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Climate change. Over-fished oceans. Killer hurricanes. Species extinction. Polluted air and water. Not a pretty list, is it? And a hell of a legacy we’re leaving behind for the kids. But these are the harsh realities we’re facing now as the consequences of our decades of planetary abuse finally come a-callin’. So what, if anything, can we do to fix this fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into?
The initial seed of inspiration was my ocean-going characters, who made their livelihood by the sea. I had to find a world to put them in, and I thought about what a positive post-apocalyptic future would look like. That is, the civilization-shattering disaster happened, but humanity didn’t lose its technology.”
From Cordwainer Smith’s “The Ballad of Lost C’Mell” to the Pern series to Alan Dean Foster’s Taken trilogy, animals gifted with genetically-enhanced intelligence have been, and still are, a popular science fiction trope.
“The version of history I was taught in school as a child was wildly inaccurate: Columbus proved that the world was round, the pilgrims and Indians were best friends, and America is the best at everything and is always on the right side of everything, and so on. […]”
In 1941, John Gillespie Magee, Jr. is nineteen. He has joined the ranks of the Royal Canadian Air Force as a pilot, and during his training that June he passes the time by writing poetry.
“SETI has been trying to pick up signs of technological civilizations for more than half a century. I can remember thinking when they first started that it wouldn’t take long. Too many stars out there. But here we are, a couple of generations later and we haven’t heard so much as a hiccup. Why not? […]”
That’s the question posed in the movie Talladega Nights. Ricky Bobby wants to go fast and thinks that driving NASCAR fits the bill. Now that is a comedy for the general public, and to the general public, NASCAR is fast. For scientists, and science fiction fans, however, that’s a ridiculous position. So, what is fast, then? And how fast can we go?
“I have some friends in a multi-decade on-again/off-again relationship. Like the characters in the story, they get together, break up, see other people, reconnect, and do it all over again. They love each other, but they’ve never been able to make it work. […]”
Our debut issue features four all-new, never-before-published stories: from newcomer Vylar Kaftan, we have an interstellar love story dealing with the perils of communication and time-dilation; from veteran, award-winning author Jack McDevitt, we have a tale about Earth’s moon and the mysteries it might still possess; from David Barr Kirtley, an adventure of a young catman who must face the last of the dogmen and something else entirely unexpected; and from bestselling author Carrie Vaughn, a cautionary tale of the near future that shows some of the extremes we might be pushed to if we don’t start implementing now the seeds for a sustainable future.
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