Irony So Efficient
by Walter Dinjos - There is a reason the mirrors kiss the walls. When my late wife nailed the oakwood-framed one next to my bathroom, she called it a reminder of how far we've come.
Rosalee
by Katie Boyer - She flexes her toes in new high-heeled shoes, feels the press of Earth gravity on her body for one last day, discomfort in the balls of her feet.
The Extractor’s Daughter
by Ken Hoover - On the mesa’s flat expanse, the mine shaft was a crude hole, a soulless eye. As Vallen Doss peered into it, a dank sulfuric breath wafted from the opening.
The Past, Present, and Future of Ice Fishing
by Clay Space - The wind on the frozen ice bit through the hides he wore for protection, but he had long ago learned to forget about the bitter cold.
REPORT: Worldcon Membership Demographics, 1961-1980
by René Walling This report is a continuation of the work done in Worldcon Membership Demographics, 1939-1960 (Walling, 2016) and aims to see if any of the trends previously observed continue in subsequent Worldcon and provide some hard data on the membership of the Worldcons of that period.
Stars in the Galaxy, Like Islands in the Ocean of Space
By Jean Asselin Over time, we learn the value of stressing the positive: what we’d do differently rather than what doesn’t work, what to strive for instead of what to avoid. Still, there is efficiency in prescribing “Don’t do ‘X’ in the fiction you submit.” Let ‘X’ be: “On its way to another star [...]
REPORT: Worldcon Membership Demographics, 1939-1960
by René Walling Sweeping statements and generalizations are often made about the membership of early World Science Fiction Conventions (WSFC, or Worldcon) such as “only the same people came back every year” or “the attendance was all male.” Yet rarely is more than anecdotal evidence given to support these statements. The goal of this report is to provide some hard data on the membership of early Worldcons so that such statements can be based on more than anecdotal evidence.
A Superlative For Goodbye
By Jude-Marie Green One rocket lumbers along to the launchpad. Earth-bound and clumsy now, gorgeous with potential. It’s yours. You’re the last. You should be proud of that.
Changing Woman Gives Birth to Coyote
by Betsy James
Your two-penny face,
bright as your father's,
wrinkled tight.
Echoes of Philip K. Dick’s schizoid woman in Star Trek: Voyager’s Harry Kim
by Victor Grech Star Trek is a popular cultural phenomenon. One of the spin-offs, the Voyager series, features a naïve and lonely young human officer called Harry Kim who repeatedly falls for warm and affectionate “dark haired girls” or cold and calculating “schizoid women” as famously categorized by N. Katherine Hayles about Philip K. Dick’s oeuvre.