Anthropomorphic Dreams Publishing

Pseudopod’s recent story Love Like Thunder is a wonderful mix of Native American folklore and mythology along with a nice tale of a sympathetic monster.

It has mature content due to bits of violence and horror imagery, but it also has some nice drama.

Catching up on back issues of the Drabblecast, a weekly podcast of weird fiction, I found this belated Halloween treat. The Great Old Pumpkin is a fun story which manages to blend the Cthulu mythos with the familiar world of Peanuts holiday specials. It was a nice bit of clever humor which was a lot of fun to listen to.

Escape Pod ran an interesting story, Little Ambushes, which examines the idea of  a cultural exchange program with aliens from a distant world.  It covers some interesting ideas, like what it would be like teaching art to someone with different senses.  It also deals with a non-human intelligence and culture well, but in an understated way with a nice bit of character drama as well.

Escape Pod’s story βoyfriend is another story featuring artificial lifeforms as characters, this time in the form of virtual dating partner apps for your smart phones. It’s an interesting concept that’s wonderfully drawn and fleshed out with some good character drama. This should strike chords with anyone who remembers being a teenager and/or being one of the quirky ones.

Drabblecast, the podcast of weird fiction for weird listeners has had some stories of interest in recent weeks.

Storm Comes a Callin’ uses a different style of anthropomorphism to personify a force of nature. It’s a nice bit of character drama with some wonderful musical accompaniment with evocative blues songs.

Annabelle’s Alphabet is a wonderfully disturbing piece which starts of innocuous and slowly reveals its dark secrets.

And Nanuq brings another story of the dichotomy between ancient tribal practices coping to exist in a world of modern technology, along with a hunt of an enigmatic polar bear.

EscapePod the science-fiction podcast with robotic characters. Synthetic characters have always been a favorite of mine as they allow for wonderful uses of anthropomorphism and examining of the human condition.

On the Eyeball Floor has workers at a cyborg factory not only peering into but hovering over the abyss of the uncanny valley.

Harry the Crow does a wonderful job of mixing older cultures and myths with the modern world, holding onto old traditions while dealing with new technology.

Tideline has a leftover war machine trying to make a memorial to the soldiers who died in the battle, while befriending and protecting an orphaned boy.

Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk sets the task of grave importance on a small robotic bear from the ship’s nursery. Edward must take an arduous journey to save the people and the children he was built to love and care for.

These stories are all marked mature for various levels of violence and/or themes of death, but they also contain strong and moving drama and are well worth a listen.

Norm Sherman’s Drabblecast, a weird short-fiction podcast, has had several stories which feature anthropomorphic characters, animals and others.

The second story in Double Header III is a nice bit of drama which deals with a coyote lost in a sandwhich shop, likely inspired by real-life events from the news.

Alchemical Automaton Blues deals with the mistreatment of golems.

Out of His League is a fun take on a story you might recognize from the news last year.

The Last Dog is a sad post-apocalyptic tale.

On Dasher is a moving Christmas story with a wonderful mythos behind it.

And The Box Born Wraith is a fun horror tale for Halloween, with sympathetic monsters.

PodCastle has a few other shorts which are non-furry but wonderful examples of anthropomorphism.

The Orange (general audeience) is a neat story that feels like a modern fable.

Loose Drawers (mature content) brings the dynamics of sexual and relationship politics to the auto garage.

The Desires of Houses (mature content) lives up to its title and is a wonderfully fun and creatively-bizarre idea.

PodCastle’s story Captain Fantasy and the Secret Masters is a wonderful piece. It’s non-furry, but a great story and I think people in the fandom would appreciate it. It’s a fantasy piece with super heroes and special abilities that’s equal parts actiion and adventure, alternative history and character drama and it’s a wonderfully human story. There are bits of it which make it slightly mature, but nothing explicit nor really shocking and I appreciated the way those elements were used.

It reminds me of the Union Dues stories in Escape Pod, which also have mutant superheroes, living in a world awash in shades of gray and dealing with politics and corporate restrictions as much as super villans.

A short piece of contemporary fantasy and a haunting vignette, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.”

Foam on the Sea by Renee Carter Hall

Read by Glowcat Studio

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