Size / / /

we have only the memories they left us
curated with loving precision: divested
of darkness, despair, the lingering discontent
of bodies relegated to the shadows.

the myriad flavours of ancient childhoods
burst on our tongues in virtual experience.
holographic hagiographies remember our heroes
their valour and vision, integrity,
the people who loved them.

we bask in the richness of legends
weaving disparate cultures into harmony
taut in calculated, colourful tapestry;
every race has its place.
everyone is always smiling.

accolades glimmer in constellations of praise
set high on screens: best airport, port,
education, healthcare. non-existent crime.
the unrivaled efficiency
of our public transportation.

this, our inheritance!
pride sings in our hearts.

onward, always onward.



Davian Aw is a Rhysling Award nominee whose short fiction and poetry have appeared in over thirty publications, including Anathema, Abyss & Apex, Not One of Us, NewMyths.com, and Diabolical Plots. He lives with his family in Singapore.
Current Issue
27 Mar 2023

close calls when / I’m with Thee / dressed to the nines
they took to their heels but the bird was faster.
In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Reviews Editors Aisha Subramanian and Dan Hartland talk to novelist, reviewer, and Strange Horizons’ Co-ordinating Editor, Gautam Bhatia, about how reviewing and criticism of all kinds align—and do not—with fiction-writing and the genre more widely.
If the future is here, but unevenly distributed, then so is the past.
He claims that Redlow used to be a swamp and he has now brought them into the future before the future. Yes he said that.
My previous Short Fiction Treasures column was all about science fiction, so it’s only fair that the theme this time around is fantasy.
I’ve come to think of trans-inclusive worldbuilding as an activist project in itself, or at least analogous to the work of activists. When we imagine other worlds, we have to observe what rules we are creating to govern the characters, institutions, and internal logic in our stories. This means looking at gender from the top down, as a regulatory system, and from the bottom up, at the people on the margins whose bodies and lives stand in some kind of inherent opposition to the system itself.
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Issue 23 Jan 2023
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