Planet Magazine No. 32

Originally published as Planet Magazine No. 32 (December 2001) on the classic Planet Magazine site.

Planet Magazine

December Quarter 2001 * Issue No. 32 (Vol. 8, No. 4)
Wild Science Fiction & Fantasy on the Web — Since 1994
Price: M$12 (Mars dollars)
Featured Story: “Open Twenty-Four Hours“, by Edward McKeown

3D render of a sleek silver female android with segmented limbs, gesturing with outstretched arms
Cover illustration: “Hostess” by Carl Goodman

Table of Contents

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

Stories

Poems

Editorial & Letters


Planet: Now super-charged with Scifene and Fantasol! Same great taste!

NOTICE!!

Protect Your Health & the Health of the Public!

Read Science Fiction…

at the start of your day,

and especially after:

Handling raw fools

Crashing any workstations (PC or Mac)

Returning from a bar crawl

Coughing, sneezing, or “pooting”

Or any other action that could cause contamination.

This has been a public service announcement (in lieu of a Planet Magazine editorial, which makes it twice as beneficial) from the following supra-galactic agencies or their patsies:

Commander Biedermeier X. Leeuewenhoek,
Dept. of Science Fiction – The Earth Protectorate

Thithp of Blipp MCVII, Executive DirectorPublic S.F. Programs Agency, DoSF – T.E.P.

“Lord John Smith”, Official Friend of The Humans(tm)
Honorary Planetary Commissioner of Science Fiction

Andrew G. McCann, Editor of Planet MagazineMinistry of Truth – The United Nations & Worlds

Posted: November 2001

Letters To The Editor

Dear HuMan Editor: We aliens of planet Zak wanted you to know that one of our FAVE HuMan authors — Tony Chandler, whose tales regularly appear at your fine and prestigous Zine, now has his first novel in paperback!!! ZOUNDS! Not only is Tony a most intellgent, thought-provoking writer, but he is darn good-looking too (to a HuMan, that is). Here is our blurb:

MotherShip by Tony Chandler is now at BarnesAndNoble.com, and soon at Amazon.com. All sites carrying MotherShip as ebook or paperback are listed on the main page of www.tonychandler.com. “The T’kaan have brought their never-ending war to the human race… as they face final defeat, a group of scientists integrate Artificial Intelligence into the ultimate warship designed to defeat the T’kaan ships. The ‘M’ ship is victorious, but it is too late to change the tide of the war. As Earth is destroyed, the last survivors of the human race, three children, escape on-board the AI starship. Soon, they begin to call the ship Mother…”

Tony’s stories of high-adventure among the stars have thrilled us Zakkians for several planetary cycles. We have even thought about abducting him and taking him with us back to Zak, but were afraid of an Earth attack, Jack. The Great Gonzo Zak does have a big cheesy request: more Kragon, D’tang, and Chase — what ever happned to them, HuMAN?? But read MotherShip NOW!, a story whose heart is ‘family, courage and love’. Even an old battle-axe like Zak lacked it.
Live Long and Have MUCH Fun.
Zak Calack-MackaDack

Dear Editor: I’m a fan of horror and science fiction stories… I’ve recently read the tale “The Night Wire”, by H. F. Arnold, but when I tried to look for some biographical information on him… there was absolutely nothing on the entire Web… Do you or your readers know something about his life? Thanks for your help… and best regards from Argentina!
Maria

[Editor’s Note: If anyone has info on this author, please send it to us, and we will forward it to the reader above. The story in question can be read here: http://www.sff.net/people/DoyleMacdonald/l_nightw.htm].

Dear Editor: I would like to take this opportunity to introduce the “Interstellar” range of science fiction adventure stories. I feel that they will appeal to a wide range of people, and provide hours of entertainment for adults and children alike. There are currently six stories in the series, which appear as chapbooks or on CD-ROM, and full details are available from my Web site: www.amazola.fsnet.co.uk I have already received an enthusiastic response and I feel that a mention in your magazine would greatly help to promote them further.
Yours Hopefully
Adrian Holland

Dear Editor: I have just finished reading “Qarzaak” by Tony Chandler and I will definitely be buying his novel when it comes out on the basis of how good the short story was. Stories like Qarzaak are the reason I read sci-fi: for real, character-driven moral and ethical issues, not just an exposition on cool gadgetry or hard-science (I can read “Scientific American” or talk to my husband’s cousin the physicist for that). The whole part of the main character wondering if there was really an Earth was great, and the dilemma over what to tell the Qazaark authorities about his fellow human Merk, and the climax of his humanity triumphing in a great, quiet way left me craving more. What’s going to happen when this guy sees women? What has been happening with the women? I feel like I have all these questions and I’m left with one option: write you and tell you to request the author for another Qazaark story with Enon. Pretty please with the Milky Way on top?
Hoping, Hoping, Hoping,
Kelly Tarlow

Dear Editor: The Baltimore Science Fiction Society has linked to your site at our site of http://www.bsfs.org/bsfszine.htm Please list us on your links page back to our site at http://www.bsfs.org As you can see we have many resources of interest to science fiction fans and we are a non-profit educational organization, so helping us to find other folks who love SF is a good deed. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Dale S. Arnold

Dear Editor: We have launched the first in a series of nine novels called ‘The Ennead’. Although we shall later publish a print counterpart, we chose to release the first novel in this series, Rogue Titan, online at http://www.roguetitan.com. The online novel’s site introduces our company, Lucid Foundry, to the general public. This is a statement of who we are, what we do, and what can be expected from us in near future.
Lucid Foundry
http://www.lucidfoundry.com

Dear Editor: Just wanted to say thanks. With the recent events here in the States I needed a bit of escape-time. Your site has more than filled that need with its diverse and wonderful assortment of stories. And thanks again for providing the artists a forum in which to show off their talent.
Sincerely,
Darrell L.

Le tters to Confirmed Allies of The US

Dear San Marino: My 20-year experiment is over. And I have been able to prove that no two dishwasher loads are ever exactly alike (assuming uniform detergent, wash/rinse/dry cycle, dishwasher brand, etc., as well as consistent number of food particles, and allowing for substitution of any utensils or dishes as they wear out). My statistical database is actually quite small, and I’m looking for my results to be quickly confirmed — ideally through a computer simulation that models a typical household’s eating and dishwashing patterns. Please alert me as soon as your simulation finishes its run, as I want to get my application in ASAP for next year’s Nobel Prize in Dishwashing Sciences. I know you’ll enjoy the experience, as Planet Dishwasher Magazine’s interest in dishwashing methodologies is well-documented. In the meantime, I’ve got to get back to the kitchen and start cleaning. Heck, I’ve only done one load of dishes in the past two decades (hence my confidence in the purity of my results), and that means a lotta stacks o’ dirty dishes to wash!
Cleanly,
D. Terjint

Dear Andorra: I have seen the face of evil, and it looks like my housemate Rick! This morning, at 7:52 a.m., approximately, he ate the last sesame bagel we had from The Bagel Haus. That bagel was mine! Plus, he drank the last of the apple juice, which would have gone a long way toward fixing this hangover of mine. So, to me, that is the face of evil, I guess. Anyway, we still have some Lucky Charms left.
Regards,
O. Sam ‘Abe’ Enlauden

Dear Disneyland: My name is Eno (no, not the funny-looking guy who played keyboards for Roxy Music and later produced U2, although I do like to play piano from time to time), and I live in a place called The Matricks (no, not “The Matrix” from the movie of the same name, although coincidentally my world is also a computer simulation in which people encased, asleep, in alien pods dream their so-called “normal” lives). I have just discovered that I am he who is known as “The Eon” — that special individual who my people have been awaiting for years. The Eon is a person who, while living inside The Matricks, has the ability to rise above and beyond the virtual world and to control it to some degree. Unfortunately, the abilities of The Eon are strictly limited to opening file folders in the underlying OS of the virtual world and to navigating the folder and file hierarchies. I don’t seem to be able to open any documents or apps within these folders, much less re-code anything, as The Eon apparently doesn’t have the required helper apps, conversion filters, or even root-level permission built-in to his powers, not to mention knowledge of alien programming languages (too bad I’m not fighting those PowerBook-friendly invaders in the movie “Independence Day”). Still, it’s fun to open the file folder of the virtual agents when they are chasing me and watching, for example, gun.exe open, which then clues me in to hit the floor. So it seems I cannot help my people much after all. But that’s OK, because they are also waiting for someone named Oen, a wino who is also expected to be “The Noe” — an individual who can rise above and beyond this cyber-world in which we are trapped and reorganize it into a decisive Japanese Noh-type play, mixed in with a bit of Christmas spectacular-type imagery. I expect that will have some kind of use for my people, somehow. Oh no! Here comes another cyber-agent! Gotta run! Hey, looks like he’s opening an app called traceemailtoplanetmagazineletterscolumnandkill.exe, located within a folder called “Chump”. Interesting.
Later,
Enooooooooooooooo…

Dear Mac User Group of Southeast Ohio: My girlfriend of more than two months has stated that I am arrogant and boring and has, in her view, “left me for good”. Now this is a ridiculous claim, and I shall endeavor to refute it. To begin with, let me illustrate my preamble with a short Web-enabled presentation of several Powerpoint charts that summarize the log of relationship events that I scrupulously kept during my courtship of my erstwhile girlfriend. The first pie chart, ironically, will show how she never cooked me a single pie — even though our dating contract stipulated this and emphasized that pies are my favorite food, whether meat, fruit, vegetable, dairy-based or “other”. So, let us start. Slide, please. OK, this will take a moment. The first slide, please! Hello!? Hmm, nothing’s happening. Are there any Internet officials running this slide show, or what? This is truly, truly a shame — it’s quite a good chart. Very clear. Well… it looks as if I will have to postpone the rest of this letter until the next issue.
Till Then,
I.M. Pei LoVerre

Dear Shangri-La: Ho, there! I am also absolutely juiced about “The Fellowship of the Ring” movie that’s fiercely bearing down on us like a Giant Intelligent Eagle from the days of yore! But I’m writing in to tell you that I’ve done a little bit of digging with my sources online and found out some great news for fans! The entire Fellowship itself — brave little Frodo, his simperin’ sidekick Ringo, and all the members of the various Middle-Earth races (specifically, Spiderman of the Super Elves, Han Solo of the Rebel Forces, Harry Potter of the Wizardfolk, Commandor Data of the Androids, Shrek of the Ogres, Darth Maul of the Sith, Laura Croft of the Babes, as well as a Lotto bonus number of 53) — will be chuggin’ down Mountain Dew during the whole flick! This is the fave beverage of me and my crew, so this is practically the best news to cruise down the pike since the Diablo Expansion Pack! What’s extra kewl is that the Dew cans will have special powers in the movie when wielded by the Ring-Bearer — they’ll be able to shoot from his hands, kill enemies by punching bloody holes through their chests, and then whip back and pour some gold-green nectar down the throat of the sweatin’, ripped Frodo as he sprays off round after round from his plasma-bullet rifle! Hey, sure, none of this stuff was in Tolkien’s books (although I’ve never read them), but some guy online told me he read somewhere that it doesn’t matter. Awesome!! Do the Dew, FroDew!
Smell Ya Later,

Dear United Casino Tribes of North America: Now that Hollywood is airbrushing out all images of the World Trade Center from movies, will book publishers have to recall and rename all copies of the second book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (i.e.,”The Two Towers”)? Anyway, it should really be called “The Four Towers”, since you’ve got Cirith Ungol, Orthanc, Minas Mordor, and Minas Tirith — if I remember correctly the Middle Earth geography class I took at the California School of New Learning & Crystal Shoppe. And no, I don’t think I’m very funny either.
Regards,
Mary Lee Tolkien (no relation to J.R.R.)

Dear Powerpuff Girls: I’m a Bully-in-Training and am seeking some guidance. My teachers cannot help me with my problem, and I have nowhere else to turn. Here are the painful facts: Every time I am facing a potential victim, I become paralyzed with indecision. Do I ‘pants’ the victim, or do I give the victim a ‘wedgie’? And as I stand there dithering, inevitably the intended targets makes good his or her escape. Since the first method of intimidation involves removing an article of clothing, and the latter involves actually forcing an article of clothing to adhere ever more closely to the victim’s body (in this case to the vertical concave aperture separating the two semi-spheres of the glutius maximus), I am afraid my hesitancy represents some underlying ambivalency about becoming a professional bully. Frankly, my emotions are a-flutter ‘n’ my thoughts are a-twirl. Please help me, Obulli-wan, you’re my only hope.
Thanksies,
Skye Linewalker

[Editor’s Note: If we could only give you a cyber-swirly, we would — just to swirl some sense into your head! Your situation seems extremely silly and unlikely. Plus you’ve written to the fake letters section of Planet Magazine! Doesn’t that give you a clue? You’re a fictional character, for the love of Darth! Still, it doesn’t mean you can’t live a happy life… except that I’ve just given you a pants-ing and a wedgie at the same time! Yes, just now I did. I am The Yoditor, I can do many impossible things. Yes. Do these I can. Even so, The Fist in you is strong, young Skye, but you have much to learn yet from us ancient Jesti Knights!!]

Dear Iceland: I have read that your pop star Bjork is an athiest who does not even believe in Bjesus. How can this bje? She is so talented and bjeautiful. I feel bjetrayed.
Bjest,
Heidi Ho

Dear Freedonia: Hello-hello-hello. I just-just-just wanted to write-write-write and say how much-much-much I enjoy-joy-joy reading your magazine-zine-zine. We live in a very rural area-area-area and are unable to get many-many-many Web sites-sites-sites down here in Echo-Echo-Echo Canyon-Canyon-Canyon.
Sincerely-Sincerely-Sincerely
A. Ko

Dear Rivendell: This police profiling is wrong. Recently, I was stopped at JFK airport because I “fit the profile”, according to the cops who dragged me out of the ticket line — where I was minding my own business, playing the Pokemon Crystal edition on my custom-painted GameBoy — and into a small brightly lit room off the main concourse. They sat me in a chair and said it was clear from my Bill Gates haircut and ‘I Love Oni’ T-shirt that I was a “serious Sci-Fi fan” and likely run an RPG-fan Web site as well as own either a home-built PC or a tangerine iMac. All of these elements of what they call “The Nerd Profile” may be true in my case (although I pointed out that the proper term is ‘SF’, and it’s a graphite iMac!), but I asked them why they thought I could be a danger to anyone. They said I clearly wasn’t a danger at all, and that the only reason they were pulling me aside is because they were bored that day and knew that I was a ‘wuss’ and wouldn’t do anything about it. I clearly remember the seargant sitting lumpily on the desk in front of me and saying with a sneer, “So… Where’s your friend Gandalf now, punk?”, while his accomplices all guffawed. Then they gave me a five-alarm noogie and released me. On the bright side, though, the whole unpleasant incident inspired me to do a little ‘Pokemon profiling’ of my own — and I was able to capture all of the little fellows myself before my flight landed. BTW, I am not the editor of Planet Magazine writing under a pseudonym; I’m some other guy.
Regards,
Watt A. Takky-Houks

Dear Mole People: I’m a large coconut-layer cake being displayed in the middle of a bakery window in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. All day, people have been coming by and staring at me through the plate glass. Just staring, mouths open. Staring and staring and staring. It’s starting to drive me a little loco-nut, if you know what I mean. And it pisses me off, too. The gaping eyes, the slack mouths! I wanna take them all on, I just want to scream, “C’mon, you wanna piece of me?” But I can’t do that, can I? Not if I want to… live. It’s been a real slice of hell.
With Layers of Meaning,
KoKo “Nutt” Cayk

Dear Wiccan Federation of Antartica: Dere wuz dat article dat video games hurt yer brane. I don’t fink so. Dey never hert my brane. I kouldn’t spel befor anyways. I’m ackersherlly usin diktation softwear to rite this lettir and eatin’ a peenut budder ‘n’ jellee sammich at de same time ‘n’ got peenut budder all over my fingirs.
Bye-buy,
Hugh “Mongous” Gobb
Winner, Nathan’s Peanut-Butter-Eating Contest, 2001

Dear Editor: I don’t know why that judge ordered me to take defenestrative driving classes, when it’s clear that all of my troubles have been caused by other drivers unfairly ganging up on me, by trying to pass me or go faster than me. When they do that, of course I throw things out my car window (i.e., defenestrate items) at them. Wouldn’t you? So if that’s not defenestrative driving, I don’t know what is. And I don’t. Hey judge: Chomp Dis, which is Latin for “bite me”!
Regards,
I. Donte

Planet Magazine is brought to you by “Smocha — the cigarette-flavored coffee”.

About the Authors

Michael Athey (“Learning to Walk in the Age of Machines“) is a student at the University of Kansas, where he’s finishing up his bachelor’s degree in psychology. He is inspired mostly by the works of Ray Bradbury, Alfred Bester, and Philip K. Dick. Other works of his have been published at “The Prose Menagerie”, “Shadowshow”, the “Skandalized Human Zine”, and Peridot Books, and “The Unknown Writer”. This work is his first dip into science fiction.

Ray Dangel (Associate Editor), can best be described by revealing what he is not. He is not tall, handsome, rich, famous, arrogant, a clothes horse, a sports buff, a political person, a power freak, a whiner, or a yes man. One positive aspect is that Ray loves to read and write flash fiction; his shortest published tale was a mere 32 words long.

Steve Davis (“Getting Game“) is a pizza-delivery driver/ circuitboard assembler/ freelancer trying to write interesting science fiction. The last part’s challenging. Living in Phoenix helps, as Steve is surrounded by the Sonoran desert, as close as one can get right now to another world. Steve’s non-fiction, technology journalism, and stories have appeared in an odd range of magazines, from “Archaeology” to “Wired”. His stories also have been published in “4th Media”, “Cedar Rapids Gazette”, “Computer Graphics”, “Des Moines Business Record”, “Electronic Education”, “Electronic Learning”, “Farm Industry News”, “Iowa City Press-Citizen”, “Iowa Commerce”, “Office World News”, “Payson Roundup”, “Semiconductor News”, “Today’s Office”, and more.

Steve Davison (“The Flower and The Sentinel“) was born in 1964 in Blyth, a coal mining-based port in the north of England, and had always thought he’d get round to writing one day. Inspiration came after reading Dennis L. McKiernan’s “Iron Tower Trilogy”. He says he decided not to wait to be hit by a car and be bed-ridden to do his writing. ;-) So he left his job in London for three years, to be a househusband and write three books: “Eye & Sword” (Sword & Sorcery), “The Reality Gap” (Science Fantasy, written in the first-person), and “Mindhole” (Modern Horror Fantasy). It was the most rewarding time of his life. You can review all of his books at “dark-print”… http://www.stevedavison.co.uk/dark-print/. Steve now works as a freelance 3-D designer doing interiors, exhibitions, and commercial presentations, and you can visit his site at…www.stevedavison.co.uk. He says that he is as happily married as it is possible for a human to be and has a wonderful son. He is graded at 1st Dan in Aikido and likes playing Microsoft’s “Age of Empires”.

Michael Elmore (“The Weapon“) is a 23-year-old mental health worker living in rural Georgia. He writes most of his short stories while working the night shift. Michael has been published online at “Aphelion”.

Romeo Esparrago (“Comet Borrelly“, associate editor-type thingy) recently discovered past memories of himself that had been buried. Buried under ice, to be exact. Apparently, he was some sort of US Army “super soldier” who, alongside his young buddy Buchanan or Buckteeth (can’t remember too well, but it was something like that), battled World War II baddies with delusions of powers above normal men. He somehow got frozen and wound up being discovered in some giant, floating ice cube by some pointy-eared guy named Spock (no, that’s Star Trek), err…Namath. No, Joe Namor — that’s it, I think. A nyway, he forgot all about this until Samuel L. Jackson kept bugging him about it (no, he kept pestering Bruce Willis, jeez). Well, Romeo still needs to work out this puzzle after discovering the dusty, flag-covered skintight outfit (with a 4′ diameter star-spangled shield, can you believe it?!?) in his attic. Until he remembers his secret origin, Romeo will continue his role as an avenging angel with the rank of Captain in his local justice society. Nuff said!
Web-site: http://www.romedome.com/

Lee Daniel Guest (“The Barbarian’s Tale“) is 23 years old and trained as an artist from 1994 to 1998. He recently started to write poetry and fantasy fiction. His idols are Robert E. Howard, Frank Frazetta, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leo Tolstoy, and Yngwie Johan Malmsteen.

Pat Hartsfield (“Alien Utopia“) is a youth pastor in Oregon, where he works with teens by day and writes by night. He lives there with his wife Audrey and children, Caitlin and Caleb.

Ed Lynskey (“The Taboos of Tatoos“) is a country boy presently subsisting in the ‘burbs outside Washington, D.C., with his wife and two cats. When not transfixed at the computer screen, he likes to attend movies and outdoor concerts. That and long drives back to the countryside, green and lush.

Andrew G. McCann (“Paint The Planet Red“, Editor) has a “Theory of Every ‘Theory of Everything'”, but is unable to think it because it, or maybe he, is literally too simple to understand.
editor@planetmag.com

Edward McKeown (“Open Twenty-Four Hours“) was born in NYC and moved to Charlotte in 1985, where he writes, teaches martial arts and lives with his artist-wife Schelly Keefer. His work has been published in the SF E-zine “Millennium”, “The Captain’s Log”, and the art newspaper “Independence Boulevard”. He also won first prize in the Canadian “X the Unknown” contest for 2000, for his short story “New York Minute”.

Glenn H. Morris (“Slip-stream“) is married with two children and currently resides in Spring City, PA. Glenn currently works as a Systems Analyst and enjoys writing Science Fiction/Horror stories. Some of them can be found at Glenn’s web site at www.glennmorris.com.

Hathno Paige (“Sergeant Stone: Hard to Forget“) is an exotic dancer specializing in early-Amish and Shaker styles.

C.C. Parker (“Planet Circus“) lives in Seattle with his wife and daughter. He’s appeared in the following. E-zines: Deviant Minds, Alternate Realities, Planet Magazine, Suspect Thoughts, Apocalypse Fiction, Dark Muse, Demensions, The Murder Hole, Fuzzclog, Tantalus Fire, No Boundaries, Fantastic Metropolis, and SHZine. Hardcopy journals: More Than That and Demontia. C.C. has been writing for as along as he can remember, and he doesn’t intend to stop.

William Alan Rieser (“Trevor’s Junkyard“) was born in NYC way back there, somewhere around the time King Kong was climbing the Empire State building. He did mostly music for an early career. He now lives in Fort Worth, Texas with his wife Sandra. He’s retired and having fun writing novels and short stories. Least favorite food: asparagus; Favorite sport: giant squid harness racing. Views on being serious: hardly ever. Author of: “The Kaska Trilogy – Gam, Pmat & Kesht” and “The Zusalem Chronicles – The Find & Pathandu”.
Web site: http://rieserbooks.homestead.com/rieserbooks.html

E.S. Strout (“Family Ties“) has been published in small-press print magazines “Crossroads”, “Lovecraft’s Mystery Magazine”, “Fading Shadows”, “Mad Scientist”, and “Millennium Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine”. His stories have also appeared in the Internet publications “Jackhammer”, “Beyond s-f”, “Millennium SF&F”, and “Demensions”. E.S. Strout is on the faculty of the U.C. Irvine Medical Center, where he teaches skin pathology to dermatology residents.

Sean K. Twyford (“Duel with a Devil”) is an ordinary 49-year-old bloke, married, with five sons (all sons unfortunately!). He lives in the English Market Town of Ripley, near Derby. Sean has been an avid reader of SF since the age of 10 (from Asimov/Clarke on the one hand to Bear/Egan/Le Guin on the other). He has been writing now about two years and to that end has joined a local Writers Group. Publishing successes so far include stories with “Planet Prozac”, “Dragon Laugh”, “Pro Martians Alien Wave”, “Beyond the Border”, “Fading Shadows”, and “Fighting Chance”.
E mail:

Mike Velichansky (“A Panther Inside“) is currently a freshman at the University of Maryland College Park, majoring in English. He loves it and is having a great time; sometimes, he even learns a bit. (Though his workshop is pissing him off slightly; people there would rather read something with no plot at all than sully their hands with SF.)

Mike reads all the time. The following are but a few: Ellison, Vonnegut, Gaiman (go read “American Gods”!), Spider Robinson (who’s read this magazine! Holy shit!).

Feel free to contact him and tell him what you think. Last story he had at PlanetMag, somebody named John Milder wrote asking where he got the name, so maybe this time it’ll be an ancient god. It’ll be cool. We’ll hang out.

Mike’s favorite quote from his workshop: “I know sci-fi has a very rigid style and structure regarding plot, but you could try.” –Paul Cacciato.

Tom Wagner (Associate Editor) writes memos all day long and lives in the hope that they will one day be assembled into a larger work similar to that produced by a million monkeys banging away on a million Commodore 64 FULL COLOR computers.

It might not have been science fiction or fantasy, but then again it might have been.
Farewell Ken Kesey.

About the Artists

Jon Eke (art for “Duel With A Devil” “The Flower and The Sentinel“, and “Learning to Walk in the Age of Machines“) 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 (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!.

To create his artwork, Jon chiefly uses Photoshop 5.5, Paintshop Pro 6.1, and Photo Plus 4 (which is a bit basic but does have some handy tools). His pictures are essentially montages, mixtures of just about anything he can lay his hands on that he thinks will be useful, as well as some of his own photography. Although Jon has a definite idea in his head of what he wants to produce when he starts out, he often finds that experimenting with various tools will produce something far more interesting. He just follows his instincts until he has a piece of work that he’s happy with.
Web-site: http://community.webshots.com/album/6928532RwJTqzJFQV

Romeo Esparrago (art for “A Panther Inside“, “Comet Borrelly“, and “Sergeant Stone: Hard to Forget“) just came back from some ocean research about what would happen if humans bit surfboards. He did this without his spectacles, and unfortunately, bit several sharks by accident. In response, swarms of sharks gathered at the beaches, to protect themselves from him. He believes the shark community’s news media is overhyping and exaggerating things, portraying him unjustly as a monstrous creature. Romeo’s graphic tools include a Wacom tablet, his father-in-law’s Sony digital Mavica camera, Procreate’s Painter 7, Adobe’s ImageStyler and ImageReady, his beloved G4 Titanium PowerBook, and occasionally, the pencil & napkin. To see more of his art, check out The Modern Word’s Scriptorium on the late sci-fi author
Philip K. Dick at: http://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/dick.html

Carl Goodman (art for “cover illustration“, “Family Ties,” “Getting Game“, and “Open Twenty-Four Hours“) is 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. In terms of tools, most of Carl’s work is in 3-D, using Max 4, character studio for animation, Deep Paint 3d for textures, Photoshop, Corel Xara for linework (less of a pain in the neck than Illustrator!) and simulation plug-ins like phoenix and havoc. Peppersghost.com has updated its site recently won a BAFTA award for www.tinyplanets.com — best entertainment site 2001.
Web-site: www.peppersghost.com

Ellie Hradsky (art for “Slip-stream“), twenty-five years ago, worked for a photographer who was heavy into science fiction as she was. He knew a man who claimed he was in contact with alien beings and that he had photographs and info he wanted them to see. Ellie and her boss eagerly looked at the stuff the man left, but at one point her heart sank and she walked away. He smiled at her over his shoulder. “Not very convincing, is it.”

Ellie hesitated because she wanted to believe, then finally replied, “No…not very.”

“Do you think we could re-create images like these?” he asked.

“Regrettably…I think we could do better these,” she sighed.

Nothing ever came of it and all this time the yearning to create believable spacecraft stayed with Ellie. Quite by accident, after purchasing equipment for her photo-retouching business, she discovered tools that enabled her to begin assembling objects. “God,” she mused at one of the first shapes that came up. “This could be the nose of a spaceship.”

The rest is history. The ship in the “soft sunset” graphic for the story “Slip-stream” is the second one she did. She has done many more since. Each one gets more involved and functional. Ellie’s son noticed her doing this one. She had only one question for him.

“Does it look like it could fly…Maybe?”

“It sure does, Ma…Awesome.”

That was all she needed to know. As for her personal history, Ellie was born in Europe and came to the US when she was about two. She has had little schooling and is old enough to be a grandmother. She is now doing what she loves. The way things are going, she just might end up being the “Grandma Moses” of space art. That would suit her just fine. Ellie says her soul is, was, and always will be out there in the cosmos and with other life forms.

As far as graphic tools are concerned, Ellie uses the standard tools that come with almost every graphics program out there. There is nothing mysterious about them. The rest is technique, and that she can’t divulge….

Matt Morrow (art for “Alien Utopia“, “Trevor’s Junkyard“, and “The Weapon“) received a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in 1994. Since then, he has worked as a prepress technician in the printing industry and later moved on to creating editorial illustrations full time for a national computer magazine. Currently, he is pursuing a freelance career and has worked on a variety of projects including package art, advertising, Web icons, and fantasy illustrations. Graphic tools: a Wacom drawing tablet, Painter, Photoshop… and a little imagination.
Web site: www.tconl.com/~mz9000/

Robert Sorensen (art for “Paint The Planet Red” and “The Taboos of Tatoos“) is currently an expressionist artist, Laureat Winner. Born in New Jersey, Robert spent the last 10 years living in Paris, France, and recently returned to the United States to live in Denver, Colorado, with his Polish-French wife.
Web site: http://www.artemedia.fr/Sorensen.htm

Patrick Stacy (art for “The Barbarian’s Tale“) 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/

Lee Ward (art for “Planet Circus“) is a computer programmer living in Georgia.
Home Page: http://members.aol.com/ldraw/comic.htm

Now you and your friends can be in Planet Magazine, too! Starting next month, we will slap a Planet logo on the very top of the Internet, and voila, everyone with a Web site will be in Planet! Hey, you’re welcome!

About this Magazine (Masthead)


Planet Magazine: We’re in the top 100% of Web-Zines!

Planet Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 4 (the 32nd issue)

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

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

Lord Wizard
Andrew G. McCann
editor@planetmag.com

Exalted Ornamentalist
Romeo Esparrago

Royal Scrivener
Ray Dangel

Bard of the Empire
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 has been available electronically via the World-Wide Web (see the clickable links at the top of this page) and Tin-Foil-Hat Receptron since January 1, 1994. 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.

Colophon
This issue was created with Adobe GoLive 5.0, Graphic Converter 4.1, Painter 1.02, and Microsoft Word 98 on an iMac DV. Logotype by Romeo A. Esparrago, Jr., using Startling by Dave Bastian, at http://www.davebastian.com/. (Previous logotypes in Arquitectura and Times New Roman). The text is Arial, and in some older issues Helvetica or Geneva. Some of the artwork in this and past issues was designed and created by Romeo A. Esparrago, Jr., using Adobe GoLive 4.0 and ImageStyler. Some illustrations were done in Painter 4. He also uses 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. Note that every issue of Planet is distilled from pure seawater.

Planet Magazine ISSN: 1526-1840.