(954 words, 5 minutes)
Everyone wants an Omniplus Ultra, and I am not immune to the urge. But of course they are almost impossible to purchase — for love or money. Since their debut nine months ago at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, more than 40 million units have been sold worldwide, exhausting the initial stockpile but barely sating a fraction of consumer demand. The Chinese factories that produce the Omniplus Ultra are tooling up as fast as possible to make more, but retailers cannot guarantee delivery any sooner than six months.

(1401 words, 8 minutes)
Your mama stared at the moon through the viewport of the space station. The goddamn airlock was jammed. How the hell was she supposed to get outside before the change hit without the key? And who thought that a chain was a good idea for an airlock? Her bones ached. The inside of her spacesuit was starting to chafe.

(2938 words, 15 minutes)
For a while in those years we were calling great ones out of the past, to find out what they were like. This was in the middle twelves—12400 to 12450, say. We called up Caesar and Antony, and also Cleopatra. We got Freud and Marx and Lenin into the same room and let them talk. We summoned Winston Churchill, who was a disappointment (he lisped and drank too much), and Napoleon, who was magnificent. We raided ten millennia of history for our sport.

(12243 words, 62 minutes)
A scraping noise came from behind us. I turned to find that the giant male figure in the center of the fountain had moved. As I watched, its hand jerked another few centimeters. Its foot pulled free of its setting, and it stepped down from the pedestal into the empty basin. We fell back from the fountain. The statue’s eyes glowed a dull orange. Its lips moved, and it spoke in a voice like the scraping together of two files: “Do not flee, little ones.”

(3481 words, 18 minutes)
Shepherd and Anna got dressed and went outside. After several hours of exploration, they discovered that they were among approximately a dozen people left in the pristine city. They wandered stupefied for blocks, eventually arriving at City Hall. There they found a few other souls, equally baffled and bereft. As they exchanged half-hearted greetings and urgent questions, the aliens arrived.

(3936 words, 20 minutes)
Awards: Hugo for Best Short Story 2001...

(7164 words, 36 minutes)

(9226 words, 47 minutes)
Awards: Featured in Gardner Dozois’s ‘Year’s Best SF’, Twentieth Edition.

(111 words, 1 minute)
Mind-bending science fiction, steampunk, humor, and so much more can be found in our July, 2023 SciFiwise Magazine! Check it out!

(111 words, 1 minute)
Mind-bending science fiction, steampunk, humor, and so much more can be found in our June, 2023 SciFiwise Magazine! Check it out!