Planet Magazine No. 30

Originally published as Planet Magazine No. 30 (June 2001) on the classic Planet Magazine site.

Planet Magazine

June Quarter 2001 * Issue No. 30 (Vol. 8, No. 2)
Wild Science Fiction & Fantasy on the Web — Since 1994
Price: Several Hours of Your Life
“Accelerator” by Carl Goodman

Symmetrical metallic chamber of a particle accelerator with a blazing blue energy core at its center
Cover illustration: “Accelerator” by Carl Goodman

Table of Contents

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

Stories

Poems

Secret Poem
Find the secret link in this issue… X marks the spot…

Editorial & Letters


Planet: We Publish a Science Fiction Zine… So That You Don’t Have To!

The Six-Million-Dollar Glootnth

Ever since I was a kid, I knew I was “different”. I’d try to play with the other kids, but they just didn’t want to play with me. They used to laugh at my skinny arms, my nearly bald pate, and my tiny nose and mouth — it didn’t help that I was so pale and gray-looking. As I grew older, it was always the same story: No friends, no social life, not even a date to the prom. I felt like a complete outsider! Finally, in my teenage years, after so much time spent in misery, I finally went to a shrink and told him everything.

I still remember that day, after more than a year of spilling my deepest wishes and fears, that Doc (he never told me his name) looked me in my bulbous eyes and told me the truth — a truth that I both longed to hear and dreaded to admit. “Son,” he said, gazing at me compassionately, “you might have been born a boy, but, trapped inside you, I believe, is… an alien!”

I was stunned, relieved, surprised, intrigued, and slightly hungry — as it was nearing 3 o’clock, when I usually consume a glazed Krispy Kreme donut or two — and I felt each one of his words hit home. And then I knew, I WAS an alien. Doc’s right! That’s why I never fit in, that’s why I always felt like a visitor from a far-off world with reddish grass, giant Day-Glo orange ferns, and, unexpectedly, a sky-blue sky with fleecy white clouds and a yellow sun. The shrink put a name to my problem — alien dysphoria. In other words, my self-image is not in sync with the planet I live on. In other, other words: I’m an alien, trapped inside the body of a human!

[…Hello? Hello? Where am I? What in the heck is going on with this AOL Internet Messenger software? Why am I now typing in a Web browser window? These TCP packets must have gotten all mixed up, and… oh my god… it looks like I’m typing right in the middle of an editorial in Planet Magazine, whatever that is. I know, I’ll get out my cell phone… and… c’mon, c’mon… Hi, Mom? Is your computer on? Quick, open Netscape and go to planetmag.com… that’s right, you don’t need to type http://www anymore… look, just do it, mom, OK!? You never listen. OK, you’re there now? Good, click on the link for the latest issue, go to the Table of Contents, and choose Editorial & Letters. Now, scroll down a bit, and you’ll see ME, right in the middle of the editorial! Yes, that’s me! Those are my words!! Can you believe it!? Look at me! Haha! Bill Gates sux! I mean, he roolz! And… what, mom? Oh. OK, I’ll stop. Sorry. Yes, I know it’s not my magazine, and I should stop interfering with the editorial. But… Ohhhhh… All RIGHT! You never listen to me! What!? Fine. Yes, dinner at 6. Bye!!]

In the intervening years I discovered more and more about myself as an alien. It was a hard road, especially when I began changing. Specifically, with the help of resources I found at the Area 51 Public Library, I discovered that I was a glootnth, from the planet Twan. Once I reached the age of 16, I looked in the mirror and saw I had sprouted shtontahs, and they were “ridging”, which of course confirmed it. But the real shocker came months later, when my seddses burst, which meant that I was a fnord, not a glabsth! Not only had I turned out to be an alien, but I was also a non-male-type gender! I was again stunned and surprised, but not relieved or intrigued, nor hungry, as this was about 11 a.m., and I’d just finished my usual mid-morning packet of chocolate Pop Tarts.

This discovery was all too much, overwhelming, in fact. And I decided that I had had enough. I couldn’t afford the one-way ticket to planet Twan, and I just couldn’t live in this world, being the wrong genotype, the wrong species, the wrong phylum — basically, the wrong number in the phone call of life. So I resolved to put it all as it should have been. To right what fate had wronged.

Thus, I’m now volunteering for a new, experimental process at a private hospital funded by Bob Jones University. The procedure will cost $6 million, but that’s being provided by Vulcan Ventures, the venture capital group created by Paul Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft, whose claim to fame is that he cast the deciding management vote to name the original PC drives A, B, and C, rather than 1, 2, and 3. Apparently, Vulcan is interested in the procedure because it might prove to be in high demand by Microsoft’s millionaire retirees.

So last week I visited the surgeon, who wouldn’t give me his name (although I know him as “Babylon6Million” in the SF chat rooms where I first met him), and he told me that he can rebuild me. That Humanity has the technology. That we have the capability to make the world’s first glootnth-to-human/fnord-to-male man! And I will BE that “man”. More human than I was before. More human… less pasty-faced… fatter. It won’t be easy, since glootnths are 93% vegetable matter and cold-blooded, but when you next see me, I expect I’ll be like any other guy you might notice sitting in a subway car, walking down the street, sitting next to you at the bar, peering through your bedroom window, or dressed as Scotty at a Trekker convention. Sure, I’ll be a nerd. Unpopular? No doubt. But I will most definitely be all man and all human!

In fact, I expect to live forever in the annals of medicine, a greater symbol of scientific advancement than Dr. Octavious Mandrejk’s famed chimp-to-legume experiments in the doomed soymeat farms of Underground Titan. In fact, my doctor expects this operation to represent a total breakthrough in alien/man reassignment surgery in terms of Web-enablement and ease-of-use. We’ve long had alien DNA maps, from those captured saucers ‘n’ such, but now that the human genome has been mapped, it’s a simple matter of extracting my specific DNA pattern, XMLifying it, and matching it up with a human template along with XML tags — run the whole thing through IE or Netscape 4.0 (or above) on an iMac (DV or higher), munge it through some proprietary software controlling the still-classified bio-tank setup that I’ve been soaking in for 10 months, and Bingo! Goodbye Mr. Bug-Eyes, and Hello, World!

Humanfully,
Andrew G. McCann, Editor
May 2001

Letters To The Editor

Dear Editor: Thought you and your viewers might be interested in this Writing Contest with Poppy Z. Brite on 13thstreet.com. Here’s the link: http://www.13thstreet.com/. It is great opportunity for fans and writers of Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Goth. Please feel free to make it available to your readers.
13thstreet.com

Dear Editor: Web del Sol wants to report that the Web Fair 2001 in Palm Springs was an enormous success! Three days of film, lively panel discussions, and new media demonstrations brought out the best in everyone. Details and photography at http://webdelsol.com/f-webfair.htm. We’re now accepting proposals for WF 2002 in New Orleans. Information and
proposal form can be found at http://webdelsol.com/AWP Proposal
categories include: New Media, Magazines Online, Net Publishing, Poets and Writers Online, and State of the Net
Mike Neff
Web Del Sol
http://webdelsol.com
LOCUS OF LITERARY ART

Dear Editor: I wrote some books, mostly science fiction, and effectively self-published them with iUniverse.com. They’re listed on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble (www.bn.com), Borders, and lots of other Web book sites. I’m just letting you and your readers know.
Tom Slattery

Dear Editor: I just wanted to announce that the paperback of my horror novel, Naomi, is out in stores now. Naomi was the Internet serial I wrote originally in 1999 — this is the revised version. Please note that all of my royalties from this paperback of Naomi go to the National Down Syndrome Society (www.ndss.org).
All Best,
Doug Clegg
www.douglasclegg.com

Planet Magazine Notes:

Planet Magazine has been reviewed by Dark Matter Chronicles
http://www.eggplant-productions.com/darkmatter

In addition, Planet is mentioned in an interesting editorial at Strange Horizons,
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2001/20010402/editorial.shtml

We also recommend reading the editor’s notes, too, at
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2001/20010402/review.shtml

Letters to Mutant Monsters

Dear Half-Man/Half-Maize (a.k.a. Micorn Jordan): I’m just checking in to let you know that I’m still hoping to win the lottery, without having to buy a ticket. After all, why should I have to spend my own money to win? It might sound lazy and outrageous, but no one really uses those words anymore. I see myself more as efficient and savvy. That’s just the way society is today. There’s nothing you can do about it. Look, Hollywood let Kevin Costner make “The Postman Rings Twice”, the sequel to his SF epic “The Postman”, right? Then why shouldn’t I have my way just because I say so? In fact, send me all your money now. Send it!
L. Otto Weiner

Dear Head in a Tank of Bubbling Green Fluid: Soon, all your base will no longer belong to us. As we were unable to keep up with payments for outsourced plant & equipment maintenance and labor costs, subsequent to our capture of all your base, a lien was put against all your/our base by Galactic Court of The Big Justice. To avoid forfeiture of the properties and all related goods and materials, we have elected to auction off the whole lot on eBay. This letter, therefore, is to notify you that you are eligible to bid for “all your base” and potentially “win” back all your base at approximately 50 Scamidian Cents to the Bog-dollar. Of course, if all that occurs, you can safely assume that we will re-attack and capture said properties and all contained therein, at which point all your base will again belong to us. And you can be sure that we will attempt to avoid high unionized labor costs and certain other operating expenses by using any captured prisoners, such as you, as slaves, on a go-forward basis. In conclusion, all your base and all your people belong to us… soon, very soon.
Regards,
Your Duly Sworn Enemies

Dear Hunched Guy with One Huge Eye: I am also a mutant, known as The Improviser — my power is that I can become any character based on any suggested location, although that suggestion must come from a studio audience, preferably one comprised mostly of my CIA superiors. I have excellent skills for surveillance, particularly if the target in question is a member of the aforementioned studio audience (and especially if he or she is sitting in the first couple of rows). I do admit that it’s hard to observe the target when the house lights are off and I’m in a spotlight, yet I feel confident in those cases that the high caliber of my performance will keep my victims glued to the edge of their seats (especially since I put glue on their seats prior to the show). The only real weakness I have is when my characters are cartoonish, overly talkative, and don’t know when to end a scene and get off the stage — however, those instances are always due to a lack of greatness, imagination, and intriguing suggestions on the part of the studio audience.
With Swirling Cape,
Sekk N. deCitie

Dear Crawling, Veiny Blob: I’d like to share my experience with time travel and offer a warning to those among your readers who might be so foolish as to try it. I answered one of those cheap time-travel ads in the back of a magazine and got their Home Chrono-Travel Kit, which of course does not come with any legal advice. So I jumped ahead hoping to live a better part of my life, only to get sued by my future self, who already was living AND had every intention of living those times — and of course he knew I was coming, since he had been me! So I ended up having to purchase the rights to those future times from my future self, so that I could live the life I would have anyway. On the positive side, the money he received from me was what fueled those future good times that I got to live later, especially since my payments to him had to take into account future inflation rates.
Paradoxically,
Kell R. Tomahdo

Dear Sentient Celery Stalk: Just got my new iPaq, which, as you know, is based on classified designs smuggled out of North Korea in the early 1970s, when the regime there was under the mistaken impression that “Star Trek” was a NASA documentary. Anyway, I had already been doing a good job with my Palm IIIxe of alienating the fairer sex, but now when I whip out my iPaq from its custom shoulder holster, while we’re all chillin’ after work at Charley O’s, I find that I’m able to repel women 100%! Actually, it’s more like 110%, since some of them have gotten a bit violent. But it’s OK, ’cause now I’m able to focus full time on my personal project of streamlining and XMLizing Win XP for pagers — which I can totally do on my iPaq while listening to MP3s!
Rock On!
Vin “Doze” C. Eie

Dear Super-Strong Radioactive/Toxic Guy: You always hear nurses, pilots, and other people in high-stress jobs complain about the pressure they’re under and how they are not “robots”. And you always hear these people say, after they’re arrested for some crime spree, that they just “snapped”. Well let me tell you that I happen to be a robot, and we robots also are under extreme pressure — whether it’s high-speed chassis building on an auto-assembly line or laying fiber-optic cable across the floor of the Pacific Ocean — and you never hear us complain, do you? And while it is true that we robots sometime snap, that’s only because we are, after all, constructed out of metal and plastic. When that happens, you might hear us scream, “AAAIIIEEEEEE!”, but that’s not because we’re in pain, it’s just a lucrative marketing tie-in we signed with Spielberg’s people for the movie “A.I.”, which we expect to help a lot towards improving human/robot relations.
ReGEARds,
Rob Ott, Chairman
Lou Tenant-Daytah, Secretary
Amalgamated Union of Robots

Dear Tall, Staring Bald Man with Clutching Hands: With this letter I am applying for a role in the new X Men movie, which, BTW, really should be called X Persons to avoid any sexism. I am the closest thing to a mutant alive today, as I shall explain. They’ve apparently already hired various persons to play the new parts, which are new for the movie — but I tell you that I could do everything they do and more! For example, there is Brennan, who can conduct electricity (hey, I can do this too, using only a light socket and pan of water); Emma, a telepath who can influence other’s emotions and behavior (I’m not telepathic, but I have been able to influence others’ emotion and behavior — perhaps I’m doing it right now!); Shalimar, whose DNA is half human-half animal (I am ALL animal, if you know what I mean, ladies); and Jessie, who can alter his body density (no problem: I can do this too; just give me a week and lots of lasagna). Thank you for your time, and I hope I get all the parts.
Dramatically,
Wavier X. Gravier

Dear Giant Brain (a.k.a. The Editor): I’m just writin’ in to let you know that no one should worry at all about this econo-thingy with the stock market movin’ down cadentially ‘n’ all. Everything is going to be just fine. As for the ecologement, why that’s just a hoax that’s been perpetumenated by the liberals. In fact, it turns out that our bodies are institutiated of those supposably bad chemicals! So you can all just go back to watching Survivor! reruns. Well I gotta go now — I’m feeling a little low, and it’s almost time for my hourly cup of pure cane sugar.
Grinningly,
Bern Rubbeir

About the Authors

Peter Bergman, Jr. (“Arcade“) has been reading Science Fiction and Fantasy since grade school. “Arcade” is the first short story he ever wrote. Peter recently had short stories published in the March and April issues of Aphelion Science Fiction. His hobbies are hunting, fishing, golfing, writing, reading, and arguing with his teenage daughters. Peter lives with his wife and daughters in the Northwoods of Rhinelander, Wisconsin, where the four seasons are early-winter, mid-winter, late winter, and July.

Ray Dangel (Associate Editor), known as The Gadfly to his Denver-area friends, has begun yet another fantastic adventure. Seven decades into his checkered life, he decided to become a migrant farm laborer. Once or twice a week he drives 70 miles into rural Colorado and works at whatever needs doing on an organic farm. Most recently he sat on a mechanical planter towed behind the farmer’s tractor while Ray and other workers yanked young tomato plants out of seedling trays and laid them into the planter’s jaws. The planter whisked them down into the ground, opening its mouth for another plant every two seconds. Now and then Ray’s untrained fingers missed their turn to lay a plant in the machine, forcing workers walking behind the tractor to bend down and plant a seedling by hand. They’d glare unsmilingly at the errant Gadfly. This may be the source of the phrase “glaring error”.

Romeo Esparrago (Residuals Artiste; “Love’s Labour & Deliverance“) is an amateur poet by day and an amateur father by night. He’s expert at being amateur! Sometimes he confuses immature with amateur — oh well! In the meantime, you can visit his new amateur airplane model website at
http://www.romedome.com/actionmodels.

David Gault (“Martian Underground“) is 27 and finally old enough to listen to the advice of other people, like his fiancee Tanya, who convinced him to finally write down some of his wacky dreams and see if any publication would be crazy enough to do anything with them. This was his first attempt, so maybe he’ll try again.

Leo Goda (“The Mission“) is in his fifties and likes to write short “what if” stories, Star Trek short stories, and, now and then, horror and mystery. Leo is taking a correspondence course in novel writing with the Writer’s Digest school and has purchased a Story View program to help with the formatting of novels, screenplays, and TV scripts. He is very grateful that the Internet exists and that ordinary people can place their works there more easily than in the “Old Days”, when only hard-copy publishers offered one the opportunity to get something in front of the public.

Jeana Jorgensen (“Challenges Three“) currently attends UC Berkeley and plans to study folklore or some similarly eccentric field. She writes poetry, short fiction, and is working up to novels. Her work has appeared in a few small market presses. She also enjoys bellydancing, capoeira, and historical reenactments.

Max E. Keele (“Punk-eeq Pandemic“) is an overeducated, underemployed idolater who lives in the dank weirdness of the Pacific Northwest, where he writes odd little fictions and watches a perpetual rain spread joy among the fungi. His credits to date include: “Punk Jesus,” Fiction International; “30-30 Vision,” winner of the first (and last) annual Utah Daily Chronicle Fiction Award for 1988; and most recently, a short story “A Pound of Flesh” in the Spring 1998 issue of Nocturnal Lyric.

Sven Kloepping (“Space-Racing“) is 22 years old and an advertising texter. He’s a member of the German Writers Association and writes and publishes sci-fi short stories and poetry in both English and German. He recently published his first story-collection ‘”MegaFusion: – LifeFiction” in Germany. Although he’s actually not-so-well-known in the American market, he tries his best to become so. If this wasn’t enough self-promotion for you, visit my sci-fi online project: http://www.sf4you.de

James Livingston (“Volus Nocturnus“) is a 29-year-old English teacher from Apache, Oklahoma. He has been writing poetry for about 12 years. Previous publications include Poet Magazine, The Wichita, The Rose Review, The Stanford Anthology of American Poets, Images of God, and Poetry Online. His favorite writers are Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and W.B. Yeats. James likes to mix imagery and surrealism in his writings.

Andrew G. McCann (Editor) would like to buy a lottery ticket, win very big, and then open a little SF-oriented theater somewhere within walking distance of his mansion, somewhere right next to a fine Italian restaurant, perhaps, which he could also own, but not run, since frequent naps would be a must. So he probably would just own the theater too, and not run it. And the restaurant would make 24-hour deliveries as well. Until that day comes, he will continue to show up for his day job scraping off star barnacles from Omega-Class space tugs, humbly performing his small but important part in keeping the galactic shipping lanes flowing smoothly and safely.
editor@planetmag.com

Andy Miller (“Star That Lives“), born a little ways from the shores of Lake Erie, studied anthropology and Romance languages in school, and is a writer. He also paints, and his writing extends to Color Music.

C. C. Parker (“Spacehead“) lives in Seattle, WA, with his wife and daughter, Zoe and Natalie. Right now he’s working in a used bookstore (Couth Buzzard Books) in North Seattle. He’s been writing for many years and doesn’t intend to stop. C.C. spends his off time watching weird films (the weirder the better) and reading, reading, reading. After all, isn’t reading what got us into the fine mess of writing to begin with? Lately, he’s been reading a lot of Charles Bukowski and Harlan Ellison, but that could change at anytime. He also enjoys eating spicy food, drinking strong beer, and playing “Poop Cat” on the guitar with his daughter . . . What can he say? Life’s good. As for publishing, C.C. has recently warmed up to the Internet and the plethora of speculative fiction zines it has to offer. He’s only been submitting to them for a short time. In that time, he has published a very short piece in Deviant Minds Magazine (Ed.: J. Newman), an electronic anthology of dark fiction. Plans for the future: More stories.

Frederick Rustam (“The Cloud of the Unknowing“) Frederick Rustam is a retired civil servant. He formerly indexed technical reports for the Dept. of Defense. He writes SF stories for the Web as a hobby, and he finds devising future worlds to be more satisfying than dealing with the complexities of our world.

Tom Wagner (Associate Editor), as this issue goes to the electron printing press, is winging his way to the Clarion Science
Fiction Writer’s Workshop from his remote Pacific island lair, where his day job involves hazardous brain management. Be on the lookout for some killer stories from him in the coming months!

So Long, Douglas Adams, and Thanks for All the Fiction!

About the Artists

Jon Eke (art for “The Cloud of Unknowing“, “Martian Underground“, “Punk-Eeeq Pandemic“, “Spacehead“, and “Volus Nocturnus“) was born in 1967 in Amersham, north of London, and grew up in the Midlands before moving to Merseyside in 1986, where he currently works in the operating theatres at the local NHS hospital. Apart from computer art, his other main hobbies are astronomy, photography, and writing highly personal science fiction tales. Among his favourite writers he includes James Tiptree Jr, Cordwainer Smith, Philip K Dick, Samuel Delany, Barry Malzberg, William Burroughs, Robert Aickman, Ramsey Campbell, Clark Ashton Smith, and H.P.Lovecraft (actually, if the truth be told, he’s top of the list). Jon is also a member of the Ghost Story society and his main ambition in life is to write just one truly successful ghost story. If he manages that, he’ll die a happy man!.

Romeo Esparrago (art for “Arcade” and “Love’s Labour & Deliverance“) wonders what woodcutter’s women whine about when weaving wild woolens in Winnemucca. Well..! Note Romeo’s progress in woodcut-style art this issue. For more of his art, visit http://www.romedome.com/art.

Carl Goodman (art for “cover” and “The Mission“) is dangerously close to 40, married with one son, lives in Surrey, UK, and has been doing computer graphics for a living since the late 1980s. A lot of his work has been based around fairly technical visualistion projects, but a while back he joined a computer animation company as director of graphics research and development, which means that basically he gets to evaluate all the leading-edge technologies associated with CGI and provide due diligence for venture capitalists on various projects.

Carl has had a fair bit of material published in consumer media in the past, including animation work for Reuters on the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact, which was shown on news channels in 22 separate countries. He also had some illustrations of this event published in New Scientist magazine.

Carl is also an avid reader of what might be thought of as “hard core” science fiction, with a strong bias towards the Clarke-Asimov-Heinlein-Niven stable, and enjoys the opportunity to visualise concepts. Web-site: www.peppersghost.com

Andy Miller (art for “Star That Lives“), born a little ways from the shores of Lake Erie, studied anthropology and Romance languages in school, and is a writer. He also paints, and his writing extends to Color Music.

Patrick Stacy (art for “Challenges Three“) hails from Germany, and like many before, started young. His main emphasis in childhood was comics and he soon became an excellent tracer. Never content, the challenge was then to illustrate freehand; now that would be talent. Early influences are still inspirational today, such as the legendary Frazetta, Vallejo, and Parrish. Classical influences were Rubens and Caravaggio. The goal of course is, with any luck, to break into the book cover and magazine markets. As mentioned earlier about never being content, currently in the process of learning to create webpages through HTML and Photoshop. In the process of updating website to include upgrades as well as new illustrations. Winner of the L.Ron Hubbard’s Illustrators of the Future contest in 1996 as well as two illustrations within the volume. Web-site: http://members.nbci.com/pstacyart/

Ernst Wurdack (art for “Space-Racing“), born in 1959, studied economics at the University of Regensburg, Germany, before he got a job at KODAK. There he worked for 8 years as a trainer for professional photographers and 3 years as sales-director. Since 1999 he has been a freelance artist and publisher. If you are interested in how he did “Space Racing”, visit http://www.geocities.com/oneacit/

Readers! Your foreheads are unused space! Why not rent them to Planet Magazine as ad space? For more info, please look for our advertisement on various foreheads in your local village or camp!

About this Magazine (Masthead)


Planet Magazine: The Acceptable Face of Alien Cultural Domination!

Planet Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 2 (the 30th issue)

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

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

Chief Ink-Taster
Andrew G. McCann
editor@planetmag.com

Foundry Director
Romeo Esparrago

Chief Binder
Ray Dangel

Parchment Tester
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 digital 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 Tin-Foil-Hat Receptron. Total circulation is “thousands ‘n’ 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 illegal and “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, with new ones published every March 1, June 1, September 1, or December 1 (or thereabouts). Letters to the editor are encouraged and are likely to be printed.

Guidelines For Submissions
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 Star Trek, Star Wars, or 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. For full details on submitting stories, poems, or artwork, please visit http://www.planetmag.com/submit.htm.

* 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. Two submissions max.

* 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 editor@planetmag.com.

Distribution Sites
Planet Magazine is distributed only in Web (HTML) format, which can be read best with any version 3.0 or above Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, Opera, NeoPlanet, iCab, or OmniWeb. Earlier issues of Planet are also available at our Web site in four other electronic formats: text (.txt) 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 Palm (.prc), a text version that requires a Palm PDA and a DOC reader like the freeware CSpotRun. 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 © 2001 by Andrew G. McCann. However, all individual stories and poems in this magazine are copyright © 2001 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, Garden City, N.Y., USA, Andrew G. McCann, publisher.

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These Web pages were designed with Adobe PageMill 3.0 and BBEdit Lite on an iMac DV. Some of the artwork was 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. Some illustrations were done in Painter 4. Equipment used: an iMac DV, a Titanium G4 PowerBook, 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 made possible thanks to a gross misallocation of funds by the California Energy Planning Commission.

Planet Magazine ISSN: 1526-1840