Welcome to The Week in Review, our Sunday wrap-up for those too busy to follow Stupefying Stories on a daily basis. Actually, this is more like The Month in Review, as we were hit by a large disruption in the last week of August and it’s taken us a while to regain our stride. Picking where we left off, then…
Published 8/26/24
The beautiful girl in the hotel bar just smiled and sipped her Scotch. He decided to try another tack.
“You can probably tell I’m not British,” he said. “My name’s Shrader, from the States. I’m in flame-retardant fabrics—jackets for firemen, blankets for welders, like that.”
“No doubt a lucrative trade,” said the girl. “Especially if Herr Hitler has his way.” She still hadn’t offered her name.
“Then you don’t agree with the PM? No appeasement for you, eh?”
“Hitler only respects strength. The British would do well to understand that.”
Published 8/28/24
In which we answer a plethora of questions about the Space: 1999 story contest and the Friends of Stupefying Stories reading list, do a good bit of angry venting about our ongoing problems with Linktree and the StupefyingSF online bookshop, review both Alien: Romulus and Deadpool and Wolverine, and announce what is either The Last Pete Wood Challenge or The Pete Wood Challenge: A New Beginning, but oddly enough don’t say a word about the electrical storm and power outage that knocked us offline for a day.
» Read the rest
After that I desperately needed to take a few days off, so we may as well put in a book ad right here.
Following the extended Labor Day Weekend we returned, with:
“All We Have Are Memories” • by Rick Danforth
Published: 9/6/24
Fan-favorite writer Rick Danforth returns with another Kioxia story, set in the same world as “Thanks for the Memory.” The premise: in a world where memories can be bought and sold, Hyacinth’s memories of her life of wealth and privilege were sure to be best-sellers…
Weren’t they?
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Published: 9/7/24
Mitchell had a problem. How does one torment the very embodiment of torment itself?
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“Today in London History” • by Judith Field
Published: 9/8/24
Beginning Sunday, September 8th, we kicked off 1999 Week, our week-long observance of the 25th Anniversary of that unforgettable day in 1999 when a freak nuclear explosion on the Moon knocked it completely out of Earth’s orbit.
At least, that’s what happened in the cult-classic 1970s TV series, Space: 1999.
So all week long, we partied like it was 1999, with story after story about what life was like here on Earth after the Moon and all those strange people on Moonbase Alpha took off for their extended tour across the galaxy. (Honestly, we thought they’d never leave.)
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I’d also like to take a moment here to note that the tags and “trail-of-breadcrumbs” links at the top of every story do work, although no one ever seems to use them. So if you were the sort who wanted to read the entire series in all its shining glory, you could just click this one single link:
» Read the entire series
“Pulling Up the Moon” • by Karl Dandenell
Published: 9/9/24
The Moon is gone? You mean, totally gone?!
No problem. We can fix that.
» Read the rest
“Waxing Crescent” • by Andrew Jensen
Published: 9/10/24
It’s the eternal teenage question: is there anything more boring than some big deal public commemoration of something that happened to our parents? How can we make it interesting to us?
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Published: 9/12/24
From Our Man in Japan comes the story that asks the questions, “What did this catastrophe mean for the people living closest to the Nankai megathrust?” and “Did the Earth move for you, too?”
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[Editor’s Note: in the course of preparing this story for publication, we learned that there really is a thing called the “Nankai megathrust.”
[And yes, it looks rather overtly phallic to us, too.]
§
Unfortunately, further searching for stock art images to accompany this story put one of our editors into a dangerously high hypercutetastic coma. (It’s much like hyperglycemia, only instead of sugar it’s caused by consuming too much cuteness, and instead of being treated with insulin it’s treated with massive infusions of Leonard Cohen music.)
With that crisis narrowly averted, we moved on to—
“Chasing the Moon” • by Karin Terebessy
Published: 9/13/24
Everyone wondered what had happened to the Moon—except for little Jonathon Nelson. He knew exactly what had happened to it, and that it was all his fault.
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[Editor’s Note: As usual, Karin took what we expected to be a lightweight and fun idea and turned it into a story that really knocks it out of the park. This one has already made it onto our Top 10 Most-Read Stories of 2024 list. If you haven’t read it, you should check it out.]
“A Curse and a Blessing” • by Jeff Currier
Published: 9/14/24
For some, the Moon’s disappearance was the best thing that ever happened…
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Published: 9/17/24
Darla had spent her entire life avoiding civilization. Now she wondered if she was the last woman on Earth.
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“Happy Anniversary?” • by Andrew Jensen
Published: 9/21/24
Andrew sent us two stories for the Space: 1999 challenge, each very different from the other and both too good to reject. We didn’t feel we could run the two stories too close to each other, though, so we ended up wrapping 1999 Week with this story, published a week later. We think you’ll agree: it’s clever and charming, and a great ending to the series.
» Read the rest
And now it’s time for another ad…
In addition to the 1999 Week stories, we also ran:
Published: 9/16/24
Sometimes we get a story that is so perfectly formed that any teaser we might write for it would be a distraction. Just, read this one. You’ll be glad you did.
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Six Questions for… Elise Stephens
Published: 9/19/24
Elise’s first appearance in our pages was “Two-Tone,” in Stupefying Stories 25. With the release this month of Thyme Travelers, which contains her story, “Remembrance in Cerulean,” it seemed like a good time to catch up with Elise and ask what she’s been doing lately.
[One more Editor’s Note: “Six Questions for…” was once a regular feature on this site. We’d like to resume doing these. The question is, do you find these author profile featurettes interesting?]
Published: 9/20/24
Maisie has never been anywhere interesting in her entire life. But now, the whole wide world is just a Blink® away...
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