Ask Dr. Cyberpunk: with your host, Bruce Bethke • Last Call for the FAQ

Now that I’m back from Christmas Break…The impetus to continue writing this column has dissipated. I tried to get back into it, but found that while I still have much left to say, I no longer have a burning desire to say it. My experience with my aborted 1989 Cyberpunk novel, along with my parallel experience of being a short fiction anthology editor reporting directly to...

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Christmas Break 2024

With Christmas just days away and lots of grandchildren needing undivided attention, I’ve decided to take the next five days off. The Ask Dr. Cyberpunk saga has waited 30 years; it can wait another week. In the meantime, here are five “seasonably appropriate” stories from the vault, from some of our favorite writers: Beth Cato, Jamie Lackey, Lance Mushung, Matthew Timmins,...

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“When the Wind Changes” • by Tobias Backman

The parade of chained protestors trudged beneath the balcony, kicking up dust. Safi leaned over, spat. Laughed as he hit one.Idiots. Throwing away their youth. Should have joined the army if they were so desperate for money. The soldiers flanking them looked healthy enough.Besides, things were not that bad. He’d just stuffed his kitchen with canned cranberries for five...

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“Anders in Exile” • by Andrew Jensen

The wild turkeys parading across the blueberry field looked alien.When Anders fled to America for freedom from the Royal Swedish Jam-Crafter’s Guild, he hadn’t anticipated this feeling of dislocation.Swedes loved their educated, egalitarian society. Everyone had the right to improve their skills and lives. But the Royal Ligonberry Jam recipe was a state secret known only to...

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The Never-ending FAQ • 18 December 2024

Welcome to this week’s installment of The Never-ending FAQ, the constantly evolving adjunct to our Submission Guidelines and general-purpose unfocused Q&A session.  If you have a question you’d like to ask about Stupefying Stories or Rampant Loon Press, feel free to post it as a comment here or to email it to our submissions address. I can’t guarantee we’ll post...

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“Outside” • by C. L. Sidell

You’re strolling through Yipping Woods when you spy the cranberry-colored umbrella beneath a fir tree.It’s open and spinning on its ferrule.I don’t need an umbrella, you think. Even if it’s got personality.Then the sky, in response, cracks open.Scurrying forward, you grasp the rotating cherry-wood handle. Angle it on your right shoulder, gloves and stockings (you don’t remember...

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