The Pete Wood Challenge • “Outpost”

The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.

This time the challenge was to write a microfiction fiction piece keying off the word, “outpost,” whatever the writer might interpret that to mean. As usual, the results have ranged from amusing to disturbing. Without further ado, then, the winners are…

First Place:  “Ivy’s Tower” • by Gretchen Tessmer

Second Place: “Sending Love” • by Kimberly Ann Smiley

Honorable Mention:

“Lunar Ghosts” • by Sylvia Heike

“Anagram Ed” • by Ron Ferguson

“Trash-Talking Space Honky Trips Over the Finish Line” • by Brandon Case

Questionable Mention:

“Roadside Stand” • by Pete Wood

(Sometimes Pete can’t resist entering his own contests!)

Thanks to everyone who gave this challenge a try, and we look forward to seeing what you can do next month with the next Pete Wood Challenge!

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“Memories that Loop and Shatter” • by Brandon Case

 

The technician adheres a hypersleep ventilator to my scarred face. “You’ll wake on Alpha Centauri in twenty years. You shouldn’t dream.”

Good.

Everything fades.

§

“Daddy, why are you crying?” Billy sits on my knee in our garden.

Bees buzz, masking the drones.

I’ve tried running, tried dragging my son out of this final, peaceful moment.

It always ends the same.

“It’s okay, kiddo.” I force a smile and hold him to my chest as the firebombs fall.

He dies.

I don’t.

My heart shatters for the thousandth time.

The memory loop resets.

§

“Daddy, why are you crying?”

Shatter.

Reset.

§

“…Daddy?”

 

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 Brandon Case is an erstwhile government cog who fled the doldrums into unsettling worlds of science and magic. He has recent or forthcoming work in Escape Pod, Air and Nothingness Press, and The Dread Machine, among others. You can catch his alpine adventures on Twitter and Instagram @BrandonCase101.

P.S. If you appreciated this one, be sure to check out Brandon’s other recent contributions to Stupefying Stories, “Divided Sky, Stolen Life,” “Leave the Plasma Gun, Take the Cannoli,” “Writers Strike Reaches the Office of Predestination.”, and “Spin Drive Class with Captain Ryan.”

 

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Status Update • 07 August 2023

Okay, we have a lot of ground to cover today, so let’s get rolling.

STUPEFYING STORIES 24
Post-Launch After-Action Report

The SS#24 launch on Kindle went more quickly than expected and the rollout on other e-book readers continues at a nice pace. SS#24 is now available on Apple Books, Barnes & Noble Nook, Smashwords, Scribd, and a plethora of other platforms, including Rakuten Kobo. Sales to date have been not as good as I’d hoped for but much better than I’d feared they might be, and have been exclusively on Kindle so far. I’m told there are vast legions of Kobo owners out there who are eager to buy new fiction. Thus far I’m not seeing evidence to support this assertion.

Now that SS#24 is out on Kindle and has had a week to soak, I’m seeing some things with which I’m not happy, particularly in the formatting of “Mother’s Day” and the way the author’s names got dropped from the auto-generated Table of Contents on the Kindle. I’ve figured out how to fix these things and will be doing so this week, but am waiting to see if any more typos are reported before I do. I want to make certain all known fixes are included when we finalize the files for the print edition on Friday.

If you see something in the book that stands out as an obvious typo, let me know. 

Question: In looking at SS#24, I find myself fighting the urge to explain things. For example, Mike Adamson’s novelette, “Last Stop Paradise,” had a very different ending as first submitted. With a little help, Mike found the much better ending published here.

I had the good fortune to learn the editing trade from some really great editors—Ben Bova, Betsy Mitchell, George Scithers, and Charles C. Ryan—as well as to learn what not to do from the bad examples of some really terrible editors. Would anyone here be interested in a discussion of why I picked these particular stories to publish, and what sorts of changes were needed to take some of them from being very promising to being the really strong stories published here? 

Again: if so, let me know.

STUPEFYING STORIES 25
Pre-Launch Teaser. Coming September 1st.

Yes, we’re already at work on SS#25. Actually, that’s somewhat disingenuous. In-house we call this book TIFKA 24—The Issue Formerly Known As 24—and it’s the book Karen and I were working on when she died. I found it necessary to swap the release order of issues #24 and #25 in order to break through the impasse and get Stupefying Stories moving forward again.

We have momentum now, though, so it is with great pleasure that I tell you SS#25 will be released on September 1st, and unless there is some unforeseen problem, it will be released simultaneously in print and e-book editions. SS#25 features:

• “If We Shadows,” by Fred Coppersmith
• “The Demolition Job,” by Neva Bryan
• “Tin Lizzi,” by J. L. Royce
• “A Limited View,” by Gary Kloster
• “Two-Tone,” by Elise Stephens
• “Cloudbreaker Above,” by Brandon Nolta
• “Caliban’s Cameras,” by Allan Dyen-Shapiro
• “There Is Another Sky,” by Bo Balder
• “Something Came Through,” by Michael Burnside
• “The Wawa Stick,” by Karl El-Koura

Coming September 1st! Watch for it!

STUPEFYING STORIES 26
The Return of The Son of The Annual Horror Issue

We don’t have a mock-up cover for this one yet, so here’s one from the archives. In our early years our October horror issues were always well-received, but we made the mistake of trying to spin the horror stories off into a separate product line, lost the connection to the Stupefying Stories brand, and our horror titles all died terrible, miserable, agonizing deaths, screaming in inchoate horror at the inescapable eldritch fate that overtook them, one by one.

Which seems like a fitting way for a horror title to die, but speaking as the publisher, it sucked.

Therefore, coming October 1st, the Stupefying Stories annual horror issue returns. The TOC for this book is already about half full, and I’ll have more to say about that in a minute. But before we get to that…

 

STUPEFYING STORIES 27
The 40th Anniversary of “Cyberpunk”

I don’t know how I managed to overlook it until recently, but this coming November is the 40th Anniversary of the original magazine publication of “Cyberpunk.”

I bet you can imagine what we’re cooking up for that.

Again, I’ll have more to say about that in a minute. But before we get to that, we need to finish out the year, with…

STUPEFYING STORIES 28
“CLANKALOG”

You can blame Guy Stewart for this one. He was the one who suggested that since so many writers who began with Stupefying Stories have graduated to ANALOG, we should just go ahead and do an entire “not quite ready for ANALOG” issue. He had a lot of other very clever ideas for this issue as well, most of which I’m going to ignore as while they’d probably be quite amusing to the people who read LOCUS, all they’d do for us is confuse the branding issue again. So, sorry Guy, but this one will be SS#28. It’s going to be chock-full of hard SF—“science fiction so hard, it clanks,” was, I believe, your expression—and my goal is to produce an issue that would have made my old friend Ben Bova proud.

After which we’ll either be wildly successful or completely flat-broke. Which brings us to…

DONATIONS & SUBSCRIPTIONS

I have made a serious mistake. I have been too casual with my use of the word, “subscription.” I can ask readers to DONATE to support Stupefying Stories, and in exchange for your generous donation I can offer you a complimentary e-book (or coffee mug, or tote bag, or at the $100 level, the Blu-Ray concert disc, Slovenian Pink Floyd: Live at Budapest), but if I ask you to buy a “subscription” to the magazine, I immediately run afoul of a plethora of tax laws that have been handed down from the Mountains of Madness.

I apologize. I was so focused on figuring out the technical details of how to deliver e-books directly to people’s e-book readers and on-phone e-reader apps, it didn’t occur to me that for the past ten years legislative bodies all over the world have been busily working on how to get a piece of the e-book action—and boy, have they come up with tax codes that make “Byzantine” look simple in comparison.

Ergo: effective immediately, we can accept donations, but cannot sell subscriptions. I’ve already reached out to everyone on our donor/subscriber list and have heard back from most of them, but if you missed the email, and it was your understanding that you were sending us money to buy a subscription, let me know, and I will issue a refund.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you.

And now, as your reward for reading this far…

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS 

Beginning Monday, August 14th, we are reopening for submissions—but please note, this is NOT a general call for submissions. We are looking for four very specific things.

1. For SHOWCASE

The SHOWCASE daily free fiction project is going well. With some hiccups, daily readership is trending up. Therefore we’re going to continue doing SHOWCASE, and to do so, we need more very short stories, 1,000-words in length or shorter. For SHOWCASE only we will consider reprints. Payment is a flat $15 USD for original stories or $5 USD for reprints. Preference will be given to previously unpublished stories. This submissions window closes when we have accepted enough stories to keep SHOWCASE running through the end of October.

If you’re wondering what sort of fiction we’re looking for, the answer is simple: Read SHOWCASE. It’s free and there are loads of stories already out there, just waiting for you to discover them and share them with your friends. (Be advised, though, that commenting on older stories is restricted and all such comments are held pending moderation. We had to do that in order to discourage the spambots.)

IMPORTANT TIP: Microfiction (<150 words) is hard to do well. We see a lot of failed flash fiction pieces that are vignettes, not stories. A story has motion. Like a vignette, a good microfiction piece captures a moment, mood, or emotion, but also includes enough information to enable the reader’s imagination to fill in what’s happening outside of the image frame. Writing a good microfiction story is like showing your reader a still-frame from a movie and leading them to see where the movie began and where it’s likely to end.

2. For STUPEFYING STORIES 26

The October horror special is almost full, but we do have openings for a few first-rate horror stories. Payment is our usual 1.5-cents/word. Previously unpublished stories only. No reprints, although we will consider translations of stories not previously published in English. This submissions window closes when we have filled the October issue. Be advised that I have a special fondness for ghost stories and a special antipathy to serial killer stories.

3. For STUPEFYING STORIES 27

This being our first-ever cyberpunk issue, I already have a few stories lined up, but am still open to being impressed. Be advised, though, that not only are you trying to sell your story to The Guy Who Wrote “Cyberpunk,” you’re trying to sell your story to someone who just retired after a long career in supercomputer R&D. So if your idea of cyberpunk is Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 fanfic, I’ll save us both time and reject it now. I am looking specifically for stories that make me say, “Damn, I wish I’d written this!”

It can be done. But it can’t be done by writing Neuromancer fanfic, LitRPG, or staying stuck in 1985. If you want to be pointed in the right direction, read “Eddie’s Upgrade” by Kevin Stadt in SS#23.

Payment is our usual 1.5-cents/word. Previously unpublished stories only. No reprints. This window closes when we have filled the November issue.

4. For STUPEFYING STORIES 28

The best advice I can give you for this one is that I’m looking for more stories like Mike Adamson’s “Last Stop Paradise” in SS#24, or Gary Kloster’s “A Limited View” or Michael Burnside’s “Something Came Through” in SS#25. No magic. No fantasy. No paranormal anything. If you’re thinking hard SF is synonymous with military SF, read “Memory Makes Liars of Us All,” by Eric Dontigney. No thinly disguised Star Trek or Starship Troopers fanfic, please.

Payment is our usual 1.5-cents/word. Previously unpublished stories only. No reprints. This window closes when we have filled the December issue.

 

HOW AND WHERE TO SUBMIT

Send your submission as a Word or .rtf file attached to an email message, to:

submissions@rampantloonmedia.com

Please give your email message a meaningful subject line, such as the title of your story. If you include your author’s bio and optional photo along with your submission that will save us both time, but please give your photo file a meaningful name, such as your name. I receive far too many author’s photos in files named “headshot.jpg,” or “IMG_4022234.png,” or something equally unhelpful.

Any questions? 

Kind regards,
Bruce Bethke
Stupefying Stories | Rampant Loon Media LLC

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Today's SHOWCASE Post is Temporarily Delayed

I had a choice: work on Stupefying Stories or spend Sunday at the county fair with my grandchildren. The grandchildren won. Today’s post will go live later this morning.

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“The Statue Garden” • by Patricia Miller

I had grown used to visitors in my shady grove of trees. I was a good listener, they told me, and they poured out their sorrows and fears and joys. We would share a cup of tea or perhaps something foraged from the woods, and then the restful shade would bring us to silence and peace.

But the hills were no longer home to me. I was still nestled here amongst a few trees too straggly for the axe, but one by one, family by family, my people moved to land more easily tilled, or to work that didn’t require the backbreaking labor of farming. They no longer sought my company. I had grown lonely and thought my time and purpose had come to an end.

One day though, in early spring when the air was crisp and hope was plentiful, I heard a sound in the distance. A horse-drawn wagon was wending its way up the cart path. It stopped, just beyond the crest of the hill, and then footsteps crackled through the winter fall of leaves on the path to my grove.

A man carrying a basket over his arm presented himself to me. His hands clasped around each other, he bowed at the waist then straightened. He was younger than I expected. He couldn’t be carrying more than twenty summers upon his strong shoulders.

“Mother, I bring you greetings and ask for your blessing on my endeavors.”

I watched him silently. He was not of my people. He wasn’t particularly tall. An accent blurred his speech, and his eyes were a rich brown, unlike the blue my people shared, but his words and greeting spoke of a deep understanding of what was expected of him.

He backed away and opened the basket. He shook out a beautifully embroidered cloth and laid it at my feet. Next came two cups, a small brazier, a pot, a capped jug of water. He set up the brazier on a flat stone he’d placed in the center of the blanket.

While he moved through the ritual of brewing tea for us, he began to speak of a garden created by his grandfather and passed down to his father and then to him.

“It is a beautiful garden, Mother. Tall grasses and taller trees, running waters which sing over rock-strewn banks, and still ponds for quiet meditation. Winding paths meander through the many groves and meadows. There are flowers and bees during the growing season, birds and woodland creatures year-round. It is a sanctuary of sorts, where those who are weary can rest and those in need of companionship can find like company.”

It sounded wonderful, but I didn’t understand why he thought I needed to know about it. I accepted the small cup of tea in my outstretched hand, watched him sip at his own. I could not identify the tea. Its spicy scent was unknown to me but its warmth in my hand gave me comfort, just the same.

When he finished his tea, he stood and walked my meager grove, breathing deeply as he wandered amongst my few remaining trees. The sun glinted off bronze highlights in his hair, intricately braided with cord and ribbons. His movements were effortless in the way of someone who has trained for years to move just so. He was comfortable in his skin, in his soul.

“You deserve more than this loneliness, Mother, and if you would permit me, I should like to take you home with me, where you are welcome to live out your days in the shelter of my garden.”

I gave my consent.

§

He brought friends to help. They took such care to see I was well-wrapped; protected from the weather and jostling of the cart. The journey took days longer than I expected. I had not realized until then just how far away my people had moved from me.

He placed me on a small hill at the back of his garden, within easy distance of the brook. Cuttings from my few trees were grafted onto young saplings which shared space with a number of established pines sheltering me from the wind. Rocks and offering stones from my grove were in position at my feet, just as they always had been. I was able to celebrate the Solstice—my favorite feast day—in my new home.

§

The garden is vast, filled with secret places made sacred by the statues of my brethren standing among them. Sometimes we visit with each other, for though we were formed in different places and worshipped in different ways, we were born of the same necessity and share much in common.

We acknowledge those days and seasons we hold dear, recount the joys and gifts we once bestowed on our worshippers. We remember the old times, before worship became regulated by clocks and bells and priests far removed from us.

Sometimes we make our farewells to the ancient ones who reach their final peace and allow themselves to be released forever into the wind. We mark their passing with rites long forgotten by anyone alive.

There are also other visitors: the curious who study us; the artists who wish to capture our character and the beauty which surrounds us; and occasionally, one of our own people who has learned of the garden, and so comes to seek solace and forgiveness.

I am not lonely on my little hill, surrounded by a grove of trees standing tall and strong. I have found a new purpose in this garden.

_________________

 

Patricia Miller is a US Navy veteran who writes SF, fantasy, horror and romance. She is a member of SFWA and CODEX.

Publications include short fiction in A Quaint and Curious Volume of Gothic Tales, 206 Words, Amazing Offer!, and the Cinnabar Moth Literary Collection e-zine. Upcoming publications include short stories for Brigid’s Gate Press, Cinnabar Moth Press, Zooscape Magazine, Wyngraf, and Touchstone Press.

P.S. If you enjoyed this story, consider reading “Kickstarting Fate”, “Sins of the Father,”, “The No-Win Scenario,” or “Omiwatari,” also on Stupefying Stories.

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“Do you miss Firefly? Do you like The Expanse? If so, then Privateers of Mars is exactly what you need. [...] Structured as three loosely interconnected short stories, it reads like three episodes of a great science fiction show that you wish someone would make.”

—Amazon reader review

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“Of Two Minds” • by A. L. Sirois

 

As the supermarket door slid open, Howe automatically patted the right pocket of his windbreaker to make sure his food stamps were still there. As usual, he calculated how much he could carry back to his apartment ten blocks away.

If I get a half-gallon of milk, I won’t be able to get seltzer, too. And I need eggs…

It was always a trade-off. Even ten years ago he could have carried two well-laden plastic bags. In the interim something had happened to his right shoulder and left wrist, but he wasn’t the sort of person who believed in doctors.

The mere thought made him snort in derision. I’m just old, that’s all. A young woman pushing a shopping cart gave him a cold glance. “Did you say something?”

“Uh, no. I coughed.”

Knowing he was blushing, Howe hurried to the fruit section. As he reached to pick up a Macoun apple for inspection, his vision blurred. He squeezed his eyes shut. Should do something about these cataracts. When he opened them he was standing in some sort of conference room done in gray and mauve. A polished wooden table stretched out before him; men and women in suits sat with electronic devices and cups of coffee in front of them. Howe blinked in astonishment, then shut his eyes tight once more.

When he opened them, he was back in the supermarket.

What was that? Behind him, someone cleared her throat, and said, “Excuse me!” Howe turned. It was the young woman with the shopping cart.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, and moved aside. Suddenly a wave of dizziness overcame him, and he fell to the floor.

§

Aziz Boggaverapu sits midway down the conference table, his hands in front of him, fingers splayed. He resists the urge to tap them on the polished table top.

Cassie Woolverton, the well-tailored blonde woman sitting beside him, leans closer to whisper, “Mary’s in one foul mood today.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” he murmurs.

God, how he hates Mary. But no trace of that shows on his face, which bears an expression of bored attentiveness.

Mary Woodruff stands at the head of the table glaring at Aziz and the rest of her twelve subordinates. “We have a problem,” she says, casting a frigid eye at the young bond traders. “One of you has been doing inside trades. No one leaves this room until I find out who.”

Aziz is careful not to change his expression. How has the bitch found out? He exhales slowly. He’s worked on this scheme for over a year and a half! Well, she can’t know of his involvement, otherwise he would have been out the door by now, likely in handcuffs.

At that moment the world ends. What will later be explained by cosmologists as a quantum-quake—a continuum-wide “reboot”—propagates through the entire volume of space-time in fifteen zeptoseconds.

Suddenly Mary frowns and lifts her hand to her forehead. Aziz leans closer. Is she ill? No; she has recovered and is opening her sneering mouth to speak.

Instead, she stands straighter, and her eyes roll up until the whites show. She mutters something, and Aziz goes cold. Was it something about him? The two people closest to Mary at the table—Charles Hix to her left and Tessa Lambert to her right—exchange wide-eyed glances.

Then Mary collapses.

Pandemonium! Aziz leaps from his chair, takes a couple of steps and grabs Hix by the shoulder. “What did she just say?”

Hix looks blankly at him. “‘Apples,’” he says.

“What?”

“Apples. She said, ‘apples.’” 

§

Howe came to with people all around him. One man, young, in a beautiful sharkskin suit, spoke urgently into his cell phone. “Send an ambulance to 383 Madison Avenue, ninth floor,” he was saying.

Madison Avenue? Well, that couldn’t be right. The supermarket was in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. There was no Madison Avenue in Doylestown. What—?

He lifted a hand to rub his eyes then stared at it in shock: dusky, with a bracelet and a wedding band. The nails were painted dark red.

“Oh my God!” His voice was that of a woman.

§

Mary opens her eyes to an incomprehensible scene. People crowd around her, none of them in suits. There is no conference table. There are displays of food on each side, and people with—shopping carts? A man bends over her.

“Are you all right, buddy?”

Someone else says, “Don’t crowd him, give him air.”

Mary almost grins. Why do people say that whenever someone passes out? Wait— I passed out… where the hell am I? And who’s “him”?

Someone reaches down to her, and Mary raises her hands to push him away. The hands are the wrong color. They belong to a much older person. The knuckles are hairy. They are a man’s hands.

She opens her mouth to cry out and is hit by a second wave of lightheadedness as though she’s stood up too quickly. She blinks away the grey.

Her subordinates are grouped around her, helping her up from the floor.

“I’m all right,” she murmurs. “All right.”

She repeats it for the EMTs when they arrive, and it’s only with difficulty that they are dissuaded from taking her to the hospital.

“I’ll check with my primary,” she says in dismissal. “I’m too busy for this sort of thing right now.”

Over time, her co-workers notice that she has become a calmer and more thoughtful person. This change is attributed to her “attack.”

§

Howe shook his head a little to clear his vision. When he could see properly once more, he was back in the supermarket and people were helping him up from the floor.

Later that day he went to Mass for the first time in decades. The memory of the Shift, as he came to think of it, stayed vividly with him for the remainder of his life, vanquishing his years-long depression.

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A. L. Sirois writes: 

“I made my first story sale fifty years ago this year, shortly followed by another. My first book was, oddly enough, a children’s book, DINOSAUR DRESS UP, published in 1992. Since then, I’ve published several other books, mostly science fiction, fantasy, and horror. I’ve also ghostwritten more than a dozen works of science fiction, fantasy, memoirs, and cozy mysteries. My short story ‘In the Conservatory’ was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. My next novel, Murder in Mennefer, is upcoming from Regal House in 2024.”

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“The Perfect Score” • by Jamie Lackey

Shura flipped through one score, then another, then another. She needed something that wouldn’t be too difficult to learn quickly, but would sound impressive. Something that none of the other pianists in her bracket would be playing, but not something completely unknown. 

Something that would impress her father, and even more importantly, her mother. 

She took a deep breath, fighting down a wave of anxiety. 

She picked up another score and hummed along to the melody, till she noticed the frazzled student two tables down. She wasn’t alone, and this was the library—she couldn’t hum, what kind of monster hummed in the library. 

“Sorry,” Shura said.

The other student, a girl in a green sweater and shark earrings, actually smiled at her. “It’s fine.” 

She glanced up at the clock overhead—she had just over an hour before the library closed. Shura groaned. She had to pick a new piece tonight, had to start practice in earnest tomorrow, or she’d never be ready. 

Shark-earring girl shoved one book about the physics of time travel into a bag and left the rest in an untidy stack on the put-away cart. “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she said. 

Shura managed a smile. “You too.” 

The girl hesitated, then blurted out, “I heard you play at the last recital. You were amazing.”

Shura blushed. “Thank you. That means a lot. And I’m sorry for the humming.” 

“It’s really okay. But if you want to make it up to me, maybe we can get a coffee sometime, after finals?” 

She was cute, and it would be nice to have something to look forward to, after her performance. No matter how it ended up going. “I’d love that,” Shura said. “Here, let me give you my number.” 

“I’m Dana, by the way.” 

“Shura.” 

“Cool. I’ll text you!” 

Shura watched Dana walk away, then wrenched her focus back to the task at hand. 

Shura flipped frantically through the scores she hadn’t examined yet, but hope was dying in her heart. 

She flipped open the next score, and a note fell into her lap. It was folded up into a small square, like the notes Shura had passed in middle school. Her name was written on it, in her own handwriting. 

She unfolded the note and found a map of the campus, carefully sketched in green gel pen. The stops were carefully numbered, again in her own handwriting. 

She had never seen this map before. 

She turned the page over. Go on, was scrawled on the back, still eerily in her own hand, you’re not going to have any luck sitting around. You know you’re curious.

Then, just below that, in unfamiliar handwriting, Don’t forget the crayon!

Shura glanced around and spotted a purple crayon tucked into the book that the note had fallen out of. 

The note was right. She was curious. Shura grabbed the crayon and went. 

The first stop on the map was Shura’s freshman dorm, right where her parents had dropped her off for the first time. She remembered how her mother had hugged her so hard she couldn’t breathe, how her father had hidden his tears by faking an allergy attack. 

On the sidewalk, incised right where they’d been standing, was a glowing M. She used the purple crayon to take a rubbing of it on the back of the map. 

When she lifted the paper, the letter was gone. She had no idea what was happening. It felt like magic. 

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Hey! This is Dana. From the library. Just now.

Shura couldn’t help smiling as she saved Dana’s number. Hi Dana. I’m glad you texted!

The next stop on her magic map was a statue in the middle of the commons. It had been donated decades ago by a successful alumna, and it was one of Shura’s favorite things in the world. It was the first thing that had made campus feel like it could be home. 

It was a bronze tree, its rough bark, delicate flowers, and cascading leaves all oxidized to a chalky green, except for one burnished spot, where students brushed their fingers along its cool surface for luck. 

There was a number right in the middle of that shiny blotch. Shura caressed it, then captured it with her purple crayon. 

Her phone buzzed. Are you free for coffee on Tuesday at 2? 

Dana’s texts felt like a tether to reality, but they didn’t burst the strange bubble of whatever was happening to her. Would 2:30 be okay?

The next stop was by the creek at the edge of campus, where one of Shura’s friends had fallen in during a midnight hike. Shura had jumped in after her. Another number glinted from one of the rocks. 

2:30 is perfect! Ground Zero?

It’s a date. At least Shura hoped it was a date. 

She found the next number on the piano in her favorite practice room, etched into middle C. She’d spent countless hours in this room, maybe more than any of her dorm rooms.

She sat down on the bench and played “Clair de Lune,” because it was her favorite, and just because she could. 

Dana had sent a few texts while she was playing. 

<3

Ah, crap, it’s probably too soon for a heart emoji.

Sorry!!

Please don’t cancel, I swear I’m not a total weirdo.

Ugh, I wish I actually had a working time machine so I could stop myself from sending that.

Having a time machine means never having to say “too soon.”

Shura laughed and texted back, feeling daring and invincible. I’m looking forward to learning more about time travel. <3 

The last stop was the stage where the competition would be held, and the last number was etched into an armrest in the front row, between the seats reserved for her parents at her recital. She sat down and looked up at the stage, at the grand piano that dominated the space and seemed to glow with its own soft light. 

She wondered if Dana would be coming.

She wondered what it would be like to watch her own children—or nieces or nephews or students—compete on a stage like this. Wondered what mix of pride and anxiety and love she might feel. 

Maybe her parents would both be proud of her, no matter what song she played. 

Maybe the only one she needed to prove herself to was herself. 

She headed back to the library with a call number embossed in purple crayon on the back of her map.

It led her to a slim green music score. Shura opened the book and blinked away surprised tears. “Clair de Lune.” Too familiar. Overdone. But her favorite. She tucked the map between its pages and nodded. It was perfect. 

____________________________

Jamie Lackey lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and their cats. She has had over 170 short stories published in places like Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex Magazine, and Escape Pod. Her first appearance in our pages was “Music from the Air” in Stupefying Stories 4. She’s created five successful crowdfunding campaigns to self-publish two novellas, a novelette, two flash fiction collections, and a short story collection. She also has a novella and two short story collections available from Air and Nothingness Press. In addition to writing, she spends her time reading, playing tabletop RPGs, baking, and hiking. You can find her online at www.jamielackey.com.

If you enjoyed this story, be sure to check out her story “The Gentlepeople,” now out in Stupefying Stories 24.

 

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“10 Ways to Survive an SF Story” • by Travis Burnham

So, you find yourself a character in a short science fiction story. You’re not in a novel, so you have less time to act. Here are some ways that the writer of your tale won’t tire of you and kill you off. Pay close attention and you might live to the end of the narrative by following these tips:

1. Embrace Paranoia. When your neighbor, a plucky, precocious high school student tells you, “The Narvomian Polymorphs have infiltrated our federal government! It will only be hours before they take control of the country’s nuclear weapon arsenal and eliminate all our major cities,” why not take her seriously? It certainly couldn’t hurt to email a few of your old military buddies who work in internal investigations or NASA.
   
   
2. Don’t Be a Jerk. If you show off your winning dialogue and how you get on swimmingly with other characters, you might avoid an untimely death. If you say something like, “I kicked Baxter, your puppy, to teach you a lesson that there’s no such thing as aliens,” who isn’t going to want to see you die? Might I suggest: “Why, Heather, that’s a handsome pup you have. Let’s check on some of those clues that you’ve uncovered about an alien invasion.”
   
   
3. Be a Catalyst for Motivation Before Disaster Strikes. Does anyone close to you have a whole bunch of power that they’re just letting go to waste? Do you work for an organization that just can’t seem to get themselves together? Would your death offer them motivation? If you can picture your friend shaking his fist at the sky and saying, “If only I’d taken you seriously about the alien invasion. Now I’ll join the fight and make those Narvomian scumbags pay!” then that’s bad news. Now that you’ve seen the wisdom of being a motivator, you have a choice. You can be an alarmist whose mad rantings will most likely be ignored, or you can carefully gather evidence and present an airtight case. Choose wisely.
   
   
4. Be Useful! Have you kept your fighting skills sharp? Do you have a degree in extraplanar physics? Do you keep up with your firearm practice? In short, don’t be the extraneous character. Be Johnny-on-the-Spot, the one able to say: “You need me to fix that? It turns out that Bose-Einstein Condensate Alien DNA Detectors are my specialty! And with the evidence you brought me, it looks like you might be right about that invasion!”
   
   
5. Play the Long Game. Look for your growth areas and have a character arc. Everyone loves a redemption story, so find whatever faults you’ve had in the past, and change them as fast as you can and still remain sincere. “I knew how to hot-wire that van we just stole because I used to be a thieving, murdering criminal, but I’ve changed all that seeing the inhumanity of those evil Narvomians!”
   
   
6. Don’t Hurt Animals. Seriously. Never. Even if you’re driving at breakneck speed and you need to swerve off a cliff to avoid hitting that squirrel. You can always jump from the car before the cliff. Dogs? If you’re in a story, hurting a dog is like committing suicide. Quintuple your odds of surviving by being the one to say: “I took the plasma blast for Baxter because that’s the kind of empathy that separates us from those damn aliens! We’ll still get to the launch center on time!”
   
   
7. Be Brave, Not Stupid. Have a sense of agency, but don’t take idiotic risks. If you’re the martyr on the front lines, you’ll only be the cannon fodder that gives other characters a reason to continue on. “We could charge the main gate and fight our way through the Narvomian Death Squad stationed there, but I think it would be better to sneak in through the backdoor that I saw on the schematics.”
   
   
8. Be on the lookout for foreshadowing. Do you see a Red Ampere Laser Rifle on the wall? If it’s not going to be fired, it wouldn’t be hanging there. Quietly tuck it beneath the couch cushions so that only you know where it is. If you can’t remove it, take the clip out, so if you happen to find yourself on the business end of the rifle, you’ll only hear a click when someone pulls the trigger. “The laser rifle that was above the mantel? I can’t say that I’ve seen it anywhere.”
   
   
9. Closely Examine Your Dialogue. If you’ve given a smarmy smile, followed by a comment like: “The alien overlord would surely kill us all on this dark and stormy night, Heather, if it weren’t for this trusty Red Ampere Laser Rifle that I have cunningly hidden here, in my customized shoulder holster with gold sequins,” then you’re in a bad SF short story. Prayers and luck are your only weapons in this scenario as you may be offed for shock value, or just to make people sad. You can always hope for resurrection, which is rife in bad stories! Addendum: Be very cautious in offering wisdom to young, naïve characters. Mentors often don’t last—don’t be a mentor! See also #3.
   
   
10. Do Some Soul Searching. There’s one last possibility. Does it seem like you can’t trust the people around you? Having trouble thinking of the last time you performed a random act of kindness? Maybe you recently said, “You’re a fool, Johnny Dux, to think you could ever prevent me from entering the launch sequences because I am ridiculously more powerful than you. Luckily, you don’t have your Red Ampere Laser Rifle, the only item that could possibly defeat me.” If that was you, you’re probably done for. Sorry to break the news, but everyone loves to see a villain get their just desserts. And let’s face it, fiction where the villain wins just doesn’t sell.
    
    

_________________________

 

Travis Burnham is an SF&F writer and science teacher. His work has or will soon appear in Far Fetched Fables, Hypnos Magazine, South85 Journal, Dream of Shadows, and Stupefying Stories, of course, among other places. His most recent previous story for us was “The Vagaries of Losing and Finding.” If you have not read it, you should check it out.

Originally from New England, he’s lived in Japan, Colombia, Portugal, and the Marianas Islands, and currently teaches science at an international school in Malta. He’s a bit of a thrill seeker, having bungee-jumped in New Zealand, hiked portions of the Great Wall of China, and gone scuba diving in Bali. He’s got some novels currently looking for homes and can be found online at travisburnham.blogspot.com, or infrequently on twitter @Darwins_Finch. 

 

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The Stupefying Stories 24 World Conquest Continues!

Stupefying Stories 24 is now live on Amazon Kindle worldwide and continues to go live on new ebook platforms almost hourly. The following links are tested and known good.

Kobo

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/stupefying-stories-24

Apple Books

https://books.apple.com/us/book/id6456485322

Barnes & Noble / Nook

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/stupefying-stories-24-beth-cato/1143855512 

Smashwords

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1431711

Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/book/662398404/Stupefying-Stories-24-Stupefying-Stories-24

Palace Marketplace

https://market.thepalaceproject.org/item/5594501

Tolino / Thalia

https://www.thalia.de/shop/home/artikeldetails/A1069277008

Vivlio

https://shop.vivlio.com/product/9781958333105_9781958333105_10020/stupefying-stories-24

Amazon Kindle

US - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CDB3HC83

UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CDB3HC83

Canada - https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CDB3HC83

Australia - https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0CDB3HC83

Japan - https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0CDB3HC83

Mexico - https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B0CDB3HC83

Brazil - https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B0CDB3HC83

Spain - https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0CDB3HC83

Netherlands - https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B0CDB3HC83

Germany - https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0CDB3HC83

France - https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0CDB3HC83

Also available on:

OverDrive, Odilo, Baker & Taylor, Borrow Box, Gardners, Bibliotecha

But we don’t have known-good links for these outlets.

Coming soon to:

Hoopla

I’m particularly happy to be on Kobo and Apple Books, as these platforms get us distribution into places where even Amazon doesn’t reach. 

This list will be updated as new links go live.

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“The Librarian” • by Adriana Kantcheva

The August sky was spilling its insides in unbroken rods of water. By the time I reached the library at Trinity College in Dublin, my dress was completely soaked. I wondered if they would allow me in so wet: yet another wretched tourist.

A shadow moved beside the library. The rain stopped whipping in my face for a second, and the shadow resolved into an old man wrapped in a rain poncho. Strands of wet hair crawled from underneath his hood, which couldn’t keep his long, sharp nose dry. A curving forefinger emerged from underneath the poncho and beckoned to me.

Curiosity gnawed at my caution. I lived my life inside the books I read, wondering when my story would begin. This seemed to be it. I hurried towards the old man. I was about to reach him when he disappeared into a gap. It bore a street sign: Old Library Lane.

I peeked in. The old man skulked down the rain-sodden passage. He opened a door and disappeared into the library building, leaving the door ajar. A wizened hand appeared through the crack and again beckoned to me.

I hesitated. But I so wished to participate in a story worth telling. I pulled the door open to reveal lantern-lit stairs spiraling down. The man’s poncho disappeared behind the nearest turn.

“Where are we going?” I asked when I caught up with my guide.

“To the library.”

“I thought the library was above us.”

“Not all of it.”

I ignored a shiver. “Who are you?”

“The Librarian.”

He smiled a graveyard of browned teeth and removed his dripping poncho to uncover a weathered suit at least two sizes too large. The tails of the bleached coat hung below the backs of his knees.

“Doesn’t the university employ several librarians?”

“But I am the Librarian.” He stopped. “Here we are.”

We halted in front of a second door. I raised an eyebrow at the inscription above it: Caution! Live stories.

We entered a large chamber. Candle flames danced on massive chandeliers. Cabinets reached up to the ceiling, forming a labyrinth of aisles. And the books? There were thousands and thousands of them! Some with ragged edges, others bound in shiny new leather. Some contained not but ten pages, others could stop doors, but all were breathing, whispering with a dry susurrus as if pages turned, covers flapped.

“Let’s see,” the Librarian said. He looked me over. “Definitely a hardcover. Title in uneven letters, I think. Paper of medium weight.”

As he talked, his hands wove colorful jets in the stagnant air. The room spun about me.

“Eleven-point font size, I’d say.” His voice was growing dim. “Gothic style. Page numbering in the bottom margin, centered. Definitely centered…”

The Librarian was still talking, but I could hardly make out the words. He picked me up.

“Bookcase 85 is the right place for you,” I barely heard him say.

 

---

 

 

Adriana Kantcheva is a Bulgarian writer based in Germany, where she lives with her husband and their three children. After earning a Ph.D. in molecular biology, Adriana worked as a science editor and a researcher, and currently enjoys being a flight attendant. Her writing appears in Short Circuit, Escape Pod, and elsewhere. Find more about her at catchingwords.com or connect with her on Twitter @AKantcheva.

“The Librarian” first appeared in Shoreline of Infinity 29.

 

 

 

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Stupefying Stories 24 • IT'S ALIVE!

AMAZON KINDLE LINK - More links coming soon!

UPDATE:

Okay, these links are known good:
US - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CDB3HC83
UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CDB3HC83
Canada - https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CDB3HC83
Australia - https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0CDB3HC83
Japan - https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0CDB3HC83
Mexico - https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B0CDB3HC83
Brazil - https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B0CDB3HC83
Spain - https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0CDB3HC83
Netherlands - https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B0CDB3HC83
Germany - https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0CDB3HC83
France - https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0CDB3HC83
Italy - https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0CDB3HC83

In theory it's also available in India, but the link Amazon provided returns an error 404. Amazon UK *really* wanted to redirect me to the Amazon US page. Amazon Japan has put an "adult content" warning on the book and asked me to confirm that I'm 18 or older. A couple of the Amazon sites required me to do a Captcha before it would let me view the page; the first time Amazon France did so it required me to read and retype a string of letters, one of which is not on my keyboard. I lucked out the second time.

Kobo and Apple rejected the book as initially submitted because it mentioned Amazon and Goodreads in the afterword. We’ve updated the file to remove the “offensive content” and have resubmitted it. Cross your fingers.  

____________________

I can’t begin to tell you what a relief it is to see STUPEFYING STORIES 24 finally finished and on the pad, fully fueled and ready to launch. There have been a lot of times when I thought we’d never make it this far. If you’ve been following the Stupefying Stories blog (stupefyingstories.blogspot.com) or me personally on Facebook, you know the past four years have been challenging, to put it mildly, and the past year especially has been nearly unspeakable.

Yet, here we are: tired, but very proud of our work, and eagerly counting down the last seconds until we push the button and light this candle.

And yes, this is most definitely a “we” and “our” effort. I may be the face and voice of Stupefying Stories, but I would never have gotten this far without the help and support of a lot of people. My thanks go out to the stalwart Henry Vogel, for sharing some of his courage when I had none of my own left; to Pete Wood, for pushing me to keep this thing going every time I was ready to pack it in and call it quits; to the indispensable Sharon Cherri, for more help, support, and in-the-trenches tactical editorial assistance than I have the space to describe here; to Don Muchow, for delivering the whole state of Wisconsin when all we asked for was a little cheese; and especially to our generous Subscribers and Donors, who have voted with their wallets to keep the Stupefying Stories project going. There is an old saying in the aerospace industry: “No bucks, no Buck Rogers.” Thanks to your support we now have a schedule and budget in place for the next five issues, and we’re making good progress on securing the funding.

Thank you!

I am really pleased, and slightly surprised, by how quickly and easily Stupefying Stories 24 came together once we fully committed to doing it. We have a really nice mix of science fiction and fantasy stories here, by a really good mix of authors. You'll find stories by writers who have been with us from the beginning—Jamie Lackey, Beth Cato, Pete Wood, and Robert Lowell Russell—by new friends, some of whom have already appeared in recent issues or on the Stupefying Stories website—Andrew Jensen, Avery Elizabeth Hurt, Mike Adamson, and Karl Dandenell—by one shining star who has become a fan favorite on our website but is now making her first appearance in the pages of our magazine—Carol Scheina—and by one really old friend, but you’d had to have been reading Asimov’s and Amazing back in the 1980s to know just how far back Phillip C. Jennings and I go together, and yet this is his first appearance in our magazine.

Speaking of the magazine: I keep looking at that cover. I picked the artwork because it’s exciting, colorful, and dramatic, but what exactly is it? A phoenix? A dragon? Rodan emerging from the Isla da Mara volcanic crater? Is it simply, as one person suggested, an image of all Hell breaking loose? The artist wasn’t much help. They titled this painting, “wizard summoning the phoenix from hell.” Shrug. We paid them for artwork, not to teach mythology and folklore.

It is, I have decided, a phoenix—and it’s us, rising from the flaming wreckage that was the past four years. The past is behind us. It’s time to discover the future. All systems are go.    

Now let’s launch this thing!

Per aspera ad astra,
Bruce Bethke

 

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