Future Science Fiction Digest Issue 12
By Alex Shvartsman, Oleg Divov, Alexandra Seidel, Jane Espenson, Arthur Liu & Nora Schinnerl
- Release Date: 2021-09-12
- Genre: Sci-Fi Short Stories
Stories from Austria, China, Germany, USA, and Russia.
"Old People's Folly" features a cantankerous, disabled old lady protagonist living a difficult life many generations after the collapse of modern society. When she meets a young and idealistic woman from before the collapse, whose personality has been digitally stored, there's both a culture clash and a generational divide. Can the two find something in common in order to help a teenager in need?
"The Life Cycle of a Cyber-Bar" is a madcap, unorthodox narrative that may have minor notes of Douglas Adams but is really unlike anything you've read. To say too much would be to spoil the story.
Alexa Seidel returns to the pages of Future SF with a dark novelette about a xenoarchaeologist who finds more in an alien dig than she bargained for. I mean, does anyone ever find nice things in a creepy alien structure?
Whether or not you know Jane Espenson by name, you've probably enjoyed her work. She's written for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Game of Thrones, Gilmore Girls, Battlestar Galactica, and, most recently, Foundation. Her epistolary story is about a despicable human being who ends up doing something very good, despite himself.
Finally. there's a story by another returning author, Oleg Divov. His satirical and very Russian look at the process of elections is guaranteed to feel relevant to modern readers everywhere.
