Speculative Fiction – Page 3

In the Service of the Public (a story)

To be honest, this story occurred to me as I sat in a prestigious program for promising public servants listening to a self important lecturer drone on about his own greatness. When I realised there was still an hour to go in the lecture I started to wish the world would end. So in some ways this story was semi-autobiographical. Sans the black hole of course.

In the Service of the Public

Alison’s vision blurred as she stretched the skin of her forehead towards the ceiling in a desperate attempt to stop her eyes from drifting shut. The eminent professor was pleased with his own accomplishments. He droned on, happy to let the audience bask in the light of his genius.

With an effort, Alison snapped the fuzzy image before her into a sharp, three-dimensional representation of the source of her lethargy. After all, it was an honour to have been selected for the Interstellar Coalition Public Service leadership development program. It offered Alison the chance to rub shoulders with colleagues from the seven Coalition planets, and it was a hopeful sign of things to come back on Earth.

Not to mention that the prestigious Hawker Memorial School of Interstellar Government was named after the woman who had bound the human race together after its first encounter with intelligent extraterrestrials — the reptilian Aazorks. As Earth’s inaugural President, Hawker had also negotiated the first Aazork treaties. That, in turn, had paved the way for the Coalition, and inevitably the ICPS.

Six months of dedicated training about the habits and cultural traits of the various species that made up the Coalition was a huge investment by the Earth bureaucracy. Alison’s heart swelled with pride just thinking about it. The trip out to this giant space station in the middle of nowhere had taken nearly three months, and the trip back would take just as long — a full year out of Alison’s life, but time well spent.

As the professor’s self-important drone continued unabated in the background, Alison couldn’t help but wonder what she would do upon her return. She certainly wished that a better faster-than-light drive had been invented, and that the relativity effects had been overcome. Being away for a year was difficult, but by the time she returned over 10 years would have passed on Earth. She’d been a perfect choice — no family, excellent at her job, and practical enough to see the time invested as worthwhile. This trip would propel her to the heights of the Earth Department of Foreign Affairs, but she didn’t even know who would be in charge when she returned, let alone what position she might hold.

A wave of muted noise suddenly rippled across the room. The professor stopped speaking, visibly struggling with the concept that anything could be more important than his lecture.

Alison turned to the man sitting beside her. He was staring at his datasheet in horror.

‘What’s going on?’, she asked.

Her fellow student’s face was ashen. It took him some moments to formulate a reply. ‘News just in on the quantum entanglement coms system. There’s been an accident back home. Scientists started that damn Extra Large Hadron Collider and the Earth has been swallowed by the black hole it generated!’

Alison slumped back in her seat trying to process the shocking information. She could only wonder what a career in the Aazork public service might be like.

THE END

‘In the Service of the Public’ was originally published in Antipodean SF, in issue 169 (July 2012). It is also available in the free collection of my published flash fiction and short stories A Flash in the Pan?. See my bibliography for more details about my published work.

Den of Wolves by Juliet Marillier (Blackthorn and Grim Book 3) – a review

Den of Wolves is the third book in the Blackthorn and Grim series by Juliet Marillier. From Goodreads:

Feather bright and feather fine, None shall harm this child of mine…

Healer Blackthorn knows all too well the rules of her bond to the fey: seek no vengeance, help any who ask, do only good. But after the recent ordeal she and her companion, Grim, have suffered, she knows she cannot let go of her quest to bring justice to the man who ruined her life.

Despite her personal struggles, Blackthorn agrees to help the princess of Dalriada in taking care of a troubled young girl who has recently been brought to court, while Grim is sent to the girl’s home at Wolf Glen to aid her wealthy father with a strange task—repairing a broken-down house deep in the woods. It doesn’t take Grim long to realize that everything in Wolf Glen is not as it seems—the place is full of perilous secrets and deadly lies…

Back at Winterfalls, the evil touch of Blackthorn’s sworn enemy reopens old wounds and fuels her long-simmering passion for justice. With danger on two fronts, Blackthorn and Grim are faced with a heartbreaking choice—to stand once again by each other’s side or to fight their battles alone…

I’ve been a fan of this trilogy since the first book, The Dreamer’s Pool. Billed as a romance, the first two books focused more on the friendship between the two main characters. I enjoyed a story that didn’t rely on concepts of romantic love to redeem characters and found it quite refreshing.

In this final instalment, the regard between Blackthorn and Grim turns towards the romantic. It is very well portrayed romance, subtle and sensitive, but I must admit to being somewhat disappointed that the friendship wasn’t enough for the characters.

Having said that, I am invested enough in the characters that even the prospect of a happy-ever-after wasn’t enough to turn me off. Like the other two books, the story here is stand alone, although enhanced by the investment you’ve made in reading the other books. There is one overarching thread of story that has run across the whole trilogy, which is brought to a resolution.

The writing is excellent, with sharply drawn characters and beautiful, sometimes almost poetic prose. As well as Blackthorn and Grim themselves, other minor characters are deftly sketched – no fully rounded, but enough to move the story along.

The resolution of the overarching thread felt a little rushed and anti-climactic – I must admit to having thought that the whole last book might be dedicated to that storyline, but it was actually dealt with almost as an afterthought. It was still a reasonably satisfying, if somewhat perfunctory, ending.

If you’ve read the other books, you’re going to want to read this one. If not, even though the story does stand alone, I would strongly recommend starting this series from the beginning.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Needed – Beta Readers!

Recently, I’ve been working on a novella titled The Reclaimers. It is a fantasy, sitting at about 26,000 words. I’ve reached the stage where I’d like to recruit a couple of beta readers.

What I’m looking for is a couple of people who’d like to read some or all of the novella, and provide some feedback. It could involve anything from just reading the first couple of chapters and giving me a sense of whether you would read on (and why), through to reading the whole thing and providing some detailed comments.

I’m open to a range of readers. Don’t worry if you’re not a writer and don’t feel like you could provide “expert” advice. While detailed, expert feedback is very valuable, so is getting feedback from a reader who can just say whether something is working for them or not, even if you can’t pinpoint exactly why.

A few broad points about the novella to help you decide whether to volunteer:

It is a secondary world fantasy – no Earth historical settings!
There is a female protagonist and references to her having a same-sex romance in her past. Not being female and not having had a same-sex romance in my past, I would love to get a perspective on the main character and how authentic she feels from someone with more credibility than me.
There is violence. And swearing. It’s not quite grimdark (the violence isn’t graphic enough for that), but it certainly leans in that direction. If that’s not your cup of tea, then hold back!

If you’re interested, please email me directly at: mark (at) markwebb (dot) name or leave a comment below.

Striking Twice (a story)

Time travel stories have always bugged me a bit. Especially the part where essentially the same people wander around changed timelines except with nothing altered except slightly different personalities. I mean come on – wait five seconds to have sex and you’ll end up with a completely different child. If someone did go back in time and start to change things you most likely would end up with completely different people populating the planet. Worrying about this really takes me out of a time travel story. Striking Twice was the result of trying to work through that frustration on the page.

Striking Twice

Roy sat in the delivery room clutching his wife’s hand while the surgeon worked. Breech birth. It was a good sign. The original pregnancy had been breech.

Yes. The right day, and the right time at the culmination of a similar pregnancy. An excellent match as far as his fuzzy and somewhat overloaded memory could tell.

‘Here she comes!’ cried the surgeon with her professional, practiced enthusiasm.

Roy looked up, a wild, desperate hope clutching at his heart. The baby emerged — first the legs, then the stomach and chest, and finally the head. She was beautiful: perfectly formed, and already filling her lungs to scream her displeasure at the world.

Roy slumped, disappointment and despair vying for supremacy. It wasn’t Ella.

He raised leaden fingers to the device on his wrist and tapped a few keys. The room shimmered, then faded away. As his existence unraveled, he wondered how it was that a disembodied consciousness could feel so sick to its stomach.

After a period of time that was both instantaneous and infinite, the world snapped back into focus.

Roy felt the strength and energy of his reduced years flood into him. He was always 18 after the transition — there didn’t seem to be any way to avoid that. Since he had created that first connection it was as if his consciousness had no choice but to follow the same path whenever he activated the device.

That first journey had been unforgettable. He had abandoned his ancient and ravaged body, and regained the glory of youth with a whole life stretched out before him — one where he essentially knew the future. Wealth, power, wine, women and song — Roy had loved every minute of it. This time he had invented the device much earlier, and lived in the sure knowledge that if anything truly bad happened he could go back and start again.

But as Roy’s 20s faded into the distance and he marched confidently into his 30s, he found himself thinking more and more about his daughter Ella. He hadn’t considered her potential lack of existence when he’d jumped. Anxious, Roy had sought out his former, and hopefully future, wife. But his new über-confident personality had cooled her interest. When the original date of Ella’s birth came and went, he decided to try again, and fired up the device.

Since then Roy had lived a hundred partial lifetimes, trying in each one to recreate the circumstances that had brought Ella into his life. He’d soon worked out how to match the broad events, but the critical detail proved tricky.

It all came down to Roy’s sperm. The average man carries billions of the little buggers. Which one makes it over the line to fertilisation depends on fragile, delicately balanced factors — factors that had so far frustrated his efforts at replication.

Roy squinted into the bright sunlight, squared his shoulders, and set out on yet another attempt to make lightning strike twice.

THE END

‘Striking Twice’ was originally published in Antipodean SF, in issue 168 (June 2012). It is also available in the free collection of my published flash fiction and short stories A Flash in the Pan?. See my bibliography for more details about my published work.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Monthly roundup culture consumed – November 2016

Hope everyone has had a great November, and you’re not freaking out about how close Christmas is all of a sudden.

Books

As foreshadowed last month I finished Revenger by Alistair Reynolds during November. This is an excellent book. Set in the far, far future, the matter in the solar system has been reconfigured to be a lot of small planetoids, using tame black holes and other sciencey things to maintain things like gravity at Earth levels. There have been a series of civilisations that have risen and fallen in this environment, and as a result the planetoids are littered with the junk of many civilisations, some of it much more advanced than the current civilisation. Treasure hunting spaceships travel between worlds, and the whole thing has an 18th century naval adventure feel to it. I won’t give away much of the plot – you should go and read this book.

I started another couple of books – a new anthology edited by Jim Butcher called Shadowed Souls and the second book in Ken Liu’s Dandelion Dynasty series, The Wall of Storms. Not far enough through either to have much to say as yet, although I can say that I really enjoyed Liu’s last book, and this one seems to be continuing on in a very satisfying way.

I’ve been watching The Expanse on Netflix. The special effects on this series are amazing, and while it is a while since I read the book, the plot seems to follow pretty faithfully. Still got a couple of episodes to go, but a great show so far.

A couple of years back I watched the first two episodes of the sci-fi series Orphan Black, and while I enjoyed them I never got around to watching any more of it. I watched the first couple of episodes again in November, and again enjoyed them but I’m not finding myself drawn back to them. I’m going to try to power through at least a few more episodes – I’ve heard so many good reviews of this series and I feel like I’ve missed an essential part of the shared community experience.

The new Australian animated series Pacific Heat has started. At the time of writing, I’ve only watched the first episode. Very much like the American series Archer – same style of animation, very similar premise. I suspect the series will take a few episodes to find its feet – the humour was a bit hit and miss. The voice actors are a lot of the crew from the D-Generation (an Australian phenomenon) so there is a nostalgia angle here as well. If you’ve watched Archer and liked it, give this a go.

Movies

Didn’t go to the movies at all in December, but I did finally get around to watching The Martian. I found it surprisingly enjoyable. In some ways it is very old fashioned sci-fi, where the main enemy is a cold, uncaring universe and the problems can be solved by science and engineering. But Matt Damon played the main character with just enough wry humour to make him sympathetic and as a result the movie kept me very much hooked in.

Other

One of the podcasts I really like, Tea and Jeopardy, is starting its annual “Advent Calendar” style run – with very short episodes being published every day in the lead up to Christmas. An excellent podcast – usual format is a speculative fiction author interview with a small “radio play” around it.

Another favourite podcast, Sheep Might Fly, has just started a new audio story – “Dance, Princes, Dance” by Australian author Tansy Rayner Roberts.

So, what have you been up to?

Make Mine a Macchiato (a story)

I wanted to try something a little away from science fiction as well as something a little silly. ‘Make Mine a Macchiato’ was the result. It was also the first time I showed a story in progress to a non-writer friend. While I didn’t agree with all the feedback, I did gain an appreciation for the benefit of better understanding what your potential audience might like. In this instance, my friend wasn’t a big fan of the ambiguity at the end of the story. I liked it so in the end I kept it, but it was a good reminder that you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

Make Mine a Macchiato

Jack was used to tickles of insight that warned him when things weren’t quite right. His talents didn’t lie in proper prognostication — even the thought of tracking the probabilities of multiple potential futures gave him a headache. But every now and then he got a nudge, an inkling that things were about to get ugly. Mostly, those flashes were frustrating and vague. Fortunately, the crushing waves of terror helped him pinpoint the problem this time.

A portal hung open in the middle of the footpath, like a malicious shimmering eye. Through it Jack could see the hazy image of a person. Well, perspective was a little tricky. Perhaps larger than a person. In fact, if he wasn’t an avowed atheist Jack could have sworn he was looking at…

“A demon?” Jack muttered.

“Come on, Jack,” the purported demon said. “You don’t believe in all that supernatural bullshit. Psionics are a completely natural phenomenon. Why would this be any different?”

Jack squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose in the universally acknowledged mechanism for dispelling hallucinations.

It didn’t work. Some form of response seemed in order.

“If you are human that’s a bloody good disguise,” Jack managed. “You seem to have more horns than I’m used to seeing on the average pedestrian, and the red marbling throughout your suspiciously stony skin…”

“Yes, well, I’m sure there are plenty of rational explanations,” it interrupted. “Anything from a complicated government conspiracy involving a new form of sensory mind control through to that dodgy kebab you ate last night. Does it really matter?”

Jack supposed not, although interpretations that pointed to mental instability would be of concern. The fact that no passersby were freaking out seemed to lend that branch of thought credence and Jack said as much.

“Look, Jacky boy,” the devil shaped entity said. “I’m really just looking for someone to buy me a macchiato. The cafe across the road is my favourite, and it isn’t every day that a certified level 17 psionic walks by. Do a demon a favour and pick me up one would you?”

Jack remembered enough stories to know that he was in dangerous bargaining territory. But he didn’t believe in demons. So why was he still standing here? He started to back away, slowly.

The as yet unproved daemon raised its hands in placation.

“Jack. Mate. Look at it this way. Right now you’re worried you might be crazy. If you hand over the coffee and it actually disappears you’ll know you’re sane. If it doesn’t, well…early psychiatric intervention can only be a good thing.”

The apparition made a reasonable point. Jack shrugged, crossed the road, and purchased a macchiato for it — and a flat white for himself. He used the cardboard carrying tray to pass the small cup through the portal’s glistening threshold to the eagerly waiting fiend on the other side, then stood back to find out if demons were real.

THE END

‘Make Mine a Macchiato’ was originally published in Antipodean SF, in issue 166 (April 2012). It is also available in the free collection of my published flash fiction and short stories A Flash in the Pan?. See my bibliography for more details about my published work.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Monthly roundup culture consumed – October 2016

I’m a bit late with my October roundup – many apologies.

Books

I finished the first book in Tansy Rayner Robert’s Mocklore series, Splashdance Silver – more detailed review to come for the Australian Women Writers reading challenge.

For anyone who has read and enjoyed Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series, the latest book (Mistborn: A Secret History) is a fun read. No point reading this book by itself – it only really makes sense if you’ve read the other books (or at least the first trilogy). If you’re a fan of the other books, you’ll like this one. It runs parallel to the original trilogy, fills in a few blanks and brings back a favourite character. However, I must admit it has been quite a while since I read the original story and I spent half of this book trying to remember how it all fit together.

And finally I started on Revenger by Alistair Reynolds – more to say next month once I’ve finished.

I finished Luke Cage on Netflix – an excellent series. It was very refreshing to watch a show that deals with themes of masculinity, but does it in a way that is respectful to women. I loved the nods to the seventies as well – even though it is set in the modern day, it had a 70s aesthetic which was cool. I kept expecting the theme song from Shaft to kick in. It was also good to see Rosario Dawson playing a larger role in this series. Clearly she’s going to be the person that pulls the heroes from Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist together, but she had a much bigger role in this series.

I just realised that The Expanse is also on Netflix. I’ll definitely be watching that one, the special effects and general look of it is amazing. Really liked the books, and keen to see a solar system sci fi series.

Movies

Got away to a movie in October – went to see Marvel’s Dr Strange. In some ways a very different Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, in other ways a lot of the same formula. I liked the way they brought magic in, some of the scenes were very trippy (a bit like Inception with buildings twisting and gravity going all weird). Enough humour to keep me interested as well.

Other

A lot of family and work related activity in October, so not much more from me.

So, what have you been up to?

The Gloriously Cunning Plan (a story)

In my day job I deal with bureaucracy a lot. “The Gloriously Cunning Plan” stemmed from this concern – what would happen if one of those last minute heroic plans I always see on TV came face to face with the kind of red tape I see in real government work?

The Gloriously Cunning Plan

Second Lieutenant Sanders hovered in perfect equilibrium between oblivion and suffering. He longed to let go and allow the breaking waves of pain to drag him back into a sea of blissful unconsciousness. But a nagging sense of some important task left undone wouldn’t let him rest. That, and the bloody distracting siren that someone insisted on blasting into his eardrums.

One eye opened as a lifetime’s experience of eyelid manipulation had led him to believe it would. The other was… sticky. Gummy — clearly refusing to toggle as required. Already feeling put upon, Sanders tried not to take this additional injustice personally.

Activating muscles that protested being press-ganged into service, he raised a hand to paw at his face. He smeared enough blood away to restore minimal function. The harsh artificial light of the shuttle pod’s interior clashed in headache-inducing splendour with the flickering flames of the uncontrolled fires that burned in the console. Meanwhile, the smell of burning plastic assaulted his nose as thoroughly as the light ambushed his eyes.

Time to leave.

Sanders rose, his body reeling like a tired scarecrow left too long to the mercy of crows. He stumbled forward and collapsed his weight onto the door control, executing a clumsy escape from the increasingly smoky confines of the forward cabin.

One glance at the outside of the shuttle confirmed what his injuries had led him to suspect — it hadn’t been an easy flight from the Odyssey.

The Odyssey! The mayday call from the military freighter. The Captain’s decision to respond. The many, many enemy ships that surrounded them. The gloriously cunning plan of the Captain, that relied on…

…that relied on Sanders getting to the bridge of this run down freighter. The blurry clock icon in his peripheral HUD painted the time in crimson neon across his vision. Sanders focused. Three minutes to go. If the missiles weren’t fired at exactly the right time and in exactly the right pattern the plan would fail, ensuring the destruction of the Odyssey and the almost certain capture of the freighter. But Sanders had served two tours with the Captain. He had seen enough rabbits pulled out of enough hats to feed a small army.

External communications were jammed, and internal communications unresponsive. Sanders raced down grey corridors filled with flickering lights, alarms, and barely repressed panic. These freighters didn’t exactly attract the best of the best. No security stopped him as he burst onto the main bridge with barely 20 seconds remaining.

‘Captain, I’m Lieutenant Sanders from the Odyssey‘, he barked. ‘We need a full spread of missiles, attack pattern delta-epilson-five to coordinates 165 by 234. On my mark…’

The frazzled freighter Captain looked up at Sanders, his expression bemused. ‘No can do. All class seven freighters had their missiles confiscated as a part of the last efficiency dividend process’, he said.

Sanders sighed and slumped to the ground as the forward screen flashed. It was awash with light from the exploding Odyssey.

Bloody bureaucracy, Sanders thought, and waited patiently for the oblivion he once again hoped would follow.

THE END

‘The Gloriously Cunning Plan’ was originally published in Antipodean SF, in issue 165 (March 2012). It is also available in the free collection of my published flash fiction and short stories A Flash in the Pan?. See my bibliography for more details about my published work.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

In which birthdays and small press are discussed

It’s not really speculative fiction related, but the NSW Writers Centre turned 25 recently and had their birthday party today. I don’t go along to as many Writer Centre events as I should – I’m hoping when the kids are a bit older there might be more opportunities. But I have been to some excellent functions there over the years, and I’m a fully paid up member, so it would seem churlish not to spruik their birthday and encourage any NSW readers to join up!

As mentioned in previous posts, Aurora Australis is Alex Pierce’s monthly round up of Australian and New Zealand speculative fiction news published at Tor.com. The October edition is out now, and well worth checking out if you like keeping up on the goings on of the Australian scene.

I was particularly sad to see that the Australian small press Fablecroft was going on indefinite hiatus. I don’t know Tehani (the owner) well at all, but I have observed her efforts and impact on the Australian SF scene, and it has been profound. She has brought many books into the world that deserved to be there, and never would have been without her efforts. Fablecroft will be missed.

Speaking of Australian small press, Twelfth Planet Press (a Western Australian based press) has had a run of award love for their anthology Letters to Tiptree, a work designed to showcase the impact that James Tiptree Jr (aka Alice Sheldon) had on the SF community in the year that would have marked her 100th birthday. In a similar vein, they have just announced a new project, Letters to Butler, designed to honour legendary SF writer Octavia Butler. They have sent out an open call for submissions, so if you have been impacted by Butler’s work it might be worth checking out.

I’m feeling a little short on news this months, so I’ll send this out into the ether now. Feel free to add in any more in the comments!

Shipwrecked (a story)

This was the first story I had published in Antipodean SF, in issue 163 (January 2012). I originally wrote Shipwrecked for an 800 word writing competition in mid 2011, but didn’t finish it by the deadline. When I first decided to submit to Antipodean SF, I polished and cut it back to 500 words then sent it in. I still remember the excitement of getting the acceptance from Nuke and the interesting experience of working through editorial notes on my work.

The story itself came from the unoriginal thought that if there are alien civilisations out there, why haven’t they contacted us? Perhaps they’ve been warned away…

Shipwrecked

Danic sat humming mindless, tension-relieving tri-harmonies. Being chosen as Advocate for Intervention was an honour, but as the years rolled on the Breenic seemed further away than ever from deciding how they would interact with humanity. Direct contact had been ruled out almost as soon as they arrived. The most advanced civilisations on the planet still sailed their seas in wooden boats. No, the Breenic had too much experience in inadvertently ruining civilisations to act in haste.

In their long voyage amongst the stars, the Breenic had refined their methods for dealing with primitive natives like humanity. They could leave behind technological marvels that would reveal themselves when the human race sufficiently matured. Alternatively, if humans were deemed too great a threat — well, aggressive races had met a premature end before. But never before had the Breenic been so divided on the fate of a civilisation. For every observed act of tyranny, there was one of benevolence. For every brutal impulse, a creation of stunning beauty. They could foresee the human race adding to galactic art and culture. They could also imagine them unleashing a firestorm of destruction. The Consensus was torn.

Even by their long-lived standards the Breenic had dallied here, and many were eager to begin the journey again. Without Intervention, their best scientists predicted that humanity was centuries away from slipping the bonds of their solar system. Danic felt his opportunity to convince the Consensus evaporating. Influenced perhaps by the antics of the race he had spent the past decade investigating, he decided to risk all in one final, desperate roll of the dice.

He suggested a test.

His fellow Advocates were intrigued. They knew that such a test was the only way Danic could sway the Consensus, but they also knew it would bring quick resolution. And quick resolution was what the Breenic now yearned for.

Once decided, it was the effort of a moment to shipwreck one of those quaint wooden ships. Marooned with little hope of rescue, the behaviour of the stranded humans would decide the watching Breenic.

Danic watched with mounting hope as the valiant commander headed off on a perilous journey to summon help, and revelled in the courage with which the remaining crew faced their fate.

But that hope soon melted like ice exposed to the searing light of an approaching star. Bravery twisted into ruthlessness. Power corrupted, and soon acts of stunningly savage barbarism left the Breenic reeling. Only some small acts of courage and sympathy for the suffering of the abused prevented the Breenic bringing humanity’s creeping evolution to an abrupt stop.

Mourning lost potential, the Sol system was marked on interstellar charts with signs that warned, “here be dragons”. As the fleet moved on and Danic prepared for the big sleep, he looked back at the slowly fading light of Earth — marooned and set adrift from all other intelligent life — and hoped that the fate of that shipwrecked crew did not represent, for humanity, prophecy.

THE END

‘Shipwrecked’ was originally published in Antipodean SF, in issue 163 (January 2012). It is also available in the free collection of my published flash fiction and short stories A Flash in the Pan?.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.