Despite what the tourism map says, you are not here. You are a second-class person, soon to exist no longer. That’s the reason I’m here, quite simply. You’ll be gone [...]
Issue: May 2005
English for Time Travelers, part 1: The Past
I don’t have any trouble with time machines.
I love galaxy-spanning empires, connected by ansibles and faster-than-light (FTL) drives.
I will even suspend my disbelief so far as to permit a universal [...]
Wonder-Worker-of-the-World
It was near the beginning of things, but it was not really right at the beginning. Life was good. The land was fat, and luscious with grass. The herds of [...]
How to Write Sex
Sex scenes can be intimidating for writers. Cultural taboos can get in the way of good research, and there is additional pressure in writing a scene which not only entertains [...]
Aliens at the Office Christmas Party: How to Write Subtle Discrimination
Genre fiction’s most common theme is cross-cultural relationships: humans and aliens, vampires and werewolves, dwarves and elves, cowboys and Indians, cyborgs and normals, kings and peasants. It’s easy to write [...]
Anywhere But Here, by Jerry Oltion
A high-spirited dash through space.
Galatea Revisited
He wore diamonds to bed, the lover you chiseled from the plaster of Paris you bought at the church bazaar. It was fifty cents and you thought, why not? If [...]
Mindscan, by Robert J. Sawyer
A novel about the relationship of human consciousness and artificial intelligence.