Of Behemoths and Bureaucrats

“The starwhals fed, filtering the microbes like whales filter plankton through their baleen.”

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Golden Visions Magazine, No. 15, July 2011 (print issue)

News spread like wildfire of the first successful sun garden. The sun was Hegula, hearth of a destitute system. Normally, I don’t waste my time on mining colonies. There are plenty of systems with two, three, or more populated planets. Those systems can supply me with crowds for months. Mining systems are a different matter. I’ve been to systems where the miners close the mines, gather up their families, and take the day off to see a good show. That’s it. They have a great time, believe me. They enjoy my starwhals more than anyone in a cosmopolitan system. From my perspective, though, it’s hardly worth weeks in the dead space between stars. Continue reading “Of Behemoths and Bureaucrats”

Day two!

binary-star1For day two of our twelve-day launch event, we bring you two stories that appeared online originally but have been out of print for several years.

Close-knit communities can be wonderful, inspiring, energetic places, but when you live and work with the same people — spending all day and night together — home can turn to horror on a dime.  In My Words Like Silent Raindrops, a young Wespirtech scientist invents technological telepathy, drawing her close-knit community even closer and, well… read it and see. Continue reading “Day two!”

The Nebula Was Empty

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Spaceports and Spidersilk, June 2011

“”Is anyone out there?” the radio wave asked. The beast froze herself, like unto holding her breath, focusing entirely on the radio waves.”

The nebula was empty. Cold. Proto-star matter, so many dust motes, drifted, dully refracting the light of nearby constellations. The dust motes didn’t even swirl. There was nothing to disturb them into motion, except for the nebula beast herself. In earlier times, during her youth, she frolicked — expanding space here; squeezing tight there; watching the space debris splash about. She chased the dust motes between her many dimensions, but now she was too sad to make her own fun. Continue reading “The Nebula Was Empty”

My Words Like Silent Raindrops

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in The Lorelei Signal, January 2012

“Might these telechips be the next step in human evolution? In twenty years, will we all be, essentially, telepathic?”

Nicole and Ivan were among the newest, promising young scientists at the Western Spiral Arm Planetary Institute of Technology. For the time being, they were working on a project together. He did the chemistry, and she did the physics. The partnership worked well. Almost too well. Continue reading “My Words Like Silent Raindrops”

And we are go…

merry-christmas-image
Merry Christmas from Deep Sky Anchor!

As our present to you today, we’re releasing our very first stories, two tales about scientists at Wespirtech (The Western Spiral Arm Planetary Institute of Technology) and their wacky inventions.  The scientists in both of these tales have to worry about balancing pure science — invention for its own sake — with the practicality of the real world.  They don’t always succeed.  One of them fails more spectacularly than the other… Continue reading “And we are go…”

Einray and the Biologist

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in FlagShip, Volume 2 Issue 6, September 2012

“He was bumping shoulders with plant-laden practitioners of the squishy-sciences all day.”

The elasti-tron was covered with dried and wilting plants again. Einray grumbled as he started peeling the putrid produce off of the glass sample plate. He hated the squishiness of biology.

“What are you guys doing in here?” Einray asked. Continue reading “Einray and the Biologist”

Slug Time

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in COSMOS, August 2011

“The bio-department didn’t have any brain-scanners designed for animals.”

“Hey, Deenah, want to come down to the grav-lab with me? I hear the physics department is putting on a wild party tonight. Free-fall twister, skate around the edge of the black hole… That sort of thing.”

Deenah put down the annulator she was using to fine-tune the wires in her hackishly made brain-wave generator. Wespirtech was legendary for its parties, and the physics department hadn’t thrown one since Deenah arrived. She was sorely tempted to put her work aside and accompany Rayston… Continue reading “Slug Time”

Entering Orbit; Preparing for Launch

We’ve loaded up our cargo bay with twenty-five stories — the complete contents of three science-fiction anthologies, Welcome to Wespirtech, Beyond Wespirtech, and The Opposite of Memory — and we’ll begin releasing the stories, several per day, on December 25th, 2015.

Many of the upcoming stories have been published online before, but some of them have only ever been available in obscure anthologies or small press magazines.

Get ready to read some science-fiction!

Approaching 1000

Over the last more-than-a-decade, I’ve submitted nearly one hundred stories to more than 150 different markets.  A bunch of my stories have been published.  Some of them haven’t been (yet).  And, of course, I’ve received a lot of rejections.  969 so far.

As I approach 1000 rejections, I’ve been thinking about the publishing process — what it costs and the benefits it provides.  I don’t intend to stop submitting my stories to markets that seem well-suited to them.  However, I also don’t see a reason to stay dependent on other people’s e-zines to make my work readable online. Continue reading “Approaching 1000”