Size / / /

thunder on the red Martian plain:

a low-grav behemoth grazing

Cat ExoP-3 gouges regolith

its onboard lab working 24:39/7

to analyse microbes

drawn from the blackwater ice

those vibrations dredging a giant

from his chamber beneath the crust

and up he comes, trawling for life

in the terraforming pool

telltale ripples captured in a vid

by 3rd shift lamplighters Carl and Esther

hazy at Phobos station

before the beast exploded from what was

a dry ocean bed for a billion years

to eviscerate the Cat

tendrils of fiber optics from torn sheet metal

dripping visions of worlds to come

a phalanx bristling with cast-off sheaves

of Rice Burroughsian ingenuity




WC Roberts lives in a mobile home up on Bixby Hill, on land that was once the county dump. The only window looks out on a ragged scarecrow standing in a field of straw and dressed in WC's own discarded clothes. WC dreams of the desert, of finally getting his first television set, and of ravens. Above all, he writes.
Current Issue
18 Nov 2024

Your distress signals are understood
Somehow we’re now Harold Lloyd/Jackie Chan, letting go of the minute hand
It was always a beautiful day on April 22, 1952.
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Little Lila by Susannah Rand, read by Claire McNerney. Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: Spotify
Friday: The 23rd Hero by Rebecca Anne Nguyen 
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By: KT Bryski
Podcast read by: Devin Martin
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By: LeeAnn Perry
Art by: nino
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