Issue 16

NewMyths.com

A quarterly ezine by a community of writers, poets and artists.

Issue 16, September 1, 2011

Dear Readers,

It's become a tradition that I begin with a brief introduction. This month's with be the briefest ever. Do take the time to read the nonfiction by Peter Jekel (two entries by the same scholar). "Our Dynamic Doomed Earth" postulates on the inevitability of the demise of life on Earth, and on various ways this might happen. Climate change dominates this first installment, though my favorite doomsday scenario is the flip side: the depletion of carbon in the atmosphere until one day respiration becomes impossible. How much carbon has actually disappeared from the atmosphere over the millennia, locked away in limestone and fossil fuels? Almost all of it.

Life flourished on Earth when atmospheric carbon topped 7,000 parts per million. Today after all the fuss about cars and pollution carbon has barely blipped upwards from 280 to370 parts per million. The biomass this can sustain hardly compares to Earth's early years. And, once we stop burning fossil fuels, the level will continue to decline.

Jekel's second article discussed Saturn's incredible moon Titan: methane rain; liquid ethane lakes; an underground ocean...fabulous stuff. And, being as this is NewMyths.com, each article indicates the evolution of scientific thought appearing in the science fiction books written about this marvelous place.

I'll let the rest of the issue speak for itself. Enjoy.

Thanks,

Scott T. Barnes, Editor

Table of Contents

Fiction

At the Center of the World by Kenneth Mark Hoover

Bread Crumbs and Thigh Bones by Amy Sundberg

Out of Frozen Shadow by Sylvia Hiven

Expiration Date by Yeoryios Pantazis

Flash Fiction

Crumbling Butterflies by Joseph Zieja

King Nothing by Matt Athanasiou