Category Archives: science fiction

A Psalm for the Wild-Built

Posted on June 6, 2024 by smellincoffee

What do people need? Dex is a garden monk who should, by all accounts, enjoy a perfectly happy life. Health, a meaningful job, people who love them — what’s missing? Dex doesn’t know. After departing from the monastery to pursue … Continue reading →

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Solarpunk stories: a novella and short stories

Posted on May 29, 2024 by smellincoffee

Recently I encountered the word ‘solarpunk’, and learned that it was a subgenre of science fiction that attacks the pessimism of cyberpunk by creating futures that are its opposite. In solarpunk settings, humanity has learned to grow with nature — … Continue reading →

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Plan 9 from Outer Space: Ed Woods attacks!

Posted on May 21, 2024 by smellincoffee

I love watching strange science fiction movies from the fifties and sixties, especially the B+ movies with outlandish costuming, strange set design, and bizarre characters. Ed Woods’ Plan 9 from Outer Space delivered all those in spades, along with genre … Continue reading →

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SHELLI

Posted on May 20, 2024 by smellincoffee

Jake August is a young agent of Homeland Security who has just been welcomed into a special subsection devoted to investigating crimes committed by replican- errr, synthetics. Synths have been integrated into society as intelligent, humanoid tools oriented toward a … Continue reading →

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The Store

Posted on May 3, 2024 by smellincoffee

At a last huzzah in New York, surrounded by former writers who the modern economy has made superfluous, Jacob and Megan announce to their friends that they are doing the unthinkable: they’re joining The Store. The Store dominates the American … Continue reading →

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The Downloaded

Posted on February 20, 2024 by smellincoffee

In the 26th century, two groups of humans are awakening. The first are a group of scientists who think they’re on a spaceship headed toward Proxima Centauri, there to begin Earth’s first colony. The second are criminals who were part … Continue reading →

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The Eighth Continent

Posted on February 12, 2024 by smellincoffee

Nick is a commercial diver who, as a side gig, volunteers with a rescue organization to save people during flood disasters. There are a lot of those these days: rising waters, frequent hurricanes, and people who continue to build houses … Continue reading →

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The Lunar Missile Crisis

Posted on February 4, 2024 by smellincoffee

The moon race began in earnest when Yuri Gagarin launched off the pad in April 1961. It ended really quickly when he collided with an alien spaceship and exploded, leading to a full nuclear launch by the Soviets which failed … Continue reading →

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Influx

Posted on October 31, 2023 by smellincoffee

Jon Grady is ecstatic. Tonight he has ushered in a new era in human civilization. He’s created antigravity. A thousand years from now, schoolchildren will recite his name alongside Newton and Einstein. Or….they would, if a strike team from a … Continue reading →

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Neuromancer

Posted on October 26, 2023 by smellincoffee

Neuromancer is a rare book — bewildering, beautiful, horrifying, disorienting. It’s the story of Case, a ruined hacker who is approached by a woman with a job offer. In the recent past, he made the mistake of stealing from the … Continue reading →

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