Writing
Incredible Adventure Stories
Michael Dukakis bestrode the deck of the Alejandro Jodorowsky, his washboard abs rippling. The mighty battleship cut through the turbulent seas, and cold, salty spray crashed over the bow. “Maybe I should put a shirt on,” Dukakis mused. On the bridge, surveying the horizon with steely gray eyes, Dukakis pulled a crisp white tunic over … Continue reading
Fictive Dream: Disease
I had invited the personification of Disease to meet with me in my castle, which was partly in the physical realm and partly in a sort of dataspace. When she arrived, she looked like a woman in a robe of ragged lace, with long, tangled hair and solid white eyes.
Exposé
Not long ago I found myself sitting in a secluded booth toward the back of a Washington, DC-area steakhouse with a man whose name I can’t reveal, because he is one of this country’s leading psi-warriors. “X-men, Jedi, whatever you want to call them,” he told me, “are real, and they live among us.” In … Continue reading
With Melissa Forethought
Fuzzy pink handcuffs binding his wrists to the chrome armrests of the Barcelona chair, Michael Dukakis reviewed the events that led him here with mathematical precision. Sometimes it was easy to believe the dwarf’s prophecy was true: that he would never become a real boy. But always within him there was a powerful voice that … Continue reading
Mrs. Antioch’s Shadow
Mrs. Antioch had never read Jung or any of his disciples, and remained quite innocent of any knowledge of the Shadow.
Table of Contents
Neo/Beckett. “The Lost Ones” by Samuel Beckett Analyzed as a Precursor to “The Matrix,” or, Whoa! Enclosed Worlds as Ontological Ground-Situations! Derrida: Are We Pronouncing His Name Correctly? Philosopher Deathmatch: This Week: Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt versus Adamantine Friedrich Nietzsche. We bring you the story straight from the Tel Aviv Thunderdome!
We May be Slowly Running Out of the Belief That We’re Running Out of Things, Libertarian Scientists Say
Washington, DC— A new report issued by the Institute of Libertarian Science warns that within decades we may completely exhaust the earth’s supply of things to be worried that we’re exhausting the earth’s supply of. “If we don’t start conserving the belief that there are things that need to be conserved, soon our … Continue reading
Story Analysis: “Erosion” by Ian Creasey
Note: As part of my own personal effort to try to plot better, I plan to try to do some plot analyses of SF stories, mostly those published in Year’s Best collections. “Erosion” by Ian Creasey, from Year’s Best SF 15, Hartwell and Cramer, eds. (2010) Summary: in the 22nd century, Earth is (still) … Continue reading
The Enema
by Charles Baudelaire My young foot is a tenebrous orange, Traversing a pair of brilliant suns; The tangent and the rain are fated to be ravaged, Like a quill resting in my garden of vermillion fruits. There, I touch the autonomy of ideas, And the fat quill employs the pelicans and the rats For reassembling … Continue reading
The Day I Became Swept Up in a Popular New Phenomenon
You already know about the phenomenon. You, like millions of others, probably love it. You probably find it incredible that anyone dislikes the phenomenon. But, Reader, I confess: until recently I hated the phenomenon. Until recently I found even the mention of the phenomenon obnoxious. Any discussion of the huge amounts of money the phenomenon … Continue reading