Dear Reader,

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What strange times we live in. When the despair to give in to the fear of the unknown rises, when chaos breaks out, the power of literature is felt most keenly. In times like this the call for hope is felt strongest and needed most. This magazine was founded with the idea of being that call to an optimistic future. One worth believing in. One worth fighting for. With stories that capture that sense of optimism and hope. I invite you, briefly, not just to imagine, but to believe in a world where out of instability comes fellowship and solidarity, where we work together to fight the pandemic by helping those in need as best each of us can. This is a world where, in what come after we work together to improve our situation and the situations of our fellow earthlings. We fix the problems made evident to us by this crisis and say never again. Never allow the flaws, human and system, which have allowed this virus to endanger so many to happen again. Where we realize that if we do not take our environment our environment will take care of us (in an Al Capone sort of way).

 

That is all I have to say about that. Now, I welcome you weary, anxious reader to take a deep breath and join us in this months’ issue. We have such an exciting line up of stories. Opening the issue is Lizzie Newell’s ‘Under an Airless Sky’ which is an extraordinarily brilliant look at cultural and linguistic differences. It is a meeting of refugees and academics and two very distinct cultures.. Following that there is an author who might be familiar to those who read our February Issue. David Barber joins us with another intriguing story of the dangers of space travel as a crewmember shares their experience on board an ill-fated ship in ‘What I knew Then.”

           

We feature next an author with a variety of talents. Nathaniel Wander, who previously wrote an article for our Science Corner, now entertains us with a short story about a man and his animatronic companion. Next is Kara Race-Moore and her fitting story Tours d’Olympus. An interesting style, the story is the report of the greatest sports event in the solar system. A tour de force to be sure. Another tour de force of an entirely different nature is the short story of Dawn Vogel – Sechando In Microgravity. The touching story of what two sisters go through to honor their mother’s memory on a long space-flight from home.

           

Up next is a series of stories grouped together under the title Insects. It’s in a way, much like an earlier story in the first issue of this volume Tremendous by John Saul. It’s delightfully strange, more modern perhaps than my usual tastes, but charmingly compelling in its own unique way.

           

Closing us off on the Story section is Nick Dinicola’s Your Futures. It’s reminiscent in some ways of Ted Chiang’s (of Arrival fame) short stories. It holds itself well and is sure to captivate the imagination and interest.

           

Our Poetry section as always is filled with wonderful talents. Many of them returning. John Grey, Louis Gallo, Denny E. Marshall, and Kim Whysall-Hammond have all previous published poetry in our magazine, their excellence continues in this issue. A new face is John F. McCullen whose poem Technology Boggles Me is an interesting, humorous reflection of the mystifying and ever-evolving technologies we find around us.

           

In closing news--we have started a podcast, released during the months when there isn’t a magazine issue published, we read a story from the previous published issue (For February we read David Barber’s ‘What the Good Must Remember’) and then have a fun discussion on a variety of topics. We had a very interesting interview with Carroll Graham, author of the book and podcast The Future is a Fucker in which we discussed the merits and elements of Dystopia vs. Utopia. That interview can be found on our blog post. We continue to update our store and merchandise: click here to see the awesome items we have available, prints, cards, notebooks all featuring cover art from our past issues). If you like what you’ve read please consider subscribing to our magazine through Patreon. We’re in a tight spot financially speaking, most of our means of funding our magazine have closed due to covid-19 concerns and we are steadily approaching the red line of no return. If we reach that we will have to discontinue our magazine. You can help. Magazines subsist largely on subscribers. Subscribe to one of our levels of Patreon (as little as $1 a month) and help keep Utopia Science Fiction publishing and paying authors and artists. Click here to view and subscribe via Patreon. Your help is appreciated.

           

Until then we will keep holding on. Wishing you, dear reader, good health and safety. Let us, despite the uncertainty of the times, go boldly forward. Onward, ever onward, into a future of wonders!

 

Sincerely,

Tristan Evarts

Chief Editor

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