Speculative Fiction from the Seven Stars
SHARP STICK
by Walter G. Esselman
The young dragon, Pavataro, heard the crackling fire. Smoke rolled across the ceiling of the cave, illuminated by the glowrocks embedded in it, casting shafts of color throughout the grey. The dragon walked around the corner. Before a small fire was a young boy with dark unkempt hair and bright orange eyes. The boy, Gideon, stuck the end of a sharpened spear in the fire for a moment and then took it out.
by Walter G. Esselman
The young dragon, Pavataro, heard the crackling fire. Smoke rolled across the ceiling of the cave, illuminated by the glowrocks embedded in it, casting shafts of color throughout the grey. The dragon walked around the corner. Before a small fire was a young boy with dark unkempt hair and bright orange eyes. The boy, Gideon, stuck the end of a sharpened spear in the fire for a moment and then took it out.
ARTIST INTERVIEW: LANCE RED
ResAliens (RA) is trying something different this month. We’re interviewing artist Lance Red (LR) and publishing a story that he illustrated (read Walter Esselman’s “Sharp Stick” in this issue!). (Did you notice the same icon? Caught your eye, didn’t it?) Lance is an accomplished free-lance illustrator with aspirations of expanding his work to include illustrating books, comics, role-playing games, trading cards, video games, and more. You can find him at RedDayDream.com.
ResAliens (RA) is trying something different this month. We’re interviewing artist Lance Red (LR) and publishing a story that he illustrated (read Walter Esselman’s “Sharp Stick” in this issue!). (Did you notice the same icon? Caught your eye, didn’t it?) Lance is an accomplished free-lance illustrator with aspirations of expanding his work to include illustrating books, comics, role-playing games, trading cards, video games, and more. You can find him at RedDayDream.com.
THE DIPLODOCUS EFFECT
by Rob Hunter
Hubert arrived in a cardboard box, the kind they used to mail painted turtles in when I was a kid sending in comic book coupons. Sally Murtaugh, my FedEx driver, pulled up one sunny May afternoon while I was exercising my electric hedge clippers. “Careful, Jim―you’ll cut the cord and kill us all.” We had dated in high school and she felt this gave her some room for comment.
THE OMELET
by Mark Joseph Kiewlak
Keith awoke one day and knew that the world was falling apart. It was only our belief that held it together. And that belief was weakening. The sky was formed from our imagination. We pictured the sky and there it was as we imagined it. But what if we imagined a huge crack across the sky, a tear in our reality? The world could crack open like an egg. We could spill out into the nothingness.
by Rob Hunter
Hubert arrived in a cardboard box, the kind they used to mail painted turtles in when I was a kid sending in comic book coupons. Sally Murtaugh, my FedEx driver, pulled up one sunny May afternoon while I was exercising my electric hedge clippers. “Careful, Jim―you’ll cut the cord and kill us all.” We had dated in high school and she felt this gave her some room for comment.
THE OMELET
by Mark Joseph Kiewlak
Keith awoke one day and knew that the world was falling apart. It was only our belief that held it together. And that belief was weakening. The sky was formed from our imagination. We pictured the sky and there it was as we imagined it. But what if we imagined a huge crack across the sky, a tear in our reality? The world could crack open like an egg. We could spill out into the nothingness.
ETCHED IN STONE
by Kate Larkindale
A thin, misty rain falls as I walk up the beach. It is not a heavy rain, but the kind that sinks into your clothes almost insidiously, soaking you to the skin before you realize you are even damp. My hair clings to my cheeks in clumps, water dripping from the long ends. Beneath my feet the stones and pebbles glisten in the muted light, threads of pink and white running through the slate gray. My feet are bare. I like the sensation of these sea-smoothed rocks beneath my feet, some slippery smooth, some still coarse and ridged.
by Kate Larkindale
A thin, misty rain falls as I walk up the beach. It is not a heavy rain, but the kind that sinks into your clothes almost insidiously, soaking you to the skin before you realize you are even damp. My hair clings to my cheeks in clumps, water dripping from the long ends. Beneath my feet the stones and pebbles glisten in the muted light, threads of pink and white running through the slate gray. My feet are bare. I like the sensation of these sea-smoothed rocks beneath my feet, some slippery smooth, some still coarse and ridged.
