Storyfeather Gazette: Two adventures by ship, a quest that leads past monsters and marvels, and a hacked-up hero?

Published 9 months ago • 2 min read

August 2025 Issue 1

In this issue: Short stories and podcast episodes from the first half of August, including the 400th podcast episode, and thoughts on culinary alchemy.

Circle format, a three-quarters view of Nila's smiling face from a photo with an oil paint filter applied.

PEANUT BUTTER, CHOCOLATE, & NUCLEAR FISSION 🍫

If you like peanut butter and chocolate, especially together, you likely enjoy peanut butter cups. I recently watched a video about making them at home. Looked fairly straightforward, so I got the ingredients to try this exciting culinary experiment myself. It's wonderful what we can do by combining certain ingredients together, and applying the right conditions to turn them into something as delightful as a peanut butter cup.

You can definitely guess what the crew in my latest podcast episode can make with a few lemons (something arguably better than lemonade). But I hope you go on the journey anyway. It's a fun one.

✒️ 🪶 🎙

Greetings! I'm Nila. Every week, I release a new short story and a new podcast episode spanning the genres of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, mythology, fairy tale, fable, and horror.

Whether you're in the mood to read or listen, I've got stories to tell you.

Here we go...

Altered August 🥀

✒️ I start the story with one genre, but by the time it's finished, it's a different genre. Like those candies that are one flavor on the outside and another as you make your way to the center. A gruesome mystery becomes a "fractured" fairy tale. And a quest through realms full of creatures is connected to a scientific experiment.

🎙 The podcast episodes are about two captains and crews in danger and an extraordinary job: the manufacturing of a planet.

Titles and taglines below. Enjoy!

Short Stories

Digital drawing. A young man from waist up, facing forward, holding out a yellow rose with his left hand. He wears a collared shirt and sweater vest. Visible parts of his skin bear stitches, bandages, and bruising. His neck and left arm are wrapped in bandages. An adhesive bandage covers the spot where his left ear should be. His left eye is stitched along the eyelids. His fingers are bandaged. Stitches angle along his lower right arm, which hangs by his side. Watermark of “Storyfeather” along upper right sleeve. Copyright notice along right edge reads, “Copyright © 2025 Nila L. Patel”

We're in Year 12, the Year of Praxis. The word essentially means "practice." Through the stories, I'm exploring elements of my writing practice.

Each link below leads directly to the story post.

HACKED-UP HENRY
A medical examiner reassembles the remains of a murder victim, and thinks she must be hallucinating when the corpse comes back to life. 🫀

Genre: Mystery to Fairy Tale

THE SHATTERED EYE OF THE GODS
A person who lives in a walled off realm goes on a quest to find a door that leads to the world outside. 👁

Genre: Mythology to Science Fiction

Podcast Episodes

Digital drawing of a humanoid person with a long-haired mohawk and scaly skin at left, facing away and looking at multiple glowing holographic displays with various readouts. The person points at the main display, which shows a containment or reactor vessel. Some text is readable. The word “engineering” at top, and “Lemonuclear Conductor: LNC Version 5.5.” Horizontal rectangular image is made square with borders at top and bottom with a textured pattern of square confetti and vertical bars in the same orange and yellow colors of the main image. Watermark of “Storyfeather” along left side of reactor vessel.

We're in season 8, the Year of Revisitation. Each episode is a standalone story, but it's inspired by an earlier story.

The text links below go to the Explore page on Storyfeather, where you can listen to the episode, find the links to the episode(s) that inspired it, and more.

Pressing on the Spotify embed image leads to the episode's Spotify page.

THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE ECHIDNA

Following their queen and captain into exile, the crew of the Echidna build an experimental engine, to keep surviving and striving, and to one day establish a new colony. 🐜

Genre: Science Fiction

Milestone Achieved: This is episode 400!

The Last Voyage of the Echid...

Aug 1 · Storyfeather

35:57

RING PLANET ONE

An excited apprentice attempts to make a planet for the first time, having watched the making of hundreds. But watching is not the same as doing. 🪐

Genre: Science Fiction, Science Fantasy

Ring Planet One

Aug 8 · Storyfeather

26:14

THE LEMONUCLEAR CONDUCTOR

A merchant vessel enters a system with rigid laws about visitors, and almost succeeds in making a lucrative delivery, when it encounters a potentially deadly obstacle. 🍋

Genre: Science Fiction

The Lemonuclear Conductor

Aug 15 · Storyfeather

32:12

🪡

Air, Mel thought. There must have been residual air in the lungs. And the head shifted because her stitches were loose. The head was one of the last parts she had reattached. She was tired. And all these spooky things had rational explanations.

The assembled corpse breathed another breath that could not be explained away by residual air. He raised his head, propped himself up on his elbows, then his hands, turned his head and spotted Mel with a single bloodied bloodshot eye.

—From "Hacked-Up Henry"

Parting words🪶

Strange things are hatching in outer space. And I'm still trying to write stories this month that (successfully) shift from one genre to another by the end.

Happy reading and listening! 📚
—Nila

Share this page

I have stories to tell you!