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Tag: science fiction

Deep and Blue Coming May 1!

Good evening, friends! I’ve been hard at work getting my former serial Deep and Blue ready to be released into the world! The book has been edited, streamlined, and made pretty (with fish, because yay fish), and we’ll be releasing it in ebook form come May 1. Here’s the cover: And here’s the description: When the surface became unlivable, humanity retreated under the waves.  In the underwater city of Haven, oceanographer Kaeri has been given her first assignment: a coveted spot on the team working to return the people of Haven to the surface.  No friends. No family. An opportunity to earn her place.  Not quite ostracized but never welcomed, Kaeri has never belonged. Something about her parents, though no one has ever explained what. And though she has become a respected scientist, people still shy away from her in the corridors, their conversations dying away.  The new job is a chance to change all that. But before she can begin, strange things start happening. Shadows flit across the security cameras. Doors to airlocks and power generators unlock themselves. And people, across the city, are being attacked by something invisible.  If Kaeri can save Haven from these mysteries, people will have to accept her. But digging into Haven’s secrets may bring answers that were better left alone. ~*~*~*~ I hope you guys enjoy the new and improved version of Deep and Blue! It’s been a lot of fun revisiting the story.

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Let’s Talk About Books!

Oof. May was A Month, friends. But it’s behind us now, and let us not dwell on the many disasters it contained (except perhaps the basement, which is still having, shall we say, issues). (Also, if you missed it, the first part of my new serial, Across Worlds with You, is now up! You’ll get a new part every month until we’re done.) But anyway, let’s talk about books. Specifically the books I have read lately. I mostly read scifi and fantasy (and my guilty pleasure, cozy mysteries) but I do try to read outside of that periodically to expand my horizons and all that jazz. We Have Always Been Here, by Lena Nguyen (2021, science fiction) I really liked this one! Aside from colony missions and strange new planets and other things you’d expect in scifi, you also get an interesting delve into consciousness, what makes us human, androids, and interpersonal relationships. I basically read it all in one sitting, which is hard because it wasn’t short. Built, by Roma Agrawal (2018, nonfiction) We have a local restaurant that uses random books for decorations, and this one caught my eye, and then when I looked it up it sounded interesting, so I hunted it down. Ms. Agrawal is an architectural engineer, and she explains how things like skyscrapers and giant bridges and what have you get built, as well as looking at historical examples and how they worked (or didn’t). I learned quite a bit! Not least of which…

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A Piece of You

by Siri Paulson Your “hand” arrived today. Okay, okay, the haptic feedback glove that you programmed at our home on Mars arrived today. Strange to think how many months it’s been since you touched it, Marisol, and yet the pressure of its fingers on mine feels exactly as if you were here with me. The glove is supposed to make me feel less lonely – just me, myself, and I, Sophie Runningdeer-Lopez, out here in this tin can of a communications array for another year, with the Sun so far away it’s just another star. Funny thing is, I was doing just fine until it arrived. I have my embroidery and my book-reader, and I talk to the techs operating the next array over in each direction – except Karl, who insists on misgendering me – which gives me several ongoing conversations even if there’s a half-hour lag on each. Of course, conversations hum inaudibly through the array all around me; the irony of my solitude is staggering, she says dryly. It was easier when I could just put you in a little mental box, and pull you out every once in a while to think about our life together, and then shut you away again. But you would want me to use the glove, even if it wasn’t required for all solitary workers. I imagine you with the holographic sensors covering your skin, thinking of me as you went methodically through all the motions that the glove recorded. Methodical…

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The Spell and the Burn

a free sci-fi short story by Erin Zarro This was the place.                 The school had stood here once, many years ago. The imprint of my trauma still lingered; I felt it in the wind.                 The Book had said to find a place with resonance. A place where the path of my life had completely changed.                 I took a breath, let it out. I didn’t want to remember, but for this to work, I had to face the memories.                 Afterward, my life hadn’t been horrible. I’d gone to college and had become a nurse. I had had a job at a prestigious medical center.                 I’d retired from there. My co-workers had thrown a huge retirement party for me. I’d gone home. I’d felt amazing. I’d done good in this world. I’d never married, but that had never bothered me.                 Until I’d found the Book.                 If I hadn’t been traumatized, hospitalized, and shunned by my peers …maybe someone would have loved me. I’d always felt wrong in my skin, completely unlovable.                 And then…                 I’d found the Book, and my life was about to change once again.                 Yes, this is the place where I’d do the ritual.                 I set the bag I’d bought on the grass and rummaged through it for my supplies. Salt for the magical circle. A pentagram necklace. A ceremonial blade.  Candles.                 The sun was setting, and the sky became alive with multicolored hues and golden light. I…

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Superstition’s Night by Kit Campbell

“…and they reached the safety of the light, and all was well.” Amara turned off her comp-pad’s screen and placed the device on the side of Braedon’s berth. She stood, straightening his blankets, before bending to press a kiss to his forehead. “Good night. I’ll see you in the morning.” She retrieved the comp-pad and headed toward the corridor.  “Mom?” Braedon called. There was a little tremor to his voice that gave her immediate pause.  She returned to his berth, sinking onto the blankets beside him. “What is it?” “The story–why were they so afraid of the dark? What was in it?” Amara chuckled lightly, tucking the blankets tighter around her child. “Oh, dearest, there’s nothing in the dark. There never was. But this is an old story, one your grandfather used to tell me his grandfather told him, back when they were still on Earth. They didn’t know any better, back then. The dark was scary merely because they couldn’t see what was there, not because anything was.” She paused, gazing out the porthole at the stars beyond, the edges of the asteroid they inhabited just barely visible from this angle. “Besides, it’s never dark here. Not when the light of the universe surrounds us.” Braedon nodded slightly, smiling up at her. “Thanks, Mom.” He rolled onto his side, and Amara took her leave. Poor child. Maybe the story had been too scary for him. But it was good to look at older stories, to see what humanity had…

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Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin

Did you all hear the news that legendary SF author Ursula K. Le Guin passed away recently? Her death leaves a great disturbance in the Force, to cross a few genre threads. She was one of the giants of science fiction and fantasy. And, thankfully, she was acknowledged for it during her lifetime — she won all the major genre awards (Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and the World Fantasy Award) and was only the second woman to be named a Grand Master of Science Fiction (after Andre Norton). I was always awed by her mastery of storytelling at any length, whether short story or novella or full-length novel. And storytelling for all ages, from picture books to YA to adult — very few writers can do that! Her writing was both precise and poetic, crystalline and immediately recognizable. She was interested in ethnography and sociology, how peoples relate to each other, what cultural assumptions we make without knowing. (For example, The Left Hand of Darkness is, famously, all about deconstructing gender.) But she was brilliant at character, too, and worldbuilding. How can one person be so good at so many aspects of writing? Yet she was. Personally, I’ve read about 10 or 15 of her books. Earthsea (a trilogy at the time) was my first exposure, as it was for many. Later I went on to The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness, her later Earthsea books and her collections of shorter works. I never got as far as her poetry…

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The House Robot

The House Robot A free short story by Siri Paulson     Priya’s house was the last one on their street in Jaipur to get one of Reenu Mehta’s house robots. By that time, everyone knew how many things house robots were good for. You could order them to do your laundry – cheaper in the long run than paying a washerwoman. You could teach them to cook basic curries and naan faster than you could do it yourself. Some of them would even diagnose female complaints and tell you what medicines you needed. Only a woman engineer could have thought of that, the aunties said approvingly. So Priya talked her mother into putting aside some of Priya’s teaching salary, little by little, until they could buy a second-hand house robot. It was just as useful as advertised, and, even better, her mother was able to boast to her friends about what a good deal they had gotten. During this time, Priya’s uncle drove in from the village once in a while to see how they were getting on after the death of her father. At first he had brought money, but that had stopped after Priya’s mother turned down his offer of marriage. It was only right, he said, that he should marry his brother’s widow and so look after her. But Priya had seen the way he looked at her, and she knew it was not her mother he wanted. Since then, he only came by to issue…

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