BCS #192 is out today, featuring two returning BCS authors with stories about storytelling and art, a guest-narrated podcast, and new cover art, all in celebration of our 400th story!

Multiple World Fantasy Award winner and past BCS author K.J. Parker (“Heaven Thunders The Truth” in BCS #157, our Sixth Anniversary Double-Issue) returns to BCS with “Told By An Idiot,” a special story of storytelling, the stage, and life, told in that classic Parker vivid, self-effacing voice.

“Told By An Idiot” is also the 400th story to appear in BCS!  Thank you to all our authors for their great fiction, all 399 past stories. Peruse them for some great stories, by writers you’ve heard of and others you haven’t.

Tamara Vardomskaya (“The Guardian’s Head” in BCS #186, among others) returns to BCS with “The Three Dancers of Gizari,” a story likewise of the stage and life and art but also of sculpture and privilege, from a voice equally as intimate yet far different. It’s set in the same art-focused world as her past BCS story “The Metamorphoses of Narcissus” in BCS #164 and podcast BCS 143.

The BCS Audio Fiction Podcast episode is BCS 166: The Three Dancers of Gizari, the Tamara Vardomskaya story. It’s guest-narrated by M.K. Hobson, narrator of past BCS Audio Fiction Podcast episodes including podcast BCS 160: A Careful Fire by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam.

Our new cover art is “Plains of Another World” by Dutch artist Leon Tukker.

The From the Archives story with BCS #192 is “Great, Golden Wings” by Rachel Swirsky, from BCS #28 and podcast BCS 027, another story about art and its effect, not unlike “The Three Dancers of Gizari.”