An e-zine about spaceships, aliens, science, memory, motherhood, magic, and cats.
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Aoife’s Kiss, Issue #33, June 2010
The shore bubbled and frothed under Bryen’s sotto voce chanting. His hands trembled, conducting currents in the air, and he squinted his eyes tight.
“Knock it off!” Charles yelled at his brother. “How will I ever get a fish to bite if you keep that up?” He kept preparing the boat as he grumbled. “Bunch of rubbish,” he said. “Scares all the decent fish away.” Continue reading “The Third Wish”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Collie Commander, November 2024
The social heart of the Tri-Galactic Union starship Initiative was a wide room with windows all along one side that looked out on the yawning void of space, sprinkled with the bright points of the distant stars. Tables were scattered around at a comfortable density, and a synthesizer bar worked by an uplifted rabbit named Galen stretched along the opposite wall.
Galen was a mysterious figure who loved listening to the woes and travails of the mostly canine and feline officers of the Initiative when they came to her bar, which she called the Constellation Club, but she rarely opened up about herself or how she’d come to be the only rabbit on a ship full of dogs, cats, and the rare exchange officer from another world. Continue reading “The Grafting”
My eleven-year-old whispered to me during “Popular” as we watched Wicked: “Now I know what to expect from college.”
I’m not sure a better decision has ever been made than splitting Wicked into two movies:
—They couldn’t have cut a single thing
—Defying Gravity absolutely is the end, period
—It’d just be too heartbreaking if it were actually over, instead of looking forward to a second one Continue reading “Scattered Thoughts on Having Seen Wicked”
All the glowing posts I’m seeing about Wicked almost make me want to go see it in the theater, because I really, really want to see it… but I’d so rather get to just stream it at home than deal with theater schedules, blaring ads before the movie, wearing a mask, etc. etc.
Okay, I folded and got tickets for my family to see Wicked on Sunday evening. Continue reading “Wicked is Out”
by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter.
Once again, the vacuum bomb sailed away from The Wanderlust, looking like nothing more than a thin streak of light on the viewscreen. A shooting star. But this time, Captain Carroway didn’t try to wish on it. She wondered how many of the members of her crew did.
The bridge of The Wanderlust was much more crowded this time. Everyone aboard had gathered together to watch. And now, not only were there two crews melded together aboard The Wanderlust — Union and Anti-Ra — but also three newcomers, two guests from the Waykeeper’s back and the strange amalgamation of circuitry and mycelia who now insisted they were a doctor. Continue reading “Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 30: The Voyage Begins”
by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
“You can move Lupinia?” Commander Chestnut asked, scurrying his way into the engine room and pressing his way between the much larger cat and canine blocking his view of the indecipherable equations Ensign Diaz had been writing. His brushy reed of a tail flipped about wildly, expressing more excitement than seemed like should be able to fit into such a small mammal. Continue reading “Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 29: A Better Use for a Black Hole”
by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
Meanwhile, in the engine room, Captain Carroway kept pressing Ensign Diaz, gently but firmly, to think harder. They needed a way to help the Waykeeper, while also escaping from the incoming fleet of Zakonraptors themselves.
The wolf-like officer kept insisting it couldn’t be done. The fur on her hackles had raised, and a growl crept into her voice as she countered every one of Captain Carroway’s proposals. The Norwegian Forest cat’s suggestions barely deserved the word ‘proposals.’ It was more like she kept rattling off the basic specs of The Wanderlust — electron torpedoes, blazor canons, lumo-projectors. None of it was useful or inspiring, and Ensign Diaz felt increasingly wild and angry listening to the cat pressure her. Continue reading “Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 28: The Spark of Inspiration Ignites”
by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
Ensign Mike withdrew their mycelial filaments from the cracks in the prone caterpillar’s wrinkled skin. The cracks healed and the wrinkles smoothed as the fungal strands pulled out of them, leaving Lys as young and healthy as she’d been before leaving the atmospheric bubble around the Waykeeper launched her into the throes of a premature metamorphosis.
The fungal officer had stopped her metamorphosis, staving off her chrysalis state. Continue reading “Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 27: Metamorphosis Delayed”
by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
Lys could hear the commotion around her. She heard the captain — the gruff cat with green eyes who she’d waited to meet for many years — get called away to consult on something in the engine room. She heard the kind squirrel man chittering to her about trees, branches, and roots. Something spiritual, something comforting. She could hear the sound and meaning, but the actual words had become muffled as her body tried to withdraw deeper inside itself, shedding the outer skin that was supposed to still be her, still be her for many more years. She could feel the filaments of the mushroom creature’s hands extending out, infiltrating the space under her skin, between the old self that was trying to die and the new self — crystalline and unfinished — getting ready to begin. Continue reading “Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 26: The Many Branching Futures”
by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
“Captain?” Ensign Melbourne meowed from the pilot’s seat. “We have company.”
“The Zakonraptors are back?” Captain Carroway had barely been back in her captain’s seat long enough to get comfortably settled. “Already? We scared them away for less than a day?”
“I guess so,” the white tomcat meowed acerbically, the tip of his tail twitching in a way that betrayed the concern his dry tone tried to belie. “We don’t have any better weapons than when they were here last time, but this time it looks like there’s a lot more of them. Do you think Ensign Diaz has any more ideas or clever tricks hidden up her sleeves?” Continue reading “Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 25: Returning to Where It All Began”