Size / / /

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The minefields of New Earth
were left by careless giants,
she said.
But first, two illegal things.
One) when a pilot coming out
of slipspace pops into real
time too close to the planet
surface, explosions erupt
across the dark side like divorce
blows apart extended
family.
Two) I loved her even
though she smoked
cigarettes.
After One) the light side is
clogged with ash and debris
for a week, and apologetic
pilots, if they survive passing
through the atmosphere to
land, are treated like pariah.
Two) We met one of those
days, when the sunset
lasts from dawn until
dark. She had that
hangdog guilty look, so I
fed her lo-poi from the
ends of my chopsticks and
coveted the way noodles,
like smoke, curled
between her lips.
A pilot can get stripped of her
license for either, but it’s not her
fault, really, it’s the
terraformers of New Earth, who
made a planet that looks like
home but tries to kill you.
Which is the way love is,
destroying half your
world, by accident, while
the other keeps spinning,
not quite in sync
anymore.



Karen Bovenmyer earned her MFA in Popular Fiction from the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast program in July 2013. Some of the places her dark fantasy and scifi horror stories and poems have appeared are Bonnie Stufflebeam's Art & Words Show, Crossed Genres Magazine, and Abyss, & Apex Magazine. She is the Nonfiction Editor for Escape Artist’s new magazine Mothership Zeta—Issue 0 is currently available for download and Issue 1 will debut in October 2015.
Current Issue
18 Mar 2024

Strange Horizons
We are very happy to welcome Dante Luiz as a new fiction editor on the team! Dante is a Ignyte Award winning author, and has been with Strange Horizons working as an Art Director for the past several years. We’re stoked to bring him on to the fiction side and have him bring his wonderful insight and skill to the fiction team.
Day in and day out, the rough waters of the Pacific slam themselves against the protrusion of sandstone the locals refer to as Morro Rock. White streaks of bird shit bleed down the rock, a testament to the rare birds of prey that nest in its pocked face overlooking the bay.
in my defence, juggling biological and artificial, i tripped over my shoelace, and spilled my lungs empty of the innocence that was, before guilt.
the birds, / who carry with them / the many names of the dead
Wednesday: Overlap: The Lives of a Former Time Jumper by N. Joseph Glass 
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