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Issue 158 Volume 15 December 2011 - January 2012
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Editorial
Dan L. Hollifield
The Senior Editor's usual rants about whatever…
Serials and Long Fiction
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The Pursuit of Happiness Book IV: Against All
Odds - an excerpt
Dan L. Hollifield
In a world not unlike our own, the Industrial Age began with the ancient Greeks. The history of this world has progressed
differently from our familiar past. In the present day, great fleets of airships range the skies, armies are equipped with
steam-powered vehicles, and Earth has repulsed a series of invasions from another world. Armed with alien devices scavenged from the
wreckage of the invader's war machines, the inventors of this alternate Earth have made great strides in some areas of science.
In other areas, this steam-powered civilization still has much to learn. This is a world of adventurers, pirates, explorers,
inventors, heroes and villains. This is their story…
The Tales of Finnegus Boggs — Marid
Djinn
J. Cafesin
Finnegus Boggs has been a Somalian warrior, an Egyptian scribe, a Cambridge professor. In 2010 he's a doctor, and never in his
over 5,000 years had he been forced from his home — currently a Ferrari Testarossa — at gunpoint.
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Chang'd Innocence
Cody L. Stanford
Shapeshifter Zefiryn Piotrowicz was raped at age twelve by a stranger who then destroyed her family to acquire the strength of
Zefiryn's magic. Two years later a disgraced Shakespeare professor and a kidnapped lawyer help runaway Zefiryn comb through New
York's nighttime monsters to find this stranger in the service of evil, and take revenge.
Morfil
McCamy Taylor
Selkirk Sandros had left the light sea world to become general of the armies of Na Chan in the dark sea. But the impending birth
of the child he had fathered with Yam, the woman warrior who had been one of his guides to the ways of the dark sea, made everything
else seem unimportant.
**First chapter of the sequel to Chatterton Reef!**
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Short Stories
*** Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwaanza, etc., etc. Welcome to the year-end-spanning December / January
Short Story section!***
Special Bonus: A new Mare Inebrium story! ('Mare' Christmas to all…)
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 Forbidden Archaeology…
Sergio Palumbo
The market for forbidden artifacts has always been a cut-throat field of commerce. Sudden death is forever near at hand when such
sales take place. When a 13-million-year-old off-world statue winds up in the Mare Inebrium under dubious circumstances, and the
Reever is busy with far more serious crimes, even Max can find his hands tied if the putative buyer is a distant relation. But what
exactly makes this random lump of rock so valuable?
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December
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A Traveler Returns
Ian
Cordingley
The Benefactors — the machine intelligence(s?) that ran the world — had given Madison St. Thomas a chance at a normal
life by removing the diseased half of her brain and retraining the rest. That life had been ended a tragic accident — but her
father believed that part of Madison lived on in the 'Bubblehead' grown from her brain tissue…
Biotic Crisis
Dean Giles
The UN Discovery had made the long, slow trip to the asteroid belt in search of the source of the first indisputably
artificial signal of non-human origin. What they found raised more questions than it answered — and awoke something strange and
deadly.
Catch and Release
Daniel C.
Smith
Project Icepick sent ships plunging under the surface of Europa's ice-covered oceans to explore — and to find resources
that could be exploited in support of a slowly-dying Earth. When Lieutenant John McAlister found life — possibly sentient life,
the size of Earth whales — he was ordered to kill and retrieve a specimen for study.
Fresh Meat
Jackie Cannon
They had been traveling for a long time, subsisting on tasteless processed rations, and the children were hungry. They needed
fresh meat to grow and prosper — but so did all the other children back at home. So before they could indulge their appetites,
they had to prepare the new world for freezing.
Mother and Child
Robert Watts
Lamon
Annabel and her son, Jimmy, appeared in Dan Ferguson's house one night, and soon became part of his life. But Annabel
couldn't promise that they would stay, and she had good reasons.
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Night Owls
P. B. Hampton
Government agent Carl Raker came to the little town of Noah's Peak to investigate reports of owls — four-foot tall owls
that might not be owls at all…
Spree
Roderick D. Turner
It started as a trip to the mall for a little retail therapy. Then the UFO or dirigible or whatever it was did something weird to
time, and Jackie and Monica ended up having an Adventure instead.
The Troll and the Maiden
Rachel Eliason
Troy insisted that the filthy homeless man was a troll, of all things, which Jennifer thought was taking their shared interest in
their Nordic heritage a little too far. Des Moines, Iowa hardly seemed like the place for any mythical creature to be eking
out a living by dumpster diving.
Ticket To Samarkand
Dave
Weaver
Mohamat didn't know why the woman frightened him so much, but he was willing to go anywhere, as long as the flight took him
away from her as soon as possible.
Tin Indian
Joel Doonan
The day Alena had vanished without a word of explanation was the day his life had gone into a holding pattern. He worked at the
cannery, ate lunch with his friend Samson, and waited… Then the tin Indians, fortune-telling machines at the old arcade, spat
out the strangest messages he'd ever seen.
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January
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An Evening With Kaeding
Stephen Frentzos
Luke Kaeding was normally the least excitable (or exciting) person in the lab, so a frantic invitation to his house for the
evening was not a promising prospect. But his sudden exuberance turned out to be justified — he had accomplished something
amazing…
Cult of the Blue
Assassins
Jim Alciere
The king had purchased one of their own to serve as a sacrifice to the gods to try to bring back the rains, and she was now
guarded by the fearsome Blue Assassins. Now a handful of simple shepherds (who sometimes enjoyed making and setting off fireworks)
set out to effect a rescue.
Do Not Read
J. E. Deegan
Randy Dobson was counting on his aunt's bequest to allow him to continue his 'career' as a worthless parasite. But all
the ancient hag had left him was a book — and worse, the book was emblazoned with a warning: DO NOT READ.
Intimate Merger
Jo-Ann
Psoras
With the latest VirtaIntel upgrade, Robert could delete unpleasant memories, real or virtual, but he would also be changed
in ways that might erase his feelings for his comatose wife. He would become part of something larger — but was it worth the
cost?
Junkyard Haze
Mike Phillips
Take one undefined bouillabaise of assorted chemicals, add random cosmic radiation and two slightly drunk and slightly stoned
junkyard laborers, stir, and stand back. ***Contains coarse language***
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Protect and Serve
Richard
Tornello
George Brent, like Archimedes, made the biggest discovery of his life while he was relaxing in the tub. The HLC (Home Life
Companion) artificial intelligence he called simply "House" was a lot more complicated than he had ever
imagined…
Teacher 417
Eric Jackson
The Teachers were literally remote — communicating with their students only via instantaneous text and video messaging
— and always, always impersonal. Then Teacher 417 asked Jessica to help with "getting me out of here".
The Adoration
Robert S. C.
Cutler
When Mitchell brought Becca along to meet his Oma — his grandmother, he planned to ask her to marry him. Of course,
first he would have to reveal the secret of the family farm's uncanny prosperity.
The Cave
Kristen Lee Knapp
Walt's friends and colleagues wanted him to give up his seeming addiction to virtual reality, but he loved the film noir
detective story he had created more than anything the real world had to offer.
The Wind Tree
Joel Doonan
Listen, children, to the story of the Wind Tree and the marvelous gifts it confers upon those who eat its fruit…
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November 2011 Forum Flash Challenge
Congratulations to I. Verse (you don't want to know what "I." stands for), winner of the November 2011 Forum Flash Fiction Challenge. Check out Mr.
Verse's "Buzz Jordan Saves The Galaxy" and seven
more flash Space Opera stories, after sampling this month's editorial, poetry, short stories, and long fiction, of
course…
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