Mar. 2025 (Issue 178)

We have original science fiction by Cadwell Turnbull (“Dekar Druid and the Infinite Library”) and Adam-Troy Castro (“Message In a Babel”). We also have two terrific flash pieces: “Those Who Seek To Embrace The Sun” from Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe and “Instructions for Good Boys on the Interplanetary Expedition” by Rachael K. Jones. Plus, we have original fantasy by Anya Ow (“Memories of Temperance”) and Sunwoo Jeong (“The Lexicon of Lethe”). We also have a flash story (“Pure of Heart”) from Jake Kerr, and another (“The Shift”) from Nina Kiriki Hoffman. All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team.

Cover art by Tithi Luadthong (aka Grandfailure) / Shutterstock

Mar. 2025 (Issue 178)

Editorial

Editorial: March 2025

by John Joseph Adams

Find out what’s new and exciting this month by checking out the editorial!

Science Fiction

Dekar Druid and the Infinite Library

by Cadwell Turnbull

Author spotlight

Dekar Druid lives in an infinite library. Besides Ebizenum, who is in a special category of their own, he is the only living person in the library’s single tower. Outside, a forest surrounds the tower. There’s a lake a short walk to the north and a peak to the distant south. And nothing else. The lake is easy to get to, a respite on hot summer days, but Dekar Druid has never made it to the mountains, not even close, though he’s walked for miles southward.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Cadwell Turnbull

by Mayookh Barua

I’d say my main inspiration comes from thinking (maybe too much) about divinity. Not from a particular theological perspective, but more as a general concept. If a creator exists for a world, what are its responsibilities to what it creates?

Fantasy

Pure of Heart

by Jake Kerr

They were not so much rumors as warnings. Beyond the mountain that overlooked the plateau was an ancient forest, enormous and wild. It was dark and treacherous and full of dangerous animals. The warnings were not about the danger of the beasts, but rather the ancient legend of a knight who entered the forest to pray at a desecrated shrine. Why he decided to pray to a devil or demon was long forgotten, but the response from the evil that lived there was still known to everyone.

Fantasy

Memories of Temperance

by Anya Ow

Author spotlight

Night to day. In Diyu, the Earth Prison, Chun Wei opened her eyes. “Day” in the realm of the dead registered only as a less pervasive chill to the stagnant air. Not that Chun Wei needed to breathe any longer. She unfolded from the lotus position she’d rested in, stretching and rubbing her balled fists against her lower back until her spine creaked. The dilapidated Guanyin temple had an intact roof and a semi-intact stone statue, hacked out of rock by denizens still hoping for salvation.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe

by Mayookh Barua

The ships are not human. Their first language isn’t English or any human language. They are mostly telepathic, so everything in the story are their unfiltered thoughts. A human narrator might differentiate between thoughts and even hold back some information from the reader.

Science Fiction

Those Who Seek to Embrace the Sun

by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe

Author spotlight

The humans crawl into us, carrying their instruments and consulting their manuals. Their hands run over us, searching for nuts and bolts and hidden crevices. We are big toys that they all long to play with, to tear down and study. Our origin baffles them. They express endless awe at the complexity of our systems and are always asking themselves who built us. They come up with theories that get increasingly bizarre as time passes.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Anya Ow

by Phoebe Barton

Buddhism teaches that life is a cycle of suffering and rebirth, and the only way to escape it is to achieve enlightenment. I’ve always found that theme interesting, especially in how it plays into creating Buddhist characters in wuxia/xianxia stories.

Nonfiction

Book Review: The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses

by Melissa A Watkins

If you’re looking for a tough book about a post-collapse society, The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica is that book. But find out what Melissa A. Watkins has to say about the glimmer at hope at the end.

Science Fiction

Message in a Babel

by Adam-Troy Castro

WARNING: The reading of this Dispatch is prohibited for anyone but the intended recipient. There are no exceptions. If you possess the encryption key and are not the intended recipient, be apprised that the means of decoding the contents do not constitute license. Penalties for the possession of the following include life imprisonment, or immediate execution. If you are delivered this message by accident, either delete it or, if a hard copy, seal it within an opaque receptacle and store in a secure location.

Fantasy

The Shift

by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Once upon a time, there was a king who married a witch. Together, they had four sons and one daughter, and they were very happy as long as the king lived. When my father the king died and my oldest brother was crowned king, life went sideways for me, my sister, and our mother. The new king, our oldest brother, decided to use our sister as coin to buy our country’s safety. He planned to marry her to the king across a perilous border to our south.

Nonfiction

Book Review: The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

by Chris Kluwe

Are you looking for a vividly imagined world of magic, treachery, heartbreak, and hope? Then Chris Kluwe says The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson is for you—find out why!

Science Fiction

Instructions for Good Boys on the Interplanetary Expedition

by Rachael K. Jones

Spotnik knows the humans haven’t forgotten him, because kibble still clatters into Spotnik’s bowl at six a.m. sharp. They’ve been gone long enough for all the vegetables in Hydroponics to shrivel up, limp and dead. Spotnik eats his kibble and licks up the crumbs, because he is a Good Boy, and Good Boys eat their rations. Even when the kibble goes soft and develops a white coat of mold and begins to stink so bad that he has to struggle to choke it down.

Fantasy

The Lexicon of Lethe

by Sunwoo Jeong

Author spotlight

We called it the monster because we could, though none of us found the label to be particularly satisfying. After a certain point, Yerim started calling it the Logos Pilgrim. Which was understandable, seeing as how she was the most mystically inclined among us, as well as the most compassionate towards things we didn’t understand. And there were many things we didn’t understand. For one, where did it come from? And why was it here?

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Sunwoo Jeong

by Mayookh Barua

This was one of those stories where the first sentence, “We called it the monster because we could,” really did come first. I kept turning it in my head, and it sort of acted as a key that opened up the rest of the world to me. The sense of place and setting were also foremost in my mind.

Nonfiction

Book Review: Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity, edited by Lee Mandelo

by Arley Sorg

Arley Sorg says of this new anthology: “Amplitudes features twenty-two stories by authors who know what they are doing, folks who have something to say.” Sounds like a good read.