Enjoy these climate fiction and speculative fiction audio short stories.
Carbon Run (chapter one)
Ben Franke of the Indie Beginning podcast reads chapter one of Carbon Run, the first full-length novel in my series Tales From A Warming Planet.
Zillah Harmonia
In a future decade when fixing climate change is the world’s top priority, an elderly homeowner must decide whether to fight a citation that might mean the loss of her home. The story is the first of a series of shorts set in the world of Tales From A Warming Planet. A version of this story was published in the Winter 2018 edition of Bards & Sages Quarterly.
Living In Infamy
In a future when fossil fuels are banned due to climate change, the captain of a US Navy destroyer, plagued by guilt over a friendly-fire incident, hunts a dangerous carbon smuggler and gets help from a disgraced, dead relative. The story is the second in a series of shorts set in the world of Tales From A Warming Planet.
A War Beyond War, and I Am the Only Soldier
“We found him in his cell, sitting on his pallet. His eyes were wide and sweat trickled from his hair; his tonsure was freshly shaven. He didn’t stir at our approach, and I touched his forehead. It was cool. Then he awoke from his trance, and gazed at us with eyes that will now forever haunt me.” In 13th century France, a scribe at a monastery tells the story of the frightening transformation of Dominic de la Traversée. The fantasy story appeared in Satirica: An Anthology of Satirical Speculative Fiction, published in 2008. A version of the story also appeared in Dreams and Visions magazine #36, published by Skysong Press. FREE download of “A War Beyond War, and I Am the Only Soldier”
The Arc of Hronos
“I’ve almost finished checking those measurements. That tooth—it looks homo sapiens. This could be huge…” In this story published on the audio speculative fiction magazine Drabblecast December 29, 2007, tragedy strikes the marriage of an archaeologist and her time-traveler husband. The story was written under my sometime pen name Anden Sharp.
The Warden’s Last Day
“It was 11 at night, and only a few shouts of men in the lifer block penetrated the concrete walls of death row. My name is Michael Zlocinac, and I am a warden of U.S. Federal Penitentiary at Magdalena, New Mexico…” The titular protagonist explains his complicated history, and the moral conundrums it presents. A rumination on capital punishment, legacy, and war. Published on the audio speculative fiction magazine Drabblecast October 3, 2007, the story was written under the pen name Anden Sharp.
J.G. Follansbee 