots and much of my short fiction ballot come from Clarkesworld. This year they’ve been publishing a monthly story translated from Chinese as part of an ongoing initiative to share more Chinese author’s works with the English reading fandom. These stories have been a wonderful change of pace, different in some ways from what I’m used to in works written in English, something new and fresh.

The magazine continues to be edited and published by Neil Clarke and the podcast is hosted and most-often narrated by Kate Baker of the excellent voice.

Clarkesworld published 78 stories in 2015

The List

1. “Today I am Paul” by Martin L. Shoemaker
This is my top story pick for 2015 across all publications. It is told from the point of view of a personal caretaker android designed to empathize and to emulate family members of an Alzheimer’s patient so that she can live at home. Solid emotional story with lots of good stuff to think about.

2. “When Your Child Strays From God” by Sam J. Miller
This story chronicles the journey of a mother and pastor’s wife to find her son who has disappeared, leaving traces of a popular telepathic drug behind. She takes some of the drug, which links her telepathically to her son, and she goes to find him… knowing full well that while the drug’s effect last she is vulnerable to her son’s personable boogeyman. A great story of empathy and bravery and doing everything for family.

3. “So Much Cooking” by Naomi Kritzer
Formatted as a cooking blog, at first I thought I wouldn’t like this story. But the format proved very effective for this story of a spreading pandemic as a food blogger tries to take care of her family and still keep her blog going while supplies and travel are severely limited.

4. “Summer at Grandma’s House” by Hao Jingfang, translated by Carmen Yiling Yan
I like this one especially for its discussion of fate. As it says right in the beginning of the story, when fate is discussed it is generally understood to be a script that we follow or that it doesn’t exist at all. I find the explanation of fate given by this story to be much more interesting and also practical.

5. “Ether” by Zhang Ran, translated by Carmen Yiling Yan and Ken Liu
This one might begin a little slow for those used to a “hook me immediately” attitude in publishing, this one was a bit of a slow boil but I thought it was well worth it in the end, and looking back the slow boil made total sense and wouldn’t have worked any other way. It’s a kind of a dystopia story, though it doesn’t immediately seem that way.

6. “An Evolutionary Myth” by Bo-Young Kim, translated by Gord Sellar and Jihyun Park
A world where individual creatures can adapt to changing conditions in the world to become something wholly unique (yes I realize that’s not evolution by the scientific term, but this is a fun and interesting fantasy story not a hard SF tale).

7. “Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer
Really interesting story about an AI interacting with people by influencing their web search results. The title is a playful poke at the premise, and there is plenty of that in the story, but I also found it very heartfelt.

8. “Technarion” by Sean McMullen
Shortly after the discovery of radio, humans discover signals seemingly coming from the ether explaining how to build more and more complex computing machines.

Honorable Mentions

“Cassandra” by Ken Liu

“Mrs. Griffin Prepares to Commit Suicide Tonight” by A Que, translated by John Chu

“Daddy’s World” by Walter Jon Williams

“War, Ice, Egg, Universe” by G. David Nordley

The Best of Drabblecast 2015

written by David Steffen

Drabblecast is a podcast of the weird and speculative. It is the closest publication to consistently hitting my own personal tastes, with a tendency towards especially strange and often funny ideas. Since its beginning it has been edited and hosted by Norm Sherman. This year marked a big change with Nathaniel Lee taking over as editor in chief, though Norm is still the host (Norm is also the editor and sometimes-host of Escape Pod, so he certainly has enough stuff to do). Drabblecast has continued their yearly tradition of Lovecraft Month in August, with one story by H.P. Lovecraft and three original stories inspired by Lovecraft written by contemporary authors.

Drabblecast published 39 stories in 2015.

The List

1. “Old Dead Futures” by Tina Connolly
A young man has been taught to see the possible threads of the future and choose the one that will happen. He is exploited for this ability by an older man who can do the same thing.

2. “Restless in R’lyeh” by Oliver Buckram
One of the original stories for Lovecraft month. I love to read Buckram’s stories, fun and funny and thoughtful in turns. This one is a full cast recording, taking the format of a radio psychologist’s talk show during the time when Cthulhu arises from the depths.

3. “Metal and Flesh” by Steven R. Stewart
Very short story, but I found it very touching that begins with a badly injured man and a badly damaged robot trying to repair each other before their own bodies fail. I found it very touching.

4. “Why I Hate Zombie Unicorns” by Laura Pearlman
Love the title, and it fits the story well. Fun, dark, and funny all at once.

5. “The Liver” by Andrew Kozma
The Greek myth of Prometheus ends with him being cursed to immortality with his liver eaten by an eagle every day. This story casts a different light on the myth–what if the eagle is trying to help, rather than being there to punish him? I thought it was interesting how it could cast a new light on a very old myth.

Honorable Mention

“Ten Wretched Things About Influenza Siderius” by Rachael K. Jones

The Best of Escape Pod 2015

written by David Steffen

Escape Pod, the original science fiction podcast, is still running more than ten years later. It continues to be edited by Norm Sherman. Mur Lafferty began the year as editor-at-large (whatever that means) but moved on to the sister publication Mothership Zeta.

Escape Pod published 41 stories in 2015.

The List

1. “Beyond the Trenches We Lie” by A.T. Greenblatt
Fighting a war against blobs whose only vulnerability is lying, the more novel the more effective. The story is told in the space between the lies.

2. “Everyone Will Want One” by Kelly Sandoval
What would it be like if you had a bot to aid you in your social situations to help you get through high school?

3. “Flowers For Algernon” by Daniel Keyes
Classic science fiction, you may have read it in school, a journal story written by a mentally handicapped man who undergoes a procedure to enhance his intelligence.

4. “The Semaphore Society” by Kate Heartfield
Future user interface technology allows the paralyzed to begin a new online group, inventing a new language as they go.

5. “Adaptation and Predation” by Auston Habershaw
A shapeshifting scavenger as assassin, taking on a member of a dangerous predator species. Really fun, interesting, action packed story.

Honorable Mention

“The Lone and Level Sands” by Marco Panessa

The Best of Podcastle 2015

written by David Steffen

Podcastle, the fantasy branch of the Escape Artists podcast, has been running for almost eight years now. And this has been an eventful year for the podcast for several reasons:

They upgraded their pay rate for new fiction to professional rates. The other Escape Artists sister publications are now all pro-paying as well. I’m hoping that will draw ever wider talent (and hopefully get more award interest).
They are now paying their voice acting talent for the first time.
Dave Thompson and Anna Schwind have stepped down from co-editor positions.
Kitty Niclaian and Dawn Phynix were chosen to co-edit, but were unable to fill the roles.
Finally, Rachael Jones and Graeme Dunlop are now the co-editors.

Podcastle published 69 stories in 2015.

After years of submitting, I finally sold a story to Podcastle, a flash story written as a brochure for adoptive parents of crash-landed alien infants: “So You’ve Decided to Adopt a Zeptonian Baby!”.

And, late in the year my second story appeared as well, another flash story, this one title “My Wife is a Bear in the Morning”. That one is well described in the (literal) title.

The List

1. “The Sea of Wives” by Nathaniel Lee
A tale of selkies, where the fishing of selkies has become a major industry.

2. “Testimony Of Samuel Frobisher Regarding Events On Her Majesty’s Ship CONFIDENCE, 14-22 June, 1818, With Diagrams” by Ian Tregellis
First hand explanation of a ship’s encounter with the “tentacled bride”, a monster at sea.

3. “The Machine that Made Clothes” by Nathaniel Lee
Horror-ish story about the drive for fashion.

4. “Who Binds and Looses the World With Her Hands” by Rachael K. Jones
Two women, one a prisoner and the other a captive, are visited on their island by a stranger. Interesting developing story, with deaf protagonist.

5. “Super-Baby-Moms Group Saves the Day” by Tina Connolly
Very fun full cast recording, about an online forum group of mothers of superpowered children.

6. “Makeisha in Time” by Rachael K. Jones
Makeisha takes reflexive jumps back to random points in time, and each time lives a full lifetime before returning to the exact moment in the present when she left.

7. “Wet” by John Wiswell
Immortal helps a ghost girl move on to the other side.

Honorable Mentions

“Sticks and Stones” by Nathaniel Lee

“The Newsboy’s Last Stand” by Krystal Claxton

“Congratulations on Your Apotheosis” by Michelle Ann King

The Best of Pseudopod 2015

written by David Steffen

Pseudopod has now been running for nearly 10 years, which makes it an old fogey in terms of fiction podcasts. 2015 marked a major moment in the podcast’s history–the podcast increased the amount that it paid its author’s to what is considered in the industry to be professional rates. This is very exciting because not many podcasts have been able to afford to do this. I hope this will bring in even better stories by an even broader set of authors, and that will hopefully help give the fiction podcast industry more respect when it comes to awards and such honors which have typically looked over podcasts.

Shawn Garrett is still the editor of the podcast, but he has taken on a new co-editor–Alex Hofelich. In 2015 they published 67 stories (some in multi-story episodes)

The List

1. “The Last Bombardment” by Kenneth Schneyer
Adorable toddlers parachuting from the sky. This is a strange new kind of war.

2. “Comparison of Efficacy Rates for Seven Anti-Pathetics as Employed Against Lycanthropes” by Marie Brennan
Written in the style of a scholarly research paper focused on the important and practical research of fighting werewolves.

3. “The Bleeding Game” by Natalia Theodoridou
A man discovers that when he cuts himself, he can revisit past times before the death of his girlfriend.

4. “When It Ends, He Catches Her” by Eugie Foster
A story of dancing, and love, in the time of plague.

5. “Final Corrections, Pittsburgh Times-Dispatch” by M. Bennardo
Written as a newspaper corrections section the day after the beginning of the end of the world.

6. “Thing in the Bucket” by Eric Esser
Fair warning, this one gets pretty squicky in several ways. The manufacture of a homonculus from menstrual blood.

7. “Lullabies for a Clockwork Child” by Shane Halbach
Parents always see the best potential in their children, don’t they?

Honorable Mentions

“The Godsmaid Clara and Her Many Smiles” by Sharon Dodge

“The Discussion of Mimes” by Michael Payne

“Hunger” by Caitlin Marceau

Best of Strange Horizons Podcast

written by David Steffen

Strange Horizons is a freely available online speculative fiction zine that also publishes nonfiction and poetry. They publish a variety of styles of stories and have regularly attracted award nominations in recent years.

All of the stories and poetry in the zine are published in the podcast.

History

When Mary Anne Mohanraj founded Strange Horizons in the year 2000, online publications were often looked down upon in many circles as inferior to print magazines–not getting much attention come award season and that sort of thing. Since then the attitude has shifted greatly and many of the award honors every year go to online publications. I believe Strange Horizons is the oldest of those online publications that regularly draws that kind of honor, and Strange Horizons has done a lot to turn around fandom’s opinion about online publications.

Mary Anne Mohanraj was Editor-in-Chief of Strange Horizons until 2003. Susan Marie Groppi was Editor-in-Chief from 2004 through 2010. The current Editor-in-Chief is Niall Harrison and the current fiction editors are Julia Rios, An Owomoyela, Catherine Krahe, and Lila Garrott. There have been other fiction editors in the past, but I’m honestly not sure where to find a full list.

Strange Horizons is a nonprofit organization in the US and is run entirely run by volunteers so that all the money goes toward licensing the publication rights for the content. Most of their funding comes from their annual fundraising drive, which ended a few days ago.

One of the rewards for reaching goals in their 2012 fund drive was to start producing a fiction podcast, which began publishing in January 2013. Anaea Lay is the host and also narrates most of the stories. There is also a poetry podcast if that suits your fancy–I am focusing on the fiction podcast here because I don’t understand poetry well enough for my opinion to be of much value. Since then, all of Strange Horizons stories also appear on the fiction podcast.

Best Episodes

1. “The Game of Smash and Recovery” by Kelly Link
Wonderfully weird story of two siblings waiting on a strange planet for their parents.

2. “Broken-Winged Love” by Naru Dames Sandar
Story of a dragon parenting a child with a damaged wing.

3. “The Suitcase Aria” by Marissa Lingen
A castrato magician hunts an opera house murderer.

4. “Why Don’t You Ask the Doomsday Machine?” by Elliot Essex
From the POV of a machine that outlasts civilization after civilization.

5. “Din Ba Din” by Kate McLeod
Living days completely out of order, often years apart.

6. “Such Lovely Teeth, Such Big Teeth” (part 1 and part 2) by Carlie St. George
A modern story of Big Bad Wolves.

7. “What We’re Having” by Nathaniel Lee
A skillet serves the food that we’re having tomorrow.

8. “ARIECC 1.0” by Lillian Wheeler
POV of AI meant to help people with traffic and weather issues.

9. “Among the Sighs of the Violencellos” by Daniel Ausema
A very interesting and evocative mix of fun elements, including fantasy hero tropes.

10. “Significant Figures” by Rachael Acks
Alien masquerading as human tries to protect Earth from other aliens. My favorite character is a waffle iron.

Honorable Mentions

“The Innocence of a Place” by Margaret Ronald
Cool epistolary tale trying to piece together evidence of a mysterious series of events that happened in the early 20th century, with a historian’s notes on the subject.

“Dysphonia in D Minor” by Damien Walters Grintalis
A world where music is used to build things, and a story about the people who do this as an occupation.

“20/20” by Arie Coleman
Time travel is used to change the result of medical treatment plans that turned out to be incorrect.

“The Visitor” by Karen Myers
Very cool alien POV and its first contact with humans.

“Never the Same” by Polenth Blake
A sociopath who has learned to function even in a society that scans for sociopaths and treats them differently tries to make a positive difference in an SFnal world.

The Best of Cast of Wonders 2014

written by David Steffen

More great content from Cast of Wonders the Young Adult SF/Fantasy podcast. Marguerite Kenner continues to do a great job as editor. She did mention a few episodes back that they could use more donations–they have a good-sized audience but less than 1% of them make donations. If you value work like this, please consider donating to the makers of your favorite work.

The List

1. “Shimmer” by Amanda Davis
A setting where you immediately become what others think of you, and what one girl does to fight back.

2. “Tell Them of the Sky” by A.T. Greenblatt
A toymaker makes models of something he calls birds, something which no one alive has ever seen.

3. “The Girl With the Piccolo” by Charity Tahmaseb
Opposing marching band armies face off.

4. “The Filigreed Cage” by Krystal Claxton
The alien Overseers have come to our world and bestowed many gifts upon us. One of them are the cuffs that tell us exactly what to do. To refuse gifts is to live in exile.

5. “A House in the Forest” by Shawn Bailey
Nigh-indestructible bugs are overrunning the world.

Honorable Mention

“Some Assembly Required” by Terry L. Mirll

The Best of Toasted Cake 2014

written by David Steffen

Another great year of Toasted Cake, the idiosyncratic flash fiction podcast. As ever, I am a huge fan, and when I was preparing to open Diabolical Plots’s slushpile I used my Best of Toasted Cake lists as an example of what I love to read. There are fewer stories this year than usual because of Tina’s reduced schedule at the beginning of the year to spend more time with her newborn baby, the occasional technical difficulties, and novel publishing interfering with podcasting (the nerve!).

One of my own stories was published in the podcast this year, titled “Turning Back the Clock” which takes place in a world where crossing the boundary between time zones actually bumps you forward or backward in time by one hour–a man comes home to find his wife killed by robbers and tries to get across the boundary in time to save her.

On to the list!

The List

1. “Safe Road” by Caroline M. Yoachim
Mother knows the best way through the screaming grass and all the other hazards.

2. “Blood Willows” by Caroline M. Yoachim
You might want to skip this one if you have a high squick factor. Parasitic willows root in your flesh.

3. “The Shallows” by Nathaniel Lee
A girl’s reaction to alien visitors.

4. “The Front Line” by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley
We all do what we must for the sake of the war, even when it’s not what we expect.

5. “A Primary Function” by C.L. Holland
In some ways, a benevolent robot caretaker could be worse than a malevolent one.

Honorable Mention

“Last Band Standing” by Siobhan O’Flynn