Theme and Variations

In Order to Conserve, by Cat Rambo
A cautionary fable all too applicable nowadays.

Cat Rambo’s work has appeared in such places as ASIMOV’S, CLARKESWORLD, and WEIRD TALES. Her short story collection, EYES LIKE SKY AND COAL AND DIAMOND, is a finalist for this year’s Endeavor Award. She is the fiction editor of award-winning FANTASY MAGAZINE and teaches at Bellevue College.

Read by the author’s brother, Eric Francis. Additional music from Bach’s Suite 1 for cello by Airborne Sound at Soundsnap.com.

This Corruption, by Brian Dolton
A jaded rock singer devotes his music to death – until he actually meets death. [Explicit language]

Brian Dolton was born in the UK and, in an attempt to make himself sound interesting, has ridden a camel in the Sahara, played volleyball in a sandbar in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and stayed in a Buddhist monastery in Japan. Now that these distractions are out of the way, he has settled down in New Mexico to write.

Additional music by Airborne Sound at Soundsnap.com.

Machine Hymns to the Dreaming God, by Jack Mangan
Inside a plague-ravaged industrial complex, the machines churn on, generating their cacophonous music to awaken the dreaming god.

Jack Mangan is the host of the Deadpan Podcast and author of numerous published stories published in print and audio formats, including the #1 Podiobooks title, Spherical Tomi.

Additional music, “Solid Reborn,” mixed by the author.

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When Wolfgang and Constanze Mozart see a fireball land in the nearby forest, they discover something that changes their lives forever.

Rick Novy is an Arizona speculative fiction writer with over forty published short stories.

Music excerpts from Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A (K.622): Allegro, Adagio, and Rondo, performed by the author.

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As society disintegrates in a post-plague world, one woman must choose between her beliefs and her daughter’s health. This story is a prequel to Post-Apocalyptic Guitar in G Major, which appeared in the first volume of Theme and Variations.

Caroline Rhodes is published in Tales from the Great Turtle (1994, Tor Books), an anthology of Native American Magic Realism stories edited by Piers Anthony and Richard Gilliam, and in Crafty Cat Crimes (2000, Barnes & Noble Books), edited by Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg and Martin Greenberg.

Additional music and words written and performed by Caroline Rhodes with viola accompaniment by Lucina Horner.

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A music professor’s blog documents mankind’s enslavement to an unearthly song in this tale of the Cthulhu mythos.

Lon Prater lives in Dayton, Ohio but regularly commutes in his head to the Miskatonic River valley. Find more of Lon’s dark fiction at www.lonprater.com.

Music by Michelle M. Welch with sound effects by BLASTWAVE FX at Soundsnap.com.

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Jazz star Bobby Ball sees the future when he plays his sax. The music of his dying idol, Omar, throws open the door to tomorrow. But Bobby doesn’t like what he sees. A faded torch singer will die unless Bobby plays an impossible song. One that reveals the secrets of a terrible crime. One that will force him to solo in a race against time and the fight of his life. Even if he plays like there’s no tomorrow, can he save yesterday’s brightest star from today’s darkest evil? Or will the biggest number of his career also be his last? This story originally appeared in 2008 in PS Showcase #3: Mad Scientist Meets Cannibal, from PS Publishing in England.

Robert T. Jeschonek is an award-winning writer whose fiction, essays, comic books, and podcasts have been published around the world. His fantasy novel, My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, is forthcoming from Clarion Books.

Music by Doug Longwill of Altoona, Pennsylvania.

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The Nuzoom corporation chooses talented custodian Paco Cohen to create popular music to improve the morale of the transplanted workers of Mars. But Paco, the nanoblock that turns the workers purple, and the nanohudu that’s terraforming Mars, have other ideas. Paco becomes a myth, but also a man in the process. This story appeared in a variant form in the April 2001 issue of Analog. [Explicit language]

Ernest Hogan is the author of the novels Cortez on Jupiter, High Aztech, and Smoking Mirror Blues, and some infamous short fiction.

Additional music composed and performed by Jack Mangan.

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A musician loses her ability to hear music in an accident. When an experimental technology promises to restore it, what else will she lose?

Michelle M. Welch is the author of the Five Countries trilogy of fantasy novels and various speculative fiction stories.

Additional music from Dvorak, Symphony No. 9, Largo, and Mozart, Serenade No. 13, Romanze, arranged and performed by the author.

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She Shall Have Music, by Keyan Bowes
Little Tina is emitting music, bewildering her worried parents Philip and Elaine. What can it possibly be? “She Shall Have Music” appears in the forthcoming print anthology Cheer Up, Universe.

Keyan Bowes is a writer of fantasy and speculative fiction and a graduate of the 2007 Clarion Writers’ Workshop.

Additional music by Beethoven, performed by Anisha.

Knell, by Lejon A. Johnson
A church bell rings in a dying community, heralding the fate that awaits it.

Lejon A. Johnson lives quietly in Arizona, writing in his spare time, and is sometimes assisted by his wife and cats.

Sound effects by the author and by Blastwave FX, Justine Angus, Celso Cano, and Sofa Sound at soundsnap.com.

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