Hello and welcome to the Drabblecast, episode 424. The Drabble Cast is a weekly

audio fiction magazine that brings strange stories by strange authors to strange listeners such as yourself.

I'm your host Norm Sherman.

Women and Aliens Month, a month of stories about aliens written by

phenomenal women authors. This year we bring you of unlike most tides by Darcy Little Badger and on the feeding habits of humans

a first-hand account by Kalita Muhammad Ali and Rachel K Jones. You're gonna love it.

We're starting things off with a fun Margaret Atwood's story though called The Martians Claim Canada.

Margaret Atwood's a Canadian writer who has written award-winning poetry, short stories and novels,

including the Circle Game, The Handmaid's Tale, The Blind Assassin,

Warix and The Tent. Her works have been translated into an array of different languages and seen several

screen adaptations. With both Handmaid's Tale and Elias Grace become and

Alias Grace becoming miniseries in 2017.

So without further ado, we bring you

The Martians Claim Canada by Margaret Atwood.

The Martians Claim Canada by Margaret Atwood.

The Martians descend to Earth in their spaceship.

They intend to go to New York.

They want to see something called a musical, but they get the directions mixed up, as many before them have done, and end up in Canada instead, as many before them have also done.

Specifically, they land on a chunk of rock in the boreal forest somewhere on the Laurentian shield.

There is no one around, or no one you might recognize as one.

Where is here, says the first Martian.

Where is always relative, says the second Martian.

...