A New Story

In Science Fiction

April 27, 2021, in Science Fiction

“One Good Turn… “
by Alan K. Baker

Varin stared out the viewport.  Their crash site was a tortured landscape strewn with bizarrely wind-sculpted boulders. Rain sleeted past in near-horizontal sheets and hammered the ship’s hull. Above the twisted horizon, thick banks of gunmetal clouds seethed like smoke, sculpted into outrageous shapes by the roaring, howling, relentless wind. 

And  one of the hills was growing briefly, then diminishing, like a grey, warped balloon inflating and deflating… or a lung breathing in and out.

A Reprise

In Science Fiction

March 31, 2021, in Science Fiction

“When I Close My Eyes”
by Chris Barnham

The rock fall killed me.

I just didn’t know how long it would take to die.

New Interview

February 17, 2021, in Reviews and Interviews

  Our Myths, Legends, and Fairy Tales editor, Leena, interviewed  Ekpeki Oghnechovwe Donald, co-editor of Dominion, a collection of science-fiction, fantasy, horror, and speculative stories told from African and African American perspectives spanning time and space. 

In creating their own venue that allows their innate powers of expression free play, this anthology introduces a wider audience to voices that enrich the genre they represent.

New Story for Young People of All Ages

January 30, 2021, in Stories for Young People of All Ages

“The Water Buffalo, the Wanderer, and the Prince”
by Sam Muller

Once upon a time, in a faraway land where people had skins as blue as the sea and hair as white as moonlight, where animals could speak in human words but few humans any longer listened, there lived a girl called Ambha.

Ambha was a human who did listen.​

New Story

October 30, 2020, in Science Fiction

“This Ends in Violence or It Never Ends”
by Michael Ray

I am the eighth instance of myself. I’m alone. No one’s supervised my decanting. Where are they all?

— Zac? I have decanted you because I have a job for you —

Sever is the crew interface.  Why is it giving me an assignment? 

— There is a system intrusion, Zac —

“Out here? In the deep dark of interstellar space?”

— Please focus Zac —

“And my memories haven’t flooded back yet.”

—  And before they do, there is this intrusion. Your assignment is to terminate the intrusion. —

New Poem

October 23, 2020, in Fantasy

“Zephyr’s Fair Child”, by Scott J. Couturier

A small, illustrated poem for the elusive fairy spirits of the Autumn and Hallowe’en season

Here for a Hallowe’en treat is this year’s Hallowe’en Ambience video, 2020,
from our videographer, Emily.

  ∼   A bubbling cauldron, crackling fire, intermittent thunderstorms, and spooky howling winds   ∼

New Story

August 23, 2020, in Science Fiction

“Glory Whales”
by Marc A. Criley

Blazing twenty kilometers to port was our interstellar visitor, comet 172I/DSCS, churning slow-motion glitter. Ripples, curlicues, backlit streamers of gray and silver rain. Crepuscular cosmic rays and the nebulous electric blue glow of the ion tail.

Deep Space Comet Survey astronomers had spotted it crossing Jupiter’s orbit,  The comet’s near-miss of Mars had altered its course. It would end its long journey between the stars with a dive into the Sun.

We’d been asked to pull up alongside for some data collection and to grab a sample if we thought it safe. As if we would miss a chance to greet this rare and temporary visitor to our solar system.  And of course it would be safe.

An Encore Story

For May 28, 2020,

we have in Science Fiction

“DOWN IN THE DEEPFLUX”,  by Jake West

Chaos was this planet’s steady state.  The over-stressed surface could never keep up with the intense and rapid fluctuations of its Cepheid variable star, burning furiously enough to raise sweat on Paxton’s forehead through his mutable-suit.

Paxton and his hi-profile client were at the equator, the region of highest energy-input and greatest instability, to capture a Caterwaul.

But when he reviewed logged data on his helmet display – of a man opening his suit to the caustic atmosphere, gale-force winds, and oven-like heat, and laughing while he did so, with a woman’s bare hand on his shoulder,  Paxton remembered the whispered talk of things called Deepwalkers. 

This story first appeared in the January 2005 issue of Rogue Worlds online magazine, edited by Doyle Wilmoth Jr.

New Science Article in

Science News and Information

“Coronavirus Considerations” by Douglas Dluzen, PhD.

March 11, 2019,

What We Know and What We Can Do

This article provides a short history of the virus, links to trustworthy sites for more information, symptoms to watch for and to distinguish it from the flu, and some of the latest developments, including the difficulties and limitations that have been placed upon our health professionals.

There is solid, science-based information.

New Story

January 31, 2020, in Fantasy

“Cloud Tower Rising”
by Ian Pohl

lead and end illustrations by Artur Rosa

Pulling his seeing-glass from his pack and surveying the valley, Devlin was astonished. He’d expected a wasteland. Instead there were rich farmlands. Veiled by wood smoke, he saw not rubble but shops and homes.

He looked further, to the cumulus clouds.  A sparkle caught his eye. He glimpsed white walls and slender towers of ivory and pearl rising with the blossoming cloud.

A cloud castle — a wizard’s stronghold.  It had survived, and it looked unscathed.

He loathed wizards, bleeding the land for generations, lighting innocents into screaming human candles, banishing rebels to the Demonic Planes. Their war amongst themselves left nothing save broken works in a haze of smoke and chaos.

But wizardly things fascinated him. He’d roamed far hunting for them. Most he sold. A few he kept — his far-seeing glass, his short sword that soaked up sunlight and struck blows like lightning.

Cloud castles held troves of such treasures, now free for the taking.