Science Fiction Archives - Page 35 of 77

Science Fiction

Big Boss Bitch

The woman began as an idea, as so many women do. She couldn’t be entirely beautiful, because that would stretch credibility too far. She couldn’t be ugly, either, though. A face with just enough lines that on a man it would be called rugged or handsome; but let’s put a little makeup on to smooth the edges, hmm? For clothing, a pantsuit, and sometimes a skirt. Recognizable brands made invisible through smart cuts and conservative hemlines. And let’s make sure that she smiles. A little razzle-dazzle.

In Oct. 2018 (Issue 101)

The Horror of Party Beach

by Dale Bailey

Author spotlight

All this happened a long time ago, in the summer when Blackboard Jungle ruled the screen, “Rock Around the Clock” shot up the charts, and Hal March asked the first $64,000 Question. That was the year our friend the atom lit up the streetlights of Arco, Idaho, the world’s first atomic city. Reddy Kilowatt had slain Bert the Turtle, who’d been telling us to duck and cover for years.

In Oct. 2018 (Issue 101)

How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps

by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor

How to tell your boyfriend you are in love with a robot: 1) Tell him, “I may possibly be in love with a robot,” because absolutes are difficult for biological brains to process. He won’t be jealous. 2) Ask him what he thinks of a hypothetical situation in which you found someone who might not be human but is still valuable and right for you. (Your so-called romantic relationship is as fake as you are.) 3) Don’t tell him anything.

In Sep. 2018 (Issue 100)

The Last to Matter

by Adam-Troy Castro

Author spotlight

Kayn knew he was being rejected by the orgynism for almost a full year before it fully expelled him. He could easily live a million years past this humiliation and never understand what he had done to deserve such a rejection from the collective that had loved him so well, for so long. He had been one of the orgynism’s founders, the man who had provided its organizing principles and solicited the first participants.

In Sep. 2018 (Issue 100)

Harry and Marlowe and the Secret of Ahomana

by Carrie Vaughn

Author spotlight

Wine-dark sea? No, the water was black as tar when the Kestrel crashed into it. The storm came up so suddenly, they might have hit a wall. It proved too massive for the airship to try to fly around, or over—it could only ascend so high, and the storm reached higher. They stayed aloft as long they could with a torn bladder and damaged engine, searching for some spit of sand to alight on. The lightning seemed to flash green around them.

In Sep. 2018 (Issue 100)

Her Monster, Whom She Loved

by Vylar Kaftan

Author spotlight

Ammuya birthed five hundred gods, followed by a monster. That was her first mistake. The gods tormented the monster because they feared it. They bound it inside a black hole, and the monster’s hatred seethed. Eventually the monster raged so fiercely he escaped the event horizon. Then he hunted down his siblings, one by one. On a silent desert planet, Ammuya cried for her children.

In Sep. 2018 (Issue 100)

Project Extropy

by Dominica Phetteplace

The first time God spoke to Akiko, she was a passenger aboard a container ship with no memory of how she got there. She was in the Pacific, headed for California. The ship was two weeks into its journey, but Akiko had only two days’ worth of memory.
Akiko was in the possession of several languages, though none of them felt like her mother tongue. She could address the crew in English or Russian or Tagalog, and though they seemed to understand what she was saying, they didn’t want to speak to her.

In Aug. 2018 (Issue 99)

The Atonement Path

by Alex Irvine

Author spotlight

To think we used to put young criminals in jail. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to eavesdrop. Or should I say eaveswatch? What is the comparable term for using one’s visual sense in a surreptitious fashion? Dining establishments are a superb venue for such observations. But it is true, no? What good could their example do if they were shut away from public view? Ah. I am being rude. My name is Andrew Blankenship. Esquire, in the interest of completeness.

In Aug. 2018 (Issue 99)

Angels

by Bruce McAllister

The creature she’d had them make cost her the last piece of forest outside Siena. The one with the little medieval chapel in it, the tall umbrella pines shading a forest floor no tourist had ever walked upon. It cost her the two rocky islands just south of Elba, and the lead mines at Piombino, which she had never cared about, and the villa on Lake Garda, which she had, because, so small and intimate, it had been one of her father’s favorites.

In Aug. 2018 (Issue 99)

A Bond as Deep as Starlit Seas

by Sarah Grey

Author spotlight

Don’t sell her. The thought rises like a tide in the back of Jeri’s mind, where she’s spent three Nikutan launch cycles struggling to contain it. It leaves her breathless, drowning in guilt, and trying to hide it from the krosuta-whitened stare of the Henza abbess. This is Cleo, not a load of ore. This will break her. And how could it not break her? She’s a lumbering old Juno-class cargo beast, poor Cleo, one of the earliest models.

In Aug. 2018 (Issue 99)