thrust reversed, rachides cracked, barbs catching at this new skin
“People don’t want to know the future,” the tarot reader goes on. She pulls off her headscarf, grimaces, reties it over hair tacky with sweat. “They want to talk through their troubles. They want you to wrap their desires in archetypes.”
In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Anaea Lay presents Ruthanna Emrys's “Cassandra Draws the Four of Cups.”
Contrary to dominant post-apocalyptic literature and film, underprivileged groups are likelier to look forward, towards a future time when all they have ever known will change for the better and they can dare to look beyond basic existence and relatedness needs and push for growth. Privileged groups, however, are likelier to yearn more for a return to the old ways, to a time when they were more advantaged. Because the fall from grace will be long and hard for them, this yearning and desire will likelier be top-of-mind and come off stronger in the film and literature presenting these scenarios.
A Pan-Asian queen’s voice of profanity and agony with no makeup on, rubbing the guitar fret
a pay phone stands obsolete, a line of ghosts waiting
The water off the coast of Gid tasted funny.
At first it was just a faint tang in the back of the throat or the feathery farthest-out edges of the gills. The coastal patrols came back itchy and out of sorts, and everyone who ventured out there complained of the taste: bitter and sour at once, like something growing had twisted, or died.
In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Anaea Lay presents Marissa Lingen's “Wrap Me in Oceans Wide.”
So let’s get down to it: what technologies can we make use of to build our generation ship?
when my father reprograms my mother { my mother becomes unbreakable angles like a subway map glitter bubblegum steelhard cyberwoman a Galatea in Python too cold to share a bed with she boneless titanium I can’t do a portrait of b/c she is monochrome & when I ask her abt colors she talks abt RGB & hexadecimal codes b/c my mother is over forty she doesn’t need breasts anymore, not even plastic, not even to cry on. instead of a heartbeat I could duet with she has an armory with guns crammed together inside her
