Current Issue Highlights
November/December 2024
We may be talking about what’s coming up in the wintery final issue of the year, but summer is still a few weeks away as I write this at the end of May. Luckily, the stories next issue are great, whenever you read them!
Our lead story has an unusual contest in an even more unusual place, when a human is enlisted to help some familiar aliens learn how to race sailboats in “The Far Uncharted Ocean,” by Auston Habershaw.
Our primary nonfiction piece in the issue is part fact article, part speculative thought-exercise, in David S. Lindsay’s “Interstellar Paranoia.”
We also have the final installment of Shane Tourtellotte’s history of an alien space program (started in “The Malady,” November/December, 2021): “The Outsiders”—all will be revealed! And of course we have much more in store, from Sean McMullen, Kelsey Hutton, Matt McHugh, Jerry Oltion, and others, plus all our regular columns and features.
NOVELETTES
That Far, Uncharted Ocean
by Auston Habershaw
It was unclear why I was going. At first I thought it was some top secret thing—something above my clearance as an officer in the coast guard. Later, I’d figured out that nobody knew. The navy and air force brass were pissed off every time they saw me at a briefing. I knew that look: what’s this puddle pirate doing here? Couldn’t we find a competent officer in any other branch? I think behind the scenes they were railing against space command and those guys from the State Department about it, but they stood firm. Lieutenant Commander Amos Tambly USCG was the guy they wanted, the guy they needed to make First Contact. READ MORE
A Short Future History of Whales
by Jenny Williams
#Phoebe
Today the obstetrician informed me that you are approximately five and a half inches across—the size of a large avocado, she pointed out, a comparison that makes me almost as squeamish as morning sickness. Why would I want to think of you as something to spread on toast? I prefer knowing that you are only slightly smaller than the eye of a blue whale, and you, too, are developing your senses underwater. READ MORE
POETRY
Gardeners and Cosmologists
by Mario Milosevic
A new theory of the universe starts in the fall
and suggests dormancy. When space and time
experience a good hard freeze, the big bang READ MORE
DEPARTMENTS
Guest Editorial: Homo Obsolescens?
by Howard V. Hendrix
I. Population Velocity
In biological Latin, obsolescens means “becoming obsolete, rudimentary, or extinct.” More broadly it suggests “wearing out, decaying, falling into disuse, losing value, disappearing.” READ MORE
Alternate View: A Mitochondrial Jumpstart for Age Reversal
by John G. Cramer
Mitochondria are the powerhouses of living human cells. They are tiny bacteria-like organelles that reside within a cell and provide it with energy, busily converting food-derived molecules into ATP (adenosine triphosphate, C10H16N5O13P3), the fuel that cells actually use for all of their energy needs. Humans go through around fifty kilograms of ATP per day, and each mitochondrion in a human cell produces about 108 ATP molecules per second. READ MORE
Reference Library
by Rosemary Claire Smith
Do you love how science fiction writers find creative ways to update themes and tropes that have fascinated some of the stalwarts of our field for decades? I’m talking about characters such as the hotshot space pilot with deadly aim and relationship issues, or the cynical private investigator who also could stand to do serious work on their interpersonal skills. READ MORE
Upcoming Events
by Anthony Lewis
Check here for the latest conventions upcoming in November and December. READ MORE