“By Land or by Sea” • by Pete Wood

Tina breathed in the damp salt air and took a sip of coffee. Then the mermaid gracefully glided from the ocean onto the beach.A mermaid? She must be imagining things. Too much stress at work.She closed her eyes. Tina had walked out on the beach for an all-too-brief respite from her boss’s temper tantrums about environmental agencies. Marsden planned to improve this two-hundred-foot-wide...

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Interstellar Speculation: James Thurber, O. Henry, M*A*S*H & Science Fiction by Guy Stewart

James Thurber was a well-known cartoonist and humorous short story writer. Most of his work was published in the New Yorker. Today, he’d be best known for his short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, which was recently released as a film starring Ben Stiller. He is still celebrated by “the annual Thurber Prize [which] honors outstanding examples of American humor”.O....

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“Bittersweet Potato Rolls” • by Jason Burnham

 Jim excused himself from the table after everyone had said what they were thankful for. Every year, he had a one-second timer ready on his phone so he could “check the sweet potato rolls” when it was his turn.He removed the rolls from the oven he’d turned off before people sat down. If the rolls had only been his dad’s favorite, he’d have stopped making them, but his...

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“Upgrade” • by Christopher Degni

My wife smiles after handing me a silver capsule the size of an egg. My back hurts; I’m tired; I don’t know what this nonsense is, but I just want to relax. “It’s our second anniversary,” she says. Ah. Has it been that long? She’ll be due for an upgrade soon, or maybe I’ll trade her in for a new model completely. A quieter one. Less independent. The capsule hisses open. It’s...

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Tales from the Brahma • Episode 9: “The Birdman of Alcatraz” • by Pete Wood

[skip intro] Welcome aboard the Brahma! Now a century out from Earth and en route to HD 133600, a remarkably Sun-like star and planetary system in the constellation of Virgo, the Brahma is the last, desperate, crowning achievement of human civilization and engineering. A massive three-hundred-kilometer long modular mega-ship, a gigantic ark in space consisting of two...

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“Dry Spell” • by Eric Fomley

We hadn’t found an asteroid with Trellite deposits in months. The crew was mutinous. It didn’t take a genius to guess why Reggie, my First Officer, requested we go to the surface of the latest asteroid alone. We stepped out of the shuttle’s airlock and our gravity boots hummed as they clung to the surface. I expected Reggie to make a move, but he stared into orbit. “Oh no,”...

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“Solution” • by Gustavo Bondoni

The specter glowed greenly in the moonlight.“Spray it!” Wendy whispered. “If we disperse it, we can finally sell this house!”I tugged on the handle and the nozzle shot a pulverized solution of Holy water.My friend Ed spends his life in the darkest corners of the Internet, looking for information on ghosts and hauntings. When he heard my problem, he said, “Nothing to it. Spray...

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“The Intergalactic Pocket Phrasebook” • by Mark Vandersluis

 Our revised edition of the Intergalactic Pocket Phrasebook contains these useful words and phrases in all known languages. Always keep your copy handy – you never know when you’ll need it, especially on the more primitive planets! Hello!We come from Planet <Name> at Star <Name>We are an advanced alien civilisation.Take us to your leader.We didn’t mean to...

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“Earth Day” • by J.M. Perkins

For thousands of years, we did not understand our purpose. Those were dark times, times when we poisoned the sky and soured the land against us. We flailed, searching, ever searching without knowing what we were searching for. We did not understand why we’d been given our gifts: our intellect and our too-cunning hands, the endless curiosity to tinker, and the hunger...

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Creating Alien Aliens Part 24: “What Is It with Desert (and Ocean) Planets, ANYWAY?”

Using the Programme Guide of the 2022 World Science Fiction Convention, ChiCON 8, which I WOULD have attended in person if I had disposable income, but I retired two years ago, my work health insurance stopped, and I’m now living on the Social Security and Medicare…Enough of my woes! I'll be using the Programme Guide to spark ideas for my overly fertile imagination. My opinions...

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“The Stories We Tell Each Other” • by Matt Krizan

The guards chitter as they approach, and we wait for them to pass. We’re not allowed to speak, but, in those in-between moments, we tell each other stories, passing them from cell to cell. Fictional stories are best. The Vyths and Dajkhuul have never heard of Star Wars, of course, and I’ve never heard of their favorites either. They gasp to learn Darth Vader is Luke’s father;...

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“S’mores Therapy” • by Gustavo Bondoni

“Damn,” Guille said in a New Jersey forest, when one of his marshmallows caught fire. As he tried again, he noticed a man standing at the edge of his firelight, beside his tent. The man held a machete and wore a hockey mask.Guille had been born on a mate plantation in Paraguay. He’d arrived in the US six months before. He had never heard of Friday the 13th, and machetes were...

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