You may have backed us during our first Indiegogo campaign. If you did, thank you! Due to circumstances outside our control, that campaign had to be relaunched, and we want to explain what happened and what’s new before we ask for your support again.

But if you already know you want to support the project, here’s the new link right up front.

What happened

When we set up the original campaign, we intended to use Indiegogo's flexible funding option, which collects pledges even if the campaign falls short of its goal. That setting was accidentally left on fixed funding instead, which means pledges would only be collected if we hit our full $3,000 target. We are now relaunching with the correct settings in place. If you were a backer on the original campaign, your pledge was not charged and we'd be grateful if you'd back us again on the new campaign.

What’s new in the relaunch

We’ve used the extra time to improve the campaign. New additions include:

• A standalone Luke Brantley and the Fantastic Flashlight tier — our recently published middle grade novel, available to backers at $12

• A standalone mug tier featuring the original cover artwork, the Cup of High Strangeness, at $18

• A campaign launch video so you can hear directly from us about what we’re building

Everything else you loved about the original campaign is still here: the Keeper of the Watchfire tier, the numbered limited-edition cover art print, the Herald of High Strangeness bundle, and all the rest.

The original post

If you missed our first announcement or want a refresher on what Issue 6 is and why it’s worth backing, the original post is embedded below. Everything in it still stands other than the dates.

The campaign video

The link

The new campaign is live now for you to follow and launches tomorrow. You can find it here.

If you backed us the first time, we’d be grateful if you’d back us again. If you’re new here, welcome! Thank you for giving independent speculative fiction a chance.

As I write this post, there is a little over a week left before the end of our summer fundraiser campaign. As it stands we are right at 40% funded. We have more goodies for campaign supports than ever before, so please take a look at what’s being offered.

I’m writing this short post to ask two things:

1. If you’re financially able to do so, please back the campaign.

2. If you’re not in a spot where you can back the campaign right now, please help us promote it to those who would be interested and able to do so. Sharing on social media is always welcome, but a personal message to a friend who likes the kinds of stories we print is even better.

As always, we appreciate the enthusiastic support we get from all of you and we hope we’ll be able to keep doing this for years to come.

UPDATE: Due to the Indiegogo verification process we were not able to launch on July 2. The new launch date is July 8.

A new issue of Silence & Starsong is on its way and before it goes to print, we’re giving our readers the first chance to back it.

Our Indiegogo campaign launches July 2. Between now and then, we wanted to tell you exactly what we’re building and why it’s worth your support.

What Issue 6 is

One issue a year. Every story chosen carefully, every piece of artwork earning its place. Nothing goes in just to fill pages because we only have one shot to get it right.

Issue 6 continues what Volume 1 started, bringing you stories from the perspective that materialism tries to crowd out. Not science fiction that treats the universe as a machine, but fiction that takes seriously the possibility that angels are real, that matter means something, and that the supernatural isn't a metaphor. Fantasy, horror, science fiction, action, and the strange things at the edges of all of those, written by authors who've asked what kind of stories you'd tell if you dropped the scientism and picked up the supernatural.

What we’re asking for

We’re raising $3,000 to pay our authors fairly and fund the artwork that makes the magazine worth holding in your hands. What we raise goes toward paying the authors and artists behind Issue 6.

This year we’ve also introduced new reward tiers, including a numbered limited-edition print of the cover art, an early-access digital copy, and a dedicated Patrons page for our top-tier backers.

A note on pricing

We’ve raised our prices this year. The honest reason is twofold: Silence & Starsong is a premium annual anthology and we want the price to reflect that, and we want to build something sustainable enough that its survival doesn’t depend on hitting a fundraising goal every twelve months. We think that’s a fair trade.

How to help right now

The campaign isn’t live yet, but there are two things you can do today:

1. Share this post with someone who loves speculative fiction and hasn’t found us yet.

2. Leave a review on Amazon if you’ve read a past issue. Reviews are the lifeblood of independent publishing and they cost nothing but a few minutes.

When the campaign goes live on July 2 we’ll send another email with the direct link. Watch for it.

Never preach harder than you entertain.

I got the quote above from Jim Butcher,1 author of the very successful Dresden Files series. It’s succinct and, I think, a great mantra for new and aspiring authors.

It’s not that an author can’t write stories with a message. However, if you put THE MESSAGE at the center of the story and force the characters and the plot to slavishly orbit your sermon-in-disguise, the result will not be the kind of story that people who like to read will want to read.2 Examples of this phenomenon abound, so I won’t bother to catalog them here.

If one were looking for examples of how to convey a message effectively, without sacrificing a good story, perhaps few would point to the works of Charles Dickens. After all, one might ask, isn’t Dickens well-known for how his books put a spotlight on the social issues of his day? Oliver Twist was all about how bad the Poor Laws were in Great Britain, wasn’t it? And Hard Times was definitely a “passionate revolt against the whole industrial order of the modern world”3 you must admit?

In a word: no.

At least not in the way that most people mean those things.

Dickens certainly had his agenda and he was open and honest about it. Nevertheless, he went about promoting that agenda in a way that adheres to the admonition not to preach harder than you entertain. He understood that grabbing the reader by the scruff of the neck to berate him with a lecture can never be as effective as letting the lesson grow out of the scene, the characters, and the (often ironic) consequences of actions.

Allow me to show you what I mean with an example from Bleak House.4

The plot of the book revolves around a disputed will that has been mired in the Court of Chancery for years. Early on, some of the main characters encounter Mrs. Jellyby at her home. The excerpt is substantial, but something shorter would diminish the effect Dickens intends.

“In-deed! Mrs. Jellyby,” said Mr. Kenge, standing with his back to the fire and casting his eyes over the dusty hearth-rug as if it were Mrs. Jellyby’s biography, “is a lady of very remarkable strength of character who devotes herself entirely to the public. She has devoted herself to an extensive variety of public subjects at various times and is at present (until something else attracts her) devoted to the subject of Africa, with a view to the general cultivation of the coffee berry—AND the natives—and the happy settlement, on the banks of the African rivers, of our superabundant home population. Mr. Jarndyce, who is desirous to aid any work that is considered likely to be a good work and who is much sought after by philanthropists, has, I believe, a very high opinion of Mrs. Jellyby.”

. . .

There was a confused little crowd of people, principally children, gathered about the house at which we stopped, which had a tarnished brass plate on the door with the inscription JELLYBY.

“Don’t be frightened!” said Mr. Guppy, looking in at the coach-window. “One of the young Jellybys been and got his head through the area railings!”

“Oh, poor child,” said I; “let me out, if you please!”

“Pray be careful of yourself, miss. The young Jellybys are always up to something,” said Mr. Guppy.

I made my way to the poor child, who was one of the dirtiest little unfortunates I ever saw, and found him very hot and frightened and crying loudly, fixed by the neck between two iron railings, while a milkman and a beadle, with the kindest intentions possible, were endeavouring to drag him back by the legs, under a general impression that his skull was compressible by those means. As I found (after pacifying him) that he was a little boy with a naturally large head, I thought that perhaps where his head could go, his body could follow, and mentioned that the best mode of extrication might be to push him forward. This was so favourably received by the milkman and beadle that he would immediately have been pushed into the area if I had not held his pinafore while Richard and Mr. Guppy ran down through the kitchen to catch him when he should be released. At last he was happily got down without any accident, and then he began to beat Mr. Guppy with a hoop-stick in quite a frantic manner.

Nobody had appeared belonging to the house except a person in pattens, who had been poking at the child from below with a broom; I don’t know with what object, and I don’t think she did. I therefore supposed that Mrs. Jellyby was not at home, and was quite surprised when the person appeared in the passage without the pattens, and going up to the back room on the first floor before Ada and me, announced us as, “Them two young ladies, Missis Jellyby!” We passed several more children on the way up, whom it was difficult to avoid treading on in the dark; and as we came into Mrs. Jellyby’s presence, one of the poor little things fell downstairs—down a whole flight (as it sounded to me), with a great noise.

Mrs. Jellyby, whose face reflected none of the uneasiness which we could not help showing in our own faces as the dear child’s head recorded its passage with a bump on every stair—Richard afterwards said he counted seven, besides one for the landing—received us with perfect equanimity. She was a pretty, very diminutive, plump woman of from forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious habit of seeming to look a long way off. As if—I am quoting Richard again—they could see nothing nearer than Africa!

“I am very glad indeed,” said Mrs. Jellyby in an agreeable voice, “to have the pleasure of receiving you. I have a great respect for Mr. Jarndyce, and no one in whom he is interested can be an object of indifference to me.”

You might not prefer Dickens’ style, but set that aside for the time being and look at what he’s actually doing in this passage.

If a writer from our day were given that scene to write and told to “make sure the reader sees how inconsistent it is for Mrs. Jellyby to be so devoted to a faraway tribe, yet seemingly blind to the plight of her own family,” what do you suppose that would look like? We would expect the main character to sweep up one of the children into his arms, cast a haughty look upon Mrs. Jellyby, and lecture her passionately about the inexcusable neglect of her duties.

Dickens does nothing like that here and I think this is an example of Dickens at his best. Read the rest of the chapter for yourself and I think you will agree that Dickens’ characters do remarkably little “teaching.” Yet to read the chapter is to know exactly what message Dickens meant to convey. We don’t need the narrator to indict Mrs. Jellyby with a paragraphs-long tirade; though she is oblivious to it, Mrs. Jellyby indicts herself. It’s well-written and entertaining (even adjusting for the truly pitiable moments).

Hopefully this example drives the point home. Authors never have to sacrifice the elements of good story in order to teach a lesson.

That’s the lesson that many writers today need to learn. The storyteller need not bury his convictions, but he should discipline them. The foolish character, written well, exposes himself. The hypocrite, drawn with care, makes her contradictions obvious. The neglected child who tumbles down the stairs while the “telescopic philanthropist” gazes nobly toward Africa speaks for itself. Bring the characters to life and the reader will understand the point.

Preach when you must, but always entertain first.

If you’re of a certain age and a certain degree of internet literacy, then you’ll also be familiar with the original version. Investigate all of the lore on your own time, because I won’t go into it here (and I have only a superficial awareness of it myself).

The movie was decent for what it set out to be, namely a psychological/cosmic horror movie that capitalized on a well-known internet phenomenon. There was one thing that I think it did particularly well, however, and I wanted to highlight it because I think writers—especially those who write speculative fiction—can benefit from it.1

What the movie did especially well was that it did not over-explain. There are plenty of unanswered questions and that is a good thing.

Like any horror movie there are, of course, a healthy dose of jump scares. But those aren’t really what makes a scary movie scary, and The Backrooms is no exception. What frightens us is the unknown, the idea that something is lurking just around the corner and we don’t know what that something is. Until the something is revealed our minds play through all the horrifying possibilities. The tension in a monster movie dissipates, or at least abates or shifts, after we first get to see the monster. There has been a kind of visual explanation of the horror that was previously unknown.

There is a bit of a “reveal” in The Backrooms, yet we are ultimately left in the dark about the biggest question of all: What are the backrooms in the first place?

The movie gives us no real answer to that question. People will speculate, of course, and perhaps they can even come to plausible conclusions by rewatching the movie and searching for clues or by cobbling together all the extraneous internet lore surrounding the backrooms. There’s no harm in that and it’s part of the fun of a movie like this.

Some moviegoers, perhaps, will find the ending unsatisfactory. I think it would be fair to say that the ending only leaves the viewer with more questions. I haven’t done any looking, but I would not be surprised at all to find lots of responses to the movie along the lines of: “We need The Backrooms 2 so we can finally know what happened with [fill in the blank]!” If producers give in to such pleas, it would be a huge mistake2

I see only two possible directions for a sequel:

1. Give people an explanation about what the backrooms are; or

2. Continue to leave the backrooms unexplained.

The second option, while preserving the essence of what it is that makes the backrooms scary, would likely prove unsatisfying to many viewers. “If we still don’t know what the backrooms are, then what was the point of the second movie?” The first option, is just as likely (perhaps even more so) to leave viewers unsatisfied because to explain the thing, to remove the quality of the unknown, is to rob it of what made it interesting in the first place.

So then what is the lesson for writers?

Speculative fiction—and here I include science fiction, fantasy, and horror—thrive on (to state the obvious) the speculative element. They do so in different ways and some stories contain more explanations than others. Writers should be wary, however, of trying to explain every little detail to the reader.

To go back to the idea of a monster story, the reader doesn’t necessarily need to know the precise details of how the monster’s physiology works or its diet or the place in the taxonomy of cryptids and other ghastly creatures. Those might be things a writer would want to know if they help him form the story, but they are certainly not essential elements of a good story; they can, in fact, spoil a story by over-explaining. Similar points could be made about “magic systems”3 or the “nuts and bolts” explanations of some “hard” sci-fi stories.

Writers of speculative fiction should remember that not every question requires an answer. Sometimes the best thing a writer can do is resist the urge to pull back the curtain.

After all, once you’ve mapped every corner of the backrooms, they’re no longer the backrooms.

Read more

“Hell and destruction are never satisfied…” Proverbs 27:20

With a cry of agony, I pulled the memory jack from the circular port embedded deep in my forehead. Gasping for air, I wiped away tears and snot. The corded jack fell and dangled on its wire like a black icicle, while the bartender wiped down my spot and handed me a towel to wipe my face and muffle the scream. As my breathing steadied the bartender returned to collect the towel and place a cup of water in front of me.

“River water,” the bartender added.

“No,” I hissed.

“It’s here if you want it.”

“Why don’t you drink it?” I eyed the port on his forehead.

“I will. Everyone drinks it eventually. They say it’s cold.”

“I’m waiting for somebody.”

The bartender smiled as if he thought I was joking. “All right pal, it’s there if you want it, but if you don’t want it, your time’s up.”

I tossed a silver coin at the bar before exiting onto the street. The street was wide like a river with dozens of lanes of cars coming and going. It ran straight as far as anyone could see through the exhaust smog and acid drizzle. It was centered between two sheer cliff faces stretching up into the aether. Towers grew up its sides like steel ivy and countless tiny windows with their granite shutters covered cliffs like millions of square eyes. You could see up about a hundred feet or so before the smog obscured the rest. Cars flew in air lanes stacked on top of each other going all the way up. You could hear, beyond the pollution clouds, the occasional collision and explosion of flyers several miles above. It sounded like thunder. Eventually little bits of metal splinters and glass shards would make it down to the ground level, harmless, if not aggravating.

Checking my sun dial for any warnings, I hustled down to my flyer and took off through the indiscriminate lanes of traffic, ascending at break-neck speed. If I could clear the pollution cloud and get closer to the top I’d have a straight shot to headquarters. As I broke through the cloud and into the twilight above; I could just make out the creeping dawn a few miles up where Trench City met its limits. My sundial chirped a mild rebuke as the day grew lighter. The traffic was almost completely gone at this time of night above the cloud. I reached top speed and flicked on the auto-pilot. My sundial began beeping incessantly as the sky turned from gold to a fiery orange. The auto-pilot clicked off as I reached my destination. Killing the engine and plunging into free-fall, I wondered what it would be like to get hit by another flyer. Altitude alarms blared as I plummeted. The naked rockface gave way to cave windows and steel structures jutting out, covered in protective heat shields. I Kicked the engines back on, and stopped my descent parking in the police garage just as the sun was entering the trench.

The officers assembled in the briefing room. I sat next to my partner, Darius whose lower jaw had been replaced with a robotic prosthetic. Chief Howard limped in, white haired and covered in scars, all eyes turned to him. “Alright we got a conference in thirty seconds.” The old man said.

“Screen conference or in-person?” Darius asked. The servos in his mouth quietly whirring.

“Just got word, it’s going to be in-person. Last minute.”

“What?” another officer yelled.

“They can’t keep treating us like this,” Darius yelled. “I ain’t doing it no more!”

“Shut up, Rook,” you’re going to get us all condemned,” I spat.

“Everyone, can-it! They can do what they want, unless you want to get buried.”

Before Darius could say anything in response the room shook violently and exploded in burning light. I covered my eyes until the light dimmed. There was a taskmaster in burning shining armor at the front of the room.

“You will find the cultic group that call themselves in their tongue the Muerte Bendita, worshippers of the demon, Santa Muerte. You will find them and condemn them,” he said in a piercing voice. “You know them by their sign. It is the form of the skull and the image of the rose”

Darius stood up and in a rage threw the table over. I stepped out of the way as my partner began shouting, “Why don’t you do it yourself?” I’m not afraid anymore. I don’t care!”

The glowing figure turned to face Darius, while I reached for my sidearm. “The LORD rebuke you,” he said. With that the other officers and I pulled our sidearms and each fired several rounds into Darius. He crumpled to the ground in agony cursing everyone and everything. He started to get back up when I drew my nine inch nail out of my coat and thrust it into Darius’ heart. The man was pinned like an insect, writhing on the floor as I took his gun and pocketed it. The etchings on the nail glowed white hot.

“I’m thirsty!” Darius sputtered as he began to give up on his futile struggle.

“Lethe!” someone yelled.”

“No,” I ordered. It’s too late. “Clear out!” I took Darius’ pistol and badge and backed away from the rookie as another burning man in armor appeared. He touched the nail and Darius melted into the floor, the steaming nail laying where his body had been. The glowing men were gone and the room was as dull and dim as it had been before the conference.

Chief Howard broke the silence, “Ok you heard the man. Run the database and their barcodes for these guys. We’re gonna send them all down because if we don’t they’ll drag us with them. This must be pretty serious if it’s demanding their personal attention like this. Brett, go find yourself a new partner at the docks.” I glanced down at the spot where Darius had lain before nodding and heading back toward the garage. I checked my sundial, the danger had passed, I was free to go.

…

The Acheron Port Authority stood buried towards the top of the Western cliff face. It was the oldest part of the city. Slate colored rock rose up in ugly square pillars, some standing and some in ruin. The ruined heaps were greasy from the touch of billions of unwashed hands of countless billions that had crawled over the wreckage. The stench from the sunken Acheron wafted over me. A sea of plastic trash and rotting remains of animals undulated in the stinking tide of the dead river. A large marble building squatted like a giant under the cave ceiling. Above, there were cracks where the light could slip through and burn white spots on the ground. The building’s banal square body brooded over the river. It was not a river in the sense that one could see the other side through the fog and the smoke. There would never be a clear day when you could see fifty miles ahead of you. The horn of the still distant ferry reverberated against the cave walls. Dock workers hid in crevices and shadows as she approached. The massive liner parted the steaming trash heaps into mounds and waves of refuse. The ferry, Charon, stood tall and proud. Steam churned from her smoke stacks and rust colored her hull. Her decks teemed with thousands of people crawling over each other like ants. Every space occupied, every gap filled. Arms hung dislocated, legs were broken under the unrelenting pressing of the crowd. Heads and hands hung out of open portholes reaching for the fresh air that would never come. Along her port and starboard sides lay huge nets to which more thousands hung all the way down to the water line. Those who were fortunate enough to hang on the netting were gripped by the less fortunate as two long tails of people drifted into the open waters and far into the distance. They were drowning in the foul water but they would never die. Paradoxically breathing water, but never succumbing. Their lungs screaming for air while having lost the precious grace of death.

I entered the Acheron Port Authority building and walked up to the observation deck where workers frantically tried to process and assign the new arrivals to places in the city. It was a hopeless task done every single day. Despite all their preparations, all their attention to detail, and all of their thinking machines they were overrun every day, every single day. It had been like this for thousands of years and may go on like this for thousands more. It was work without reward, toil without fruit. I flashed my badge and made sure they saw my pistol too. No one was in the mood to be shot today. A man stepped up to me, a cord jacked into his frontal lobe. His eyes were gouged out, replaced with glowing projectors displaying a holographic list of two hundred thousand names. The man had been shrewd in his body modifications. His new “eyes” were so unique and so incapable of any other task that he would never be asked to leave his post, which compared to my occupation was far safer. And also, maybe even more importantly, his eyes were gouged out because there was nothing down here worth seeing.

“Filter by name: Dominic Salvatore,” I said. No names appeared. “All right, something else,” I told the servitor. “Filter by English.” The list narrowed to some ten thousand. “Filter by occupation: law enforcement. The names narrowed down to three. “Filter by ‘unbeliever.’ I’m not interested in apostates, they don’t last long in this city.”

Two names, a detective and a beat cop. The cop died young, in the line of duty. The detective had offed himself. I held my wrist with my sundial out and received the information wirelessly. I had found my quarry and in a few minutes was behind the unsuspecting officer, Chris Johnson, still in his bloody uniform. I had him handcuffed in a minute and a gun pressed into his back. “You won’t die down here, but it’ll hurt and you’ll feel every bit of it,” I hissed in the man’s ear.

The man tensed for a moment then as he processed my words, relaxed and asked “What do you want?”

“You’ve been tagged for a special assignment, officer Johnson. You’re coming with me.” We moved through the crowd and where the crowd would not part, a few arbitrary rounds made gaps and ushered us to the front. I took the handcuffs off so that Chris received a QR code brand on his hand. He was asked if he wanted a memory port installed in his frontal lobe. He declined and was told that when he reconsidered he could go to any bar and get the work done for a few silver pieces.

“What silver pieces?” Chris asked.

“Check your pocket,” I muttered. Chris reached into his pocket and pulled out a heap of the shining currency. “Let’s go,” I said, pulling the man aside and towards my parked flyer. Soon we were airborne and after consulting the sundial were heading up through the smog cloud.

“Am I dead?” Chris asked.

“Welcome to the big city,” I said. “My name is Brett and your name is no longer important, because your new name is Rook.” I gave him the same spiel I had given Darius a few years back. “Cain and the other damned built the city of Dis, up on the surface, before the trench. The Flood brought the dead rivers and on them countless millions of new slaves. Dis grew, bigger than Atlantis, bigger than any city there ever was or ever would be. Eventually Nimrod, the great builder joined them, and with new engines they toiled to expand the city, make it impervious to assault build a new tower of Babel, whose steeple would reach and shatter that copper ceiling. They say they were close, almost to the top. Then He whose name we don’t speak came and his bright light broke the city. The center crumbled into the storm along with their proud tower, and the trench formed, a big fault line stretching all around the stormy center for thousands of miles. Whatever buildings remained were turned glass from His heat. Those out in the open were burned to charred husks, some of them still walking the trench. Hope you never see one. All those that are left have lived in the caves and this trench ever since: the ruins of the ruins of humanity. We hide from the taskmaster appointed to occupy this realm and burn any that his holy light touches. They say it will go on like this until the last day when not even the caves of the trench can hide us.

My flyer climbed above the safety of the pollution cloud and we could now see the starless night above. Somewhere miles up the headlights of the flyer reflected off a dull and solid sky. A sense of claustrophobia settled on us both at seeing the solid sky. On the ground beneath us, abandoned buildings grew out of the sandstone on either side of the trench, resembling ancient Persian temples, and strange spires, yet without any sense of beauty or wonder in them. Some structures were grand in scale but all were utterly plain, uninspired. They were the works of exhausted utilitarian hands, found without cunning or curiosity, maddeningly content with mediocrity. And when the headlights hit them they twinkled against the buildings long-ago turned to glass, cracked and shattered in some places but still a glass mausoleum encasing our folly. And then we were above the trench flying away from it. In the West the burning angel was just slipping below the dead-flat horizon. The trench sped away beneath us but stretched on and on before and behind us, a curving black line in a glass terrain. The trench curved around the red stormy center hundreds of miles across. The glasslands faded into nothingness as the angel star finally dipped below the horizon. The only light we could see was a dull pale glow from the distant pollution cloud far below.

“What’s in that storm? Rook asked.

“The pit,” I said. “No one who has been condemned to the center has ever returned. One thing about hell is that it can always be worse. All you can hope for is to stay on top of the food chain here for as long as possible. Do what you’re told and thrust this nail through the hearts of whoever they want.” I pulled the nail out of my coat pocket. It was a long beaten piece of iron extending out of an old screwdriver handle wrapped in tape. I put it away. It was dangerous having it out for too long.

“And that hole in your head?” Rook asked.

“Memory port. You’ll get one one day. The only problem is it’ll drive you insane eventually. Could take days, could take years but eventually you’ll leave this city either by the hand of someone like me or by your own free choice.”

Rook was silent after that until he changed the subject and asked, “Where are we going?”

“To a part of the city very far away from where I usually operate. I’d been there once before. It’s an area called the Collapse. It draws the kind of people we’re looking for, the Muerte Bendita cartel.

…

I felt the hours crawl by until I heard my sundial chirp again. Rook looked to the East and saw the sky begin to lighten. I pointed the nose down and descended quickly into the trench. “Let’s find a bar,” I said, parking the flyer.

The bar was the same as all the others. High stools with memory spikes dangling from the bar rail, and no drinks except river water. Acid rain spattered against the window as silhouettes rushed about seeking shelter and relief. Car horns and flyers beeped madly at each other. People shouted in a dozen foreign languages, no one understanding the other. Rook watched as I slipped the memory spike into my forehead and closed my eyes.

I saw Sarah sitting in her rocking chair. She was young and beautiful There was a sound, something that sounded completely foreign. It was music, she was listening to the radio and something fragile and sweet was playing. She was staring absent-mindedly outside the window with some kind of needlework in her hands. Birds were hopping in our bird bath that had been replenished by a passing summer thunderstorm. Green leaves glistened and shivered as a cool stormy wind blew through them. I stepped forward and heard the creaking of wood floors beneath bare feet. Sarah looked over at me and smiled. No words were said, nothing needed to be said, it was a perfect moment. There was a knock at the door; I turned to get it. I didn’t want to turn but I always did, every single time. I wanted to run, to tell Sarah to run, but all I could do was keep smiling because it was a memory. Because it had already happened. I opened the door and Dom stepped in. He looked over his shoulder nervously. “Hey,” he said. “Tony says hi,” he drew a silenced pistol and discharged it into my gut. Fire and pain exploded in my belly. In an instant I was covered in blood. As I fell to the floor, I heard more gunshots and knew Sarah was dead. Now I was staring up at the ceiling and at Dom who came to look over me. “If it were up to me, I’d leave you like this but the boss says to make sure you’re dead and gone so I ain’t taking chances. Oh and don’t think anyone’s gonna care about a dirty cop getting offed. See ya in hell, Brett” There were more shots and then darkness.

I pulled the memory spike out of my forehead and let it fall. The bartender threw a towel at me. Next to us someone else was removing their spike. “Lethe! Water!” he shouted.

The bartender rushed for a glass and poured some water out of a clay urn. The man gulped it down before slamming the glass on the bar. Everyone was watching him now. The lines in his forehead that creased around the memory port faded as the expression on his face changed from pain to oblivion. His face drooped on both sides as the muscles in his face died. His speech was slurred and unintelligible. He shambled out into the street and disappeared. I tossed a silver coin on the bar and left, Rook following behind him. “What was that?” He asked.

“River water,” I answered.

“Just tell me what it is and what’s with that hole in your forehead? Almost everyone here’s got one.”

I began to explain as we walked back towards the garage. The only way to feel something again was to get the memory port installed. It could show you your last memory and it’s all real. The sights, the sounds, the smells. The only catch is that every memory trip ends with your death. I’ve died thousands of times, and each time just as real as when it really happened. But as bad as the death memory is, it keeps you coming back. I can coast for a few hours, maybe a few days before I need it again. Everyone gets the port installed eventually, if they lived in the city long enough, but it’s only a matter of time before your death memory drives you so mad you drink a glass of Lethe and finally lose every shred of you you still have left. Me? I’ll ride it till I’m absolutely insane, then either myself or someone else will give me a drink and I’ll be gone.”

Rook was silent for a moment before asking, “Are you really gone when you drink it? Why haven’t you already?”

“I’m waiting for someone,” I said. “Someone who said they’d see me in hell.”

“Your wife?”

“No, I’ve already met her here,” I admitted. “She wasn’t the same person, and neither was I. Every good thing we had about us is stripped away down here. She drank the river a long time ago.”

“What’s gonna happen to that guy?”

“He’ll get picked up like the other cattle.”

“Cattle?” He asked.

“There are millions of zombies like that wandering the city. There are creatures here that aren’t human. They round the zombies up.”

“And do what with them?”

“We need to go. The sun’s coming out,” I said as my sundial blurted out an alarm.

We began running toward the parking garage and heard the sirens going off. Cars were frantically honking and flying past each other as they scrambled for shelter. People ran along the sidewalk looking for refuge in any shop with a door still open. Granite shutters were swung closed over every window and door like a bank vault. People trapped outside pleading, wearing themselves out groping at the cracks in the door. The heat in the trench was jumping several degrees every few seconds until finally a shaft of light burst through the fog and hit the bedrock pavement. I felt my skin begin to burn as we dove into the parking garage with the crowd. The smokescreen of pollution now seemed a pitiful defense against the pure white light of the taskmaster above. Cars exploded and melted into the ground along with people whose charred remains intermingled with their machines. After some time the light had climbed the surface and up against the cave walls. The pollution cloud blocked most of it out and people went about their business stepping over and around the remains.

Rook sat down and began hyperventilating, rocking himself back and forth on the pavement. I kicked him in the ribs a few times. “You think you’re breathing? You’re dead. None of these things you’re doing will help. This is as good as it gets. Everything else is worse. Those people in the pavement, they’re still alive. Every day we walk on them but you know what, it’s a hell of a lot better than being the ones walked on. Now get up and let’s go.” Rook got up and tried to collect himself and then suddenly he was dashing away from me. I drew my pistol and fired. Rook collapsed a few feet away. Dozens of scavengers descended from the walls and the surrounding alleys towards the fresh meat, but I blasted them off hitting several. The others scurried away. I walked up and threw Rook over my shoulder and left. Behind me, the scavengers returned to harvest their injured comrades for the flesh market.

…

The door chimed as we walked into the bod-mod shop. A creature with a woman’s face on a mantis’ body greeted us. I flashed my badge. “We don’t want any trouble,” the woman clicked in reply.

“My partner needs augmentations. Give him a new leg and–” I paused, “a memory port.”

“As you wish, officer,” the mantis clicked disappearing to gather her instruments. The leg amputation went well and the prosthetic fused nicely to Rook’s hip. The core drilling in his frontal lobe was of course the most painful part of the procedure, but once the port was in there, there was nothing he could do and a defeated quiet came over him. As we removed his restraints, he kept touching his artificial leg and running his finger around the rim of the memory port. I paid the mantis the thirty pieces I owed it and dragged Rook to the nearest bar, jacking him in and waiting until I saw the tears. I had removed the memory spike. He looked at the bartender as if he wanted to ask him something but didn’t.
“What are you in for?” I asked.

“She believed–I didn’t. I tortured her for it, made her life hell and then she died in a car accident.” Rook’s voice dripped with regret. “I took the most dangerous assignments, the worst neighborhoods after that. Then what I wanted to happen, happened.”

It was then that I knew I had him. The next step was to give him a badge, a gun and eventually a nail.

“Who are you waiting for?” He asked me.

“A man. My killer. He said he’d see me in hell. I check the ferry manifest every day. He’s probably pretty old now so it should be soon, any day.”

“What will you do when you see him?”

“Give him this,” I said pulling out the nine inch nail. “Only people like me have one of these. You’ll get one too, if you make it. You incapacitate your target with the gun. Lots of shots. The pain overwhelms them, they hit the floor then you drive this through their heart and BAM they’re done.”

“It’s just a nail. I can make one of those myself.”

“It’s a nail with the anointed one’s name etched into it. To speak his name or the name of the one above is to bring him down here. Hell does not tolerate blasphemers.”

“Where did you get it?”

“The last cop who died, I picked it off of him. They say the taskmasters handed out the originals.”

“You can just use that on anyone?”

“Only who they assign to us.”

“So what if this guy isn’t on their list?”

“If I use it on someone outside of their list, I get condemned too but it’ll be worth it. Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll just make his life as miserable as I can. Pain is a currency here. People will do anything to limit their pain, and that’s the best you can hope for. Now are you ok or do you want a drink?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” he looked disgustedly at the bartender. I could tell he was still strong and willful. He would be useful on this mission. We climbed into the flyer and I handed him Darius’ old pistol.

“Point and shoot. No need to reload but these suckers sure can get hot if you fire too much,” I said powering the flyer on. We exited the parking lot and flew low until my sundial gave me the green light to head back up towards the ruins of Dis. We would make it to The Collapse in another night.

…

I could tell that Rook hated me for what I’d done to him. I didn’t really care though, I needed him for a job and there would always be other rooks. He asked me why he wasn’t hungry or thirsty and I told him that all the little joys were gone along with the big ones. We lived in a world without love, without satisfaction. Life would never grow down here. Every approximation we ever created to food was tasteless sludge. The only water was the river water of Lethe, unless you thought drinking from the trash-filled Acheron was water. And yet we still bled, we still felt pain. It was sorrow without joy, sickness without the memory of being well. Rook wasn’t asleep when I shook him but he had made a vain effort to daydream about somewhere other than here. The memories of the old world were dim. I’d tried plenty of times but I just remember that I felt happy but I can never remember what happy felt like.

“Welcome to the Collapse,” I said. The trench opened up into a wide circular area breaching the typical sheer fault-line walls on either side. To the left lay the ruins of the old city of Dis, several of its glassed structures had fallen inwards. On the right lay a gaping hole staring directly into the storm-tossed center of hell. It churned in and over on itself, raging every day and night. Lightning jumped from storm cloud to storm cloud. Here there was no barrier, no cold comfort of granite. There was the trench and there was whatever lay below. I looked for a garage to put the car down but this region had never been developed. A rocky outcropping with a minimum of shade would have to do. The Collapse would have seemed peaceful anywhere else, but here the lack of flyers and pedestrians was eerie, unsettling. I had been here once before but that was a long time ago.

Leaving the flyer parked we hiked over broken rubble and through somewhat intact buildings that had survived the fall. There had been a lot of speculation about how The Collapse had formed but the one I ascribed to was that in a desire to burrow further into the cliff side and escape the angel altogether they blasted their way in and the city fell down around their ears. The best evidence for it was that if you sat quietly you could still hear the moaning and the screaming underneath and all around you from the long-buried excavators.

“What year did you die, Brett?”

“Don’t use my name. And it was 1993.”

Rook was silent for a moment before he asked, “how will we find this gang?”

“Listen,” I shushed him. There was nothing except the howling of the storm in the distance and then there was another noise. A flyer was approaching, it sounded big, like a truck. We waited, hidden behind a cracked wall. I looked up and saw a bus cruise overhead heading deeper into the Collapse. I unholstered my pistol and motioned for Rook to follow me. By the time we had tracked the bus it was already landing into what looked like it had been an amphitheater. The doors folded open and an armed guard stepped out bearing the crude skull and rose crown insignia of the Muerte Bendita cult. The guard was leading a line of men each hand-cuffed to the next into the center of the theater. Rook squinted and then looked back at me wide-eyed.

“They all look like that guy who drank the water.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. None of the zombies put up a fight. They shambled, gently urged by their dark shepherds to something far worse than a slaughter. The guards were lax in perimeter security, not expecting an attack. We followed them out of the amphitheater and down into a cavern with wide seams running all along the ceiling and up the support pillars. Down at the bottom of the cavern a shape moved in the dim lighting. Rook turned to me, fear in his eyes. It was big, much bigger than a man. A pale limb reached out of the shadows and coiled around one of the zombies, lifting him into the dark. The zombie didn’t put up a fight. The guards dropped their weapons and fell prostrate on the ground. They chanted something but it was more a moan and wail than anything musical. They tried hard, you could tell to lift music up to their goddess, but down here nothing was beautiful. It had all been a gift and we had all squandered it.

I handed Rook my sundial and told him to wait there while I went around for another look. I didn’t feel guilty. Most people would think I had formed some kind of attachment to the kid but he was only here because I needed him. I would have done the same to Darius. I climbed up and circled around the cavern to a location closer to the shadow. Then I waited for the sundial to go off. When it did, everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to face Rook who stood there dumbfounded by my betrayal. The guards fired several rounds at him. He ducked and returned fire looking around wildly for me. Maybe he still didn’t know I had betrayed him intentionally. Maybe he was waiting for me to back him up. I sat there and waited, hand on the nine-inch nail. Hundreds of rounds went off until I heard him yell as the gun overheated and burned his hand. The shadow moved and out came the demon goddess, Santa Muerte with her many bone-colored limbs and her glistening abdomen and thorax. She was as big as a house and at the base of her neck was a giant woman’s head. Her skin was pulled taut around jagged orbital bones with an arrow-head chin. Her thin cracked lips were pulled into a perpetual smile. Her face was bleached white. The guards surrounded Rook and after beating him brought him to face their goddess. Her head reached down so that her black lifeless eyes were level with Rook’s. “The flesh is new. What do you want, child? A memory perhaps? Any memory you desire.”

“I want to die,” Rook stammered.

“You,” she paused, “already have.” There was a pained cackle rising up out of her throat and then came a sickening cough as spittle flew all over Rook. “We’re all dead down here.”

I leapt from my vantage point, nail in hand and landed on her back. I could see that her body undulated with the melded forms of the zombies. She had consumed them, used them as stones for her bodily temple. They were the body of the death goddess. Suddenly the head of a zombie not quite subsumed looked up at me, straining to escape. The eyes were alive but lifeless. I had never been this close to a Lethe drinker. What I saw was not a blissful ignorance, but pain without meaning, without the self. For a split instant I realized that there must be an infinite amount of comforts taken for granted, and that hell was to bleed it all out, one right after the other, world without end. I could still see the zombie’s rusted memory port and I knew I needed to strike there like hitting a chink in a dragon’s armor. The words of the savior glowed along the nail as it entered the goddess’ body. She writhed, limbs trying to reach me. The joints in her legs snapped and the limbs flailed backwards, slashing me. In horrible pain I let go of the nail and slid off her back. A burning light opened up where the nail had been, consuming the body of the goddess. Whips of wind and red sandy storm from the center of hell reached out, dragged her in along with her worshippers and the other zombies. Then everything was quiet, save the distant howling wind. Rook and I were alone.

Rook looked at me before scrambling for a gun. I was tired, I didn’t move or fight it. He fired, blowing two holes in my stomach. Somehow it always hurt more to be shot in the place that had killed me all those years ago.

“Was that it, eh? Was I the bait?” Rook shouted, waving the gun in my face.

“Yes,” I spat blood.

“I’d like to kill you but you were already sent to hell. I think I’ll take your flyer and your little timepiece here.”

“The nail is yours.”

“Yeah I’ll take that too, Brett.”

Rook got up and turned to leave. “Since I can’t kill you I’ll just hurt you. Hurt you worse than death ever could. You said you died in 1993? You want to know when I died?”

“Who cares,” I told him. If he could leave then maybe I could be alone for a few peaceful moments.”

“Two thousand eighty five, Brett. Almost a hundred years after you died. You still think the guy who killed your wife is gonna walk off that ferry any day now? You want to know what I think? I bet he had a deathbed conversion. Maybe right before the chair or the injection he dedicated himself to the one who runs this whole thing. I bet he’s in the other place right now.”

I shrieked in agony at his words. I thrashed my hands and feet through the air, and slammed them into the dust beneath me, taking in a mouthful. The wailing of all the years, the patience of my hatred and my revenge left me and with that so did my life. “Water! I shouted. Water!” Rook looked at me in disgust before tapping his memory port. He turned and walked off. I heard the flyer take off and he was gone. I managed to stand, holding my bleeding guts. There were no bars within weeks of walking and I was utterly alone. I could have had the drink years ago. I thought back to the face I had stabbed on the demon’s body with envy. It was then that I thought about saying his name. We all thought about his name but saying it was something totally different. I shambled towards the storm of the center thinking about his name more and more. I wanted to feel nothing, be nothing, know nothing but that wasn’t an option. Rook was long gone. The demon goddess was long gone, condemned to a deeper hell along with her guards. I was able to stand, guts bleeding out. If I stood there for another ten years they’d still be bleeding and still be hurting just as much. The sun was coming up. If I stood there I’d be burned to a crisp. If I moved forward anymore the storm would take me. If I walked back to the shade of the cave and the trench I would be walking for weeks like this. I stood there in paralyzing indecision and his name caught in my throat.

The man in question was an officer in the Roman army — some say a Centurion, others a member of the Praetorian Guard itself. Whatever his rank, the man served his Emperor well, but his heart belonged to a King even higher than the Caesar: the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. The man’s name was George.

And George would slay the dragon.

The …

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Luke Brantley and the Fantastic Flashlight is a middle-grade paranormal adventure set in small-town Alabama during the summer of 1993.

Luke Brantley expects his final month of summer vacation to be like all the ones before—riding bikes around town, fishing, and spending time at his grandmother’s house. But while helping her sort through his late grandfather’s belongings, Luke discovers an old flashlight hidden away in the attic.

When he switches it on one night, the beam reveals something impossible lurking at the edge of the woods.

Soon Luke and his friends find themselves tangled in a mystery involving strange creatures, a secretive government organizati…

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Starting May 18th and running through June 1st, Silence & Starsong will be accepting submissions for our Fall 2026 issue. If you’ve been sitting on a story that inspires wonder and awe, now is the time to send it our way.

We’re looking for speculative fiction of all kinds: fantasy, science fiction, action and adventure, horror, fairytales, and the strange things that live at the edges of all of those. We also welcome poetry and artwork.

A few things to keep in mind:

• Prose: 4,000–9,000 words (longer works may be considered for serial publication)

• Poetry: traditional forms appreciated, but innovative work with real craft is equally welcome

• Compensation: $0.02/word for prose; $0.50/line for poetry

• Format: .doc, .docx, or .rtf, standard manuscript format, submitted to editor@silenceandstarsong.com

• We ask for 6 months’ exclusive worldwide rights for original works

For the full guidelines—including what we’re looking for, what we’re not, and a list of authors whose work gives you a sense of our taste—visit silenceandstarsong.com/submission-guidelines.

We look forward to reading your work.

The short story was polished. It was ready. I wrote five drafts before submitting it and the anthology itself had an entire team involved with editing, marketing, making the book beautiful, et cetera. Then when it came out, eighteen authors all did their darndest to get their hard-earned audiences to buy the thing.

We were happy to sell 49 copies in a week (largely just to us authors).

Meanwhile the video game was super rough. Typo-ridden. Included a game breaking bug. It was a single chapter rough draft that I blitzed through to get to the end then posted to a forum as a prototype to show people what I was envisioning.

Within a week, Chapter 1 of The Iron King’s Heir had ten thousand views and …

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I’m pretty sure Hogwarts Legacy was the last video game I ever really looked forward to. Rowling’s Wizarding World has pretty much everything you could want for a game: an obvious progression system (learning new spells); clear potential for choices-matter mechanics (choosing a house); mini game options (quidditch); and a vibrant, mysterious world ripe with secrets to uncover. What could possibly go wrong?

Even if you haven’t played it, you can probably guess at the answer. The modern machine is what went wrong.

To be clear, the game isn’t all that bad. Some of the design is beautiful even, and the combat was somewhat enjoyable and certainly visually appealing. But it’s just not all that good either, despite the five years and $150 million that went into making it. The characters are flat, the dialogue…

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For a preview, here’s the prompt and other information we announced back in December:

Announcing our 2025 round robin story and opening chapter submissions.

An orbital monastery has gone silent.

There was no distress signal.
No report of technical failure.

Only one final transmission:

“The manger is empty.
And the star is moving.”

Bethlehem Station was built as a working monastery in orbit. Not a symbol. Not a museum. A place of prayer above the Earth. Now it’s dark.

We’re using this premise as the starting point for our 2025 Round Robin Story—a collaborative work of speculative fiction that will unfold one chapter at a time.

If you haven’t encountered a round robin story before, the rules are simple, but demanding. Each chapter becomes canon. Each new author must continue what came before. The story develops slowly, deliberately, and publicly.

The opening chapter matters more than the rest, so we’re treating it that way.

For the first round, we’ll be accepting submissions up to 2,000 words, giving the opening author room to establish the setting, tone, and central mystery. In addition, that author will propose two possible directions the story could take next. We’ll choose one of them, and the second chapter will follow that path.

Follow-up chapters will be limited to 1,000 words. Authors of selected installments may choose any ebook issue of Silence & Starsong Magazine as their reward. Stories will be published on our website.

All of our usual guidelines regarding appropriate content apply. Please see our website for full details.

The manger is empty.
The star is moving.

What happens next is unwritten.

— The Editors