Science Fiction Archives - Page 33 of 51

Science Fiction

The Moon Is Not a Battlefield

We’re recording. I was born in the sky, for war. This is what we were told. I think when people hear this, they think of ancient Earth stories. Of angels and superheroes and gods, leaving destruction between the stars. But I’m no superhero, no Kalel of America-Bygone with the flag of his dead planet flying behind him. I’m no angel Gabreel striking down Satan in the void or blowing the trumpet to end worlds. I’m no devi Durga bristling with arms and weapons, chasing down demons through the cosmos and vanquishing them.

In July 2019 (Issue 110)

Science Fiction

Miles and Miles and Miles

by Andrew Penn Romine

Author spotlight

Noah Stubbs eyes the large white pill pinched between his thumb and forefinger, remembering the first time he hit golf balls on the moon with Gord. “I wonder,” Gord says to him as Noah lines up on the tee, “just how far these suckers’ll really go?” THWACK! Noah swings. The little ball hurtles into the Lunar day, a pinprick of speeding light bright against the velvet sky. Long after the ball becomes invisible to the naked eye, his suit’s visor tracks its trajectory until it drops towards the ground. They parked the hopper at the top of the Virgo Escarpment.

In July 2019 (Issue 110)

Science Fiction

The Mysteries

by Karen Lord

“Light, dust, and water are the alchemy of the universe.” Ritual words murmured softly by myriad voices, powerful as a roar, effortless as a whisper. “I will consent to be made and unmade.” An initiate must never walk in. Many elders raise the cocooned body high upon their hands and process into the open space, to lasers alight in a pin-and-string arrangement of bright green on dark velvet. “To burn to ash and dissolve in dew.” The elders guide the still, surrendered form up and into the core of the lattice of light. “I am but dust and ashes; for me the world was created.”

In July 2019 (Issue 110)

Science Fiction

The Null Space Conundrum

by Violet Allen

Author spotlight

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” screams Aria. Her voice goes up raspily at the end of the exclamation, giving her the affect of a mewling cat, and she is embarrassed by the profound uncoolness of such a tone. She slams her fists on the Versa’s console to compensate, to physically demonstrate the depth and seriousness of her anger, causing the subtelar ship to rock violently in the warpwake. Don’t judge her; Aria Astra is usually a very cool person. She likes good food and knows a bunch about film and uses lots of swears and has great fashions.

Illustrated by Sam Schechter

In July 2019 (Issue 110)

Science Fiction

Warhosts

by Yoon Ha Lee

The Warhosts sit in the lees of the starships while the sky grows less flushed with dawn, playing cards. At the same time, the regulators within the Red emissary and our own play their own game across a moist medium of flesh, chemical brew, and stench to determine where the next battle will be fought. We—the Purples—have been fighting the Reds for possession of this moon, jigsaw piece by slow jigsaw piece, as deliberately as a pavane or carved ice. The Reds have grown increasingly desperate. The moon has a certain strategic importance, and the Reds are very close to having to cede it entirely.

In June 2019 (Issue 109)

Science Fiction

The Harvest of a Half-Known Life

by G.V. Anderson

Author spotlight

I’ll never forget the taste of my mother’s marrow. I think of it now, as I rub oil into the stiff, cracking heels of my shoes: how I scooped it still warm from the bone, like pale butter. How it lingered in my teeth for days after the harvesting. And I think further back, as I often do lately, to the way her hands jerked and fluttered close to her bony chest before she passed. She was too weak to shape her signs properly so I can only guess their meaning. Perhaps I’ve guessed wrong—Aefha thinks so—but I can’t forget. Follow the ghosts.

In June 2019 (Issue 109)

Fantasy

An Advanced Readers’ Picture Book Of Comparative Cognition

by Ken Liu

My darling, my child, my connoisseur of sesquipedalian words and convoluted ideas and meandering sentences and baroque images, while the sun is asleep and the moon somnambulant, while the stars bathe us in their glow from eons ago and light-years away, while you are comfortably nestled in your blankets and I am hunched over in my chair by your bed, while we are warm and safe and still for the moment in this bubble of incandescent light cast by the pearl held up by the mermaid lamp, you and I, on this planet spinning and hurtling through the frigid darkness of space at dozens of miles per second, let’s read.

In June 2019 (Issue 109)

Science Fiction

Between the Dark and the Dark

by Deji Bryce Olukotun

Author spotlight

Two hundred ships moved through the stars, leaving an iridescent trail of transmission beacons in their wake. Five billion kilometers long, the beacons stretched all the way to Earth, a desiccated and shaken planet that the passengers once called home. Sometimes simple messages from the ships arrived in the data. After a long time, images came and—after an even longer time—clips of the passengers going about their lives. But the vast distances meant these clips were rare. Normally an image arriving on Earth was cause for celebration, because it meant the crew was still alive, or at least the ship’s systems were still functioning.

In June 2019 (Issue 109)

Science Fiction

The Iron Man

by Max Gladstone

The boy stopped playing after his Mom and Dad chained the iron man to the Kingdom’s heart. The boy used to run alone and brave through the welt within the walls, and even ranged as far as the borders of the wood. He tossed the ball his mother gave him into the sky, gold against blue with the sun behind, and laughing, caught it again. The ball purred in his grip. Sometimes he asked it questions—how to build a puppet, how to open the castle gates, how to change the color of the sky— and it answered. How questions were the ball’s job; why questions were Mom-and-Dad’s.

In May 2019 (Issue 108)

Science Fiction

Truth Is Like the Sun

by Matthew Kressel

Author spotlight

Pop-star uber-sensation Jaim Janan rockets off to promote their third album atop a SpaceX Dragon VII capsule today, where they will stream a live musical performance from orbit, some 350 kilometers above the Earth. Before today’s launch, when asked if they were feeling nervous about the trip, the young pop star coolly responded, “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.” It’s not clear how many of Jaim’s obsessive fans, or “Janatics” as they are sometimes known, recognized the star was quoting twentieth-century pop legend Elvis Presley [click for bio]. But by mid-afternoon #TruthIsLikeTheSun was the most popular hashtag on Twitter.

In May 2019 (Issue 108)