Fiction

Science Fiction

I hadn’t meant to become an astronaut, but these things happen. I worked hard, because I liked working hard, and that’s just where I landed. Apparently a chemical engineer with a PhD in molecular physics and a half-dozen Iron Man trophies is overqualified for most other jobs. I’m not complaining. Not meaning to become an astronaut and not wanting to be an astronaut are two entirely different things. Sometimes people don’t understand that when I try to explain, though. Which makes explaining the salamander even harder.

In Jan. 2014 (Issue 44)

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Fantasy

His Elbow, Unkissed

by Matthew Hughes

Author spotlight

Erm Kaslo arranged the materials of the experiment on the scarred and scorched workbench in his new lodgings. He had recently had to relocate to new quarters on the outskirts of Indoberia, after the custodial agent of his former lodgings had complained to the Commune about the noises, smells, and other disruptions arising from Kaslo’s suite of rooms. He had taken this isolated cottage in a clearing of the Forest of Shades, where his nearest neighbor was well out of earshot.

In Jan. 2014 (Issue 44)

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Science Fiction

Bears Discover Fire

by Terry Bisson

Author spotlight

I was driving with my brother, the preacher, and my nephew, the preacher’s son, on I-65 just north of Bowling Green when we got a flat. It was Sunday night and we had been to visit Mother at the Home. We were in my car. The flat caused what you might call knowing groans since, as the old-fashioned one in my family (so they tell me), I fix my own tires, and my brother is always telling me to get radials and quit buying old tires.

In Jan. 2014 (Issue 44)

Fantasy

Apotheosis

by Rosamund Hodge

Author spotlight

The people of Ipu needed a god.

Of course they already had one. His name was Kuromasai, and he had ended three droughts, cured seven plagues, and defended them from an army of Heccan raiders. But he was also old, and each morning when he appeared for his offering of praise, he had grown a little bit fainter. Soon he would disappear completely, and what is a city without a god?

In Jan. 2014 (Issue 44)

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Science Fiction

In the Dying Light, We Saw a Shape

by Jeremiah Tolbert

Author spotlight

.@neiltyson calls them “space diatoms,” but I say “space whales.” They’re beaching themselves on our interstellar shores. Question is: why? —Tweet by @LilMeyerECID, January 7, 2021

Illustrated by Galen Dara

In Jan. 2014 (Issue 44)

Fantasy

The Foster Child

by William Browning Spencer

Author spotlight

I came, the hope of my tribe, to the City of Absolutes, in the year of the zero plus two big and a nine. I sought Lena, the girl I had dreamed of as my fingers grew back and I drifted in the waters of Nagoda.

In Dec. 2013 (Issue 43)

Science Fiction

Leaving Night

by Gregory Benford

Author spotlight

Very quietly, in the dark of night, people began disappearing. Later research showed that they vanished while in their deepest sleep. The few available videos of sleeping people revealed that the air around them shimmered for a few seconds amid a soft humming sound. The bodies seemed to shrink to nothing. They were simply gone, leaving clothes behind. Seldom did the event even wake mates asleep beside them.

In Dec. 2013 (Issue 43)

Fantasy

The Correspondence Between the Governess and the Attic

by Siobhan Carroll

Author spotlight

The changeling hides in the window seat. On one side of her is glass, gauzy with rain. On the other, a thick curtain. November whistles through the crack in the window frame, but she dares not move. In this house she is a creeping, persecuted thing. Best if they don’t see her. She opens the book. Reading, she knows, is dangerous: none of the books in the house are hers, nothing is hers, and the family will hold this small act against her. But reading is a better escape than none at all.

In Dec. 2013 (Issue 43)

Science Fiction

Dead Fads

by Maureen F. McHugh

Author spotlight

The dead have fads. I work in Deadtown, at a bar mostly frequented by the Dead. They call me PD for Pre-Dead. The Dead tip for shit because they just aren’t all that interested. That’s what I think. Cory, one of my regulars, says it isn’t like that. The Dead are interested fine, he said. They’re just poor.

In Dec. 2013 (Issue 43)

Fantasy

Miss Nobody Never Was

by James Patrick Kelly

Author spotlight

Everybody thinks that bartenders steal. You know what? They’re right. Maybe there’s an upright bartender someplace where it’s all parking lots and cornfields and traffic lights flashing yellow, but I doubt it.

In Dec. 2013 (Issue 43)