First Drabblecast, the podcast of weird fiction, had a neat two-parter story that was darkly thrilling. “Boojum” by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette is a science-fiction story featuring space pirates, sentient organic ships and brain-stealing aliens. It’s a good ride. Listen to part one and part two here.

Escape Pod, the science-fiction audio magazine ran the fun piece awhile ago. Rejiggering the Thingamajig by Eric James Stone features an anthropomorphic Buddhist-practicing T-Rex sent on a quest with a talking gun.

For a more serious and mediative story on Zen Philosophy, there is the wonderful Friction by Will McIntosh.

And finally, there’s  Squonk the Dragon by P. M. Butler, which is a wonderful silly and absurdly amusing fantasy story. It features a lovable dragon who is being raised by a fiesty blue bird, and who constantly bothers a curmudgeonly wizard who just wants to be left alone.

The series started on Escape Pod but then moved to the fantasy podcast Pod Castle. The stories in the series so far are: Squonk the Dragon, Squonk the Apprentice and Squonk and the Horde of Apprentices.

The Outsider does not have animal characters, but it is another wonderful use of anthropomorphism and dealing with The Other. It’s a nice bit of dramatic and sympathetic horror and Norm Sherman does a wonderful job narrating the tale.

While it doesn’t have any animals in it, Remembrance is Something Like a House by Will Ludwigsen is a wonderfully inventive idea. In it a long vacant house, haunted by a dark memory of the past, goes in search for the family who used to live within it.

These stories were Fear of Dragons and Run of the Fiery Horse. The stories get a little political, and the first one is a bit heavy handed, while the second is more balanced. Both of them had neat takes on Easter and Western tales of dragons (or serpents) and they had wonderful  mythology of them, especially the Fiery Horse one.

Moby’s Beautiful is a wonderfully twisted skewering of the party crowd, done at a key party with a bunch of people in animal mascot suits. It’s like a furpile on the set of Boogie Nights. The poor rabbit guy is reminiscent of William H. Macey’s character in that film.

There were cries of “fursecution” when it came out, how everyone thought he was making fun of furries. In truth it looks pretty obvious that it doesn’t have anything to do with the fandom. Instead it’s using the suits to create a cartoonish scene and an interesting take on anthropomorphism. They used the costumes to good effect here, playing on the lack of good facial expressions, to heighten the surreal drama.

While it doesn’t have any animal characters in it, the story makes good use of anthropomorphism. The computer AI is an intriguing and disturbing character which allows atrocities to be carried out first by passive limitations of  its programming and then actively with dark experimentation on the nature of the human condition.

Warning: Pseudopod is a horror podcast and the story has strong horror elements of the visceral and psychological, and is for fans of the genre and not for the faint of heart.

It’s not a simple gimic though. It’s a wonderful collection of fiction covering both our world and those so very different. There are alien worlds ans cultures awash in issues of politics and families and battles big and small fought as worlds collide. House cats fight off tiny invaders and a woman struggles to read the Tarot for a reptilian overlord in order to save her life. Those and other stories are linked below.

What Fluffy Knew by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Her routine was perfect in its simplicity. She spent her mornings in the kitchen waiting for someone to brush her, her afternoons sprawled on the couch in the warm sunshine, and her evenings on the nearest lap. Sometimes she watched the water droplets in bathtub after her people took showers. Yes. It was a good life. Until they came….

Family Values by Sara Genge

Although she was tired, Wu was careful not to show it. Her pregnancies were progressing nicely. The eldest foetus, Hoo, was about to be born, and she was getting too big for parties, but the Senate elections were only months away and her visible pregnancy gave her an advantage she could not afford to waste…

The Second Conquest of Earth by L.J. Daly

I barely recall how it used to be, before the Kus slashed open our sky—before their ships descended, battering the clouds with hurricanes and lightning. I remember the thunder and the majesty. And I remember the weeks of fire that followed…

Going to the Chapel by Sandra Odell

Amilee Jo Baker’s day of wedded bliss was the biggest scandal the congregation of Millton County’s First Brotherhood Baptist Church had endured since Ginger Lynn married that Liebowitz boy from the Army, bless her heart…

Brief Candle by Ruthanna Emrys

The children washed up early this year; we raced down to the beach as soon as we heard. There was already a traffic jam coming out of the inland cells. My pockets are always filled with notes, so I left them well-anchored on the beach. Cells may not survive without new children, but without our studies, survival is meaningless…

The Existential Lizard by Alasdair Stuart

Cod Philosophy by Stephanie Campisi

Monkeys Imitating Humans Imitating Monkeys by Nancy Stebbins

These are from the more canonical sense, building on Jewish Mysticism and the dark historic setting of World War II. Both have some wonderfully moving character drama as well. They are:

Niels Bohr and the Sleeping Dane by Jonathon Sullivan on Escape Pod.

Brothers by J. C. Hay on Pseudopod.