Online Issue Contents

• Wyrms & Wormholes

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • The Days of Abundant Internet * Ian Willey
  • Interstellar Message Reaches Earth * Alan Ira Gordon
  • The City Insists * Devan Barlow
  • Rewilding the Axolotl * Angela Acosta
  • Occam's razor shaves society * Richard Magahiz

• Full Table of Contents

---

Wyrms & Wormholes: Predict / Prevent

Sometimes I'm blown away by how prescient science fiction can be. We don't always get it right, but sometime stories and poems can come startling close to the truth of the future. Recently I read J. G. Ballard's “Studio 5, the Stars,” a story about the editor of a poetry magazine that is exclusively made up of computer generated works. In the story, the magazine gets infiltrated by a human poet and all runs amok. Editors today find ourselves in the exact inverse of this situation. How did Ballard know in 1961, when the story was written? It reminds me of how often the human race ignores the warnings that we feel uncomfortable with, and fail to act soon enough to create meaningful change. Similarly, Ballard wrote ample warnings about impending climate change. These stories are an example of why reading and writing can be so important, beyond their ability to entertain us.

The poetry that fills these pages is filled with similar warnings, the dreams of our poets, our emotional history, coming together to form a global conversation about how we would like the future to look, and our grave concerns for how it might materialize if we don't heed the warnings. SFF is a visionary field, and it's always a joy to read your visions of what might be. Some of us might even accurately predict what is to come, which ones of us, only time will tell. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will be some of the more positive outcomes that come fruition, and that we don't have to find ourselves down the line saying I told you so…

—Jean-Paul L. Garnier, Star*Line Editor

Editor's Choice Poems

"The Days of Abundant Internet" by Ian Willey

In those days our gutters overflowed with Internet. Sometimes it would
Internet for days and our circle would become one enormous puddle of
Internet. When that happened all we could do was stay home and watch
the Internet raging from our windows. Flotsam swirled around the circle
like European ships circumnavigating the Earth. Kids could get swept away
in all that Internet; their school pictures ended up on milk cartons. Weird
how they were always grinning. These days we have much less Internet,
but occasionally a storm bowls over us and knocks out the power. When
it Internets, it pours.

---

"Interstellar Message Reaches Earth" by Alan Ira Gordon

Our apologies for your galactic
isolation. It was necessary until we
could discover the treatment for your
odd and so unique mutation.

But tidings of great joy! We’ve achieved
the genetic breakthrough and will arrive
soon on your planet to apply the treatment,
allowing you to at last join the greater
galactic community.

It won’t be long now, so take heart:

If any of you are still male.
We can cure you.

---

"The City Insists" by Devan Barlow

The city insists
it only uses our minds
when we’re asleep
I always wonder about the times
I doze off during the day
because I never sleep well at night

The city insists
without our brains’ computing power
there will be disaster
Like yesterday, when no one
had heat, or last week when
the streetlights failed

The city insists
these tragedies are the fault
of those who refuse to dedicate their sleep
instead of providing both the labor
of their bodies while awake
and of their minds when asleep

The city insists
loyalty has always meant
our sleep is best spent
running systems
calculating percentages
tabulating acceptable losses

The city insists
the nightmares have nothing
to do with the latest course
of sleep-dedication pills
the deaths are coincidences only
their systems tell them it is so

---

"Rewilding the Axolotl" by Angela Acosta

Some of the smallest survivors of
the Mexica civilization live underwater,
bobbing along Lake Xochimilco
like before the conquest;
hear their stories float
with little bubbles,
all-knowing smiles wise
with generations of treacherous secrets.

When the lakes became congested
with processions, algae strewn like
fallen papel picado and trash,
the axolotls domesticated themselves,
breathing air in unison for the first time.

They complained about their living conditions,
thus convincing humans to shelter these
forever young amphibians,
tickled pink with their charm.

Lab-grown rambunctious amphibians vied
for a prime spot in the ISS student experiments,
crawling aboard among plant seeds and cardboard
cutout solar panels. These almost stowaways made
it to the Lunar Gateway, then on to Mars
where they would dive and dine
in waters melted from frozen rocks.

The rewilded axolotls were known
to climb out of the water to watch
rocket launches, never desiring to
go further than their one perfect pond
on the Martian surface.

---

"Occam's razor shaves society" by Richard Magahiz

I asked the all-powerful computer to give a solution to misery in the world.
It told me misery would disappear if all inhabitants were euthanized.
This is also the solution to inequality, bias, and instability.

I told it no, I want to maximize total happiness for the entire population.
It then suggested a mass of mindless workers providing all needs to a coddled few,
And those few were quite content every minute of every day, while the rest felt no pain.

I said I didn’t want the inequality between one and the next to be so great.
So it rotated the citizens between the slave class and the privileged daily.
On average, every person’s net happiness summed to the same as that of any other.

I told it that life had to have meaning for individuals so they avoid madness.
So it hypnotized the populace with myths from the time they were born till their death.
Each one knew how its life fitted into a story that fit a plan.

I told it that instead truth and honesty must be prized in this society.
So it made a hellscape that just barely avoids destroying each person
They consider themselves lucky to survive the obvious horrors day after day,
And raise their offspring when they see what befalls the heretic childless.

And then I stopped telling the computers what to do with our society.
We’ll leave that to the dreamy-eyed youngsters raised on stories.
We’ll let computers pass us on the way to wherever.

---

Full Table of Contents

Departments

• Wyrms & Wormholes * Jean-Paul Garnier
• SFPA Announcements
• President's Message * Colleen Anderson
• From the Small Press * Herb Kauderer, John Reinhart, Lisa Timpf
• Stealth SF * “The Way the Past Will Be” * Denise Dumars
• SpecPo Publishing * Interview with Emily Hockaday * Jean-Paul Garnier

Art

• Necromancer * Sebastian Timpe
• Shredder Mouth * Denny E. Marshall
• Globe Strider * Denny E. Marshall
• Tunguska Viewport 6 * Arpy
• Unlocked Jaw * Denny E. Marshall

Poetry

• Ecosmonomics * Jason P. Burnham
• The Days of Abundant Internet * Ian Willey
• Parabolic Arc * Alessio Zanelli
• Misjudged * Lauren McBride
• Silver Linings * Mary Soon Lee
• Negligence Standard * Howard V. Hendrix
• Xenomorph * Ellen Harrold
• My Yesterdays Haven’t All Happened Yet * Robert Frazier
• [first contact—] * Chris Langer
• Conspiratorial * Sujith Surendranathan
• [time stops] * LeRoy Gorman
• Numbers on Doors: 011 * Yuliia Vereta
• Forgets His Place * John H. Dromey
• Interstellar Message Reaches Earth * Alan Ira Gordon
• [the path away] * Anna Cates
• Black Unicorn * Addison, Flores, Goyan, King & Wong
• [Spotting aliens in a crowd] * Yuliia Vereta
• Sibling Rivalry * Jenny Thompson
• The City Insists * Devan Barlow
• Synesthesia, Violet and Indigo * Lora Gray
• [flying saucer] * Gary W. Davis
• [My new tattoo] * Barbara Candiotti
• [synthetic human] * Anna Cates
• The System of Crimson Octopus: OctoParadis * Yuliia Vereta
• [Morning sun so warm] * Denise Dumars
• Abandoned Station * Mariel Herbert
• among the immortals * Lee Clark Zumpe
• Circle of Dark * Jason P. Burnham
• Crash Landing * Greg Schwartz
• To Dust * Richard Magahiz
• Message in a Cosmic Bottle * Anna Cates
• Medusa with Cancer * Pixie Bruner
• On an ark pilot * Richard Magahiz
• Binary musings over squeezing affection * Eva Papasoulioti
• [this planet] * LeRoy Gorman
• [the new AI juries…] * Karl Lykken
• [Y marks the spot] * Debby Feo
• Complaint of a Mad Mage’s Girlfriend * Sarah Cannavo
• He-Whose-Words-Strike-Fear * Juan M. Perez
• [Opening night] * Sarah Cannavo
• The Variants Line * Garrett Carroll
• Mysterious Artifact Story * Howard V. Hendrix
• What the Hero Didn’t Do * Mary Soon Lee
• [multiverse lottery] * Francis W. Alexander
• Rewilding the Axolotl * Angela Acosta
• at the zoo * D.A. Xiaolin Spires
• Hanged Men * Jennifer Crow
• Dead End * Jean-Marie Romana
• Trapped Tourists * John H. Dromey
• We Shall Always Live in the Afterlife * Robert Frazier
• [drunk] * M. R. Defibaugh
• Aboriginals’ Revenge * Richard Magahiz
• [the Dark Forest] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• Drought Season * Silvatiicus Riddle
• Tapputi Belatekallim (ca. 1200 BCE) * Jessy Randall
• The Glass World * Josh Pearce
• Tiny Aliens … * Lauren McBride
• Perspective Shift * Jason P. Burnham
• [Blartigon-9] * Greg Schwartz
• How to Survive … * Matthew Roy
• Fatherhood * Cletus Crow
• An alien in the headlights * Kendall Evans
• [he pushed up …] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• The Sound, The Sound, The Sound * Beth Cato & Rhonda Parrish
• Beings * Bruce Boston
• Number 134 * Michael Lisieski
• Occam’s razor shaves society * Richard Magahiz
• post-apocalypse * Herb Kauderer
• binary system * Marisca Pichette
• [white Christmas] * Ann K. Schwader
• Life in the New Ice Age * Goran Lowie
• Shapes Ever-Shifting * Avra Margariti
• [old junkyard] * Ngô Bình Anh Khoa
• humanorigami * John Reinhart
• [anistrophy in] * James Hall
• Death Will Not Free You from Labor * H. V. Patterson
• On the Way Here * Corinne Hughes
• Tiny Bubbles * Adele Gardner
• Just Static * DJ Tyrer
• Quantum ferrets make great pets * Miguel O. Mitchell
• A Regular Guy * Lisa Timpf
• Death of the Sun * Matthew Wilson
• [Childish antics lead] * Debby Feo
• It’s the end of the world again * John C. Mannone
• The Nekra * A J Dalton
• [cannibal café] * Randall Andrews
• Final Fitting * John H. Dromey
• Make me a sandwich * Marisca Pichette
• iRobbie * RK Rugg
• [perhaps] * Joshua St. Claire