Science Fiction

Higher education has many difficulties…

From THE NEW YORK TIMES, October 28, 2030:

NEW YORK (AP)- A potentially precedent-setting case has been cleared for a hearing in the coming days at the Supreme Court.

Flora McFlimsey, a member of the Gandolfian alien race, who has been a sessional instructor in quantum physics at Columbia University, had first sued the university for wrongful dismissal shortly after she had been discharged from her duties seven months ago. She claims that it was entirely due to the fact that the side effects of her unique condition as an alien being, and not because…

Fantasy

Neither is what you’re expecting…

I tell ya, places like this are no picnic for any gal worth her salt. Let alone that rare breed known as a female adventurer. Which is what I am.

But I’m sure you figured that out the moment I walked in here. Not many girls around here have the kind of tree-trunk gams I got, that’s for sure. Not too many going around wearing Robin Hood’s wardrobe, for that matter. Very few arming themselves with quarterstaffs and daggers, too, otherwise maybe you’d have a smaller population than you have.

And not too many girls…

Jefferson Ball

They work together…whether they like it or not.

I.

“Jeff! JEFF! Goddamnit, Jeff! WAKE UP! You’re gonna make us lose the deal!”

Hamilton Pomeranian, small but wiry ex-star soldier turned would-be entrepreneur, was violently shoving her friend and associate Jefferson Ball, drunkenly and unconsciously lying in bed, her tall, sexy but muscular frame clad only in her brown fur, with a tuft at the top covering her ears, her trademark monogrammed black bikini, and her black boots. Jefferson had, quite obviously, been engaged in her favorite sport-debauchery- the previous night, and was, with her iron constitution, only now suffering from…

Science Fiction

An encounter between opponents in an unusual war…

I.

Hold it right there, fella!

Yeah, that’s it. Come on down out of that tree. I’ve climbed more than my fair share of those things in my life, so I know how to really hide in them. You did a lousy job if you were trying to do that. And I suspect you were, seeing as how we’ve knocked out as many of you humans as we can find lately.

Now, you better give me all your weapons and money and….

Why? ’Cause I said so. Or else.

“Or else what?”…

Fantasy

When the best man in the kingdom isn’t a man at all…

I.

My introduction to my champion was one event I am not likely to forget. You do not easily forget nearly dying. Nor the being who saved your life- and remained loyal to you for many years after.

This was, of course, at the time when my uncle, by the point of his blade and a mob disillusioned with the rule of my parents, proposed to do away with them by force. And with them, me.

I was near the end of my teens at that time, but…

Cartoon Republican Army

When politics gets in the way of music…

Editor’s note: The following is an account of one phase of the activities of the Cartoon Republican Army (CRA), the rebel organization hoping to acquire civil rights for the race of animated cartoon characters they represent, which this reporter has chronicled in the past and will likely continue to do so in the future, barring accidents. This account chronicles one of the few events in the CRA’s history which has yet to achieve the kind of publicity other aspects of the organization’s activities has received.

FIELD COMMANDER F. FINSTER:

On the record…

Animation

When what you want to be real can never be real…

I hesitate to say that television animation is my life, because it is nothing like that. It’s been an important part of it, but not the ONLY thing.

Because I am a person with Asperger’s Syndrome, I have had a lifelong compulsion to make myself know anything and everything about what interests me. Mostly, this has centered around the various aspects and affairs of popular culture: film, television, music et al.

And, until recently, I wasn’t able to share that knowledge with other people too much for fear of being dismissed as that foolish thing, a “fan”. …

Science Fiction

I.

Jody Ryder wiped the beads of perspiration that had gathered on top of her pelt, sighed, and tried to prepare herself for the next round of the latest athletic contest she had become embroiled in. As the star athlete of Hudson High School- and a heroic, super-powered, teenage canine robot to boot- such things were not uncommon to her. Most often, she was able to walk away from them, bloodied but unbowed, due to her remarkable power, manifested in her swift and agile physique and intelligent yet artificial positronic brain. Today would be no exception.

What was an exception…