July 2023 (Issue 158)

We have original science fiction by JB Park (“Six Months After All Life on Titan Died”) and Ashok Banker (“The Bodhi Tree Asks Only For The Safe Return Of Her Beloved”). We also have two terrific flash pieces: “Death Is Better” from Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe and “The United Systems Goodwill Concert Series and the Greatest Performance of All Time” by James Van Pelt. Plus, we have original fantasy by Sandra McDonald (“Starpoop”) and Isha Karki (“Muna in Barish”). We also have a flash story (“The Real Worlds”) from Lauren Bajek, and another (“Monsters of the Drunken Shore”) from Nic Anstett. All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team. Our ebook readers will also enjoy an excerpt of Yume Kitasei’s THE DEEP SKY.

Cover art by Grandeduc / Adobe Stock

July 2023 (Issue 158)

Editorial

Editorial: July 2023

by John Joseph Adams

Don’t miss the editorial for a discussion of this month’s terrific content!

Science Fiction

Six Months After All Life on Titan Died

by J.B. Park

Author spotlight

I need a binge-worthy banger about the incident on Titan. Let’s start with that one picture from Titan that leaked, the one of the weird fishes in those underwater ruins dying. Let’s get going with a second-person narration of You looking at it, thinking about how extinction just happened, and your hands are trembling, and history—your memories of all the tragedies and scandals past—informs you that everyone will forget about it in a few weeks. Insert some beefy workplace drama in the background.

Fantasy

Monsters of the Drunken Shore

by Nic Anstett

You are sitting on the third-floor balcony facing the beach when you see it breach the water. It rises upward with a snort of steam and sparks of flame, lifting its spiked reptilian head from the waves. It’s silhouetted in moonlight and bisected by the surface line. You know it’s too big to be there. You know because water that close to the coast never drops below fifty feet and this thing, breathing heavily in the ocean air and stretching its toothy jaw, must be all head and no body, but there it is.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: J.B. Park

by Laurel Amberdine

It’s a story in the format of a prompt. Of course, nothing like this would actually work or even be needed. But this is a short story so I did what I wanted.

Science Fiction

Death Is Better

by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe

Six minutes and a behemoth. That is all that stands between us and freedom. I glance at Abiola’s face. The helmet she wears prevents me from seeing her expression, but I catch the steely determination in her dark eyes. She’s ready. There’s no backing out now. I resist the urge to look behind us. I don’t want to appear fidgety and unsure in my little sister’s presence. Besides, the real threats are not the guard bots behind us, deactivated for ten minutes by my crudely assembled EMP jammer.

Fantasy

Starpoop

by Sandra McDonald

Author spotlight

First off, your name. I remember that night clearly. We were tucking you into your big boy bed upstairs after reading from your new book about the joy of going potty. A lavender breeze swirled open the curtains, revealing the constellations and full moon over the fields. Solemnly you announced, “I am poopy from the stars.” A moment later you soiled yourself loudly for emphasis and Papa made a quick escape, because he always says that diapers are Not His Thing.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Sandra McDonald

by Laurel Amberdine

As much as I love the conference, I discovered there’s no quicker way to become invisible than to walk around with a toddler at an academic conference. People I’ve known for years developed sudden blindness and a preference for taking the long way around rather than pass where we were sitting. Left alone with my son sleeping in his stroller, I started writing about COVID-19 and the strain of being a mom and having an unsure foundation (which is one of the very conditions of parenthood).

Nonfiction

Book Review: The Book of Witches edited by Jonathan Strahan

by Arley Sorg

Jonathan Strahan has a new anthology: The Book of Witches. Find out why Arley Sorg says: “In these careful selections, Strahan has put together a book which takes on a trope, which entertains, yes; but which also does so many things that are necessary and wonderful. I can’t wait for more readers to get to experience this book.”

Science Fiction

The Bodhi Tree Asks Only For the Safe Return of Her Beloved

by Ashok K. Banker

Author spotlight

Welcome, Ambassador. I trust your voyage to the outer rim was a pleasant one? As promised, my forces did not attack your vessel and you passed through my systems without incident. I have kept my word and honored the ceasefire. Thank you. I too am gratified by your presence. Will you partake of some nourishment? It is traditional for visitors to partake of a cup of fig milk. There are some among your kind who consider it a sacred drink and its consumption an auspicious start to any new relationship.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Ashok K. Banker

by Laurel Amberdine

The Indian fig tree family is one of the most extraordinary species with whom we share this planet. Even today, in India you’ll find them growing almost anywhere—out of a wall, sprouting from a pavement, taking over entire compounds. To walk in a grove of bodhi or peepal trees is to experience the world in a way that is uniquely Indian. I’ve been in redwood forests, pine groves, and other stands but the fig trees of India have a wanton wildness that truly brings home the meaning of the word “jungle.”

Fantasy

The Real Worlds

by Lauren Bajek

The possible worlds hung and spun in five-dimensional space like ever-twisting jewels of sand-brown and burgundy, frost and ocean. Mother, Father, and Amelia made their camp on a relatively flat piece of spacetime, stretched between three clusters of possible worlds. Mother and Father were careful campers. They’d drilled Amelia on the dangers of disturbing the possible worlds, so she watched them float and sway from the corner of her eye, making sure that her soft footsteps didn’t jostle them.

Nonfiction

Book Review: He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan

by Aigner Loren Wilson

Wondering if He Who Drowned the World, the second volume of Shelley Parker-Chan’s Radiant Emperor Duology, holds up to the first book? Aigner Loren Wilson says: this one’s a must-read!

Science Fiction

The United Systems Goodwill Concert Series and the Greatest Performance of All Time

by James Van Pelt

The backdrop of the greatest concert performance of all time was catastrophic solar behavior that devastated the Tau Ceti system in 4032, knocking the technology of the three inhabited planets to the stone age and putting fourteen billion sentient beings in peril. Of course the news swept the United Systems and generated an outpouring of grief, support and promises of aid, but promises fell short and soon people moved on to other stories.

Fantasy

Muna in Barish

by Isha Karki

Author spotlight

Muna shuts the storeroom door as quietly as she can. Holding a just-waxed bundle of letters to her chest, she sticks out her head to check the bookshop floor. If she walks between the shelves on the far right, she can slip out unnoticed in ten heartbeats. The main door of the bookshop is propped open, the sun shining after what feels like a year of sodden clouds and sludged streets—she can’t wait to feel its warmth on her skin.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Isha Karki

by Laurel Amberdine

I loved the process of building Muna’s world: the social hierarchies and stereotypes that govern the lives of immigrants and othered folk in Barish; the world of writing, publishing, bookselling; the kind of story Muna would be driven to write, what obstacles she might face in pursuing her dreams; and also the intertextual bits i.e., the excerpt from Muna’s work in progress, and the references to the Halfborn series and the latest bestseller.

Nonfiction

Book Review: The Combat Codes by Alexander Darwin

by Chris Kluwe

Are you looking for a book bristling with action and violence that still has a lot to say about the state of the world? Chris Kluwe says The Combat Codes by Alexander Darwin is just what you need.