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I was a plant in the crowd to drum up excitement. Boss stayed in the tent all show and gasped during the finale when Elena "fell" and only caught herself by one foot in the very last second. I could hardly keep from laughing at the rubes that panicked and then applauded three times as loud as they would have if it had all been perfect. Elena and the others had Boss's copper bones—what could happen to them that couldn't be mended?

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Read “The Finest Spectacle Anywhere” by Genevieve Valentine, in Issue #68

© Story content copyright 2011 Genevieve Valentine
Audio recording released under a Creative Commons License

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Genevieve Valentine’s World-Fantasy-Award-nominated short fiction has appeared in The Way of the Wizard, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, and more. Her story "Bread and Circuses" appeared in BCS #55 and as BCS Audio Fiction Podcast 049. Her first novel, Mechanique: a Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, set in the same world as both "Bread and Circuses" and "The Finest Spectacle Anywhere," was released by Prime Books in April 2011. Her appetite for bad movies is insatiable, a tragedy she tracks on her blog at www.genevievevalentine.com.

If you liked this podcast, you may also like:
BCS 049: Bread and Circuses by Genevieve Valentine
BCS 030: In the Age of Iron and Ashes by Aliette de Bodard

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