written by David Steffen

This has been a big year of change for Cast of Wonders, the young adult podcast edited by Marguerite Kenner.  Starting at the beginning of 2016, Cast of Wonders joined the Escape Artists family of podcasts as their fourth podcast.  And, as part of this change, they greatly increased their writer pay rates from just a few pounds to professional rates for original stories, which I believe should’ve started the timer for becoming a SFWA-qualifying market.

This year there have been some technical issues with the feed that have resulted in long stretches between episodes.  What’s more confusing is that, to compensate for these issues, several episodes have been renumbered, and a bunch of episodes were added late in the year but with earlier dates posted on them.  I don’t say all this to complain but that… I’m not 100% sure that I have actually heard all of the episodes this year, because the changed dates and changed episode numbers have made a mess of the feed.  I tried my best!

All of the stories on this list are eligible for Hugos and Nebulas this year. (that’s why they’re all marked with asterisks.

Cast of Wonders published 30 stories in 2016.

The List

 

1. “The Jungle Between” by Holly Schofield*
Story with dual points of view–of human scientists and dinosaur-like aliens they are studying, centered around their perceptions of the other.

2. “This Story Begins With You” by Rachael K. Jones*
Stories with power to transform everything around them.

3. “The Authorized Biography” (part 1 and part 2) by Michael G. Ryan*
What if you found a  book that gave your complete biography, including what hasn’t happened yet?

4. “The Four Stewpots” by DK Thompson*
Speculative Yelp review!

5. “Welcome to Willoughby’s” by Michael Reid*
Space taxidermy!