Topic
Other Worlds
Mystical colony worlds, portal worlds from modern normalcy, Piers Anthony style parallel worlds ruled by magic. All fit under this rubric.
There Are No Guards at the Borders of Faerie
There are no guards at the borders of Faerie. No one will ask for your passport, or if you have anything to declare. You won't have to take off your shoes, place your laptop in a separate container, and stand--arms raised--inside a scanner that bathes your whole body with…
We Speak with the Raven Men
I am almost fourteen years old the day I kill my grandmother. In Ravida, the people do not speak. The village is silent--save for the raspy voices of the raven men and the cheery tones of children too young to have lost their speech. They say we lost our songs when the raven men…
Does Earth have a Future?
I'll start by being blunt--the answer is no. The shared background for fiction called "Earth" is exhausted. All the good ideas and far too many of the bad ones have used up all the originality that the concept once had, and I see no hope for anyone to write a new story on…
Advanced Word Problems in Portal Math
Problem 1 It is 7 p.m. on a snowy January evening, and Penny is a 13-year-old who likes fruity lip balms, wears leggings, and notices everything, like how she's expected to wash the dishes but her older brother is excused to finish his homework. On this night, she insists her…
Tomorrow's World
The young man comes to visit Patrice every day. The ink from his fresh-printed pamphlets stains her fingers when he presses one upon her, as he does each day. He never seems to hear her protestations that she doesn't know how to read. Every time he sees her he asks her if she's…
Flash
They say he saved every one of us. They say he's a hero. I guess it's a matter of perspective. I guess it depends on who you believe. He came roaring out of the atmosphere like a lunatic out of a comic strip, in a spaceship that looked like a car that looked like a rocket ship,…
A Revolution in Four Courses
First Course: Rathwan's in Kur district is a study in white on white, the floor tile and tables arranged in a tessellation of rectangles whose sides matched the holy ratio of seven to three. Rathwan's is empty today, save for one table, one lone guest--the Gedt general whose…
Wishmas
A knock sounded on the door. Arly was sitting at the table with her little brother Sim on her right. Sim was eight, and would have been gone by now if Mama had been normal. Mama sat at the head of the table with the turkey in front of her, and Now-dad sat at the foot of the…
In Dreams
She was depressed. There was darkness everywhere in her life, and pain she could not express. At school the other girls treated her with contempt, and the boys seemed not to notice her. But home was the worst: her mother was so wrapped in her own pain that she had no time for…
Surrounded by the Mutant Rain Forest
A weak December sun falls like a faltering beacon against the shadows that surround us. We enter another vine-choked alley. The red breath of our laser rifles sizzles through the intrusion of leaves, blackening them to ash. The forest is driven back one more time, but we know it…
Blue and Blue
A school of tiny pearlescent fish dart before my face, turn onto Al-Azraq Way, and stop to hover in a cloud around the scarf-covered head of the cabinet maker's daughter. She is opening a painted drawer for a customer, gesturing to the ornate carvings, miming placing something…
What Never Happened to Kolay
The flowers never hugged him. When Kolay was a child, Grannie Brian had had a garden of motile plants. The grown folk looked askance at this. Wasting time playing with genes, when half the communities north of the river went hungry in the winter and starved in the spring. And…
Counting Coup
Meztli and the other boys of his year-group snuck into the Daylighter village just before dawn. One by one, they split off from the group as they each chose their targets. The more timid boys picked the yards of houses near the edge of the village, with easy access and a quick…
Necessities
"Can't wait to get out of this place," Turk growled. "Friggin' weirdos all over." He prodded a Jellyfish with the muzzle of his rifle. The bulbous thing drifted away on the breeze, emitting a musical tinkle like laughter. Somehow, the relatively normal grass, trees, and skyline…
On Paper Wings
I wish� Delicate, semitransparent wings flittered and glittered in the breeze as Shiyo held it up against the rich gold of the late afternoon sun that spilled through the open sitting room doors. It was her eleventh butterfly, folded and cut carefully out of the glittering…
What Lies Between the Bread
Jessica might have been able to resist temptation had the shop smelled of dust and ghosts or perhaps perfume and Saharan sand and sold music boxes that played the tinkling melody of her every treasured and trampled childhood memory. Or, had it stocked books with titles like…
The Closer
Later, Martin couldn't say what had awakened him. A sound maybe. Or maybe the smell--his bedroom was full of a strange smell. Rich and green. He and Laura had hiked in a rain forest when they had visited Vancouver a few summers before and it smelled like that. "A massage for…
The Fosterling
�Please, leave my son!� Jain Harley didn�t reply, in part because it would do no good, in part because the boy she was dragging from the corner of the shack�s single room was obviously not the son of the sobbing woman who claimed him. She was squat and brown-skinned, he had the…