An e-zine about spaceships, aliens, science, memory, motherhood, magic, and cats.
I will always love the song Feliz Navidad, because it will always sound like Big Bird ice skating to me.
This thought brought to you by the new Pentatonix holiday special and, of course, Christmas Eve on Sesame Street which is the best and most important Christmas special ever. Continue reading “Pentatonix, Sesame Street, Roblox, and Squid Game”
I’m not worried about AI replacing me as a writer, because the reason I write is that no one in the world was writing the books I wanted, namely Otters In Space. If I wanted to read them, I had to write them myself.
Even with an AI helping, I’d still have to provide that idea. Continue reading “The Possibilities with AI”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Shark Week: An Ocean Anthology, June 2021
Salty air tickled Commander Wilker’s long nose and whistled past his pointed ears. The light ocean breeze ruffled the long fur of his Collie mane. He placed a paw gently on the hull of his shuttle craft, parked on the small, sandy island in the middle of a yawning purple-blue sea. He was waiting for his co-pilot to join him, a local to this watery world.
Though he wouldn’t mind if they were running late. The Collie dog had seldom been anywhere as peaceful as the surface of Kallendria 7. There was an entire, technologically advanced society on this world, but it was all beneath the waves. Up here, he could have been standing on a completely untouched, unpopulated world. Nothing as far as the eye could see except for rolling purple waves, deep blue sky, and the occasional silver sand island. Continue reading “The Unshelled”
Taking inspiration from other works is literally not plagiarism, and while one can argue about the artistic value of AI art, I have yet to see a single case of an artist being able to point at a specific work that is actually plagiarism.
You can’t and shouldn’t be able to own a style. People copy each others’ styles all the time. Continue reading “Stable Diffusion is a Hammer”
Spouse: *expounds on how Warcraft these days encourages you to only play in areas that aren’t so hard that you die*
Me, who has recently leveled up a mage for the first time: “You only play druids. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
When I was a kid, I thought “The Game” was such a silly episode of Star Trek; as I got older, it started to seem more like a really prescient satire.
My feelings about my story, “Viewers Like You,” has gone through a similar evolution, just since last summer. Continue reading “Thoughts on “Viewers Like You””
Time to start rewatching Stargate Universe!
The last time I watched this, the only other Stargate I’d seen was the very original movie. So this should be fun. Already, I’m very much enjoying the SG-1 cameos, which I’d been totally unaware of before. Continue reading “Looping Through Stargate”
That feeling when you’re listening to a Beatles song you’ve known for decades with a lead vocal by John… and you suddenly realize, it doesn’t sound like John; it sounds like George.
So you look it up… and it’s Paul. Continue reading “Crossing Over from the Universe Where John Sang “Paperback Writer””
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Luna Station Quarterly, June 2019
Light glinted off the tips of the spires that rose from the rocky asteroid base of Kau Meti as Gerengelo’s shuttle approached. The yellow sunlight caught the metal of the spires in just the right way to gleam enticingly, like a wink and the promise of a shiny, exciting future. Gerangelo was not impressed. He was familiar with the promises humans made to themselves and others — with words, with shiny buildings, even with contracts filled with legally binding language. They made promises and broke them. Sometimes, though, when they wouldn’t break their own promises, Gerangelo had to break their promises for them — fight his way through with a machete of righteousness. Continue reading “Looking for Sentience”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, May 2021
When the snow began falling inside Crossroads Space Station, all of the aliens stopped what they were doing and held very still. The snowflakes caught on long fuzzy manes and feathered wings; they pinged lightly against hard insectile carapaces and shimmering reptilian scales. The white flakes hung in the air, stirred by the puffs of breath from snouts and beaks. The breaths themselves crystallized in the sudden chill.
It was as if an angel of winter had kissed the air inside the spinning wheel space station. So cold, so beautiful, so unexpected. Continue reading “Twelve Days of Snow on Crossroads Station”