Podcasts by The Oddcast: Tales of the Occult, Weird, and Arcane
Readings of weird fiction and science fiction short stories combined with immersive sound design and music.
Further podcasts by Jon Fredette
Podcast on the topic Fiktion
All episodes
Episode 45: The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs from 2023-03-07T01:31:42
First published in 1902 by Harper's Monthly and reprinted in his third collection of short stories The Lady of the Barge (also, 1902). The Monkey's Paw is one of the most well-known, adapted, an...
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Episode 44: Midsummer by Arthur Machen from 2022-04-05T22:32:12
Arthur Machen, the pen-name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He has garnered a reputation as one most influential classic horror stor...
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Midsummer by Arthur Machen from 2022-04-05T22:32:12
Arthur Machen, the pen-name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He has garnered a reputation as one most influential classic horror stor...
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Episode 43: Terra Incognita by Vladimir Nabokov from 2022-01-10T22:40:06
First published in the émigré journal Posledniya Novosti in Paris in 1931. Translated by the author and his son, the story was published in English in The New Yorker in May, 1963, and later adde...
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Episode 43: Terra Incognita by Vladimir Nabokov from 2022-01-10T22:40:06
First published in the émigré journal Posledniya Novosti in Paris in 1931. Translated by the author and his son, the story was published in English in The New Yorker in May, 1963, and later added t...
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Episode 42: The Beautiful Suit by H.G. Wells from 2021-10-29T23:55:56
Originally published under the title "A Moonlight Fable" in the April 10, 1909, number of Collier's Weekly.
A young man acquires a hand-woven suit from his mother, and, becoming obsessed...
Episode 41: The Awakening by Arthur C. Clarke from 2021-10-02T22:23:09
First published in Zenith in February 1942 and later revised and published in Future in January of 1952. Collected in The Best of Arthur C. Clarke 1937-1955.
U...
Episode 40: The Guide by Ellis Peters from 2021-09-06T21:33:32
Ellis Peters (nom de plume of Edith Pargeter) was an English writer, and the short story (originally titled Guide to Doom) was first published in Alfred Hitchcocks: Stories that Scared Even ...
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Episode 39: Gateway of the Mind by Anonymous from 2021-07-18T04:18:35
Originally posted on Creepypasta on November 23, 2009 by an anonymous author.
An experiment in the early 80s attempts to establish contact with God by depriving a test subject of all sen...
Episode 38: The Writing of the God by Jorge Luis Borges from 2021-05-13T19:56:50
Original Spanish title: "La escritura del dios"First published in the literary magazine Sur in 1949, and later reprinted in The Aleph. An incarcerated magician seeks a divine script that will ...
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Episode 38: The Writing of the God by Jorge Luis Borges from 2021-05-13T19:56:50
Original Spanish title: "La escritura del dios"
First published in the l...
Episode 37: They're Made Out of Meat by Terry Bisson from 2021-04-01T07:07:49
Originally published in 1991 through OMNI magazine.
Two multidimensiona...
Episode 37: They're Made Out of Meat by Terry Bisson from 2021-04-01T07:07:49
Originally published in 1991 through OMNI magazine. Two multidimensional aliens deliberate over contacting the human race once they realize their entirely made out of meat. Aliens: Mats B...
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Episode 36: An Inhabitant of Carcosa by Ambrose Bierce from 2021-02-20T00:02:27
First published in the San Francisco Newsletter of December 25, 1886 and was la...
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Episode 36: An Inhabitant of Carcosa by Ambrose Bierce from 2021-02-20T00:02:27
First published in the San Francisco Newsletter of December 25, 1886 and was later reprinted as part of Bierce's collections Tales of Soldiers and Civilians and Can Such Things Be?A man from the an...
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Episode 35: 2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. from 2020-12-31T23:56:55
Published in the January 1962 in the Worlds of "If" Science Fiction magazine. <...
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Episode 35: 2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. from 2020-12-31T23:56:55
Published in the January 1962 in the Worlds of "If" Science Fiction magazine. A painter in the Chicago Lying-In Hospital witnesses an absurd scene in the lobby while he creates a mural immorta...
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Episode 34: Leiningen Versus the Ants by Carl Stephenson from 2020-12-06T17:59:35
Originally published in the December 1938 edition of Esquire. It is a translati...
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Episode 34: Leiningen Versus the Ants by Carl Stephenson from 2020-12-06T17:59:35
Originally published in the December 1938 edition of Esquire. It is a translation, probably by Stephenson himself, of "Leiningens Kampf mit den Ameisen" which was originally published in German in ...
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Episode 33: Darkness by Lord Byron from 2020-11-01T01:01:05
Written in July of 1816 and inspired by "The Year Without Summer", the aftermat...
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Episode 33: Darkness by Lord Byron from 2020-11-01T01:01:05
Written in July of 1816 and inspired by "The Year Without Summer", the aftermath of the eruption of Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies the previous year, in which enough sulphur was cast into t...
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Episode 32: In the Court of the Dragon by Robert W. Chambers from 2020-10-24T03:15:39
First published in his collection The King in Yellow in 1895.
An unname...
Episode 32: In the Court of the Dragon by Robert W. Chambers from 2020-10-24T03:15:39
First published in his collection The King in Yellow in 1895. An unnamed narrator attends an afternoon mass at the church St. Barnabe and has several frightful encounters with a menacing organ...
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Episode 31: The Black Meat by Eric Dean from 2020-09-24T05:53:15
Published on Monologging.org, on S.H. Roddey’s Haunted Head, and in Literati Pr...
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Episode 31: The Black Meat by Eric Dean from 2020-09-24T05:53:15
Published on Monologging.org, on S.H. Roddey’s Haunted Head, and in Literati Presents #5 by Literati Press. The original audio version, hosted on youtube.com/ericdean, was Recorded by Rish Outfield...
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Episode 30: The Boarded Window by Ambrose Bierce from 2020-07-30T00:46:12
First published in the San Francisco Examiner on April 12, 1891 and reprinted i...
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Episode 30: The Boarded Window by Ambrose Bierce from 2020-07-30T00:46:12
First published in the San Francisco Examiner on April 12, 1891 and reprinted in Bierce's collection Tales of Soldiers and Civilians the same year. A narrator recounts what he knows of an old ...
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Episode 29: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin from 2020-06-13T02:14:40
Originally published in the October edition of New Dimensions 3 in 1973. The st...
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Episode 29: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin from 2020-06-13T02:14:40
Originally published in the October edition of New Dimensions 3 in 1973. The story was nominated for the Locust Award for Best Short Fiction in 1974 and won the Hugo Award for Best Short story in t...
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Episode 28: The Screwfly Solution by Raccoona Sheldon from 2020-04-09T17:48:09
Originally published in the anthology "Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact" (Ju...
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Episode 28: The Screwfly Solution by Raccoona Sheldon from 2020-04-09T17:48:09
Originally published in the anthology "Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact" (June, 1977) the novelette went on to win the Nebula Award that year under the pen name James Tiptree Jr.As an unpreceden...
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Episode 27: Orientation by Daniel Orozco from 2020-02-28T14:59:29
Originally published in The Seattle Review and subsequently in The Best America...
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Episode 27: Orientation by Daniel Orozco from 2020-02-28T14:59:29
Originally published in The Seattle Review and subsequently in The Best American Short Stories 1995.A new office employee is given orientation on the first day of work by a detached, yet knowledgab...
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Episode 25: The Mirror by Haruki Murakami from 2020-01-17T20:52:39
Written in 1981/2 and published in 1983 in an undisclosed Japanese periodical. ...
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Episode 25: The Mirror by Haruki Murakami from 2020-01-17T20:52:39
Written in 1981/2 and published in 1983 in an undisclosed Japanese periodical. Later added to his short story collection Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman which was published in 2006. A man recalls...
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Episode 24: The Secret Miracle by Jorge Luis Borges from 2019-12-16T06:12:53
First published in the magazine Sur in 1943.
Failed playwrite Jaromir H...
Episode 24: The Secret Miracle by Jorge Luis Borges from 2019-12-16T06:12:53
First published in the magazine Sur in 1943. Failed playwrite Jaromir Hladik is captured during the Nazi occupation of Prague in the early stages of World War II. Awaiting his execution in pri...
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Episode 23: The Kraken by Alfred, Lord Tennyson from 2019-11-01T02:48:20
First published in Tennyson's first solo collection, "Poems, Chiefly Lyrical" (...
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Episode 23: The Kraken by Alfred, Lord Tennyson from 2019-11-01T02:48:20
First published in Tennyson's first solo collection, "Poems, Chiefly Lyrical" (1830) when he was around 20 years old. One of the few sonnets Tennyson penned and with this one specifically he grossl...
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Episode 22: The Daughters of the Moon by Italo Calvino from 2019-10-14T18:30:51
A modern folktale which takes place in a parallel-universe New York City; myste...
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Episode 22: The Daughters of the Moon by Italo Calvino from 2019-10-14T18:30:51
A modern folktale which takes place in a parallel-universe New York City; mysterious lunar women are hypnotized by the moon's influence and converge at the edge of the city to undertake a clandesti...
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Episode 21: The Continuity of Parks by Julio Cortazar from 2019-07-12T17:12:03
"Continuidad de los parques" was originally written in Spanish and first publis...
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Episode 21: The Continuity of Parks by Julio Cortazar from 2019-07-12T17:12:03
"Continuidad de los parques" was originally written in Spanish and first published within the Editorial Sudamericana in 1964. Summary: A man settles down to finish reading an immersive novel a...
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Episode 20: The Sect of the Idiot by Thomas Ligotti from 2019-05-15T19:27:15
First published in Crypt of Cthulhu in 1988.
A man visits a nameless to...
Episode 20: The Sect of the Idiot by Thomas Ligotti from 2019-05-15T19:27:15
First published in Crypt of Cthulhu in 1988. A man visits a nameless town and questions his existence as reality transforms into nightmare around him, leading him to a clandestine sect of drea...
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Episode 19: The Moon-Bog by H.P. Lovecraft from 2019-04-16T18:15:17
First written around March 1921, the story was first published in the June 1926...
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Episode 19: The Moon-Bog by H.P. Lovecraft from 2019-04-16T18:15:17
First written around March 1921, the story was first published in the June 1926 issue of the pulp magazine Weird Tales.Summary: a man visits an isolated castle at Kilderry, where an old friend plan...
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Episode 18: The Star by H.G. Wells from 2019-02-28T17:06:48
First published in the Christmas number of The Graphic in 1897. It is credited ...
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Episode 18: The Star by H.G. Wells from 2019-02-28T17:06:48
First published in the Christmas number of The Graphic in 1897. It is credited with the creation of the subgenre depicting the "impact event" of science fiction, and is referenced in Arthur C. Clar...
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Episode 17: The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe from 2018-12-18T02:37:19
The story was first published in May 1842 in Graham's Magazine and has since be...
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Episode 17: The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe from 2018-12-18T02:37:19
The story was first published in May 1842 in Graham's Magazine and has since been adapted in many different forms, including a 1964 film starring Vincent Price. Prince Prospero walls himself i...
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Episode 16: Memento Mori by Jonathan Nolan from 2018-01-11T05:03:51
Originally published in the March 2001 edition of Esquire magazine. It was the ...
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Episode 16: Memento Mori by Jonathan Nolan from 2018-01-11T05:03:51
Originally published in the March 2001 edition of Esquire magazine. It was the basis for the film Memento directed by Christopher Nolan. A man with anterograde amnesia hunts for his wife's mur...
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Episode 15: The Circular Ruins by Jorge Luis Borges from 2017-12-04T23:20:22
Originally "Las ruinas circulares". First published in the literary journal Sur...
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Episode 15: The Circular Ruins by Jorge Luis Borges from 2017-12-04T23:20:22
Originally "Las ruinas circulares". First published in the literary journal Sur in December 1940. It was first published in English in View (Series V, No. 6 1946). An itinerant magician discov...
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Episode 14: Men Without Bones by Gerald Kersh from 2017-05-17T05:04:37
Originally published by Esquire in 1954.
Summary: While at dock, a pass...
Episode 14: Men Without Bones by Gerald Kersh from 2017-05-17T05:04:37
Originally published by Esquire in 1954. Summary: While at dock, a passenger of a banana boat encounters a mad, weary traveller seeking passage away from the terrors he experienced on a lost e...
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Episode 13: A Madman by Maurice Level from 2017-02-21T01:25:31
Summary: A psychopath finds brief reprieve from a prolonged depression in a Par...
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Episode 13: A Madman by Maurice Level from 2017-02-21T01:25:31
Summary: A psychopath finds brief reprieve from a prolonged depression in a Parisian daredevil's act. The Cyclist played by Tony Wolf. Narration, Sound Design and Composition by Jon Fredette.J...
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Episode 13: Sredni Vashtar by Saki from 2017-01-15T22:40:20
Summary: With his imagination, a sickly boy creates his own religion, worshippi...
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Episode 13: Sredni Vashtar by Saki from 2017-01-15T22:40:20
Summary: With his imagination, a sickly boy creates his own religion, worshipping a merciless and vengeful god, to help him cope with his dull, depressive existence. Originally written by Saki...
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Episode 11: Aborted Mother by Mark Slade from 2016-11-27T22:16:13
Summary: A baby and her mother are visited at home by a gift-bearing stranger i...
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Episode 11: Aborted Mother by Mark Slade from 2016-11-27T22:16:13
Summary: A baby and her mother are visited at home by a gift-bearing stranger in a post-apocalyptic dystopia. Mark Slade has appeared in numerous publications such as The Stray Branch, Weird Y...
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Episode 10: The Hidden Beast by J.D. Beresford from 2016-09-23T00:12:12
Summary: A man encounters an isolated stranger who lives at the edge of his vil...
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Episode 10: The Hidden Beast by J.D. Beresford from 2016-09-23T00:12:12
Summary: A man encounters an isolated stranger who lives at the edge of his village and discovers there is more to the stranger than he first surmised. John Davys Beresford (17 March 1873 – 1 ...
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Episode 9: The Vector by Jon Fredette from 2016-06-14T03:23:19
Summary: The fate of humankind hinges on informational broadcasts from the Emer...
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Episode 9: The Vector by Jon Fredette from 2016-06-14T03:23:19
Summary: The fate of humankind hinges on informational broadcasts from the Emergency Alert System about an unknown pathogen outbreak. I decided to write a short story and keep the podcast goin...
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Episode 8: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce from 2016-04-15T01:18:33
Summary: Peyton Farquhar, a plantation owner in his mid-thirties, is being prep...
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Episode 8: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce from 2016-04-15T01:18:33
Summary: Peyton Farquhar, a plantation owner in his mid-thirties, is being prepared for execution by hanging from an Alabama railroad bridge during the American Civil War.Background Info: Originall...
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Episode 7: The Russian Sleep Experiment by An Unknown Author from 2016-01-28T03:47:08
Summary: In the 1940s, Russian scientists kept 5 men awake for 15 straight days...
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Episode 7: The Russian Sleep Experiment by An Unknown Author from 2016-01-28T03:47:08
Summary: In the 1940s, Russian scientists kept 5 men awake for 15 straight days. The results were horrifying. Background Information: This story was taken from the horror site Creepy Pasta, an...
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Episode 5: Dagon by HP Lovecraft from 2014-10-06T03:03:48
Summary: the testament of a tortured, morphine-addicted man who plans to commit...
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Episode 5: Dagon by HP Lovecraft from 2014-10-06T03:03:48
Summary: the testament of a tortured, morphine-addicted man who plans to commit suicide over an incident that occurred early on in World War I when he was a merchant marine officer and adrift on th...
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Episode 4: The Sphinx by Edgar Allen Poe from 2014-08-30T14:49:22
Summary: A man encounters a terrific monster and believes it to be an omen of h...
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Episode 4: The Sphinx by Edgar Allen Poe from 2014-08-30T14:49:22
Summary: A man encounters a terrific monster and believes it to be an omen of his own death. Background Information: "The Sphinx" was only published once, in Philadelphia's Arthur's Ladies Mag...
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Episode 3: The Vulture by Franz Kafka from 2014-08-09T01:55:59
(orig. German Der Geier) Written sometime between 1917 and 1923, shortly after ...
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Episode 3: The Vulture by Franz Kafka from 2014-08-09T01:55:59
(orig. German Der Geier) Written sometime between 1917 and 1923, shortly after Kafka's diagnosis with tuberculosis. A vulture slowly eats a man alive as he contemplates his salvation and the inevit...
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Episode 2: The Bridge by Franz Kafka from 2014-07-25T01:36:10
Originally written in 1916. Published posthumously in Beim Bau der Chinesischen...
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Episode 2: The Bridge by Franz Kafka from 2014-07-25T01:36:10
Originally written in 1916. Published posthumously in Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (Berlin, 1931). A bridge, personified, tells of its existence, purpose, and demise. Read by Jon Fredette. Sound...
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Episode 1: Nyarlathotep by HP Lovecraft from 2014-06-27T19:48:14
First published in 1920 to the November edition of The United Amateur. The arri...
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Episode 1: Nyarlathotep by HP Lovecraft from 2014-06-27T19:48:14
First published in 1920 to the November edition of The United Amateur. The arrival of an unknown evil alters the path of humanity forever. Read by Jon Fredette. Sound Design by Jon Fredette.
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