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"The Universe Engine" by Brad Fraunfelter
"My concept was to show a nomadic ship which had been wandering the universe for thousands of years. No-one had remembered when it was built, nor even what civilization had built it."
To learn more about the creation of "The Universe Engine," be sure to read the article listed below.
See more of Brad's work at bfillustration.com
Dear Reader,
Dear Reader,
Winter. A time of year, and, metaphorically, a time of your life.
Many of the stories and poems in this issue center around our relationships when facing the winter of life. Surprisingly, though, they are not stories of loss and grief so much as stories of hope and memories. Given the perspective of time, those memories of even our childhood fantasies and joys can become more meaningful and formative and real to us perhaps than when we lived through them, as Craig Shoemake shows us so beautifully in his story "The Dragon of Lake Glibly."
In the coming winter of our modern world, we may also face the loss of nature around us. Yet in "The Flock," Andrea Ferrari Kristeller brings us the sad hope of spotting one last living bird among a flock of mechanical birds in a near future where all other birds have disappeared.
Speaking of memories, two of my own most unforgettable offerings I've had the honor of bringing to you in past issues of NewMyths can be revisited again by clicking on the links in our new final section, "From the Archives." Lisa Timpf's first AI dog story ,"Roxy," grew into a beloved world of many AI-enhanced dog-and-cat detective stories she's written. And Beth Cato's poem "When Stones Awaken" will always be my own lodestone that magic might actually ... be real?
As a final note, please join us in congratulating the winners and nominees of our recent Readers' Choice Awards 2025, whose stories and poems will appear again in our upcoming anthology JANUS GATES, coming out next summer.
And the winners are:
1st place fiction -- Victoria Brun for "For Want of a Toilet"
2nd place fiction -- J.D. Dresner for "Time Keepers of the Modified Earth"
1st place poetry - Christina Sng for "Ava"
2nd place poetry - Andrew L. Roberts for "Aiaree"
Thank you again to all of you who read and voted for your favorites!
Susan Shell Winston, editor
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
FICTION
FICTION
Lasita Tyrell drew a breath, hands feather-light on the input grips of her Valkyrie fighter, and let her senses flow outward to encompass the total scenario. The event horizon of the Tartarus black hole lay a light minute to port, and she skimmed the rubble in the accretion disc, the remains of whole worlds spiraling into oblivion. Just a million kilometers closer, and time would begin to distort, reality would fracture, and the claws of gravity would do their work. But in this moment, she was surfing on the outermost edges of perdition, and her prey was amongst these asteroids.
“What we’re doing here, Dr. Tauton, is pioneering molecular transportation.”
“Molecular transportation?” Dr. Tauton asked, very much understanding the words, but not necessarily in juxtaposition.
“Because I know you’re a Star Trek fan, Dr. Tauton, I can tell you it’s very much like a transporter...”
When the mechanical flocks were launched, they were an immediate success. Our town, small and South American, was only able to acquire one after a few years had passed. The councillor bought it to raise his chances of being re-elected, and the little wonder of thirty metallic birds did the trick. It seems people do miss birds now that all of their species have gone extinct.
“I will have my revenge!” vowed Schrödinger’s Cat, a black Bombay named Inky. “I’m not some superposition of states, I’m a cat, with thoughts and feelings and hairballs like anybody else.” She shook her paw as they closed the lid overhead on the metal box with a clang, leaving her in utter darkness.
Then the fear hit her, the same whole-body trembling fear she’d felt the two previous times. Her body arched up as her fur stood on end. Her chances of surviving each time was fifty-fifty; maybe she’d get lucky again. Or maybe, like so many cats before her, she’d hear that deathly click.
"Call the City Home" by Aili Sanchez
One of the stories she heard, only a few stops away from the City, came from a teenage boy who grew up here. He told her that the natives heard the voices of ghosts because the City recognised them as one of their own. He said, you only hear the dead when you can call the City home.
"Welcome Home" by Duncan Shepard
A gentle summer breeze tumbled a leaf across the gravel driveway, kicking up specs of dust as it went. In the distance, two cardinals whistled back and forth, maybe a love song. Grandpa died before I met him, but there he stood at the end of the driveway, warm smile beaming.
"The Dragon of Lake Glibly" by Craig S. Shoemake
From that time forward my adventures on the lake with Mr. Murphy took on a kind of urgent, questing quality. Everything became imbued with the weight of metaphor. The lake, like a Cloud of Unknowing, concealed would-be revelations, and my every cast with rod and hook was a probing after the Mystery. I sought more than fish, for I was no longer a mere boy spending time with a kindly neighbor, nor even a grieving child getting nurturance he didn’t know he needed.
No—I was Lancelot riding for the Grail, Moses ascending the Mount, Ahab chasing the Whale. That singular moment when Something took hold of me from the Deep had remade our relationship, too, mine and Mr. Murphy’s. He seemed to acknowledge me now as an equal partner, a fellow initiate into the Mystery he had lived with those many years. We had become brothers in the Quest, hunters after Immortality.
FLASH FICTION
FLASH FICTION
POETRY
NONFICTION
My concept was to show a nomadic ship which had been wandering the universe for thousands of years. No-one had remembered when it was built, nor even what civilization had built it. Its crew had long since grown old and perished, or had passed on to other lifetimes, The ship had remained on automatic in an endless search for other life across the void of space...
The protection provided by a gigantic gravitational field in the outer reaches of a solar system that limits the possibility of catastrophic collisions in the "habitable" inner regions is a stabilizing feature that allows life to evolve to its fullest potential. So it seems that Jupiter, aptly named after the chief god of the Roman pantheon, may have been a key factor in the evolution of our species, acting as a distant great protector over the eons.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
FROM THE ARCHIVES
One of the most memorable stories I've had the honor of publishing, Is Lisa's first A-I dog story which appeared in Issue 32, Fall 2015, and later, in our first anthology Passages. Here's Lisa describing how she created Roxy's world, and how this story has influenced her stories since.. Here's Lisa to tell us about it...
One of the most memorable stories I've had the honor of publishing, Is Lisa's first A-I dog story which appeared in Issue 32, Fall 2015, and later, in our first anthology Passages. Here's Lisa describing how she created Roxy's world, and how this story has influenced her stories since.. Here's Lisa to tell us about it...
Of all the stories I have written, “Roxy” continues to be one of my favorites. The story itself was inspired by a number of factors. I’d read about animals used by the military during World War I and World War II being abandoned after the war. So in keeping with The Little Prince, where the prince feels responsible for his rose, I wanted to explore the idea of how we are responsible for what we create. A follow-up story to “Roxy,” titled “Roxy’s Rule,” (first published in NewMyths Issue 40, Sept 15, 2017) goes into this further.
The idea of Roxy being “enhanced” came from a news story about efforts to capture and store peoples’ memories. As well, though it wasn’t a conscious influence, perhaps in the back of my mind as I wrote this story was Flowers for Algernon, which I’d read as a teenager.
But maybe the neat thing about “Roxy” is that it opened the door to additional stories about similar animals, including a series of stories about Galactic Space Service agents Quicksilver and Pepper, whose characters were loosely based on a Russian blue cat (Smokey) and a Border Collie (Emma) who shared my home for a number of years. The Quicksilver and Pepper stories in particular were a lot of fun to write, as I imagined how the characters might interact, based on what I knew of Smokey and Emma's behaviour.
I’ve put together a short story collection with a number of my anthropomorphic stories, including “Roxy.” The collection, with the working title Roxy’s Legacy, has been accepted for publication by Wolfsinger Publications, with publication date to be confirmed.
"When Stones Awaken" by Beth Cato
Originally published in Issue 39, Summer 2017, and later in Passages, this poem has always haunted me as my one "proof" that magic might actually exist. Here's Beth in her own words....
I remember that when I wrote "When Stones Awaken," I had no idea where the verses would take me. It flowed out, and the twists that emerged surprised me, too. The last line still hits me like a gut-punch. Ultimately, it's a poem about someone who is bullied and misunderstood, understanding something far greater than anyone else, and through that, bringing hope to the world. I don't think I'd change a thing.
I've continued to publish books in recent years. My latest is a stand-alone cozy fantasy novel from 47North called A House Between Sea and Sky. As with my poem, this novel is ultimately about damaged, misunderstood people coming together and fostering hope.
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