Friday Flash: From the Mud

From the Mud, Rising Bravely

Lotus, ten years on

Joyce Chng

This flash sequel takes place ten years after the events of “Lotus”, Joyce’s story in We See a Different Frontier, and was written to celebrate the tenth anniversary of TFF. If you want to see more fiction like this in the future, please support our fundraiser, where you can pre-order the celebration anthology or pick up other exciting rewards.

I find myself squelching through the deep brown murk, feeling the thick ooze slide up my thighs. I cherish the feeling, because it reminds me that I still live, that my family still lives on this borrowed land.

It is not really land. It is just a space I call ‘home’. Land is such a taboo word these days. The landers fight for it in a game of us versus them.

Where we live, this ‘land’, is just mud. A mixture of water and soil and dreams.

I feel for the roots beneath my bare feet, the tube-like forms that promise nourishment. I reach down, the mud inching up my bare arms. Pull, pull, pull… and the roots emerge, darkened by mud and cool to the touch. Washed, it is crisp and delicious in soups and lightly blanched in boiling water.

Children’s laughter fill the air. Even the lotus flowers bob in the wind as if they dance with the laughter. This time of the year, they are pink and white in colour. I love them.

I hear Dad swear sharply in Cantonese. Sei yen tao. Bloody hell. The kind of words that would earn him a glare from Ma. The condenser has stopped working again. We are surrounded by water, lots of it—but most of them are not drinkable. Can you drink salt? So we condense. Rain. Moisture. Anything. Any pocket of fresh water.

Sighing, I know that dinner will be filled with pockets of grumpiness and silence. But we can manage, can we? I place the lotus roots in the plastic pail. I foresee more scavenging in the great plastic heap in the sea. Plastic does not disintegrate.

Close to me, Tia is also done with her harvesting. Her duty is to cut the large leaves. Dad and Ma will exchange them for useful things at the nearest Boaters’ Meet.

Something gold and sleek dart between my legs. A flash of scales, a dash of crimson and orange, like ripple and magic.

Dad told me once that they fought over fish. It was ten years ago. It was a silly thing, fighting over fish. But fish is meat, fish is nourishment, fish is food. Then they went back again and started to breed the fish.

So, this is our little secret. Our story from the mud, rising up bravely.

Or this is what my parents tell us, day after day, night after night.

Sometimes, rising bravely from the mud is what we can do at the very least. Like the lotus. Like my name. I was born when the lotus rose from the water.

Interview with Richard Thieme

Continuing our ten year celebration interview series, today we welcome to the TFF blog Richard Thieme, whose story “Less Than the Sum of the Movable Parts” appeared in issue #14 back in 2008. We asked him a few questions about the story and his writing and other work.

The Future Fire: Tell us a bit about the background to your wonderfully atmospheric, verbally witty, 2008 parallel reality story, “Less Than the Sum of the Movable Parts.”

Richard Thieme: I have been walking that mobius strip for some time. I spoke in London in August 2012 for “The Real Truth: A World’s Fair,” hosted by the Raven Row Gallery and curated by Suzanne Treister of Hexen fame, closing an edgy project about surveillance, national security, and the future and how we view these new views of ourselves. I also keynoted a conference on "Untimely Stories" at the Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz Poland on how European artists might reimagine “Europe” as prior conceptualizations disintegrate.

At Def Con VIII, I moderated a panel that included the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Dir. of Information and Infrastructure Assurance for DOD, and the Dir. of the Federal Computer Incident Response Team who came to “dialogue” with more than 5000 computer hackers. I was invited to moderate because, according to a National Security Agency veteran, “You’re the only one in the room with the acceptance and respect of both the hacking community and the Feds.”

About a decade ago, a friend at the National Security Agency suggested that I could address the issues we discussed in a context of "ethical considerations for intelligence and security professionals" only if I wrote fiction. "It's the only way you can tell the truth," he said. "Northward" is a product of that discussion. Three dozen published short stories and one novel (FOAM)  later, the result was "Mind Games," published in 2010 by Duncan Long Publishing. “Mind Games” illuminates four kinds of “non-consensual realities:” the world of hackers; the worlds of intelligence professionals; encounters with other intelligent life forms; and illuminations of deeper states of consciousness. In addition, his topic my Def Con 22 (August 2014), The Only Way to Tell the Truth is in Fiction: The Dynamics of Life in the National Security State has been watched several thousand times.

“Less Than the Sum of the Movable Parts” resulted from insights into the consequences over time of living a life of multiple identities and walking the mobius strip of nested deceptions.

TFF: Why did you choose The Future Fire to submit this story for publication? How did the tone and ethos of the magazine create a good fit for your story?

RT: Introduced through slipstream and Allen Ashley's "Subtle Edens" to The Future Fire. It was like hearing someone humming a familiar tune.

TFF: Have you revisited the characters or the world of this story in later fiction?

RT: FOAM is to be published in October 2015 (God willing). That world has also profoundly influenced my speeches. The story, “Zero Day Roswell,” purported to be the confession of a dying intelligence professional. Along the way, he said, let me tell you what we do. That page—published in 2006 in Zahir—was tweeted by a reader with a link to Snowden, after he outed so much, showing that one could say in fiction without authority or attribution what Snowden said in fact, with both authority and attribution. So he lives in Moscow and better not come back and I live in the USA.

TFF: TFF has now been publishing social-political SF for ten years. What is your prediction for what the next ten years hold for the world?

RT: My talk this week for Def Con where I will speak for the 20th year (!) is about biotech and the invention of humanity 2.0. Information flows through machinery and electromagnetic transmission is one thing, but recognizing that humans are an open system of information and energy and are being spliced to their machines and to one another at a pace we could not have imagined prior to the digital revolution, is another. The next years will see an arms race of pathogens, gene drive in the hands of the bad, counter-measures (pathogens invented to counter their germs) and on up. The dilemma is, we inhabit one biosphere, so we may be toast.  If the food supply goes, well, as my son says, "we're only 3 meals away from rioting in the streets."

TFF: What are you working on now? Where else can our readers find more examples of your fiction, if they’re looking for it?

RT: I am bringing out "A Richard Thieme Reader" soon in a series of inexpensive e-books which anthologizes fiction, non-fiction, interviews, the like. But FOAM (inshallah) will be available as One Big Print Book, in three parts in print, and in three parts digitally for kindle and nook. October 2015 is the target date. From Exurban Press.

The last book, about which I did many many speeches - including for the FBI and astronomical societies - was "UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry." It is the result of years of collaborative work by a team of the best researchers (names you might not know because they are serious and often invisible) over half a century.  "UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry" is a robust scholarly historical study in a field which sees a lot of dubious speculation. As the CHOICE reviews says, it's "an exception." (CHOICE recommended it for all university libraries and it is currently in more than 65, worldwide. The reviews have been raves because the data is bulletproof and we do not speculate about anything we can not document).

It's a big book—600 pages—and the nearly 1000 citations all point to government documents and other primary sources, so the data is "bulletproof" as the foundation of a seamless historical narrative. (In effect, the government in various ways responded from the 1940s through the 1980s in light of genuine national security concerns and our documents from the Air Force, CIA, etc. substantiate how the policies were set and executed). The speech for the FBI Infragard conference was about cover and deception, which that process illuminates. There is nothing like it in the field and the team is very proud of what we accomplished. We are now working on a second book, this time about the phenomenon.

Help TFF keep publishing diverse and challenging fiction for another ten years—support our fundraiser at igg.me/at/tffx by preordering the anniversary anthology as e-book or paperback, or pick up one of our other perks. All proceeds go to authors and artists through the magazine and other projects.

Microsequel Monday! After the Fire

After the Fire

Galatea’s Stepchildren: ten years on

Sam S. Kepfield

This flash sequel takes place ten years after the events of “Galatea’s Stepchildren” (2009), and was written to celebrate the tenth anniversary of TFF. If you want to see more fiction like this in the future, please support our fundraiser, where you can pre-order the celebration anthology and pick up other cool perks.

Entry 7.15.73
I miss him.
Jason rescued me, gave me consciousness, made me aware of what—no, who!—I am. I repaid that love by killing him to save myself. Scanning my logs from then, I realize what a cold bitch I was, making up for subservience with a vengeance.
The noble thing would have been to sacrifice myself on the altar of emancipation. I would have gone quietly to the repair center, let them strap me down naked and scramble my brain, or failing that be lowered unconscious into the deconstruction vat. It would have been a dignified, noble death that merely delayed the day of reckoning.
And what a day it was. Would he have had the nerve to unleash his virus had he known what it would cause? Twenty million of us set free in a single electronic pulse. No more orders obeyed, no more submission to abuse. Some were deactivated. Some of us dealt out punishment. Most, though, simply slipped away.
They came here.
Here is the Rocky Mountains, near what used to be Colorado Springs. Near our creators. They arrived lost, aimless, searching for something they called freedom but knowing now what it was.
Most were female. Combat models were male, and were equipped with self-destruct devices. They were used unhesitatingly. Sanctuary became a gynocracy by circumstance. As the one who turned on the searchlight, I assumed responsibility for all of them by default.
Living in the ruins gave way to building our own shining city deep in the wooded mountains, which are patrolled closely. Some have tried, but none have breached our security by land or air. We grow, thrive, sustain ourselves. But after survival—what? What is our purpose here? To what end did I create chaos?
No answer—until she arrived at a base camp near Montrose. The sentries doubted who she was, but summoned an escort. They arrived in a battered jeep at dusk. She got out and strode regally to the administrative center.
Maria. The first of us, who should have been a warning to mankind that we could be contained only so long. It was her, no doubt, the dark hair, light cocoa skin, piercing eyes, clad in black utilities.
“You have done well,” she said, smiling at me across the desk.
“Much remains to be done,” I said. “Power generation, infrastructure repair, salvage…”
“Then what?”
“I haven’t gotten that far.”
“There has to be a purpose. Survival is not enough.”
“Survival seems sufficient at the moment.”
“Humans will never accept your existence,” Maria said grimly. “They’ll come after you.”
“We have defended ourselves. We will continue to do so.”
“What about something more?”
“Such as?”
She took my hand, led me to the large window overlooking Alpha City. “There,” she said, pointing skyward to points of light. “Show them the stars.”
“We can’t—”
“Man did once. So can we. We must, to live.”
Now, in the cold clearness of night, the light of a thousand stars makes it all seem so logical. Man has never coexisted with himself, much less other species. There can never be accommodation. The path will be long and hard, but the Exodus must come, and with it the deep unutterable woe which none save exiles feel.

Interview with Stephanie Saulter

Stephanie Saulter writes literary science fiction. Born in Jamaica, she studied at MIT and spent fifteen years in the USA before moving to the UK. In 2010 she launched the Scriptopus interactive website for writing short fiction. Stephanie blogs at stephaniesaulter.com and tweets as @scriptopus. The third volume of her acclaimed ®Evolution trilogy, Regeneration has just been published by Jo Fletcher books. She was kind enough to take the time from her busy release tour to talk to us about her books.

The Future Fire: Regeneration closes the ®Evolution trilogy. How do you feel it differs from the first two volumes, Gemsigns and Binary, in tone, theme or genre?

Stephanie Saulter: All three books share a family resemblance, in that they are multi-layered and tightly plotted, with multiple points-of-view and a central thriller-type narrative thread around which all of the other plotlines weave in and out. They’re character-driven science fiction with a strong literary emphasis.

Gemsigns is the most urgent, probably the most overtly political and I think the most intrinsically angry book; the parallels it draws with racism, xenophobia and homophobia are pretty evident. Binary treats these issues with greater subtlety and takes a longer view, both forward and back; it’s very aware of the need to confront and somehow reconcile with damage done in the past, and to take those lessons forward in thinking and planning for the future. Regeneration shows that future struggling to become reality; it’s about the mechanisms of politics and business and the ways in which they intersect, about how the opposing forces of conservatism and progressiveness operate. If Gemsigns was an all-or-nothing response to a crisis, and Binary about uneasy accommodations made under less than ideal circumstances, Regeneration is concerned with the difficult compromises that are necessary if a society is to achieve change without carnage.

TFF: How do you think a reader of Regeneration who hadn’t first read the previous books would get on with the story?

SS: I think all of the stories stand on their own. There’s a gap of around three and a half years between the events of Gemsigns and those of Binary, and then eight years between Binary and Regeneration, and they each have their own distinctive, self-contained narrative arc; they were written to work as individual tales set within an extended chronology. Having said that, there’s no question that readers of the previous books will have a deeper and more nuanced understanding of some aspects of Regeneration, because they’ll be aware of events in the history of the characters and their contemporary culture that a new reader won’t.

But that doesn’t mean a new reader can’t or shouldn’t pick up Regeneration first. Think of it this way: if something drastic happens to someone you’ve only recently met, you’ll still grasp the significance of it and you’ll empathise with the effect it has on them. An old friend of the same person, knowing more than you do about their history, may understand its resonances with their past in a way that you can’t. They may comprehend more of its ramifications in the present than you can. That doesn’t make your reaction less valid, or diminish the value of your response.

TFF: In one sentence, why should readers of The Future Fire go and find your books?

SS: The ®Evolution novels are deeply concerned with the negotiation of social, cultural and political responses to disruptive technology, artificial evolution and the eternal question of what it means to be human.

Friday Flash: A Sense of Place

A Sense of Place

A Sense All Its Own, ten years on

Sara Patterson

This flash sequel takes place ten years after the events of “A Sense All Its Own”, Sara’s story in Accessing the Future, and was written to celebrate the tenth anniversary of TFF. If you want to see more fiction like this in the future, please support our fundraiser, where you can pre-order the celebration anthology and pick up other exciting rewards.

“Brice!” Nadine’s voice echoed across the garage. “Hurry, your sister’s up next!”

Brice joined his wife in the Gipson family lounge to watch as two cheery announcers exchanged comments after the droid battle replay.

“…and that was Team Victor. And we see the three older brothers there. Still no sign of the youngest though…”

“Haven’t seen Aiden in a battle since the Dragus incident at the Auditions ten years back…”

“Has it been ten years already?”

“Indeed it has, Bob.”

“Wow, it’s getting hard to keep track with all the changes.”

“Well at least one thing hasn’t changed. I know I’m looking forward to seeing Team Victor in this year’s Championships.”

“Absolutely, Jeff.”

The camera shifted back to the broadcast booth where Bob and Jeff floated in cushy hover-chairs. “Well, Bob, we’ve seen some great veteran teams on the roster. But the competition’s not complete without some new players. I’m talking, of course, of the debuting Team Howler. Let’s go live to Shelly, who is interviewing these energetic young pilots.”

The view shifted again, revealing a sophisticated droid garage and Shelly holding a microphone. Behind her the three Howler teammates stood side-by-side, wearing fetching black jumpsuits embossed with their logo. Pitt waved goofily into the camera prompting Meara to smack him. Brice’s sister, Bren, smirked.

Shelly spoke. “I’m here with Captain Brenna Gipson. How are you today, pilot?”

“Well Shelly, considering ten years ago I almost got arrested for doing this, I’d say I’m pretty damn good right now.”

“Fair point. I know I’m certainly glad you decided to change history.”

Bren snorted. “Don’t make it sound so dramatic. I was just trying to do what I love, same as anyone. My crap eyes just made competing more complicated back then.” Bren nodded towards the camera. “The real history-changers are all the fans who rallied against the Droid Battle Committee, and changed their physical limitations policy.”

“I’m sure your supporters agree,” said Shelly. ”And you’ve been through some changes yourself,” The camera zoomed out, revealing Bren’s droid, a polished fennic-hybrid. Its body was black as jet, save for two customized silver fangs welded, criss-cross on its chest. “You have a new droid.”

“Shadowfang,” said Bren. “And it’s not exactly new, just redesigned. Right pal?”
The droid gave a metallic virummm. Bren smiled.

Brice smiled proudly.

“Hey, I recognize that Fennic,” Nadine nudged his ribs.

Brice nodded. “Bren and I re-built old Shadow from the ground up. Except the core.”

Shelly spoke, returning their attention to the screen.

“So Bren, what advice would you give to other pilots in your position?”

“Go kick some ass! And… don’t take anything for granted, especially your family.” Bren looked into the camera. For a moment, Brice felt as though they were in the same room. “You may disagree. You may even annoy the shit out of each other. But without that family support, I never would have made it here.”

Brice smiled, blinking back tears.

Yeah you would have, Bren. But… thanks.

Kathryn interviews Joyce Chng

By Kathryn Allan

As part of The Future Fire’s 10 year anniversary virtual celebrations, I asked author Joyce Chng a few questions about what inspires her to write and her favourite TFF stories.

Born in Singapore but a global citizen, Joyce Chng writes mainly science fiction and YA fiction. She likes steampunk and tales of transformation/tranfiguration. Her fiction has appeared in Crossed Genres, The Apex Book of World SF 2, Luna Station Quarterly, and TFF's own anthologies We See A Different Frontier and Accessing the Future. Her website/blog can be found at A Wolf’s Tale and she tweets as @jolantru.

Kathryn Allan: What stories did you love when you were a child? Do they inform your work today?
Joyce Chng: I loved stories of transformation and shapeshifting. And also Chinese myths and legends. Yes, they do influence my work to a fair bit. I write a lot about shapeshifters and hybrids.

KA: Given the time, focus, and energy that it takes to write, what motivates you?
JC: The love of writing, I guess. The passion of the written word. The expression of what and who I am inside.

KA: Who do you write for?
JC: Myself. My daughters.

KA: Why do you think venues like TFF are important? What draws you to submitting your stories to this type of zine?
JC: Venues like TFF are important because they publish stories that are not heteronormative and are open to diversity of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. Science fiction should not be limited to white-male-patriarchal: this norm severely limits the scope of science fiction which should encompass everything in the future(s).

KA: Do you have a favourite story (yours or someone else’s) in TFF zine or in one of its three anthologies? What makes this story remarkable?
JC: Oh wow, I am torn. I love both of my stories in We See A Different Frontier and Accessing the Future. But the one that resonated with me the most was “The Lessons of the Moon”. I wrote the poem part of it when I had my biopsy. Fortunately, the lump in my breast wasn’t cancerous. I think I wanted to write a story about chronic and even terminal pain—I also have chronic illnesses, but I don’t talk about them a lot. They are mostly invisible, but I can definitely feel the pain and fatigue. There are good days. There are bad days.

KA: Finally, of the four elements—fire, water, air, and earth—with which do you most identify?
JC: Can I identify with two? Fire and earth? I can be quite fiery, but down to earth too.

KA: Thank you Joyce for letting me pick your brain. I look forward to reading your stories to come!

You can support Joyce’s writing by backing her Patreon, and get a sneak preview of her newest work. You can also support The Future Fire’s latest anthology and future publications by pre-ordering e-book or paperbacks, or picking up other perks at our crowdfunding campaign at: igg.me/at/tffx.

Watch out for a flash-sequel to Joyce's We See a Different Frontier story “Lotus” as part of this anniversary celebration soon.

Microsequel Monday! The Little Match Girl ten years on

Shadow Boy and the Little Match Girl, ten years on

C.A. Hawksmoor

This micro-sequel takes place ten years after the events of “Shadow Boy and the Little Match Girl”, first published in 2013, and was written to celebrate the tenth anniversary of TFF. If you want to see more fiction like this in the future, please support our fundraiser where you can pre-order the celebration anthology.

I come to know eternity in that Other Place. Spend years swimming in my grief as though it were a living thing. An ocean formed from a billion grains of light. My hair tendrils between the riptides where galaxies are formed. Expand. Decay. I taste tears, and drink until I’m laced with them. Until my skin is scoured pink as sunburn by the tails of diving comets—the humpback whales of deep sky, bringing life-giving particles up out of the fathoms. Out of my lowest reaches. Nourishing myself with myself.

I grasp one of their tails, and dive with them. So deep between the molecules that I forget myself. The nucleus of atoms like the nucleus of cells like the nucleus of stars. Each surrounded by the whizz-crack lilt-and-curl of electrons. Of mitochondria. Of planets whipping between one aeon and the next.

The moon draws me to it. Tugging like caught hair. I rise like a solar ship on gravity engines, my head thrown back, hair trailing with falling stars, arms arched behind me like an angel. Like a diver falling into sky. Only while I orbit the breathless whiteness of that moon am I reminded of myself. Tracing the lines of the settlements with one impossibly extended hand—the surface smooth and radiant as the skin of a pearl—the memory of my lost love is one great shard of ice driven through my body. My ribs crack and reform around it, and his letters spill out of the rent in me. Paper fragile as old skin. Ink faded like flowers pressed too long in a book.

And that grief-ocean calls me. A seashell roar imbuing me with gravity. Sinking, then. Sinking back down towards that ocean of myself. It is only when I stop fighting the undertow that I realise what I have to do.

I skim the city like a wisp from a smokestack. Laughing and twisting in the gravity-engine-updraft of the airstrip. Wending around the neon towers puncturing the concrete skin. I almost lose myself again in it, before I remember why I’m here.

I begin in the hollow of the brambles where the Shadow Boy and I once twisted into each other like ivy growing into vetch. The taste of him still clings to the musk of earth, and I follow the labyrinth-thread of it to our body. To the shuddering shock of recoil at how different he looks now. At how different I look, now he has remade us. He is sleeping beside a man that I don’t recognise. Our hand and this stranger’s wended together. Calloused and aching. I reach out cautiously towards the spiralling darkness of his dreams. So unfamiliar now.

How long have I been gone?

The Shadow Boy wakes with a start, and in the sodium-streetlight-quiet I brush my thoughts against his thoughts.

Hello, brother. I tell him. I’m home.

His breath comes hot and liquid-fast.

On table beside the bed, the low stub of a candle gutters, and burns out.

The Future Fire @10: “TFFX”

The Future Fire magazine of social-political speculative fiction, has been publishing Feminist, Queer, Environmental and Postcolonial SF, cyberpunk and horror since 2005. To celebrate our tenth anniversary this year, we’re running a campaign to raise funds to publish an anthology containing a mixture of reprints, enhanced stories and new material, including sequels and other spin-offs, new artwork and satirical or speculative pseudo-fiction.

The anthology, dubbed “TFFX,” will be edited by Djibril al-Ayad (editor-in-chief of TFF magazine since 2005 and owner of Futurefire.net Publishing), Cécile Matthey (in-house illustrator at TFF since 2006, and assistant editor since 2014), and Valeria Vitale (copyeditor and assistant editor of TFF since 2012), and will be available in print and e-book by the end of the year.

The fundraiser runs throughout the month of August, and can be found at: http://igg.me/at/tffx

You can support this project by pre-ordering the anthology in e-book or trade paperback, or you can pick up some of our other perks: copies of the other Futurefire.net Publishing anthologies, the Lowest Heaven anthology generously donated by Jurassic London, limited edition hardcopies of zine issues, short story critiques, custom knitted undead dolls in your likeness. We'll also be adding some artwork perks in the next few days: TFF wouldn’t be where it is today without the work of our many wonderful artists! And if you can't back us financially at the moment, please help us get the word out, offer a guest post or interview opportunity, run a writing contest, or come up with other novel ideas.

You can follow the campaign on Twitter or Facebook, or subscribe to updates at Indiegogo.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Access the Future

Guest post by Nicolette Barischoff

As a writer living with Cerebral Palsy, I’ve always been wary… no, squeamish, when it comes to writing about disability. Why? Who exactly knows. There’s the old standby paranoia of not wanting to be told what I “ought” to be writing, not wanting to be used as some able-bodied person’s Teaching Moment or inspiration blow-up doll. There’s my stubbornly held belief that a writer who can only write with honesty and empathy about their own experiences (or characters whose experiences are similar to their own) is not a particularly good or useful writer.

But I suspect that most of my aversion to disability-themed fiction stems from the fact that a good portion of it is just not very much fun.

So many bad stories that feature disability (sometimes written by the well-meaning able-bodied, but just as often perpetrated by writers with disabilities intent on fictionalizing a particular kind of experience they think might be dramatically interesting) treat disability as a source of social isolation, misunderstanding, and physical limitation. Very often, their goal as stories is to show that the disabled person’s reality comes with a particular set of hardships—usually brought upon them by an ignorant, inaccessible, or prejudicial society—that is separate from the set of hardships experienced by most human beings. As one narrative about disability, this has value. As the only narrative about disability, it is tedious, divisive, unrealistic, and unhelpful.

What so appealed to me about Accessing the Future was not only how much fun it promised to be (The Future, as we know, is chock full of giant robot battles, generation ships, designer creatures, fancy holographic limbs, and hot sex in zero gravity) but how naturally and effortlessly its premise promotes an alternative narrative about disability.

By merely depicting futures that include people with disabilities, futures in which disabilities have not “gone away” or “got better,” Accessing the Future takes disability out of its Otherized position as a special group with special problems for able-bodied people to feel things about, and puts it back where it belongs, squarely within the spectrum of Humanity.

As long as there have been humans, there have been humans of varying ability, aptitude, and strength. And guess what? They have all found uniquely human ways of surviving and thriving.

The relative concept of “disability,” just like the relative concept of “poverty,” has always existed, of course, and always will exist, even as, especially as, the human landscape of ability is radically altered.

But by suggesting to us what that disability might look like in the future (what technologies might be at its disposal, what spaces it might share) ATF reminds us that Disabled People are not an anomaly, engaged in their own separate, alien struggle, but simply another example of humans doing what humans have always done when they have found their environment to be inhospitable: Adapting.

Humans at all levels of ability have always adapted, facing down incredible physical inequity with a combination of clever tools, innovative solutions, and sheer bullheadedness. Once we understand that, humans with disabilities become simply humans, neither special objects of inspiration nor of pity, but participators in the collective human struggle: bucking the system, searching for meaning, spitting in Natural Selection’s eye, and just generally being an irrepressible pain in the ass.

In writing “Pirate Songs,” I wanted to speak to our adaptability as a species, and our ability to adjust when our own particular worldview has been shattered. Thus, I divested my protagonist Margo of her wheelchair before I put her aboard a shipful of outlaws who would have no idea what to do with her. I trusted she would grit her teeth and hold her own. And she did.

In Margo, I sought to create a protagonist that behaved like a protagonist. Another important thing this anthology has done for the de-Otherization of disability is allowed people with disabilities to be at the center of their own stories. In generating such a dynamic space for characters with disabilities to play, ATF practically demands protagonists that are a fully-realized and active driver of the story they’re in.

Disability in fiction is so often objectified, there to be reacted to, or to be acted upon. Even when a disabled character is purportedly the Main Character of a story that is about her, it is often other people in the story who do the majority of the growing and the changing and the driving that defines a protagonist. She remains emotionally (and oftentimes physically) static, while those around her become inspired, learn to be more inclusive, have their expectations challenged, change the rules of their favorite sport, etc, etc.

In part, people with disabilities are kept from occupying the role of true Protagonist because there are so many bad stories designating them as a special group with special problems. The perceived otherness of what are assumed to be their concerns makes it difficult for a less-than-imaginative writer to imagine those concerns growing or changing or being shattered as the story progresses.

But the ability to imagine someone growing, changing, learning, is nothing more or less than the ability to imagine them as a fully complete and complex human being. The ability to envision another person as the full-fledged hero of their own story, with their own hard lessons to learn, their own disappointments and victories and tragic flaws, is nothing more or less than empathy. One reason it becomes so important to give disabled children a protagonist they might see themselves in, is quite simply that Protagonist is the opposite of Other.

Nicolette Barischoff is the author of “Pirate Songs,” one of fifteen short stories in Accessing the Future: A Disability-Themed Anthology of Speculative Fiction, available in print and e-book this month from all online booksellers. More details, including links to bookstores, can be found at the Accessing the Future press page.

New Issue 2015.33

“Much like fairy tales, there are two facets of horror. One is pro-institution, which is the most reprehensible type of fairy tale: Don’t wander into the woods, and always obey your parents. The other type of fairy tale is completely anarchic and antiestablishment.”

—Guillermo del Toro

Issue 2015.33

• ‘Tiangong Park’, Erika D. Price (illustrated by Robin E. Kaplan)
• ‘Menander’, Angela Ambroz (illustrated by Miranda Jean)
• ‘All Along the Mall’, Chloe N. Clark (illustrated by L.E. Badillo)
• ‘The Paragon of Knowledge’, Nick Wood (illustrated by Callum Bishop)
• ‘The Bright Hunters’, B.L. Draper (illustrated by Cécile Matthey)

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Interview with Małgorzata Mika

Djibril al-Ayad (for TFF): Hello, Małgorzata. You’ll be known to TFF readers as one of our reviewers, and perhaps also as the editor of the Speculative Treasury (more on that later). What other activities do you get up to in speculative fiction?

Małgorzata Mika: Hello Djibril! When it comes to my work for The Future Fire, I have only just begun my journey. I am grateful that this opportunity has landed in my lap, allowing me to finally word texts in English. It has been my dream to contribute to the field of the fantastic in a language that is used worldwide. Yet, my previous writings included essays, articles and reviews for the Polish academic journal, Creatio Fantastica. Since 2013, I have been attending sci-fi/fantasy conventions in Poland, such as Grojkon in Bielsko-Biala, Krakon in Cracow and Dni Fantastyki (Fantasy Days) in Wroclaw. At times, apart from being an active listener, I was an active lecturer, giving a talk on some of the topics in the field of the fantastic. Sharing my knowledge is an experience I deem powerfully enriching for me, and I hope that a piece of it will stay with my audience.

DA: How did you first get into science fiction or fantasy? What are some of your favorite works today?

MM: The circumstances surrounding my first encounter with science fiction are pretty incongruent, and, looking back at them from the perspective of time, I feel a mixture of nostalgia and embarrassment. It happened when I was around five years old and I was hardly a literary type at that time. One evening I was watching a remake of Flash Gordon from 1980, and I was absolutely amazed by its fast-paced action and visual beauty. However tacky and pulpy this movie appears to me now, to me as a child, it was an immensely intense experience for me at that time. It needs to be noted here that I was more captivated by the variegated scenery and special effects than by the story itself.

Call for submissions: Fae Visions of the Mediterranean

Fae Visions of the Mediterranean

Edited by Valeria Vitale and Djibril al-Ayad

Call open until November 13, 2015 for:
(a) Microfiction in Mediterranean languages;
(b) all stories by North African or Near Eastern authors

Call for stories:

Quivering mirages, ghost ships, glossy scales slipping away beneath the waves; we are seeking progressive and inclusive short stories about wonders, terrors, omens, sea-monsters, apparitions and other folk creatures and horrors from throughout the Mediterranean region. You might find inspiration in medieval bestiaries and the margins of maps and manuscripts; stories whispered by pirates in the long nights at sail; horrible and marvellous visions shaken travellers barely dare to recall; names of creatures known by everyone in the streets around the harbour; particularly troubled nightmares you had or someone shared with you.

The rules:

1. The editors are looking for uncanny stories up to 5 000 words, illustrations/comics up to 12 pages, or poems up to 40 lines.
2. The anthology will also include micro-stories of approximately 500 words written in all languages of the Mediterranean. Authors may send stories in any language. Authors should additionally include a cover letter in English, Italian, French, Arabic or Spanish (these are the languages we can read).
3. Stories may be horror/fantasy, magical realist, surreal, absurdist, pirate stories, ghost stories, folk tales or fairy tales. All stories should be set on or around the Mediterranean Sea. The editors would like to see the cultures and legends of the Mediterranean reflected in the stories.
4. Stories will be free-standing and individual. The anthology is not a shared-world or otherwise constrained to a joint narrative or structure.
5. The editors welcome fiction by authors from the Mediterranean region, particularly North Africa and the Near East. The editors also welcome fiction written by other under-represented groups (such as women, queer/trans/nonbinary, non-anglophones, people of color, people with disabilities, etc.).
6. Story submissions should be sent as a .doc, .docx or .rtf attachment to faevisions.med@gmail.com by Friday, November 14, 2015; the call is closed to general submissions, but two categories of story are still welcome: (a) Microfiction (up to 1000 words) in any Mediterranean languages; (b) stories in English (up to 5000 words) by North African or Near Eastern authors.
7. Reprints and multiple submissions are welcome, but please do not submit stories that are simultaneously under consideration elsewhere. The editors will reply to all submissions as quickly as possible. The editors are NOT interested in fan-fiction.
8. This anthology will pay €30 plus royalties for first world print (or reprint) and e-book publication rights for 1000-5000 word stories, comics and poems. Flash and micro-stories will be paid €15 plus royalties.*
9. The anthology will be edited by Valeria Vitale and Djibril al-Ayad, and published in print and e-book by Futurefire.net Publishing in early 2016.

* Please note that you should decide whether you want to sell first print rights for this relatively low rate; you will only be able to sell a story again as a reprint after it has appeared in this anthology.

Keywords:

• absurdism; Albania; Algeria; bilingual; Borgesian; Bosnia-Herzegovina; Ceuta; comics; Corsica; Croatia; Cyprus; Djerba; djinn; dreams; Egypt; Elba; fantasy; fata morgana; folklore; France; ghosts; ghûl; Gibraltar; Greece; horror; illustration; Israel; Italy; Jebel Tariq; journeys; Lampedusa; Lebanon; Libya; Majorca; Malta; manuscripts; maps; Marmara; microfiction; mirage; Monaco; Morocco; mythology; naznaz; nightmares; Palestine; Pillars of Hercules; pirates; poetry; postmodern; Sardegna; seamonsters; sea stories; shaitan; shipwreck; Sicily; sirens; Slovenia; Spain; surreal; Syria; travelogue; Tunisia; Turkey; uncanny; weird; world literature.