Future Science Fiction Digest Issue 0

Book excerpt: Inaugural issue of a new science fiction magazine with an added focus on international fiction and translation. Ranging from lyrical to humorous, from optimistic to jaded, from earthbound to interstellar, these stories offer six very different glimpses into the future. Matthew Kressel's "The History Within Us" takes place during the final stages of the heat death of the universe, where a ship filled with refugees of different species is huddled near one of the last burning stars, and that star is about to go nova. Tatiana Ivanova's satirical "Impress Me, Then We'll Talk About the Money" imagines the consequences of unscrupulous pharmacologists creating drugs that allow people to fulfill their deepest desire, which is to change. In "Earthrise," Lavie Tidhar examines what it means to be an artist in a futuristic society where humanity has colonized the solar system. In Alvaro Zinos-Amaro's "e^h" human colonists encounter a region of space in which their junk DNA mutates, revealing information encoded there by aliens. Teng Ye's "Universal Cigarettes" is a tongue-in-cheek tale of a grandiose marketing stunt with a dark twist reminiscent of Philip K. Dick's work. In the Nebula Award-nominated "Utopia, LOL?" by Jamie Wahls, a modern-day human wakes from cryogenic suspension in a utopian future overseen by a benevolent computer.