Original Archives - Page 29 of 92

Science Fiction

Your deathless heart spasms. Once. Twice. You suck in a long, rattling gasp, and twist over the decanting table, great hacking coughs. Someone thumps your back. “Welcome back, boyo,” Media & Talent Production Coordinator Kayn says. “They got some great footage out of your death. Viewership tripled for the episode.” “Damn,” you wheeze. “Any chance I’m out?” Goosebumps pimple across your cold skin. You’re so sick of the Talent Decanting Room. You hope for finales. You hope for your exit stage left. “Nah,” Kayn says. “You’re polling too well with the sixteen to twenty-four demographic. The execs want to keep you in the cast roster.”

In Jan. 2023 (Issue 152)

Fantasy

Braid Me a Howling Tongue

by Maria Dong

Author spotlight

When I was young, I used to fray apart my mother’s tales, seeking the threads of their structure. They were journeys, always, and marked by transition-places: doorway, gate, river. On the other side, someone offered the rules of this new environment. I liked the stories where these interpreters were animals or hags, though in my least favorite, it was a child with ragged clothes that admonished, that’s not the way things work here. I understand. Understand that people bore easily, that stories must be pragmatic. No time to waste on the heroine, bumbling her way through years of figuring out the rules.

In Jan. 2023 (Issue 152)

Fantasy

A Man Walks Into a Bar: In Which More Than Four Decades After My Father’s Reluctant Night of Darts on West 54th Street I Finally Understand What Needs to Be Done

by Scott Edelman

Author spotlight

My father was so honest, people often spoke of him in cliches. For example—you know the way someone will sometimes say so-and-so was so honest they’d walk five miles to return an extra nickel they’d been given in their change? Nobody means anybody actually did that kind of thing when they say it, of course—you and I both know they’re only exaggerating for effect. Except in the case of my father. My Dad had really done that. Around the neighborhood, he was seen as so calm and understanding when compared to other fathers, other husbands . . . some of the grownups jokingly referred to him as Saint Barney.

In Jan. 2023 (Issue 152)

Science Fiction

The Last Serving

by Lincoln Michel

The story of Chef Buzzati’s sudden and horrifying fall from the heights of fine dining is well known. However, given that the culinary innovations and legal ramifications are still being debated today, a recap may be in order. Elena Buzzati was born to owners of an unremarkable Italian diner in the suburbs of New Jersey in 2024. She grew up surrounded by the scents of roasting meats and the hot gurgle of the deep frier. It sickened her. The headstrong Buzzati declared herself a vegetarian at age six. She had a strong bond with animals and is reported to have spent much of he childhood behind the diner befriending stray squirrels and pigeons.

In Jan. 2023 (Issue 152)

Fantasy

Mad Honey

by Aimee Ogden

Author spotlight

The three wolves in the sun-smeared wood did not turn and run when Aran approached with his musket in hand. Wolves were supposed to run from men with guns. This was the way of the world. Sweat and necessity made his musket slide against his palms. He gripped tighter, not wanting to startle the beasts by bringing the musket to bear too quickly. Two of the beasts stood over the third, which reclined on its side in the patchy grass. He could count their rib-bones through their thin hides. His own hungry bones hummed in sympathy. But the world turned on toward frost and frozen ground, and necessity stilled the tremor in his chest.

In Dec. 2022 (Issue 151)

Science Fiction

The Spread of Space and Endless Devastation

by Stewart C Baker

This is the fifty-seventh time Ship has tried to stop Zander from entering the cellar. By now, Ship simply watches over the feed as the mission gets underway. Zander and the other members of their crew open the front door and marvel at the lack of dust, the trickle of the entry hall fountain. “It’s as if someone still lives here,” Kala says. As the crew’s historian, she is endlessly looking for ways to insert herself into the past. “Like they just stepped out and will come back any moment.” That’s from Eun-ja, who spends xir off-shifts watching holos.

In Dec. 2022 (Issue 151)

Science Fiction

Deathmatch

by Rich Larson

Author spotlight

The cab slices through the city, one small fish of a humming black shoal, while Henrik watches ads in his rain-flecked window. Today he sees carnal red sociomachines, spine-mounted, that spray pheromones and calculate human interaction. A black-and-yellow swamp whirling through space. A man screaming no at the moment of orgasm. The product is not always clear, but the ads are always effective. He can feel money slivering off his account and slithering into the ether. The cab’s vestigial partition, now a slab of flickering smartglass, shows him that he has invested in a dozen new corporate splinters.

In Dec. 2022 (Issue 151)

Fantasy

To my daughter, in the dark of the moon

by P H Lee

My daughter. Oh, my daughter! You are too young to understand, but I will tell you anyway: one day you will be a great hunter, you will be a great champion, and you will look around our village and you will wonder—is this everything? Is this the only glory left to me? Is this why my mother left, even before my seventh anno, towards the cursed spire from which there is no return? So now I tell you: Yes. That is why I left. That is why, in your own time, in your own manner, in the fullness of your power and the fullness of your guile, you will follow me.

In Dec. 2022 (Issue 151)

Fantasy

The Noon Witch Goes to Sound Planet

by Kristina Ten

Author spotlight

The Noon Witch is not a cat person. She likes the color purple, hates police procedurals, loves breakfast foods, thinks scented bath products and anchovy pizza are gross. Hates platform shoes. Hates walnuts in brownies. Used to like the electropop group all the girls at school like, until they used too much synth on their latest album, so now she hates them too. The Noon Witch isn’t an overcritical person. She’s just at that difficult age when you’re desperate to figure out who you are, so you lean too much on your likes and dislikes to try to cobble together what you think should be your personality.

In Nov. 2022 (Issue 150)

Science Fiction

Therefore What the Multiverse Has Joined Together, Let No One Separate

by Dominica Phetteplace

Dear Next, You’ve seen the original picture. If you’re anything like me, you know it by heart. The image that came out of the first (and at the time of this writing, only) discovered white hole was a flower. It was gray and pixelated, but it was beautiful. When it was finished, I was invited to the vault to view the flower. Not because I was anyone important. I mean, I had millions of followers on social media, my content regularly went viral, and I had written a dozen best-selling books. But to the scientific community, I was a personality. An influencer. Not serious. Not like Yxa.

In Nov. 2022 (Issue 150)