Originally published as Planet Magazine No. 24 (December 1999) on the classic Planet Magazine site.
Planet Magazine
DECEMBER-Quarter 1999 * Issue No. 24 (Vol. 6, No. 4)
Wild Science Fiction & Fantasy on the Web — ABSOLUTELY FREE & BELIEVED TO BE Y2K COMPLIANT!
Table of Contents
Editorial & Letters · About the Authors · About the Artists · About this Magazine · Behind the Scenes: The Making of “Fetus”
S T O R I E S
- I Think the Three-headed Dog Who Guards the Underworld Lurks in The Android Shop on The First Floor by Kevin James Miller
- Dead End by Corey Brown
- The Fisherman’s Coin by Al Krombach
- Grounders by Mark Anthony Brennan
- Legacy by Will Harrison
- The Man in the Moon by McCamy Taylor
- Poof! by Mark Griswold
- Seminal Images by Christopher Clagg
- A Visit to the Doctors by Mark Anthony Brennan
- WokeEye Tours Washington by Frederick Rustam
P O E T R Y
- Kiss the Darkness by Richard Behrens
- Kick Ass by Richard Behrens
- Trivial Pursuits by Richard Behrens
- Breathing at the Galaxy’s Edges by Deena Larsen
- Long-Haired Alien & 7 by Romeo Esparrago
- Mars by Gryffyd Eamonn Dempsey
- Nothing Lasts Forever by Tony Chandler
- Two Sci-Bun by Linda Robeck
Editorial & Letters
Planet shouts out to its homeys: Word… Microsoft Word!
FOCUS ON URANUS
As of today, Planet Magazine has officially filed papers with the United Nations proclaiming ownership of the planet Neptune (we didn’t want to touch Pluto, since we don’t want a trademark fight with Disney, at least for now).
Our subsidiary running the planet will be a virtual one, based in cyberspace, rather than outer space (what’s the difference, anyway), and one of its first acts can be announced here today (following the filing of another sheaf of paper with the SEC, et al, this morning): The planet Neptune (a unit of Planet Magazine), hereby announces its intentions to acquire the planet Uranus (a military base of the Baht-Hol Empire) in a 200-billion-galactic-dollar deal.
Note that these are galactic dollars, not U.S. dollars, each planetary-stock-unit-based G-buck being worth one million U.S. dollars (Ha! that ought to wipe the smile off the faces of those nouveau riche Earth-based Net and media companies and their pathetic hundred-billion-dollars-or-so deals that I so wish I had had the foresight to have been part of).
The SEC requires us to disclose that our future actions may include other acquisition opportunities closer in-system, perhaps a gas giant, perhaps one of the warmer worlds. We intend to stay away from Mars for now, which is currently in an ownership dispute among Kim Stanley Robinson, Greg Bear, Brian DePalma, the heirs of Ray Bradbury, and the Mars Candy Co. (Venus, luckily, is now in the public domain, as the estate of John Carter has let its claim lapse).
Rest assured, fellow Earthlings, that We @ Planet Magazine have no designs on the Planet Earth, although that’s mainly because we believe it is far overvalued right now, even if we could come to an agreement with the many contentious, interested parties therein. Anyway, Microsoft owns it already.
So, with the creation of these cyber-based virtual corporate mergers, we believe the Internet just got bigger again by an entire order of magnitude. Can you say “Dow 100,000”? How about “Dow 1,000,000”? We believe the IPO deals coming down the pike will be hugely huge — one day, very soon, we expect to do an Internet-merger deal worth one trillion G-dollars, and eventually a deal worth Infinity G-dollars! That’s right, INFINITY G-DOLLARS! And that’s just the barest beginning! Even the so-called New Paradigm has become decoupled from reality! There is literally no end in sight!
As our editorials have accurately predicted, all of us one day will become chat-enabled bio-robots in intelligent flying cars, leisurely zipping off through local hyperspace to visit methane-cloud-dwelling relatives on Sony Saturn, right next to the new, second sun, Yahoo! Jupiter, which brightly lights the warm outer planets and their millions of happy, super-smart chimps toiling in the fast-growing Crack Fields of Planet Magazine Uranus and in the upgrade-processing, back-office cubicles of Planet Magazine Neptune, much of that, by the way, constructed with raw materials scavenged from the inexplicably shattered planet Pluto.
What’s more, all of this — every bit of this vast, technologically boiling nexus, every single iMac-fueled planet and every MP3-ripping entity within known space — will be entirely contained within a decorative spherical crystal paperweight on a mahogany shelf in the den of my new galaxy-spanning SUPER-HOME currently being built in 15 dimensions.
More Shall Be Revealed,
Andrew G. McCann, editor
Planet Magazine
December 1999
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:
“Hey, Y2K is coming; so where’s my flying car?”
How many times have you heard that phrase? Well, now the future is here, of course. So, starting with the March 2000 issue, Planet Magazine has decided to publish only in FCML format. FCML (flying-car markup language) is designed to be read by drivers viewing pop-up, holographic screens in automated aerial vehicles moving in excess of 1 kilometer per second against a fast-changing background. See you in the wild blue yonder!
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Dear Editor:
Visited your site and was quite impressed! What a fine addition to the online literary community!
Stirring : A Literary Collection
http://thunder.prohosting.com/~stirring
Dear Editor:
I put together an e-publication called The Arthouse Underground at http://www.frankmedia.com. My site maintains a fairly extensive link section to alternative literary sites. I cordially invite you
to view the Arthouse Underground site.
Carson Wilder
Dear Editor:
I just wanted to ask you all to mention to your readers that there’s a grand experiment running at http://marecrisium.tripod.com/. I’ve opened what I hope will become an online writing workshop for speculative fiction. It’s not as grand as the Del Rey one, but then I’m not a publishing house with a full-time Web staff, either.
Jason Schmetzer
Head Lion Tamer
(okay, so I’m jealous and wanted a cool moniker)
LETTERS TO BOY BANDS
Dear N’Sync:
Last night I was giving some thought to the issue of unrecognized genius and how it pertains, or perhaps to what degree, to my home page. Now, starting off with what is, granted, a minor point, one finds that lkjhvajsdfhlaskjvnzlk… [GLOBAL INTERNET ADMIN USAGE ALERT: Please note that transmission of the above letter to the editor was halted because said message exceeded the “Don’t Even Go There ” parameters recently implemented by the United Nations Information Superhighway Foundation, Zurich.
That is all.
Regards,
‘Net Mgmt.]
Dear Backstreet Boys:
I’m searching for funding for my new invention: the Tele-Scone. This device is the ultimate in convergence, marrying the innards of a cheaper, smaller, faster, and heat-proof cell phone with the exterior of a tasty, crusty, hot, and delicious scone! Just flip open the special crumb-free Tele-Scone, dial a phone number, and talk with your mouth full! Just remember to finish your conversation before you finish the scone! Then just drop the nontoxic, one-piece cell phone bones into the nearest trash receptacle and head on over to your local Tele-Scone franchise store to purchase a fresh new unit! The starting price for a single Tele-Scone is expected to be only $139.99 each, and each unit comes with a free grande-small cup of Starbucks coffee!
Freshly,
Stu P. Dough
Dear Beach Boys:
As for search engines, I used to use askjeeves.com. Now I use askjesus.com. What’s cool is that the site answers me in my head, in my own voice! And it tells me that only I, if I learn the correct spells, can release my lord from the tight wizard-forged chains that bind him in his barrowland prison! So that’s what I mean when I talk about “Jesus”. Um, what was the initial question again?
Cray Z. Wackeau
Dear Take That:
Whoa. Wish I hadn’t taken that green pill offered to me by Morpheus. I know too much now. I know that I’m just a character in an e-zine, and that most of the other characters in this publication don’t know what they truly are — fictional. I should have taken the yellow “caution” pill, or maybe just the red “stop” one. Then I could be still kicking back and eating rare steak in some sci-fi adventure. Now I’m just tired of it all and feel myself turning into one of those scary Net bots, like MySimon, and then maybe I could forget this terrible knowledge I hold. But, whoa, no! I can’t do that, because then I wouldn’t have anything to talk about at dinner parties or when I write letters to the editor.
Whoa,
Nee O. One
Dear Beatles:
I’ve never learned Irish dancing, and the world is certainly a better place for it.
Regards,
Rhea Gardz
Dear Paul Revere and The Raiders:
If you’re reading this and you’re one of those scrawny little gray aliens, then get new “Ali-endurance!” and bulk up those toothpick arms. It’s very nice! In fact, excellent!
Vera Nise
N. Faktt
X. Zellint
Dear Culture Club:
Hi, I run one of those big dot-com portals, and we want advertisers to know that we’ve been able to capture a lot of eyeballs. A mountain of eyeballs, in fact. And I stuffed them all into a basement room in my house in Santa Monica.
Signed,
Cy Endd
Dear All Saints:
I think it’s fair to say that the Internet is going to be the single most fantastically unbelievably world-shaking hugest change to come down the pike since Marco Gutenberg invented the movable book. Hey, if people don’t get hip to the ‘Net, then they better kiss themselves, their family, and everything they now and love, goodbye. And every time I gaze into those glassy bug-eyes of that Amazon.com guy, I know I am SO blessedly right.
See you,
C.U. Layder
Dear Boyzone:
Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!!
Greetings,
I am Annoying Man!!
P.S. Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!! Greetings! I am Annoying Man!!
Dear Nelson:
I am a freak of nature. I try to lose weight and can’t! No matter how many cookies and donuts I cut from my diet (substituting them with chocolate cake) I don’t seem to lose a pound! I give up.
Sincerely,
I. Giff Upp
Dear 98 Degrees:
Speaking of that new Tom Hanks movie, “The Green Mile”, like the little mouse in it, I was also nicknamed Mr. Jingles. Back in high school I had all the keys to the special rooms on a big ring on my belt — keys to the Chess Club, the Audio-Visual Room, the Non-Loan Reference Book Library, and the refreshment storage closet for the pretty much unused “Kidz Rap” counseling room. And as kids would punch me as I’d walk down the corridors, my keys would “jingle” — hence the nickname.
Take Care,
Al Gore
Dear Editorial Staff of Planet Magazine:
I wanted to let your readers know that I have black-market videos for sale of the latest Hollywood releases! These are the same movies you have to shell out big bucks to see! The only problem with them is that in every case I accidentally left the lens cap on for the entire movie. However, we guarantee that the actual film is what you’re buying! And you can also kinda hear the sound tracks.
Best,
Hal E. Wood
P.S. We’ve got a special deal: Buy the first film for double the price, and get the second film for free!
About the Authors
Planet Magazine Says: syaS enizagaM tenalP
ABOUT OUR FEATURED STORY WRITER – Kevin James Miller
Kevin James Miller (“I Think the Three-headed Dog Who Guards the Underworld Lurks in The Android Shop on The First Floor“), has been a carnival ride operator, a customer service phone rep, a children’s petting zoo guide, and a factory worker. Some time during the 1990s, he go it into his head that he wanted to teach children professionally. He started to go to grad school for that purpose, but flunked out of the how-to-teach-K-to-12 program. (Something nobody else had ever managed to do before.) Since the school still wanted his money, they urged him to switch majors. He did — to writing. Kevin got fired up about the possibilities of creating his own fiction as a serious pursuit because of a course he took about the American short story taught by a gay Protestant minister. Kevin writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror because that’s the direction in which his story mind tends to drift. Currently, Kevin is teaching freshman college writing.
Besides Planet, his stories have also appeared at
Triangle46 <http://www.freeyellow.com/members6/tri46/>;
AntipodeanSF <http:www.nor.com.au/users/artist>; and at
Alchemie Ezine <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/9295>.
His .
Richard Behrens (Featured Poet for “Three Poems”) is a native New Yorker working as a computer programmer and Web-site developer. Over the last ten years his short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in Chakra, Blue Light Red Light, Bogus Books, Artitude, Cinemaphobia, Forbidden Lines, and Web-based magazines, including InterText, Dark Planet, and Planet Magazine (issues 19 and 21). He lives in New Jersey with his wife Sandie and son Kristopher. ()
Mark Anthony Brennan (“Grounders“, “A Visit to the Doctors“) writes science fiction stories from the tiny village of Harrison Hot Springs. He works as the municipal administrator — for now, that is. Of course, one day when his career as a writer takes off, he’ll be able to dispense with inconveniences like day-jobs. In the meantime he has to supplement his income selling photos of Sasquatch sightings.
Corey Brown (“Dead End“) finished graduate school at North Carolina State in December of last year, and is now working as a mechanical engineer in the sunny climes of West Palm Beach, Florida. In addition to living in hurricane-prone states, he enjoys basketball, golf, and fun running, the last of which is not always an oxymoron. A special interest of his is space exploration, with an emphasis on the history of human space flight. Corey has been writing SF for around seven years now.
Tony Chandler (“Nothing Lasts Forever“) has lived in Atlanta, GA, since 1985 with his wife of 17 years, his 15-year-old daughter, and his two cats, KC and Andy. Some of Tony’s favorite things are traveling, listening to music, reading, and surfing the big ‘I’. He is a Systems Engineer for a Fortune 100 company. And of course, he likes to write. Here are some of Tony’s publishing credits: “MotherShip” – The Writer’s Hood, five-part Serial appeared from May to Sept. of 1999. “Their Songs” – won 3rd Place at 1998 Dragon*Con and was published in Sept. 1998 issue of Eternity, The Online Journal of Speculative Fiction. “Dream Plague” – The Writer’s Hood, Jan. 1999; “The Ostrich Race” – Planet Magazine, Fall 1999 issue; “HellFear” – A Writer’s Choice, Spring issue; “Xenocracy” – A Writer’s Choice, Spring issue; “Alien Lust” – Dark Planet, appeared in spring 1999 issue. “Ramaas” – Planet Magazine, Winter 1998 issue; “Friend” – Ibn Qirtaiba, appeared Feb and March 1999 issues. “The Number’s Control” – Eternity, The Online Journal of Speculative Fiction, Nov. 1998; “Kragon’s Gold” – Planet Magazine, Summer 1997 issue; “Without Paradise” – Ibn Qirtaiba, appeared in Special SciCon2 issue, Oct. 1997; “MotherShip” – Dark Planet, Winter 1997.
Christopher Clagg (“Seminal Images“) needs a bio here.
Ray Dangel (Assistant Editor) can be reached at if you have any similar nifty adventures to pass on to him. His website: http://members.delphi.com/goldguy/index.html
Romeo Esparrago (“Long Haired Alien & 7“) likes his poetry the way he likes his coffee: short, sweet, and lighthearted. Happy New Year/Century/Millenium! Visit his poetry website: http://www.romedome.com/poetry
Gryffyd Eamonn Dempsey (“Mars“) needs a bio.
Mark Griswold (“Poof!“) is a forty-four year old avionics technician living in South Florida. He is a dedicated bachelor, which leaves him free to read and write into the late hours of the night fuelled by Bud, Beam, and Bach. His fiction writing heroes are Heinlein, Hemingway, Kipling, London, and Conrad. His favorite current SF writer is Allen Steele. He is also a big fan of John Wayne movies, but that’s another story. . Web site: www.speculative-fiction.com.
Al Krombach (“The Fisherman’s Coin“) was born in Germany at the Air Force Hospital in Weisbaden. When he was 6 months old, he· no, this is too detailed. Basically, Al attended a lot of schools. He majored in Ancient History and Anthropology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL. Heâs held far too many different jobs, including waitering, construction, fish farming, and pawn brokering. Al still attends night classes as often as he can, on whatever interests him at the moment. His hobbies include reading, writing, music composition, and camping. He married a beautiful Irish girl from Buffalo and has a terrifying two-year-old son named Aidan.
Will Harrison (“Legacy“) , after a brief stint in the cloning tanks, was delivered to his “parents” and consigned to live out his formative years in Oak Harbor, WA, where he discovered a love for writing, the Seattle Seahawks, and genetically engineered mutant emus. The former led him to Whitworth College (Spokane, WA) where he got a degree in English in between choking down cheap food and stalking naked men with paintball guns. After graduating this past May he relocated to the Seattle area and is currently doing temp work to feed himself and his cat. All other pertinent material is classified, and he’d hate to have to kill someone. The paperwork’s a nightmare, after all…. . Web site: http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Library/7692
Deena Larsen (“Breathing at the Galaxys Edges“) , needs a bio.
Andrew G. McCann (Editor) is the lucky guy who won that $2,000-a-month-for-life lottery prize, just before immortality was discovered. He now scoots between his various homes in his Microsoft Flying Car. editor@planetmag.com
Linda Robeck (“Two Sci-Bun“) is an aerospace engineer who has worked for NASA for 16 years. She started out working on experiments on Space Shuttle astronauts, trying to figure out why they were getting “space sick” when they got on orbit. For the past twelve years she’s been working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, building robotic spacecraft to explore other planets. In ’95 and ’96 she got to be one of the lucky few that actually built the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft, and spent many long days lovingly bolting, gluing, taping, and tying their “baby” together. Linda has always written poetry, and have had poems published in a variety of magazines. Lately she’s been interested in taking her real-life rocket science experiences and expressing them in haiku form — the relatively new “Sci-ku” form (as opposed to sciFAIku… hers aren’t fictional!). She’s also started branching out into what she thinks may be a new form — the “sci-bun”. In traditional Japanese poetry, the “haibun” form begins with a narrative that sets the stage and background for a haiku poem. So a “sci-bun” must be a narrative that winds its way around a “sci-ku”.
Frederick Rustam (“WokeEye Tours Washington“) is a retired civil servant. He formerly indexed technical reports for the Dept. of Defense. Now, he writes SF short stories for Web e-zines as a hobby. He prefers this to his former occupation of moving paper from one side of his desk to the other. He has achieved paperlessness. Mostly. .
Mark Stanley (“Poof!“) is a forty-four year old avionics technician living in South Florida. He is a dedicated bachelor, which leaves him free to read and write into the late hours of the night fuelled by Bud, Beam, and Bach. His fiction writing heroes are Heinlein, Hemingway, Kipling, London, and Conrad. His favorite current SF writer is Allen Steele. He is also a big fan of John Wayne movies, but that’s another story. . Web site: http://www.speculative-fiction.com .
McCamy Taylor (“The Man in the Moon“) needs a new bio here.
Tom Wagner (Assistant Editor)
Join Now! The Organization of Stupid Name (also known as Organization of Stupid Name, without the “The”) is looking for new members! OSN believes in one thing — having the stupid name Organization of Stupid Name! That’s it! To join, e-mail
About the Artists
Planet says: Vote Demagogue in 2000!
ABOUT OUR FEATURED COVER ARTIST – g.k. Senthil Kumar
g.k. Senthil Kumar (Cover, “Behind the Scenes“, “The Three Headed Dog“), comes from India, the land where just about everything commands a visual representation, whether it’s a wedding, a festival, a protest, or even a funeral. And perhaps, the most heartening aspect is its cross-cultural and cross-religious identity. gopal writes: Growing up amidst these influences, my creative outpourings took shape in a rather complicated manner. From Boris Vallejo’s influence, thanks to my uncle, to a more frank need to communicate clearly, I have trudged a long way. Thankfully, my arty instincts aren’t as shy as they used to be. Professionally, the possibilities are limited, but I’m impressed by the limitless possibilities in digital art. And I hope to follow in the footsteps of H. R. Geiger some day. Till then, bye! Keep in touch!
:
Homepage: http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/parklands/153/
Sam Crowe (art for “Legacy“, “A Visit to the Doctors“) says: Like many artists, I started young, very young. My Father and brother are both artists, and growing up around them alot of there “talent” rubbed off. Not to mention the harshest of all critiques when I would show them something I had done. I eventually got my hands on a commodore 64 and from then on out I have been producing C.G. images. Currently I am finishing my B.F.A degree in Illustration. I enjoy using the computer to create illustrations, mainly because of the freedom it provides when it comes to mistakes and the fact that the only mess I have are all the reference materials that stack up around my monitor. Compared to my pervious tool (airbrush), things are alot neater now. I guess I’ve been working with computer art since I was around 10 or so, I’m 27 now so that amounts to a moderate amount of time. I don’t consider myself to be an artist, maybe an illustrator. I still have a lot to learn and experience before I can earn the title Illustrator. I see all of my work as a stepping stones. I don’t look back on my images and say “well, I can’t do anything better than that” I’m always saying, I wish I would have done it “this way” or “that way.” So I’m always trying to improve my skills and my understanding of this confusing and philosophical field called Illustration. Some of my favorite artists, Craig Mullins, H.R. Giger (it’s pronounced geegur), Beksinski, Rick Berry, and Simon Bisley. Some of the tools I use on a regular basis are: Photoshop, Painter, Bryce, Maya, KPT effects. Some of the hardware I use: Dell workstation 400 with 2 300mhz PII processors with 384megs of ram. And most importantly my 9×12 intuos wacom tablet. It’s hard to imagine I used to do all of this stuff with a mouse. If you have the time and want to see some of my past images, you are welcome to visit my home site at: http://pages.preferred.com/~smdragon/awelcome.htm.
Romeo Esparrago (PM24 webformatter, title/header graphics, and art for “Dead End“, “The Fisherman’s Coin“, “Grounders“, “Nothing Lasts Forever“, “Long-Haired Alien & 7“, “The Man in the Moon“, “Three Poems”, “WokeEye Tours Washington“) is a hobbyist artist , who, in addition to his duties as Planet Mag’s webhead, continues to receive Viagra samples, cigar endorsement requests, and Jenny Craig junk mail due to a mix-up with Monica Lewinsky’s address. His art website: http://www.romedome.com/art/ .
Duncan Long (art for “Poof!“, “Seminal Images“, “Two Sci-Bun“) is a professional artist and writer. In addition to creating artwork, he has seen nearly 60 books he authored go into print, including 13 of his novels (published by HarperCollins and Avon Books). Besides illustrating his own technical books, Long’s fanciful artwork is springing up at numerous Web sites as well as on covers of novels, magazines, and CDs. He is a regular contributor to and a past cover artist for Planet Magazine. An online gallery of Duncan’s illustrations, articles, & short stories can be explored at: <http://duncanlong.com>.
David “Zozzy” Thwaites (art for “Mars“) started his artistic life doodling ‘psychedelic-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 pseudo-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’.
Behind the Scenes: The Making of “Fetus”
Behind the Scenes: The Making of Fetus
by g.k. Senthil Kumar
The illustration for Fetus is dedicated to my brother’s baby.
Here are g.k.’s initial sketches for Fetus.
Here is another sketch.
Click on the sketches to see the larger, more complete images.
:
Homepage: http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/parklands/153/
RETURN TO PLANET MAGAZINE COVER
About this Magazine (Masthead)
Planet Magazine asks: What was the point of the Internet again?
Planet Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 4 (the 24th 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
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. 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 was dug out of our collective mind, rolled into a little electronic ball, and flicked from our computers onto the Internet, where it splatted nicely onto www.planetmag.com
Planet Magazine ISSN: 1526-1840
