Dear Reader,

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It is that time again! Having finally finished digesting a Thanksgiving Feast I’m happy to say I’m fully ready for the next round of Holiday feasting. There are feasts for the body and feasts for the mind and the imagination. It is the latter that Utopia Science Fiction is happy to provide for you. I am very happy to share with you, dear reader, our December Issue.

           

To whet the appetite for good, quality science fiction stories, we have Lena Ng’s ‘The Library of Life’. It is precisely the kind of story one waits with baited breath to receive and exemplifies everything about the types or stories Utopia Science Fiction strives to publish. We dive straight into Kevin Stadt’s short story ‘Defective.’ Action and one of the most well-developed worlds we’ve seen yet, ‘Defective’ is part of a series of semi-autonomous stories set in the same universe. Other related stories in the same universe can be found in the magazines Phantaxis, Fiction on the Web, and Corner Bar Magazine. If you like what you’ve read, why not try to find his other stories there?

           

For the next course, the short story ‘Angry Girl’ by Yvonne Schnoeker-Shorb. I’ve had the story for a while, but have had to wait for the right issue to publish it in. It seems like the perfect fit for this issue, so I’m happy to present it to you now. I won’t give much away about it, but it’s a quick and enchanting read.

           

Moving forward – Steven Translateur’s ‘Alpha Palvonius Telepathy’ adds a unique flavor to our current issue with a distinctive voice which is vaguely reminiscent of the grand satires of William Tenn. If you aren’t aware of those masterpieces of the genre, I highly recommend you search the internet archives and read a William Tenn short story right away.

           

A sweeter story can be found in Penny Leigh’s wonderful story ‘Queen Bees’ as children gather honey in a gigantic hive/cave of the buzzing insects.

           

Onward, the ‘Joker’s Handbook’ and Giles Selig’s “Bender’s Homecoming” could not provide a better end to our short story section. Delectable stories cross space and time and deliver us a compelling question and a parallel universe.

           

Let us not forget our fine poetry section, not without its share of savory poems. We have the return of tried and true talents like Sukarma Rani Thareja, Denny E. Marshall, and Louis Gallo with some particularly wowing works. We also have a new poet featured. Linda Neuer carries well among the established writers of this magazine and her poems are not to be missed.

           

Our final main course of the evening is served to us by Nathaniel Wander, a retired anthropologist and biologist who takes us through the biological probabilities (or improbabilities) of Angels. 

           

As a particularly special treat there’s one final thing for our ravenous readers. Owing to a particularly slow response to our usual The Readers Speaks section, I've decided for this particular issue to do something different and feature a short article written by Joyce Frohn entitled ‘The Religion of Trek.’

           

If you’re still hungry for more, here’s some final food for the thought. We have a new line of special merchandise just for Utopia Science Fiction. As a mostly digital magazine this is the perfect chance for you to bring a piece of this wonderful publication into the real world. If you visit our site you can find posters, notebooks, cell phone cases and a lot more all featuring the various cover art of all of our current issues. Purchases there are greatly appreciated as they are essential to keeping us able to publish great stories and pay authors. Having bought a few notebooks myself, I can personally attest to the quality of the work. Not only do they look really awesome, but they’re useful too!

           

We continue to encourage hearing from our readers, like you. Tell us what you think about our magazine (this issue or past issues). What do you like about the stories and the artists? What do you not like? What do you want to see more of? Together we can make this the best science fiction magazine in publication. We are always in need of poems and science articles so if you know a writer (or are a writer yourself) we encourage sending in a few pieces of your finest work for us to consider for publication. Our upcoming February issue is mostly full, and seems to be centering on conservation and environmental issues so stories and particularly poems, which relate to that are of special interest to us in the next month or so.

           

Wishing you all the fondest holidays and a joyful New Year. In that cry which has become the rally of our magazine, I leave you with this. Let us push onward, ever onward. Onward through the impossible!

 

Sincerely,

Tristan Evarts

Editor-in-Chief