BCS #153 is out today, featuring stories of family sacrifice.

Michael Haynes (“The Barber and the Count” in BCS #119 and podcast BCS 102) returns to BCS with “Five Fruits I Ate in Sandar Land,” a quest of yearning, and Rachel Halpern offers “Make No Promises,” a lifetime of seeking.

The ‘From the Archives’ story is “Over a Narrow Sea” by Camille Alexa from BCS #60, a story of family seeking not unlike “Make No Promises.”

The BCS Audio Fiction Podcast episode is BCS 131: The Topaz Marquise, Fran Wilde’s story from BCS #152 about a jeweler struggling to handle a strange gem.

Our new podcast, The BCS Audio Vault, this week features the Weird West story BCS Audio Vault 003: Haxan, by Kenneth Mark Hoover, from back in 2009. It’s introduced by the author, explaining the ethos behind the story’s protagonist, who is also the protagonist in a series of further stories and in a new novel, likewise titled Haxan, out from CZP/Harper Collins last month.

All underneath new cover art, “Pillars” by Czech artist Tomas Honz, a strangely sparse and haunting vista dominated by unexplained monoliths.