PodCastle

PodCastle is the world’s first audio fantasy magazine. Weekly, we broadcast the best in fantasy short stories, running the gammut from heart-pounding sword and sorcery, to strange surrealist tales, to gritty urban fantasy, to the psychological depth of magical realism. Our podcast features authors including N.K. Jemisin, Peter S. Beagle, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Jim C. Hines, and Cat Rambo, among others. Terry Pratchett once wrote, “Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can.” Tune in to PodCastle each Tuesday for our weekly tale, and spend the length of a morning commute giving your imagination a work out.

https://podcastle.org/

subscribe
share






PodCastle 501: The Christmas Abomination from Beyond the Back of the Stars





* Authors : Heather Shaw and Tim Pratt
* Narrator : Rish Outfield
* Host : Summer Fletcher
* Audio Producer : Peter Wood


PodCastle 501: The Christmas Abomination from Beyond the Back of the Stars is a PodCastle original.


The Christmas Abomination from Beyond the Back of the Stars
By Heather Shaw and Tim Pratt
“Mele Kalikimaka!” Uncle Ray shouted as Trish rushed down the steps from the little plane, sucking in great gasps of island air. The plane smelled like the trapped farts of three boys (maybe four; she wasn’t sure if the pilot had farted or not). The air here was humid and smelled of salt, which was better, but weird. Trish squinted around: palm trees, blue skies, the distant engulfing ocean. It was the opposite of a winter wonderland.
“That’s how you say ‘Merry Christmas’ in Hawaiian,” Ray added helpfully.

“I know that,” Trish said. “I’m ten.” She was two years older than her impossibly annoying younger brother Nate, and four thousand years younger than her adopted brother Sean (short for Seankhibtawy), who used to be a mummy, but in terms of being-alive-and-not-entombed-years he was still only about twelve, so that was okay. She missed being the oldest, but she was still the smartest, so she could live with it. “This isn’t Hawaii though. It’s not even Polynesia. It’s Micronesia.”
“Yes, but the language spoken by the ancient inhuman inhabitants of this island doesn’t include a word for ‘Christmas,’” Ray said. “The closest word would translate to something like ‘Annual Celestial Festival of Flesh-Rending,’ so I did my best.”
Mom and Dad got off the plane next. Mom immediately started taking pictures of everything with her phone — she put all the photos she took online now, and Trish had taken to covering her face with her hair at all times in self-defense — and Dad shook Ray’s hand and said, “They’ve got the good coffee here, right? Kona?”
Ray said, “Ah, no, that’s from Hawaii, which is about three thousand miles east.”
Dad stared. “You’ve got something though. Some kind of coffee. French Roast. Full City. Espresso.” Uncle Ray looked more glum with every word. “The kind civet cats poop out? Instant?”
“I think we’re out of coffee until the next supply boat comes at New Year’s,” Ray said. “But I recently translated an ancient recipe for a tea using a native root that is supposed to be quite invigorating, I’ll see about making some, okay?”
Dad just stared at him, hollow-eyed and haunted, and then went to help the pilot get their bags off the plane.
Nate and Sean tumbled out of the plane, wrestling and laughing, and ran to Uncle Ray, racing in circles around him and whooping. “They were like this the whole way,” Trish said. “Can we throw them into a volcano?”
“This is going to be the greatest Christmas ever,” Mom said, deftly stepping around Sean, who had Nate in a headlock. She kissed Ray on the cheek. “Thanks so much for flying us out.”
Ray hugged his sister. “I couldn’t stand the thought of missing the holidays with you all — you know I always make it back, but there’s a celestial conjunction happening on Christmas day, and the opening of the dark aperture in the inverted temple only happens once every seven-thousand-seven-hundred-and-seventy-seven-years, so—”
“Nobody’s complaining about a tropical vacation on the Moriarty Foundation’s dime, Ray. It’s frigid back home, and Sean hates the snow.”
“We made a snowman last year,” Trish said, “and Sean put a mummy’s curse on it, but you couldn’t really tell any difference. He said it melted faster than it would have other...


fyyd: Podcast Search Engine
share








 December 19, 2017  46m