Sunday Shorts—Summerfield’s Angel by Kim Fielding

I listened to this holiday novella a while back, and honestly, it was mostly a feel-good from step one. The performer did a fairly solid job—I will admit initially the Xeno voice did make me think he was sort of snide, but it was the accent, not the dialog, so it passed quickly—and I didn't …

Sunday Shorts—The Christmas Egg by Stephen M. Hornby

It's rare I sit down and pick up a play. I used to love them, used to seek them out and read them, but then... Well. I'd probably lay the blame down on the English Literature half of my degree, where I was forced to read so many plays, and then further dissect them to …

Sunday Shorts—The Dead Pirate’s Cave by Soumya Mukherjee

This latest story from Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space) hits that "Time" part and presses fast-forward rather than rewind, "The Dead Pirate's Cave." In it, a young woman and a young man are both held captive by pirates, the woman because her father was the only person whose blood was cleared for …

Sunday Shorts—Breathe Deep, Breathe Free by Jennifer Marie Brissett

One of the flash fiction stories in People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction, this one struck hard and quick. The narrative unfolds around an ecological disaster of some sort (it's not entirely clear how it began, but the end result is a "coating" on everything outside, and the creep of the toxin into the air …

Sunday Shorts—Cyberfruit Swamp, by Raven Kaldera

The last of the Queers Destroy Science Fiction audiobook stories I'll be chatting about on Sunday Shorts, "Cyberfruit Swamp" was a freaking joyride of queerness on pretty much every level. To break down what I loved: the genderqueerness involved was so deftly penned (I loved the term "Nachtlei Queer") and the culture Kaldera spun in the bar …

Sunday Shorts—Make My Bread by Sarah Caulfield

This tale, found in A Few More Winter Tales, is more of the sad and sorrowful 'A Christmas Carol' sort, and it, too features a ghost. It begins with a Midwife, Kelby, calling for a bone collector, Rusalka, to come to her village and deal with a man who is wandering about in spirit form …