Cover: River Pass © Michal Kvác
Editor: Melanie Stormm
Layout: F. J. Bergmann
Production Manager: F. J. Bergmann
Mailing: Andrew Gilstrap
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Wyrms & Wormholes: Light at the End of the World
A New Era dawns once more! We are to be made redundant, again—but it was fun while it lasted. Jean-Paul Garnier has agreed to become the next Star*Line editor. From Joshua Tree, California, he owns Space Cowboy Books, a science-fiction bookstore, independent publisher, and producer of Simultaneous Times podcast. He has released several poetry collections: In Iudicio (Cholla Needles Press 2017), Future Anthropology (currently being translated into Portuguese), and Odes to Scientists (audiobook—Space Cowboy Books 2019). He is a two-time Elgin nominee and also appeared in the 2020 Dwarf Stars anthology. His new SF poetry book, Betelgeuse Dimming, has just been released. He is a regular contributor for Canada’s Warp Speed Odyssey blog. His short stories, poetry and essays appear in many anthologies and webzines. Jean-Paul will take the helm as of issue 44.3.
These poems were our six 2020 Pushcart Prize nominees:
- “Chronovisor Wanted” by Robert Borski • Star*Line 43.1
- “mecha visits little tokyo” by S. Qiouyi Lu • Star*Line 43.1
- “How to Advertise Titan” by Mary Soon Lee • Star*Line 43.2
- “Better Living through Alchemy” by Don Raymond • Star*Line 43.3
- “Baits” by Soonest Nathaniel • Star*Line 43.4
- “A Tempest” by Sheree Renée Thomas • Star*Line 43.4
Our enthusiastic thanks to AuthorsPublish.com, who made a generous donation of $150.00 to Star*Line. This is immensely appreciated!
In other news, there should be a new, improved U.S. President any day now.
Inoculate! Inoculate! Inoculate!
—F. J. Bergmann, Star*Line Editor
Editor's Choice Poems
"Reasons to Leave the Path," by Greg Schwartz
It might be a storm of fireflies
that turn out not to be fireflies at all
but ten thousand whirling, winged figures
dancing to an inaudible song
It might be the sight of a cottage
nestled deep in a glade of candy trees,
spun-sugar fiddleheads, peppermint pines,
a walkway of chocolate to a gingerbread gate
Or maybe it’s simpler: pale toadstools,
crinkled morels, a trail of blossoms
that leads to more blossoms,
pink to white to yellow to blue
and you can’t help but follow
their scent in the air, the glimpse
of a lusher patch just ahead, a glade
you would like to lie and dream in.
When you resist, when you put your feet
back in the rut that so many others
have worn, you hear the voices calling,
calling, and tell yourself that it’s the birds
even though they all know your name.
You tell yourself other tales
as you walk, of wolves and snares
and bride-eating bridegrooms
of witches with bony hands and deep hearths
but none of them are as true as moonlight
on petals, or the trail of white breadcrumbs
leading you onward toward some dark and open door.
"What Aliens Read," by Mary Soon Lee
Numbers, charts, equations,
folded n-space projections,
projectile trajectories,
probabilistic damage estimates.
Past tense. What they read,
formerly, there being none
extant to examine the errors
that led to their extinction.
Reports from our veterans,
excavation of the ruins,
indicate only the essential.
Barracks. Factories. Power grid.
No paintings, no sculpture,
no ornaments, no tapestry,
no toys, no flowers, no pets,
no poetry, no stories, no music.
If there was any more than this,
if they cradled their offspring,
if they sang to praise the dawn,
it is buried beneath our victory.
"[winter on old earth]," by Herb Kauderer
winter on old earth
he walks the ancient city
vestigial wings twitch
"Alpha/Beta/Centauri," by Scott Wiggerman
Aberrant heaven, an erratic, throbbing orb,
cataclysmic casualties light-years divorced,
eternities in defiant glances beyond the grief
guaranteed our hard-bitten time on this earth.
Intervals of luminosity from the edges, a hadj
keened through the ink of kohl, the cosmic whorl
mucking up dreams and dreads, our vision
oppressed as this muddle of finite sky-map.
Questions of quiddities, scourge and maker,
stillborn as glimpsed pulses long extinct,
undulating nonetheless, deplorable improv,
wanton mission with the impermanence of wax.
Yesteryears, ancient stars, and all that glitz.
"Appropriate Language," by Andy Dibble
They took to our language and its archaicisms,
which no corporation had title to, and its imperatives,
which no church had recorded in its litany of curses,
and our slang no bureau had declared politically incorrect.
The verbosity of our questions (our superfluous “Do…?”)
amused their children, who thought us splendidly proper
in our diplomatic regalia, which permitted no air exchange
(lest our past-time pathogens infect them or theirs infect us).
Previously they relied upon a jigsaw of patois and pantomime
and idioms designed even more organically than their narcotics
to evade the pitfalls of licensing fees, jailtime, and damnation,
which recombined with the shrewdness of an immune response,
ingesting our fashionable phrasing as loan words and ritual shouts.
Our languages so commingled, we were declared honorary citizens,
endowed with the same privileges and subject to the same penalties.
"mansplainer," by Beth Cato
thank you for your astute
observations on my field
of expertise
a subject that you understand well
after seeing a talk
about it on the news several months ago
but I assure you
necromancy can indeed be wielded
against the living
with impressive results
I will demonstrate
"Civilization," by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe
For my homeland, civilization meant a thousand battleships
& countless war bots, shooting randomly at my brothers.
It meant an erasure of our past & history,
Our chiefs slaughtered & left for the vultures—they were replaced
by emotionless overlords made of plated chrome. Our origin
has been forgotten.
Civilization meant a microchip embedded in our brains—to control,
suppress, track, terminate. We became puppets on strings
pulled by crazed robots.
For my homeland, civilization meant we surrendered our lives
& all the things we never had, to the overlords. Even our lives
don’t belong to us anymore—
We are civilized now & have become familiar with depression.
"The Last Ones In," by Holly Day
Destined to be the archaeologists
of the universe, we came to the game
too late, the last planet
to launch our people into space.
Only galaxies of ruin
await us, galleries filled with soot
a glittering history of art and music
we won’t be able to understand at all
books filled with languages
we won’t ever learn to read
empty rooms
that might be filled with light and noise
if we only knew what an “on” switch looked like
in accordance with each planet,
each decimated species,
there will be no manuals left to show us
how anything works.
Full Table of Contents
Departments
- Wyrms & Wormholes * F. J. Bergmann
- SFPA Announcements
- President’s Message * Bryan Thao Worra
- From the Small Press * David E. Cowen, Daniel G. Fitch, Joshua Gage, Herb Kauderer, John C. Mannone, Lisa Timpf
- Writing Spec Po * A Beginner’s Guide to Scifaiku * Joshua Gage
Art
- broadcast received * Casey Coolidge
- man’s hand is not able to taste * Casey Coolidge
- you’ll never amount to anything * Casey Coolidge
- I will scourge you with scorpions * Casey Coolidge
- the space between the stars * Casey Coolidge
- archimedes septimus shrimp * Casey Coolidge
Poetry
- Reasons to Leave the Path * Jacqueline West
- [silently] * ayaz daryl nielsen
- [two minutes] * Richard Magahiz
- Do Not Pet the Ray Cats When They’re Glowing * Avra Margariti
- What Aliens Read * Mary Soon Lee
- There Goes the Security Deposit * Sarah Cannavo
- [daybreak] * Stephen C. Curro
- Unhomed * Lisa Creech Bledsoe
- [under a dim sun] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
- Odile * MJ Millington
- Chaos Looming * Gerri Leen
- What I’ve Learned… * Sarah Cannavo
- [Venusian sword-dance] * Joshua Hiles
- A Record of Starvation … * Hayley Stone
- Matters of Scale * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
- The Red Planet * Mary Soon Lee
- The Old Masters * David Barber
- [at the British Museum] * Matthew Wilson
- Shore Leave * David Barber
- Advent * Mary Soon Lee
- [winter on old earth] * Herb Kauderer
- Emotional Help Desk Open Tickets * Jessy Randall
- [unsupervised] * Stephen C. Curro
- Dollies * Beth Cato
- [truck bed] * Greg Schwartz
- [red dwarf: offensive term] * Matthew Wilson
- hatched this way * Lauren McBride
- [our baby’s first cry] * Ngo Binh Anh Khoa
- Alpha/Beta/Centauri * Scott Wiggerman
- A World Without Speech * Debasish Mishra
- [telepathic sex] * LeRoy Gorman
- Two Days and Counting * Lauren McBride
- [anniversary] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
- Werecities * Amelia Gorman
- [the sympath] * Susan Burch
- Sasquatch Burial Ground * Raven Jakubowski
- Surpassing Photography * J. J. Steinfeld
- [dust spurts] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
- Medusa Itinerant * Meg Smith
- By Moonlight * Lauren McBride
- Appropriate Language * Andy Dibble
- * * Simon Perchik
- [red-giant Sun] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
- New Uses for Old Staves * Amelia Gorman
- [the Altairian’s fridge] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
- Via Dolorosa * David Gianatasio
- Alien Craft Lands in Everglades * John Grey
- Life on the Low Road * Robert Frazier
- Azure Captain * Shelly Jones
- [what they left behind] * Richard Magahiz
- [setting sun] * Greg Schwartz
- mansplainer * Beth Cato
- [I wonder if aliens] * Marcus Vance
- City of Resolve * Ken Poyner
- [left my late father’s] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
- the nearest station * Robin Wyatt Dunn
- [staring into stars] * Joshua Hiles
- Closer Than You Think * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
- [breaking through the lid] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
- [obituaries] * Juan Perez
- [damn the plasma torpedos] * Stephen C. Curro
- Jupiter LXVII * Patrick Hurley
- Vineyard before dawn * Brian Hugenbruch
- [late for school] * Matthew Wilson
- Swim Test * Marsheila Rockwell
- [centaur] * Jerome Van Epps
- Lines for Naughty Children * Matthew Wilson
- Blood Lust * Gerri Leen
- Vampire Selfies * Alan Ira Gordon
- nanomorph * Koji A. Dae
- Reflections on Narcissus * Paul Szlosek
- Civilization * Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe
- [all this rain] * Christina Sng
- [Earth fills the window] * Stephen C. Curro
- Person of Interest * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
- “—And They All Lived Together—” * Andrew J. Wilson
- Kong * Bruce McAllister
- Warrior Over Washington * Adam Ford
- Checkmate 2035 * David Gianatasio
- Sylvan Succubus * Joshua Gage
- To ’Oumuamua * Ann K. Schwader
- [blood moon] * LeRoy Gorman
- marry me * S. R. Tombran
- [midnight mass] * Greg Schwartz
- My Upcoming Astronaut Experience * Adele Gardner
- [landing at the] * Brian Garrison
- A Time Traveler’s Techniques * Lynne Sargent
- They * Isaac Black
- The Last Ones In * Holly Day
- Reset * Jason P. Burnham
- The Combine * Bill Ratner
- Cheerful Farewells * Robert Clinton
- Voyage of Failed Heroes * Mary Soon Lee