Planet Magazine No. 22

Originally published as Planet Magazine No. 22 (June 1999) on the classic Planet Magazine site.

Planet Magazine

JUNE-Quarter 1999 * Issue No. 22 (Vol. 6, No. 2)
Wild Science Fiction and Fantasy on the Web — ABSOLUTELY FREE!

Painting of a huge spider-like alien with a ribbed, fanged head looming over a crouching soldier who fires a blue laser beam into a glowing burst at its center
Cover art: “Laser Fire” by Steve Munsinger

Table of Contents

Editorial & Letters · About the Authors · About the Artists · About this Magazine

S T O R I E S

P O E T R Y

Editorial & Letters

Cartoon of a bearded old wizard in a polka-dot party hat and a starry blue robe holding a smoking pipe

Planet Magazine: Made with SmartSF Technology!

JUMPIN’ BEING

As the first person in history to reach outer space solely by jumping progressively higher, I’d like to take a moment to thank the recently IPO’d PlanetMagazineFoundation.com for its early funding of my mission, when all others were laughing at me (although it’s true that Planet laughed at me, too, as the check for $1.29 was being handed over). Anyway, to honor that support, however insincere, I thought I’d let the readers of Planet be the first to know some of the things I’m up to now: I have just completed construction of a flying device capable of taking a man from the Earth to the Moon in two seconds! And for my next project, I will be working on a device to bring that man back. In the subsequent two years, I intend to build two similar devices for women. Finally, in the years after that, if there’s time, I will build the Macintosh-compatible versions of these flying devices. But those are just my minor projects.

For those of you not very familiar with my aforementioned Great Deed, here’s some first-person background before we discuss my most important pending project. I started The Jump (as it’s now known) in my backyard, coached by Mickey, a guy who used to run a jumping gym in a shabby part of downtown Brooklyn (he’s the guy who first showed me what it really means to have “Calves”). After a few weeks of training with progressively bigger jumps, I chose May 1, 1999, as the big day. I went out onto my back lawn, moved aside the plastic furniture, and began.

As I soared higher with each leap, I enjoyed a gradually improving aerial view at each jump’s apogee. First I saw rooftops, then patchworked fields beyond the city’s edge, then birds soaring below me, and I even tasted quite a bit of cloud (a lovely cumulus, for the most part). I spent much of the time during the ascent and descent of each jump keeping a log of my observations (altitude, temperature, rate of acceleration, physical sensations and status, UFO sightings, etc.) on my color-screen palm-size PC running WindowsCE. Unfortunately, the batteries died after an hour, I didn’t have replacements handy, and the backup battery wasn’t properly seated, so I lost all of the data. It’s just as well, since I had to soon dump the PPC as ballast to achieve the final, few highest jumps.

Eventually, leaping ever-higher, the blue sky thinned, the stars winked in, and finally, at the top of my largest leap, when I thought I could go no higher, deep, black space finally welcomed me, gently trying to unbind me from gravity’s coils. At that point, I began stabilizing each jump-peak at the exact same altitude, using the stars to mentally triangulate my exact position, so that I wouldn’t completely lose my connection with gravity, and thereby Earth. The effect of hard vacuum on my lungs was quite painful, and my knees were getting more and more sore from each jump I was taking.

When I finally confirmed via mental computation that I had jumped high enough to ensure my place in the Guinness Book of World Records, and still leave any future competitors with too high a barrier to hurdle, I began to jump progressively lower. That proved to be the hardest part. I desperately wanted to just stop jumping, but I didn’t want to pointlessly fall to my death after all I’d been through. And so I ratcheted lower with each bound, still suffering from space sickness and from severely tested buttocks, thighs, knees, and calves. With my last jump, of only several inches (I wanted to be certain all residual energy had dissipated; after all, who would want to smash to the Earth from a height of, say, only two feet?), I collapsed onto the floor of the six-foot pit in the middle of my backyard that had been created by the force of my numerous jumps. And as both the medics and the media quickly swooped in, the last thing I heard before I lost consciousness was Mickey saying, “Ya did good, kid. Real good!”

Later I found out that Mickey had tragically been under me when he said that. Apparently, he had slipped and fallen into the pit sometime during The Jump, and at the bottom of each leap my feet pounded him incrementally deeper into the ground, until only his head, from the chin up, remained above dirt level. You’ve all seen it on tape — reporters and camera men standing around, horrified, during The Jump, unable to do anything in the fear that they might destabilize my landing place and possibly kill me.

My legs and lungs hurt for quite a bit after that; in fact, I was hospitalized for a year in quite serious condition. How serious was my condition? Well, it seemed that all I was able to do for those twelve months was read Kant, write geopolitical strategy papers, smoke a pipe, and play chess — quite serious, indeed! Anyway, it’s all in my upcoming profile on VH-1’s “Behind the Gluteus”.

And so ends my long tale, as the lion said after the crocodile bit it off.

But that’s not the end of my story. Not by a long jump. The big news is that my next jumping project is to become the first person to jump around the world: starting the jump in a particular location, traveling via “leap” around the world, and landing again at that same spot. To train for it, I’m working on progressively longer jumps right now, and have managed to jump several hundred miles at once. Eventually, I’ll do it all in one long bound that encircles the globe and deposits me in the same spot from where I took off. My main concern is that I don’t overshoot and, instead of following the circumference of our world, veer off into low Earth orbit. That could prove quite deadly to my already vacuum-seared lungs! Lesser, but still important, potential obstacles in such a jump include matador capes, Frisbees, trees, kites, ball parks, office buildings, airplanes/airports, birds, and even simple windburn. But you can find out more in the next volume of my continuing autobiography, “No Reason”.

As my coach Mickey always said to me: “Hey, ya done real good for a palooka trained by a bum who smells like ketchup but never ate no tomato-related products!” I still wonder, sometimes, what he meant by that.

Upward and then Onward,
Andrew G. McCann, editor
Planet Magazine
June 1999

SPECIAL NOTICE:
ANNOUNCING THE FIRST PLANETMAG-CON

Planet Magazine is planning the first of its annual Cons (as in “con job,” of course, not “convention”), to be held next year in a destroyed city in the mouth of an active volcano in Papua, New Guinea. A free can of soda may be provided to each guest in return for a small donation. No speakers or agenda are planned. No accommodations will be available. Any transportation is the responsibility of the guest. The thought of applying for a permit is scheduled for dismissal. For further information: Try to find someone who knows something more about it.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dear Editor:
Hi there. Just a note to let you know that I’ve just discovered Planet Magazine and I like it! I’ve just read issue 21 and my favourite stories are “A Child’s Thought”, “Carnival”, “Pigg Whistle”, and “The Sisters of Catherine”. I am an Australian SF writer of no repute so far, but I’m working on it. I organise an SF writing group that meets once a month where a bunch of local authors help one another improve their manuscripts/short stories. I will pass on Planet Magazine’s URL, so watch out — you may soon end up with a bunch of yarns from Down Under scratching for some space on your contents page.
Regards,
Cat Sparks

Dear Editor:
Found you while movin’ around the Web through poetry links and am jotting a VERY quick note. I hope you’ll stop by PoetryTonight at http://www.poetrytonight.com and see what we’re up to. Any poetry, links, promotion, essays, or good wishes are appreciated. If nothing else, I hope you can help spread the word. We’ll be featuring links and information on poetry magazines, by the way…
Thanks and best wishes,
Brian Robertson
Editor, Poetry Tonight

Dear Editor:
Why are none of the books recommended by you written by women? There are enough of them writing powerful SF out there like, for example, CJCherryh with her Company/Union novels, including “Cyteen”, “Downbelow Station”, “Foreigner”, “Rimrunner”, “Finity’s End”, and many more. Strange that she is not on your list. Just wondered…
Yngve
SF fan from Norway

[Editor’s Note: Hi, and thanks for asking. It’s just a coincidence, I think, that we list no women writers. Our list of books is very short and comprises our personal favorites; it’s not meant to be a list of “the best” SF books. Still, one woman I’ve been meaning to add to the list is C.L. Moore, who wrote “Shambleau” and other strange tales.]

Dear Editor:
After much consideration, we have found that your site is one that really transcends the boundaries. The consistent quality of the fiction and illustrations, as well as, heck, the 5+ years of innovation, makes Planet Magazine one that we wish to honor with the new “Step Outside” award. Award winners are reviewed in our monthly newsletter and are listed on our links page with a notation that signifies this honor. The purpose of the award is to honor a site that we feel makes an important benefit to the world of (on-line) Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. In addition, each award also comes with an award graphic for you to show off that is customized, with the date of award and the name of your site, just like a “real” world trophy. We are trying to transcend the common technique of giving away an award that is really just a way to get one site to link another. That is not our intention. This award is our way of saying Wow! “Outside: Speculative and Dark Fiction” is a Web-only magazine of short Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. We pay professional rates to authors we publish, but the fiction is free to readers.
Thanks for your time,
Brian Callahan
Clocktower Fiction
http://www.clocktowerfiction.com
http://outside.clocktowerfiction.com

Dear Editor,
I read the story “Thunderstar” in your twenty-first issue. It was a very good story. I have a language I would like to share with the world. Here it is: I rong e a dong tong hong e song tong o rong yong Tong hong u nong dong e rong song tong a rong i nong yong o u rong tong wong e nong tong yong — fong i rong song tong i song song u e. I tong wong a song a vong e rong yong gong oo dong song tong o rong yong. I hong a vong e a long a nong gong u a gong e I wong o u long dong long i kong e tong o song hong a rong e wong i tong hong tong hong e wong o rong long dong. Hong e rong e i tong i song. Can you translate this into English????
Weird,
Mt, Pleasant, UT

[Editor’s Note: Thank you for your industrious letter. Unfortunately, I cannot, with enough certainty, translate the language snippet you supplied to us; however, we did note and appreciate its pleasing cadence. Translations from readers are welcome.]

Dear Editor:
I have always enjoyed your magazine, and got a real kick out of the Letters to the Editor section when I went looking to find one of mine that you published way back when.
Jim

LETTERS TO CHEESES

Dear Epoisses:
A tennis player without an opponent walks into a bar. The bartender says, “We don’t serve tennis players in here”. The players says, “Well, then, do you serve tennis balls?”
Regards,
Milo Sevic

Dear Gouda:
Two refugees named Ian walk into a bar that’s a hangout for NATO peacekeepers. The bartender says, “We don’t serve Ians in here.” One of the Ians says, “No provlem, we’re from Kosobo.”
Regards,
Nate Toh

Dear Edam (and Ave):
As a literary ‘zine, I hope you will help spread the word to other publishers, editors, and writers that all so-called fairy tales, folk tales, myths, nursery rhymes, etc., worldwide are now copyrighted, eternally, by me. Due to my secretly having had a time machine in recent years, which I used to visit all of those ignorant peasants of historical times past around the world, I now own all rights in perpetuity to all such stories (I even paid some of these ur-storytellers in potatoes!). Thus such tales are no longer in the public domain, and, in fact, now never were! This means that all royalties must be paid to me, including retroactive royalties, for all stories, songs (e.g., “Greensleeves”), poems, and related works that have been published and used by others. Do you realize what this means? It means I’m rich, rich, I tell you! And I now have the funds to crush any one of you who dares oppose me!
E. Gomainyak
Richest of All

Dear Swiss:
I’m the CEO of one of those niche Web start-up companies. I find that, to keep your “edge”, it’s not enough to be aggressive in the Internet biz, you have to be literally a psychopath. So here’s what my firm is doing at the building where we work: All elevator doors spring open or shut without warning, whether or not they are on the right floor; move too slow, or too fast, and you get crushed by two steel doors like karate chops from God; or perhaps you’ll fall to your death. Second: Excess headcount will be monitored daily on a real-time basis, based on an algorithm linked to our gray-market stock price; at the end of every day, those excess employees — determined randomly — will be leaving the building feet first, in sandwich bags. Third: anyone I catch away from their desks at any time during the day becomes fair game for my knife-throwing Doberman/human mutant companions. Fourth: Well, the list goes on, and it’s time for lunch now, so I’ll be toddling off — exempt from Rule Three, mind you!
Best,
Webb “Bill” Yunnair

Dear Goat:
I digitized myself and uploaded me to a Web site. A week later, I checked my counter, and it read 000001 hits. Turns out that one hit was me! The Web is so very self-involved, don’t I think?
Regards (to me),
Brough “Ken” Linx

Dear Lymeswold:
I digitized a doobie and uploaded it to a Web site. A week later, I checked my counter, and it read 000056 hits. Turns out that a doobie can take only so many hits before it burns out and becomes unusable. I feel like a real ash.
Regards,
Byrne Taroach
Fangorn Forest

Dear Monterey Jack:
I am an artist who, as an e-art project, has scanned 1,000 white pages onto a Web site as a statement. Um, that’s it!
Sincerely,
Flatt N. D’Bye-Liftoff

Dear Ricotta:
This letter was created by me dropping off to sleep at my computer, falling head-first against my keyboard, and apparently hitting a random sequence of keys that typed out these words you are reading and then somehow (although it strains credulity) addressed and sent to you this very electronic letter. I don’t even know I typed this and sent it.
Amazing, No?
Jim Panzee

Dear Cream:
I’ve gotten criticism from all over the galaxy regarding my affair with Emperor Klin-Ton. It’s true that our actions brought the galactic empire to near-collapse, but what people simply don’t understand is that of all the men I was dating concurrently at that time, only the Emperor gave me love that was true and deep — the kind of love that people search for and usually find in an evening, but NEVER in the Emperor’s own Circular Office! And He gave and GAVE every single day of our two-month relationship! Anyway, whatever.
Buy My Book,
Mon-Ekah

Dear Colby:
This is another letter from the future. Just wanted to warn all of those playwrights out there about what happened to me during Y2K (like the shirt says: “I Survived Y2K, and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt During the Three-Day National Riot Utility-Meltdown Police-Revolt Massacre That Followed”). Anyway, we had a special New Year’s performance of my post-modern play: “Blip-Blop Suburban Cannibalist a Bleached Adjective”. Well, right during the Second Act, as the characters were explaining to each other (using a language I invented for this play called Exo-skeLatin) why they were AND were not transparent trapezoids, the counters rolled over from midnight, December 31, to 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 2000. And the played suddenly turned positively Victorian! The all-white living room set transformed into a chintz-covered parlor, while the characters began spouting some sort of Jamesian dialogue! I was shocked — shocked! — to find such rambling in my play! However, the critics loved it, and now I’m going to the Tony Awards!
Regards to Broadway,
Sam U. L. “Beck” Itt

Dear Editor:
Here are some facts of which your readers might not be aware, yet perhaps need to know if they are scheduled to appear on “Jeopardy!”. Fact One: Zebras are actually completely white. But they live their entire lives in the shadows of a small leafy tree, the Loub-Lang, and this accounts for the black stripe patterns so often seen on their hides. Fact Two: All enamel paints are poisonous to humans, except those colored an exact shade of royal-blue (Int’l Paint Council Ref. No. 12-b3-16g). This paint is completely safe to drink, as the refraction of blue light through the paint matrix neutralizes any ketones. Fact Three: Much to his embarrassment, the famed illusionist and escape artist Houdini was never able to successfully escape even once from a straitjacket. Ironically, he later died insane — bound in a straitjacket — at Great Hallsmoor Asylum, Ithaca, New York, in 1897. Fact Four: It is harmful to the eyes to look at a hummingbird’s wings while it is flying. Fact Five: An ostrich egg is literally the exact same size as the mother’s head. It is also the identical size to the Australian Rules football itself. And Fact Six: The word “ploor” (with varying meanings) occurs in every single extant language worldwide, except English.
Jess DeFax
Ploorville, England

About the Authors

Cartoon of three monster heads side by side: a green-capped clown, a hairy brown beast with red eyes, and a green slug-like alien

Planet Magazine: The No. 1 Web-Zine in America*
(*America, Ohio. Population: 1,394)

ABOUT OUR FEATURED STORY’S AUTHOR – KIM BURNHAM

Kim Burnham (“Big Ben“) is married to the best life form on the planet, who raised three children that are all smarter and more talented than their parents. Kim is a Microbiology professor at Oklahoma State University and currently a Mormon Bishop. So far, writing has netted him ten dollars. But it sure is fun. .

Michael Barnett (“Savior“) considers himself to be a “defrocked” astrophysicist, having graduated with degrees in physics and astronomy. In order to live, he took a job as a software engineer and has been at it since 1979. He used to write to help himself out during times of depression. Interestingly enough, his life has apparently been good for the last fifteen years. Of course, having a family with two small children does make it slightly difficult to keep up with any literary pursuits. Even so, Michael has been bitten by the Muse once again. Michael has been electronically published in “The Cat’s Eye”, a defunct e-zine, with a story entitled “Toll Road.” His Web site has more of his writing, including juvenile science fiction, astronomical non-fiction, and religious humor pieces at http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/9634.

Mila Burton (“Hypnagougue“) was born in the mid-70s to Canadian parents and has adapted well to life in Dallas, Texas, having been born there. An avid smoker and recovering Catholic, Mila’s activities include: drinking coffee, eating read meat, driving at obceane speeds, and conspiring against the yuppies with her husband. She does not write science fiction exclusivly; it’s just that authors like Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick have been her greatest influences. She believes that science fiction should use the science to tell the story and you don’t have to have five apostrophes in your name to be an alien. . Web: http://members.tripod.com/~mila18

Gary Campbell (“The Visitor“)is 51 years old, married, the father of four, and lives in the Midwest (Illinois). He served 8 years in the military (Navy and Marines), three tours in Viet Nam (Electronic Warfare and Intelligence), and currently works as an Aerosoace Engineer. Gary like to wargame and write SF in his spare time.

Ron Carnell (“Tormented Love“) is a poet.

Tony Chandler (“Steel Stallions“) lives in Atlanta, Ga., where spring is sprung. Woohoo. He is proud that he is sharing this issue of Planet with his sister, Ginger! Tony’s online novel comes out June 1st, through September, at Little Read Writer’s Hood http://www.summit.net/writers_hood/htms/genre.htm. If you like adventure, and Tony knows you do, please give it a read. And he will have more adventures for Planet, real soon.

Virginia Chandler (“Ristro“) is a technical writer who has been published in “Golf” magazine, “Divot” magazine, “Lost Worlds” (twice), “Database Advisor,” and “Lotus Notes Advisor,” and she has a novel available online from Cloverleaf Golf publishers, “Solid Contact”.

Chris Clagg (“Remembrances“) works, reads, writes, and occasionally sleeps in Orlando, Florida. A day job working in Retail Sales as well as teaching computer science for a local elementary school hinder his creative efforts, but have no effect at all on his book-a-week reading habit. He dreams of (a) cracking the commercial market, (b) winning the lottery, (c) travelling to other worlds and times, and (d) not necessarily all of those in the same order or all at once.

Ray Dangel (Associate Editor) is a refugee who favors bright-blue denims inspired by the kilometer-high sapphire towers of Venus. He hitched a ride to Earth with a Viking (no, not the spacecraft, one of the Scandinavian barbarians who developed row-boats capable of space travel back in the 8th Century). Ray brought a portable time machine with him, and last weekend he spent 32 years panning for gold in Australia. He found only one ounce of color, but came back with a terrific tan. He now is green instead of blue. Before joining the overpaid Planet staff, Ray worked a number of years in newspapering, which accounts for the ink in his veins and the think in his brains. Among his many hobbies, Ray enjoys toying with humans by programming subliminal messages into everyday items. Under the proper conditions, his picture can be seen in the holographic images found on most major credit cards. .

Romeo A. Esparrago, Jr. (Issue Web Designer; Art Schmoozer; “Doublet“) spent so much time licking the pretty colors on his screen that his tongue mutated into its own life form, ripped itself out of his mouth, and headed into the ocean. It was last seen attempting to mate with a nuclear submarine under the Arctic ice sheet. Now mute, Romeo lets his wife do all the talking to their new Pug puppy baby. . Web: http://www.romedome.com/.

James Heflin (“Remote“), though Texan, lives in Montague, Massachusetts, where he plays rock-and-roll in Fatter Than Elvis and Down All the Days. He has published poetry and fiction, and is currently working on an unauthorized biography of Ronald J. Feldman, the inventor of the Chip Clip and the less successful Dip Clip. His forehead is extremely shiny. He makes a mean gumbo. .

J.W. Kurilec’s (“Reasonable Man“) science fiction and fantasy stories have also have appeared in “E-Scape” and “Intertext.” Home page: http://www.bigfoot.com/~jwkurilec

[Removed at author’s request]

Michael Martineck (“Flittering Headstones“) lives on an island in upstate New York where he converts coffee and complex sugars into science fiction. DC Comics has purchased a few stories from Michael, and he received an honorable mention in 1997’s Hewlett-Parkard Writing Contest. This year, Geneses Publishing chose him as its first featured author. His novel “Eidolon Ground” is available at http://www.geneses.com/.

Andrew G. McCann (Big Cheese, “Fugitive“, Editorial & Fake Letters, artwork for “Hot Line” and “Tormented Love”) is a metallic-puce, vaguely artichoke-sized creature capable only of moving sideways on tiny pincers while staring expressionlessly. It’s all so unfair. To compensate for this, Andy works as a body-art daredevil in Brooklyn, New York. His final stunt of the 20th Century will be the piercing of his cranial carapace with a nut-rolled cheese log live on pay-per-view TV on New Year’s Eve, 1999. For completeness’ sake, he will repeat this feat on New Year’s Eve, 2000. .

Kevin James Miller (“Mrs. Selby Takes a Lover From Another Galaxy“) has been a carnival ride operator, a customer service phone representative, a children’s petting zoo guide, a door-to-door salesman, a film student, and a factory worker. Some time during the ’90’s, he got it into his head that he wanted to teach children professionally. Kevin started to go to Graduate school for that purpose, but flunked out of its how-to-teach-K-to-12 program. (Something nobody else had ever managed to do before.) Since the school still wanted his money, he was urged to switch majors, which he did, to “Written Communication,” the twenty-dollar way of saying “writing,” because he always had a serious interest in books and an amateur’s interest in writing. Kevin got fired up about the possibilities of creating his own fiction as a serious pursuit after taking a course in American fiction at that school taught by a gay Protestant minister. Kevin settled generally on science fiction, fantasy, and horror, because that’s the way his imagination tends to go. He’s currently teaching freshman and sophomore composition at an undergraduate school.

Aidan O’Keefe (“Reading Upstream“) is the pen name of John Cameron Suart, who lives outside Fredericton, New Brunswick, on Canada’s East Coast. A former journalist turned advertising executive, he has written for a number of Canadian and U.S. newspapers and magazines. He also spent several years in broadcasting working as a radio reporter and announcer. Suart’s love of science fiction started at an early age and continues to this day. He started writing science fiction himself two years ago. “Reading Upstream” was his first completed work. He continues to write short stories when he isn’t working up advertising campaigns or being a full-time dad and husband. E-mail for Aidan O’Keefe (John Cameron Suart):

L. Theodore Ollier (“Negligence“) began writing at an early age (5) and for several years covered reams of typing paper and stacks of legal pads with space operas lifted from “Star Trek,” “Star Wars,” “Tom Swift,” and the writings of such authors as Asimov and Heinlein. With the advent of the PC, Mr. Ollier was freed of the tyranny of paper (not to mention writer’s cramp) and soon developed a style more-or-less his own. His interests range from speculative future histories, hard “science” fiction, near-future alternities, para-planetary cartography, and non-Tolkienesque, non-medieval fantasy (which may or may not be a contradiction in terms). Currently he has stacks of well-written, interesting short stories and one thought-provoking young-adult novel with a corresponding stack of terse rejection slips. Mr. Ollier is in his late twenties, has one two-year-old dog, and lives in Austin, Texas.

Hathno Paige (“Space Monkey King“) is the spiritual leader of the Kinaca Kult, whose adherents believe that habitual use of Kinaca Breath Spray can lead to enlightenment. He is unwired.

James M. Palmer (“A.I.“) is a 25-year-old Middle Grades Education major, concentrating in English and Social Studies, but what he really wants to do is write full time and make lots of money! He enjoys spending time with his fiance, writing short stories, and writing articles and a monthly column called Random Musings for both his Web site and The Outer Rim, the newspaper of the Area 51 community of Geocities. His tentative long-term project is a book about SF fandom.

Frederick Rustam (“The Monk Who Hated Latin“) is a retired civil servant who formerly indexed technical reports for the Department of Defense. He writes science fiction for the Web as a hobby. He prefers devising imaginary worlds to dealing with the technological complexities of the current one. .

Will Sand (“Timing“) is a retired chiropractor living on the central coast of California. He has been published in Aberrations, Ultimate Unknown, and online (Dark Planet, Twilight Times, Exodus, Blue Pages, Antipodean, and Ibn Qirtaiba). His body is as old as the current President and his vision as current as the new millennium. Home page: http://www.redshift.com/~wsandtt/

Scott Speck-Lesh (“Planet X“) been been published in five e-zines: Planet Magazine, Juicy Britches, Wired Art for Wired Hearts, the ShallowEND, and The Writer’s Choice. He is 35 years old and works full time as a software systems engineer with the Hubble Space Telescope project. He participates in two electronic workshops and an on-campus workshops at the Johns Hopkins University. His poetry, short stories, and novels focus on nature, politics, religion, erotica, and human relationships.

Bill Vernon (“Hot Line“) was booted into retirement from his long-time teaching job, and in revenge is wreaking havoc on his keyboard. Occasional politically incorrect rampages emerge, threatening to doom the few interpersonal communications he achieves. So he apologizes in advance should insensitivity occur. More often he waxes poetically acceptable, as may be seen online in “The Animist,” “A Writer’s Choice Literary Magazine,” “Seeker Magazine,” and “New Works Review.” Writing about himself in the third person and depicting himself as a woman in his fiction are becoming worrisome habits. .

Tom Wagner (Associate Editor/Key Grip; “Exterminator, First Class“) is the half-plant/half-human ruler and sole inhabitant of Angri-La-La, a destroyed city in a volcano somewhere east of Krakatoa. Tom’s non-desire for a life of no desiring is continually upset by the unpredictable hijinks of a band of rogue monkeys, namely, Endi, Rey, Rummio, and Shemp. In fact, one time, this zany group of monkeys… no, no, we can’t go into it here; it’s too long a story, and you’d simply never believe it! .

For Sale: One Editor’s Personality — never used. If new, would cost over $12. This is the latest version. Takes up only 4k. Windows 2000-ready; Linux upgrade available; Palm V-compatible. iMac version “coming soon.” Reason for selling: Apparently not needed; anyway, adding a personality layer only slows down processing time for Planet’s Editor-Unit. .

About the Artists

Planet Magazine: The favorite SF Web-zine of the New York Knicks!

Cartoon of an artist in a red cap and blue jeans, seen from behind, painting a green alien on a canvas at an easel

ABOUT OUR FEATURED COVER ARTIST – STEVE MUNSINGER

Here’s what Steve has to say: I live way, way out west. I live in an alpine desert. Its hot here, it’s cold here, it’s windy here. I might as well live on another planet. Which is why I love being where I am. You couldn’t live in a place more alien environment in which to live. The skies at night are alive with a plethora of glowing stars and nebula.

I was born in England back in the fifties, came to the states with my folks and have studied art, music and astronomy for many years. I have a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing and I currently teach drawing, painting and a class for amateur astronomers.

Highlights in my life include marrying my high school sweetheart, having two wonderful intelligent kids; a boy and a girl, winning the Illustrators of the Future contest, meeting my idol and mentor Frank Kelly Freas, and meeting & having dinner with the late greats Gene Roddenberry and Vincent Price.

My web site can be visited at <w3.trib.com/~smunsin> and my email is at.

The title of my piece is “Laser Fire“. The piece is acrylic on illustration board and there are no computer modifications to the piece.

Editor’s Note: Steve’s art was also the inspiration for Tom Wagner’s story “Exterminator, 1st Class“.

Michael Beckett (Artist for “Timing“) was born in the Seventies and raised on Battlestar Gallactica, Star Wars, and Star Trek — not to mention the BBC’s finest: Blakes 7 and Doctor Who — so he guesses it was inevitable he would grow into a sci-fi mad thing. He drew from an early age and carried his passion with him through school and college and university to get some kind of training to visualise the strange fantasies in his head. Well that didn’t work, and one day he discovered computers and computer art. That was it: He was hooked and never looked back. Now a poor struggling artist on the PC, Michael ekes out a meagre existence working whenever the call comes his way… . Web page: http://www.denial.freeserve.co.uk/home1.htm

Romeo Esparrago (Artist for “Doublet“, “Flittering Headstones“, “Reasonable Man“, “Steel Stallions“) gets to have two bios in this issue – nyah nyah! A self-taught, wannabe artist who does it as a hobby, Romeo is currently creating artwork for Tony Chandler’s serial online novel “MotherShip” at Little Read Writer’s Hood.

Kalazar (Artist for “The Monk Who Hated Latin“, “Mrs. Selby Takes A Lover“) is a graphics Web designer of original, free SciFi themed graphics, and is currently creating the graphics for a new video game called NetherGoth. She has a permanent exhibit at the About.com Artist Exchange Gallery, as well as original SciFi and Mundane greeting cards available at http://www.kalazar.com, with a larger collection of original works at http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/2544/.

Gopal Krishna Senthil Kumar (Artist for “Savior“)is currently working with Communication Design Group, a software company, as a senior creative designer, but not doing what he always wanted (the job is just for survival). Once in a while he gets an opportunity like Planet Magazine, which increases his appetite for creativity. Web page: http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/parklands/153/index.htm.

Duncan Long (Artist for “Hypnagougue“) has created illustrations for nearly 50 of the technical books he’s written, as well as some 40 articles in national magazines. He makes his living writing; in addition to the manuals he’s written, Long has had 13 novels published by HarperCollins and Avon Books. “But my second love is creating fantasy and science fiction artwork,” Long says. “The computer really frees the artist to create almost anything that can be imagined.” And that’s just what Long has been doing, with his fanciful illustrations appearing at a number of Web sites as well as on two covers for Space-Link Books. Long has also created illustrations for covers and stories in Millenium, Exodus, Tomorrow SF, Twisted Underground, and other magazines and e-zines – including Planet Magazine. . Web site: http://www.kansas.net/~duncan/Artpage/

Kelly McLarnon (Artist for “Negligence“) was Planet Magazine’s Featured Artist in our March 1999 issue . She also was honored by MetaCreations on that company’s Web site http://www.metacreations.com as the January 1999 Artist of the Month. Currently in high school at her home town of Ottawa, Canada, Kelly takes a great interest in both art and computers. She has successfully combined both passions to start up her own Web design company, Topaz Designs http://www.topazdesigns.com. .

Thomas Miller (Artist for “Big Ben” and “Remembrance“) will soon be a Fine Arts graduate from East Tennessee State University. He’s been doing freelance illustrations for about four years now. He is also trying to build a portfolio of 3-D animation, and hopes to get a career in that field. When Thomas works he usually starts with lots of pencil and ink drawings. After he gets the composition, basic details, and atmosphere he likes, he scans it into the computer and finishes the piece in either PhotoShop or Painter, depending on the look he wants to achieve. Thomas loves using PhotoShop and Painter because he gets the same look as traditional media in a fraction of the time… and undo’s are nice to have. When he’s not working he’s collecting any art, or books, he can find of his favorite artists (Bill Stout, H. R. Giger, Wayne Barlowe, Robert Bateman, and, lately, Brom). He also collects all things dinosaur, so he’s always hunting for the newest info and art on them. Web site: http://pages.preferred.com/~digisaur/ .

Nicola Stratford (Artist for “Bone Remnants”, “Fugitive“, “Planet X“, “Remote“, and “The Visitor” ) is a full-time thinker about, but part-time producer of, digital art – working for a living keeps her from the computer more than she’d like. She uses Bryce 3 (awaiting delivery of her upgrade to Bryce 4), Photoshop 5, Illustrator 7 and various filters. Along with the newest Bryce, she’s expecting a copy of Poser 5 and then … look out! Her current crop of art can be seen at http://www.blueball.com.au/wow, while two of the web pages she’s designed or edited in her salaried job are at http://www.industrialproperties.sa.gov.au and http://www.dhs.sa.gov.au. Roll on a win in the Australian Lotto! .

Billy Tackett (Artist for “Space Monkey King“) is a self-taught artist from Northeastern Kentucky currently living in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area. Billy ran a sign-lettering shop for five years before resorting to 9-to-5 factory work. He recently quit his factory job to revive his art career, concentrating on book, magazine, and CD illustrations. And he also attends many art competitions in the Kentucky area. Billy doesn’t have too many credits under his belt yet, but he has been working with a book publisher doing three to six covers a month for authors like Brad Linaweaver and Piers Anthony. Billy works in a variety of media, including pencils, color pencils, airbrush, watercolors, pen & ink, and Photoshop, with oils being his latest undertaking. .

Dave (Zozzy) Thwaites (Artist for “A.I.“) started his artistic life doodling ‘psychadelic-abstract-super-modernistic comix’ as a hobby but was frustrated by any attempts at colouring them. He bought his first computer to this end but discovered that software such as Photoshop has its own powers of creating artwork from scratch. Instantly hooked by the depth and richness of colours and the psuedo-organic textures possible, he started out on his dream to become a fantasy artist. A thousand long nights later and he thinks he is starting to arrive. Zozzy’s take on the question, ‘What is Art?’ is that art takes from the inner spiritual vision of the artist, be they visual artists, writers, musicians etc., and translates those observations and insights into something that all can share in… hopefully awakening something of the spiritual in each viewer! Pompous, eh? Zozzy hopes to break into the book and album cover market but feels also that the works should stand strong by themselves! The boundaries between digital and traditional art become more blurred by the year and, whether illustrative or not, he views his work as ‘fine art’.
Website Total Zozzy: http://www.geocities.com/~zozzy

Hugh Vogt (Artist for “Web Fingers“) is a 27-year-old recent graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, who is very interested in editorial illustration within the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres. .

Lee Ward(Artist for “Trokar“, “Reading Upstream“) is a computer programming student living in Georgia. . Home Page: http://members.aol.com/ldraw/comic.htm.

About this Magazine (Masthead)

Planet Magazine: Our Family Crest Is a Tube of Toothpaste!

Planet Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 2 (the 22nd issue)

Home Site: http://www.planetmag.com

Mirror Site: http://www.etext.org/Zines/planet

Editor & Publisher
Andrew G. McCann
editor@planetmag.com

Art Director/Web Designer
Romeo Esparrago

Associate Editor
Ray Dangel

Associate Editor/Master of All Dimensions
Tom Wagner

Featured Cover Artist
Steve Munsinger
Cover Art Title: “Laser Fire“

Cartoon of a ship's mast with a billowing grey sail bearing the ringed-planet logo, its pole running down into the collar and purple bow tie of an orange shirt

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS PLANET MAGAZINE?

Planet Magazine is the free, award-winning quarterly Web-zine of short science fiction and fantasy by emerging writers and artists, whom we hope to encourage in their pursuit of the perfect tale or illustration. There could be other reasons we’re doing this, of course, motivations that are obscure and uncomfortable; instincts linked perhaps to primal, nonreasoning urges regarding power and procreation — the very same forces, no doubt, that sank the Atlanteans and their alabaster-towered oceanic empire. And the Dark Gods laffed.

Planet is available electronically via the World Wide Web (see the clickable links at the top of this page) and from various online services, such as America Online, CompuServe, and Tin-Foil-Hat Receptron. Total circulation is “thousands” per issue worldwide. Feel free to download this zine or make a single printout, as long as you don’t charge for it or alter it in any way. That would be not only illegal but also “not nice.” Submissions are welcomed (see below). Planet does not carry advertising or offer a subscription service, but issues are always available at our Web site. Letters to the editor are also welcome and are likely to be printed.

SUBMISSIONS POLICY & WRITER GUIDELINES

Planet accepts original, unpublished short science fiction and fantasy stories and poems, as well as digital art, from anyone famous or unfamous (use the lengths in any recent issue as a guideline). We are open to the experimental but will not publish anything we judge to be porno, gore, or in violation (as far as we are able to tell) of any copyrights (such as stories that use Babylon 5 characters). Since Planet is free and carries no ads, we can’t pay anything except the spirit-sustaining currency of free publicity and life-enhancing good vibes.

E-mail text submissions as plain, unformatted files (either as an e-mail attachment or, if short enough, in the body of the e-mail message) to editor@planetmag.com. One submission at a time, please.

E-mail illustration submissions separately as e-mail attachments, but Stuff or Zip them first. Alternatively, you could send the URL for an image, and we can go look at it. Images should be 256-color, 16-color, 16-gray, or B&W GIFs or JPEGs only. Send any questions about illustrations to .

DISTRIBUTION SITES

Planet Magazine is now distributed only in Web (HTML) format, which can be read best with any version 3.0 Web browser or above, such as Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, Opera (currently PC only), NeoPlanet (PC only), or iCab (Mac only; mirror site). Earlier issues of Planet are also available at our Web site in four other electronic formats: TEXT-ONLY (for any PC or Mac word-processing program), ACROBAT .PDF (a full-color version for PC or Mac using the free Acrobat Reader), DOCMAKER (a full-color, self-running file with sounds for Mac only), and PALMPILOT .PRC (a text version that requires a PalmPilot PDA and a DOC reader like the freeware AportisDOC). The main place to find Planet is on the Web, either at our home page http://www.planetmag.com or our mirror site http://www.etext.org/Zines/planet.

COPYRIGHTS, DISCLAIMERS

Planet Magazine as a whole, including all text, design, and illustrations, is copyright © 1999 by Andrew G. McCann. However, all individual stories and poems in this magazine are copyright © 1999 by their respective authors or artists, who have granted Planet Magazine the right to use these works for this issue in both electronic form and any resulting print-outs by readers for noncommercial, individual use. All people and events portrayed in this magazine are entirely fictitious and bear no resemblance to actual people or events. This publication, along with every past issue of Planet Magazine, is registered with the Copyright Office of the U.S. Library of Congress. Since our first issue, dated January 1994, Planet Magazine has been freely available via the Internet and has consistently used the names “Planet Magazine”, “PlanetZine”, “PlanetMag,” and “McCann’s Planet Magazine” to refer to itself. You may freely distribute this magazine electronically on a noncommercial, nonprofit basis to anyone and print one copy for your personal use, but you may not alter or excerpt Planet in any way without direct, written permission from the publisher, who can be contacted at editor@planetmag.com. Any unauthorized access, reproduction, or transmission of Planet Magazine, in whole or part, is strictly prohibited by U.S. federal law and international copyright law. Planet Magazine is published by Cranberry Street Press, Brooklyn, N.Y., USA, Andrew G. McCann, publisher.

COLOPHON

These Web pages were designed and created by Romeo A. Esparrago, Jr., using Adobe GoLive 4.0 and ImageStyler. The text is Arial/Helvetica/Geneva; the logotypes are Arquitectura. Illustrations were done in Painter 4 and Poser 3. Equipment used: an Apple PowerMac 6400, a Wacom ArtZ tablet, and a MicroTek ScanMaker IISP. Please visit the guest artists’ Web pages to learn about the tools they used for their illustrations. This issue of Planet simply is.