For most of its length the Altoona is a small, shallow river, littered with rocks you can step across without getting your feet wet. It rushes down Blackbird Mountain, white [...]
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The Man Who Sees Tomorrow: An Interview with Grand Master Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl has been writing science fiction for longer than most of us have been alive; he’s published over a hundred books and many more short stories, and edited magazines like Galaxy, If, and Worlds of Tomorrow – winning three Hugos and multiple Nebulas in the process. In this interview, he talks about China, science fiction fans, bad movies, and his new short story collection.
Is the Matrix Really Green and Black? A Writer’s Intro to Hacker Culture
There’s something to be said for being misunderstood—it gives you staying power. Two decades after hackers first began to gain prominence in the media, news writers are still talking about [...]
Sing the Siren Song (And Then Clap Your Hand)
There’s something important about the number three. Yes, yes, you’re right; there’s something important about most every number less than three and still quite a few above it. But the [...]
Heart Notes
Leaving the lab in the early evening, Ilmari saw them again. Three trees trembling, their thin branches bouncing with birds, birds of a kind he had never seen before this [...]
How Deep the Cold, Red Sands
We’ve known for ages it wasn’t the only choice. Why should chlorophyl, with its complicated dependency on secondary reactions, triumph over other, more direct photosynthetic compounds? But nature, as always, [...]
Brain Trust
Mrs. Bang Hue Ngyuen threw a handful of millet over the water; the chickens splashed and squabbled around her. They formed a pattern of white and brown, feathers and water [...]
Homesteader
I knew my job was going to kill me from the moment I enlisted, seven years ago. Some people called me a suicidal environmentalist for joining, but personally, I call [...]
Weight Control in a Future Age
They’re narrowing the lanes a little more; it’s nothing personal, just the latest council directive. Pretty soon, Lisa won’t be able to walk them without scraping her thighs against the [...]
The God of the Gaps
I deconstruct Universe 15—now a place of endless frozen night—and record the details its inhabitants’ demise. Their battle against heat death was glorious. At their zenith, a thousand billion sentient [...]
Override
They’re not cruel men. They just got a budget to make. Even these days it costs to hoist a man up out the blue. Multiply that by a hundred twenty [...]
In the Time of Apple Maggots
A large white sign stands resolutely against the hot summer wind. WARNING, it reads in red square bureaucratic letters, and then, on the next line, APPLE MAGGOT QUARANTINE ZONE. A [...]
In the Rainy Season
The rain gathers out there, beyond the wide tiled balconies of this house where I lie abed. Isti sways as she sits on the low stool, muscles moving gently beneath [...]
English for Time Travelers, part 2: The Future
(”English for Time Travelers, part 1: The Past” can be found here.)
When writing past forms of English, you can (at least in theory) get everything right. There is no aspect of [...]
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 [...]