BCS #169 is out today, featuring two stories of characters trying to leave their situations, plus a guest-narrated podcast and a new episode of The BCS Audio Vault.

Carrie Vaughn, bestselling novelist of the Kitty Norville series and other novels and award-winning short fiction writer, offers “Sun, Stone, Spear,” a tale of two eager young people leaving their village behind to strive for something more.

Sylvia Anna Hivén (“What Needs to Burn” in BCS #152) returns to BCS with “The Sixth Day,” another tale of a character striving for something more, although this character’s situation is rapidly constricting around her. 

The BCS Audio Fiction Podcast episode is BCS 146: Sun, Stone, Spear by Carrie Vaughn, guest-narrated by Folly Blaine, who has narrated past BCS Audio Fiction Podcast episodes including BCS 143: The Metamorphoses of Narcissus by Tamara Vardomskaya and BCS 137: Butterfly House by Gwendolyn Clare.

The From the Archives story with BCS #169 is “Blood, Stone, Water” by A.J. Fitzwater, from BCS #118, a tale of two characters trekking in order to find something more in their lives, not unlike “Sun, Stone, Spear.”

The BCS Audio Vault episode with BCS #169 is BCS Audio Vault 016: Blighted Heart by Aliette de Bodard. It’s introduced by the author, explaining her particular fondness for the story–one of the first shorter pieces she wrote–and her first foray into Aztec culture, and its themes of duty and sacrifice and paying the cost for actions taken.