Science Fiction
New colonies. Alternate Earths. Parallel Universes. All is fair game.
When Linda was in kindergarten, telescopes and probes produced the first fuzzy images of distant planets orbiting faraway stars.
She drew pictures of these planets with bold lines and vibrant colors. She drew herself walking under three red suns in a pink spacesuit. She drew domed cities under ringed moons. She drew purple jungles where the leaves were pentagons and the birds had four wings.
They arrived in a glory of light during a summer month. Glory isn't quite how we perceived it. Their ship destroyed a vast amount of our harvest. But their translator used the word glory, which we were given to mean a very fine thing.
We come in peace. May the light of our wisdom shine on your people.
"Supplicant Anseel deCeer, enter the Chamber."
Anseel cringed as the order boomed through the antechamber. The other petitioners glared at him. He understood their anger. Some of them had been waiting for days; he had just arrived.
The man from NASA arrived the next morning. Walter Igwe met him at the crash site.
"The agency would like to thank you, Mr. Igwe," the NASA man said, "for your quick response." It was plain he wasn't used to the savannah's heat. His temples ran slick with sweat.
Other Worlds
New colonies. Alternate Earths. Parallel Universes. All is fair game.
by Michael Guillebeau
“Three thousand habitable planets in the known universe, and I'm stuck on the only one without solitude,” Ricky the kidder said.
Published on Oct 6, 2010
by Brenda Cannon Kalt
As she slid the recorder in among the bottles, Evaline realized that the man was abandoning his own farewell party. She hurried after him. "Governor. Governor, you can't leave now. I cleaned everything." She shoved the robe at him, and it fell to the floor.
Published on Oct 27, 2010
by Ken Liu
Published on Sep 26, 2011
by Tim Patterson
He looked at her in her old Reebok sweater. For everything that was different, so much was the same.
Published on Sep 29, 2010
by Ramon Rozas
"This invention will allow the extraction of limitless energy from the vacuum of 'empty' space, and thus be a bonanza for our world," the scientist said.
A reporter waved its tentacle. "But isn't there a worry that destabilizing the local vacuum could cause what opponents call vacuum decay?"
Published on Apr 28, 2011
by Marge Simon
Published on Oct 10, 2011
by Lavie Tidhar
On impulse, she approached the tree. There was something strange about it she hadn’t noticed before. A grey fungal growth formed a narrow band around the keruing’s trunk like a noose. And the colour of the bark was different, the rich brown-green fading--only a little!--but fading nevertheless to that same featureless grey as the fungus.
Her fingers hovered over the fungus. Above her, around her, the voices of the Rogon seemed to drown the sounds of the forest. There was an odd sensation in the tips of Butterfly’s fingers, a kind of odious warmth that threatened to spread through her arms and into her entire body.
She felt frozen, trapped into the spot like a primordial insect in amber.
Published on Sep 3, 2010
by Deborah Walker
It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
--Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Published on Dec 30, 2011
by Mik Wilkens
Published on Apr 11, 2011
by James Luke Worrad
Published on Jan 26, 2012
