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When I say “time travel,” I know what you’re thinking. I do.

Dinosaurs, right?

Or some wild machine fizzing with lightning, hurtling through the aeons!

But it’s not like that. Firstly, dinosaurs are out.

I know; I was disappointed too.

You can only go back along your own lifetime.

That might seem nothing to you—you’re what, 17?

But when you get to my age there’s more to see; you’ll be amazed

what you can forget.

Secondly, there’s no machine, it’s all you. There’s no lightning either, while I’m at it—

it’s actually pretty dark.

 

So what does it take to become a time traveller?

We’re looking for the tough cookies, survivors, the older-than-their-years kids.

If your childhood wasn’t all, you know, sunshine and flowers,

there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself back there one day.

You could be walking along and BOOM

there you go, right through the pavement. Not literally, you understand

—although it does feel a bit

like falling.

 

That’s what our training programme is all about. We’ll put you

in control, help you find the key—could be

a sight, a sound, a smell, a word, that

tone of voice—which opens your door to the past.

You’ll learn how to manage the pain, and explore your memoryscape.

Details you didn’t notice at the time; what was happening in the street outside? A conversation,

two blocks away. A file, waiting in a cabinet drawer. Because life

carried on around you, you know.

 

Every mission into the past is an adventure. You’ll crack cold cases,

solve mysteries, uncover secrets. And the Bureau will always bring you

home again.

Think you’ve got what it takes? Sign up here and we’ll get the tests started.

As we like to say: Whatever happened in your past,

you have a bright future with the Bureau.



Sarah Jackson (she/they) writes gently unsettling stories. Her work has appeared in Translunar Travelers Lounge, Electric Spec, and Wyldblood Magazine, and she is co-editor of Fantastic Other magazine. She lives in East London, UK, and has a green tricycle called Ivy. Her website is https://sarah-i-jackson.ghost.io and you can find her on Mastodon as @sarahijackson@wandering.shop.
Current Issue
31 Mar 2025

We are delighted to present to you our second special issue of the year. This one is devoted to ageing and SFF, a theme that is ever-present (including in its absence) in the genre.
Gladys was approaching her first heat when she shed her fur and lost her tail. The transformation was unintentional, and unwanted. When she awoke in her new form, smelling of skin and sweat, she wailed for her pack in a voice that scraped her throat raw.
does the comb understand the vocabulary of hair. Or the not-so-close-pixels of desires even unjoined shape up to become a boat
The birds have flown long ago. But the body, the body is like this: it has swallowed the smaller moon and now it wants to keep it.
now, be-barked / I am finally enough
how you gazed on our red land beside me / then how you traveled it, your eyes gone silver
Here, I examine the roles of the crones of the Expanse space in Persepolis Rising, Tiamat’s Wrath, and Leviathan Falls as leaders and combatants in a fight for freedom that is always to some extent mediated by their reduced physical and mental capacity as older people. I consider how the Expanse foregrounds the value of their long lives and experience as they configure the resistance for their own and future generations’ freedom, as well as their mentorship of younger generations whose inexperience often puts the whole mission in danger.
In the second audio episode of Writing While Disabled, hosts Kristy Anne Cox and Kate Johnston welcome Farah Mendlesohn, acclaimed SFF scholar and conrunner, to talk all things hearing, dyslexia, and more ADHD adjustments, as well as what fandom could and should be doing better for accessibility at conventions, for both volunteers and attendees.
Friday: The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, translated by Sinan Antoon 
Issue 24 Mar 2025
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Issue 10 Mar 2025
By: Holli Mintzer
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 3 Mar 2025
Issue 24 Feb 2025
Issue 17 Feb 2025
Issue 10 Feb 2025
By: Alexandra Munck
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 27 Jan 2025
By: River
Issue 20 Jan 2025
Strange Horizons
By: Michelle Kulwicki
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 13 Jan 2025
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