Showing results for "Republic" in Contemporary

Following the suicide of her teenage mother, baby Fiona is put into State care. Fiona doesn’t know her absent father was the disgraced God of Love. Growing up, she suffers abuse and bullying and begins to see Otherworld creatures such as trolls and faeries, and worries for her sanity. Fiona discovers she has a physical strength beyond what is normal, and can fight the bullies, but is branded as violent and held in an Institution for the criminally insane. She is released on her eighteenth birthday into a hostel in Dublin City, Ireland.

"The Chicago Druid and the Ugly Princess" is a story that moves from a time of Irish folklore to modern-day Chicago. It follows the adventures of Fionnuala, a beautiful princess transformed into the ugliest women imaginable by the druid Lochlain, before being sent into the future.

Story is told by a narrator who is a psychologist in Indian country. What appears to be a consultation with a patient ends up being a meeting with his teacher, Tarrence. Tarrence proceeds to take the narrator into a dreamtime journey that melts the worldview held by the storyteller. The dream leads the narrator to a place in which the energy generated by ancient dreamers must be balanced. The lack of balance brought on by the power dreamers and their ceremony resulted in the atomic bomb.

In Irish Mythology, Otherworld is a happy land and Underworld is a foul land. These worlds exist alongside Earth. Wizard Drowe is sentenced to be a swan, but he escapes. He has tricked Ciarán, his apprentice, into becoming the swan. Granny and Aoife pursue the swan because Granny believes it will lead her to her lost village. Hunted by Wizard Drowe and the vampire Dearg-due, Ciarán and Aoife move from initial dislike to romance. These, in turn, are pursued by Venus and the Drimnagh Witches, servants of the Faerie Queen.

A series of strange events accompany the delivery of an unusual wooden box to the bookish professor who lives on the hill, while down by the sleepy harbor, a dusty convoy of huge earth-moving machines roll into town. Soon afterwards, an expensive-looking yacht arrives, skippered by an enigmatic sea captain. The mysterious mute captain, her nose permanently buried in an old notebook, is clearly seeking something. Meanwhile, the professor’s interest is piqued by an unusually attentive congregation of praying mantises in his back yard.

Guru Vishnu was a perfect yogi. Whatever he was doing, it was for the nation and humanity. He planned to create an army of eight proven youth yogis whose yogic powers could be utilized for the nation and mankind.

This collection of fantasy short stories are from the three winners of Remastered Words 2020 audio anthology, including "Blighted", a tale from T. O. Munro, which was written for the anthology.