Wasp & Snake

by Livia Llewellyn, Saskia Maarleveld (Narrator)

A take on Aesop's fable "The Wasp and the Snake," only reconfigured as a flesh-warping revenge parable with a hellish twist.

Time: 12 minutes

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Audiobook

1 pages, Audiobook

First published November 1, 2012

About the author

I was born in Anchorage, Alaska, and spent my childhood in Tacoma, Washington. And now I live on the East Coast. I’m not quite sure how that happened….

By day I’m a secretary. I file papers, create spreadsheets, update calendars, sort papers — the usual secretarial things.

At night, I write about lonely young girls who can speak to engines, Nikola Tesla’s secret journals, long-horned demons lost in Northwest suburbia, giant biomechanical insects, mothers who are good monsters, monsters who are good mothers, lots of consensual human-&-creature sex, and even more broken hearts.

You can also find me on my website, where I talk a lot about ants (too many), coffee (too little), and cheese (never enough!).

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

SPOOKTOBER DAY FIFTEEN

welcome to my spooktober audio advent calendar, where, each day during the month of spooktober, i will be celebrating by listening to a free audio short from nightfire's Come Join Us by the Fire series, and you can join ME by following the links. let's all be scared together!


12 minutes

i was unfamiliar with the aesop fable that this story is having its way with, but i'll save you the google and plop it here for you:

A wasp seated himself upon the head of a Snake and, striking him unceasingly with his stings, wounded him to death. The Snake, being in great torment and not knowing how to rid himself of his enemy, saw a wagon heavily laden with wood, and went and purposely placed his head under the wheels, saying, “At least my enemy and I shall perish together.”

this reconfigures the fable with human participants, employing some effective body horror to tell the tale of a supernaturally-enhanced assassin-for-hire enacting a revenge-plot on behalf of her cuckolded employer, with an outcome that does not go to plan. it dabbles a little too much in the realm of cosmic horror for my personal liking, but the parts the my feeble brain could grasp were chillingly good.

listen to it here:

https://play.google.com/books/listen?...

THE STORIES:

OCTOBER 1: 57 REASONS FOR THE SLATE QUARRY SUICIDES - SAM J. MILLER
OCTOBER 2: SOME BREAKABLE THINGS - CASSANDRA KHAW
OCTOBER 3: EMERGENCY LANDING - SEANAN MCGUIRE
OCTOBER 4: THE CHANGELING - SARAH LANGAN
OCTOBER 5: THE BEASTS OF THE EARTH, THE MADNESS OF MEN - BROOKE BOLANDER
OCTOBER 6: THE FIREPLACE - CLAY MCLEOD CHAPMAN
OCTOBER 7: BONE - TADE THOMPSON
OCTOBER 8: IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING - MOLLY TANZER
OCTOBER 9: DREAM HOME - KAT HOWARD
OCTOBER 10: SPAWNING SEASON - NICHOLAS KAUFMANN
OCTOBER 11: THE GIRLS FROM THE HORROR MOVIE - GWENDOLYN KISTE
OCTOBER 12: IT WASHED UP - JOE R. LANSDALE
OCTOBER 13: BLACK NEUROLOGY - RICHARD KADREY
OCTOBER 14: WHEN THE ZOMBIES WIN - KARINA SUMNER-SMITH
OCTOBER 16: THIS GUY - CHUCK WENDIG
OCTOBER 17: THE POND - PAUL TREMBLAY
OCTOBER 18: A LIFE THAT IS NOT MINE - KRISTI DEMEESTER
OCTOBER 19: GREENER PASTURES - MICHAEL WEHUNT
OCTOBER 20: THAT WHICH DOES NOT KILL YOU - LUCY A. SNYDER
OCTOBER 21: COLD, SILENT, AND DARK - KARY ENGLISH
OCTOBER 22: WAS SHE WICKED? WAS SHE GOOD? - M. RICKERT
OCTOBER 23: THE DAYS OF FLAMING MOTORCYCLES - CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
OCTOBER 24: FLAYED ED - RICHARD KADREY
OCTOBER 25: MAMA TULU - JESSICA GUESS
OCTOBER 26: THE VAULT OF THE SKY, THE FACE OF THE DEEP
OCTOBER 27: EL CHARRO - JOHN LANGAN
OCTOBER 28: STANDING WATER - CAITLIN R. KIERNAN
OCTOBER 29: MIDNIGHT CALLER - STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES
OCTOBER 30: TOOTH, TONGUE, AND CLAW - DAMIEN ANGELICA WALTERS
OCTOBER 31: THE QUIET BOY - NICK ANTOSCA

come to my blog!

[Marc D. ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 estrellas.

Creo que este horror cósmico no fue lo mío, aunque algunas descripciones estuvieron tremendas, tremendas.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just as creepy as I thought it would be, though I wish the buildup took a little more time, that we had a little clearer of an idea of this world where biomechanical appendages can be attached and tied into human systems. I like the turnaround of things at the end, and I too am curious to know what came of it.

This story was originally published in The Lion and The Aardvark: Aesop’s Modern Fables by Stone Skin Press in 2012.

[Liz (Quirky Cat) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasp & Snake is a short story with a lot of potential. It mostly lived up to that potential, yet it still left me wishing for something more towards the end. Perhaps I merely wanted closure, I'm not certain.

[Hart_D (ajibooks)]

The story is based on a cool concept and it's creepy (body horror, cosmic horror), but I don't like this writing style. It's very vivid and the word choices are surprising, and that is just not my taste as a reader anymore.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had some trouble with the pacing and clarity near the end but generally very good.

[Shane Findlay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always adored Livia’s work. 4⭐️

[Caden · Rating 1 out of 5]

Audiobook narration and writing style really worked for me- it was great but I’m a 13 year old boy and couldn’t stop laughing at the stinger/tail and what felt like a sexy times metaphor. I like the twisty ending tho.

[K Morlando · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Interesting short audible story