Women and Aliens Month

Women and Aliens Month is officially live at the Drabblecast! This is my second year gathering up a great lineup of alien stories written by women authors. Our first story “Amid the Words of War” is by recent Nebula nominee Cat Rambo. This is one of those stories that drew me in from the first line, and had me hooked by the end of the first paragraph…the kind of story beginning that has you grinning with anticipation because you just know it’s going to be good. And this one did not disappoint. Here’s a little sneak:

Every few day-cycles, it receives hate-scented lace in anonymous packages. It opens the bland plastic envelope to pull one out, holding the delicate fragment between two forelimbs. Contemplating it before folding it again to put away in a drawer. Four drawers filled so far; the fifth is halfway there.

“Traitor,” say some of the smells, rotting fruit and acid. “Betrayer. Turncoat. One who eats their own young.” Others are simply soaked in emotion: hate and anger, and underneath the odor of fear. It lets the thoughts, the smells, the tastes fill it, set its own thoughts in motion. Then it goes downstairs and sits with the other whores, who make room uneasily for it.

Hope you enjoy! Let the festivities begin!