Month: November 2023

Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy

In some ways, I think I Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward shaped my beliefs even more than Star Trek, which is impressive as Star Trek is basically my heart and soul.

But Looking Backward paints a picture of a similar utopia while actually making sense and being thought through. Continue reading “Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 26: Kipper

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Kipper felt the soft, probing of a tentacle wrap around her shoulder and the many kiss-like touches as another coiled around one of her paws.”

Octopuses keep their secrets.

But cats can keep secrets too.

Kipper kept and coveted the secret of Siamhalla’s missile armament, coddling it close to her heart, hoping it would be the salvation she needed.  Of course, the octopus brigade that escorted her and all her otters back to the Jolly Barracuda might not give her credit for saving Earth from the raptors if Siamhalla did it.  They might want to drag her back to their cartoon court and convict her of war crimes. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 26: Kipper”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 25: Jenny

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Way, way down beneath the quagmire of toxic gases that looked like cheerful creamsicle clouds, there was at least one raptor who believed raptors and otters could be friends, that maybe someday they could visit each other peacefully.”

Jenny and Ordol landed Brighton’s Destiny lightly atop the Europa base.  It touched down like a lonely whirligig maple seed that had spun its way improbably down through an arctic sky to the surface of an iceberg, a small stretch of cold land, floating on Europa’s choppy gray ocean.

Wind whipped through the hatch when Jenny broke the seal.  The door swung aside, and Jenny climbed out of the ship.  Ordol followed her, clambering over the flat ground like a basket of snakes slithering together in a complicated knot.  The sky above them was clear and bright with stars.  Jupiter hung low on the horizon, where it should be — far away, rather than under Jenny’s paws. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 25: Jenny”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 24: Kipper

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Kipper wished she could tuck the tiny tentacled baby in a pocket and smuggle it out of here to raise it with a family. She and Emily could keep it and raise it together. That would be a nice family. Does it count as kidnapping if the child is fated to die?”

The giant malachite stalagmite towered in front of Kipper like an underwater skyscraper.  The octopus tour guide led her, Trugger, and Captain Cod into an opening at the base that turned into a dark, narrow, winding tunnel.  After several sharp twists and turns, the tunnel opened into a conical chamber that must have filled nearly the entire stalagmite.

The octopus city outside the stalagmite had been a heady visual opera of colors and motions.  The inside was literally dizzying.  Kipper had to turn her head down and close her eyes, shutting the visual noise out for a moment before she was ready to face it again. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 24: Kipper”

Hide the Honey

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original

“…once you find a hidden stash of honey, you simply must eat it. No other option. None at all.”

The bear’s paws were covered with honey.  It dripped from her claws in sticky, amber droplets.  It clumped her thick brown fur together between her paw pads.  Everything she touched, her paw came away leaving a ghostly paw print behind, a gleaming sheen of sugar where it had been.  She could touch nothing without giving herself away.

“Where are you?” the bear’s sister cried. Continue reading “Hide the Honey”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 23: Petra

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Petra felt cold inside. She had military intelligence that could change the course of a war, and she was still at the mercy of a few over-paid copper dogs who didn’t like her.”

Every piece of paper in front of Petra told a story.  The rows of numbers; the columns of… pointless, stupid text that meant nothing to her.  The story the papers told was one of frustration and boredom.  She wanted the papers to tell a story of corruption and secret societies, money being funneled into an underground military complex — an army that would rise up from their massively expensive hidden bunkers to save Earth from the raptors — all because Petra found the number trail leading to them in these papers. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 23: Petra”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 22: Jenny

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Even if she made it down to ground level, she’d be free on a planet filled with dinosaurs. Even if most of them were harmless herbivores, she didn’t relish that idea.”

Jenny would have given up eating clams forever to have a tour guide who simply held out a tentacle — or talon, as the case may be — and pointed to the most precious part of Corjovis.  That would have been invaluable tactical information.  Instead, she had two eager raptor younglings crouched behind her, calling up video and sound files on their computer pad, seemingly to show her their favorite pop songs.

Raptors danced on the touchpad screen, literally shaking their tail feathers to the rhythmic, stuttering screeches that emanated from the device.  Jenny could only assume it was music.  Her helmet computer had trouble keeping up with the sound to give her a translation, but most of the words seemed to be about power or love or murder or freedom or slavery or growth or dinner.  The helmet computer wasn’t sure.  Its translations had improved a great deal in certainty over the last few hours, but song lyrics tend to be inscrutable in any language. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 22: Jenny”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 21: Kipper

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Any creature could be uplifted. Jellyfish fluttering like ballerinas? Maybe they were ballerinas — maybe they’d spent years training and studying to flutter like that.”

Kipper didn’t know why the octopi kept sending puzzles to their prisoners, but she wanted Captain Cod and Trugger to stop solving them.  Except for the occasional meal of sushi-like rolls and raw fish brought by the dolphins, there was no way to mark the time, but it felt like they’d been held in the dank, watery cell for days.  Days of being cut off from the outside world.  Days of the raptor ships flying closer and closer to Earth.  Days of being wet and useless.

Kipper was restless.  Besides, there was something sinister about solving puzzles for captors who never showed themselves.  It was time to stop cooperating with their captors.  It was time to start planning a way out of this underwater dungeon. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 21: Kipper”