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Text of the page (random words):
ing to him sometime review the nought jeffrey thomas 2025 cover by frank walls it s believed the nought are beyond mere atheists they don t embrace the absence of a god so much as embrace the absence of conscious existence the hydrans feel they ve learned from this lesson and that by following the nought s example humans too can ultimately transcend conflict and hatred the colonists claim that in experiencing the merge they have attained the ultimate state of peace if only for an hour at a time i ve heard the merge described as a temporary death it s the freedom of becoming dead except that one is returned to life afterward only to look forward to the next death and the next on pluto s moon of hydra a settlement exists they are the mergers through metal implants of smart materials the residents commune with a very distant alien race known as the nought it s described by its practioners who vigorously deny they are a religious cult as blissful death the merging is usually a communal event a gathering of naked people under the satellite dish that somehow picks up the nought thoughts many many light years away however you can merge privately it s quite a relaxing experience this annihilation of mental and physical discomfort and cares so it s not a surprise many people turn to it between group mergings then some of them start turning into monsters each transformation more radical and eventually the transformed turn violent and have to be killed the hydra settlement just isn t any cult it was founded by klaus gaithersburg a wealthy industrialist and the man who first merged so when its current leader abbas earth congressman board member of gaithersburg incorporated asks for colonial force help they send captain robert fuseli lieutenant tarragon and a technician zarate to investigate fuseli doesn t want to go he doesn t like the hydrans especially their practice of putting the merger implants on children then there s his lover rhan being studied in the antarctic after the events of the exploded soul it s the safest place on the polluted and violent mess that s earth but she resents her status as a lab rat and knows she ll probably never see her home in the unnamed country ever again still she and fuseli remain committed to each other and fuseli doesn t want to leave her of course fuseli has trouble following the instructions of general stroud not to make waves in hydra he s annoyed at their constant evasions by the cute manipulative stammer of the resident robot doctor by his attempted seduction by abbas aide and the local choom woman who has latched on to zarate and fuseli has reason to be worried this is structured similarly to the exploded soul with all the puzzles wrapped up about two thirds of the way through with the last third being violent action very violent action much more than its predecessor in the series we occasionally step away from following fuseli to see the scheming of the hydrans or just to see them turn into monsters the horror here is much more visceral and memorable than the exploded soul even if the central idea is less interesting both novels look at the question of souls in different ways it s a pleasurable diversion and i hope thomas continues the series i should add that this is part of weird house press s dark moons imprint which does science fiction horror share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print share on reddit opens in new window reddit share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on tumblr opens in new window tumblr like this like loading august 22 2026 the towers of utopia essay the towers of utopia mack reynolds 1975 cover by perhaps bruce pennington reynolds seems to have evolved stylistically in the 1970s at least based on my unexhaustive reading of his work this novel reads like a fix up told in four parts but as far i know none of its parts were published before there is lots of dialogue and some care in developing its major characters each one gets an installment centering on them relatively for reynolds good characterization oh there are still the reynolds lectures but the socioeconomic exposition and theorizing is much diluted here compared to early works we ve looked at though we still have at least one scene where one character asks another why are you telling me something i already know and we ll come across a plot variation of something we ve seen in another reynolds novel this is listed as the second bat hardin novel after commune 2000 a d and he s much more central to the plot that listing does not come from the publisher of both novels bantam book there are a couple of minor continuity issues not big enough to dwell on more a matter of tone than anything as he said he would at the end of the towns must roll hardin has returned to america and started to work in the meritocracy the governing class of people s capitalism or the ultra welfare state more share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print share on reddit opens in new window reddit share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on tumblr opens in new window tumblr like this like loading august 20 2026 the exploded soul no this is not a punktown novel but it is punktown adjacent review the exploded soul jeffrey thomas 2024 cover by frank walls thomas starts a new series with this novel while it s set in the same universe as the punktown stories none of is set on punktown rather we stay entirely inside earth s solar system in the early days of man s expansion into space it can travel to other stars via jump chutes an expensive technology so earth has teemed up with the alien coleopteroids or as they re known in many a punktown stories the bedbugs they are mysterious and never seem quite trustworthy but they are in exchange for being allowed to settle on the planet oasis where punktown is willing to help humans develop teleportation their own version of teleportation a strange affair with vehicles traveling on complicated tracks is unsuited for humans more share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print share on reddit opens in new window reddit share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on tumblr opens in new window tumblr like this like loading august 17 2026 flesh for punktown i m leaving punktown with this one there is at least one more punktown collection voices from punktown i need to get i do have the punktown anthology transmissions from punktown and another punktown story in a magazine but i have no plans to read them right way low res scan flesh for punktown jeffrey thomas 2019 cover by tithi luadthong shutterstock the theme of this one is punktown s flesh trade and the consciences of those involved as customers and providers it s a low res scan because i ve already reviewed the lovecraft tinged open minded when it appeared in eldritch chrome naturally punktown the city of strange appetites has plenty of legal brothels and solon is the largest that s where raw elegant it s principal bioengineer works in transformed his job is to take nature s stock products and customize and mold them for customers with more outre tastes lupe pastrana desitute comes looking for work and suggests she be molded into something like a werewolf and so she is or at least something that looks like a werewolf caught in mid transition and with a cute elfin like head more share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print share on reddit opens in new window reddit share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on tumblr opens in new window tumblr like this like loading august 15 2026 commune 2000 a d or adventures in reviewer parallax essay commune 2000 a d mack reynolds 1974 the parallax on this is provided by mporcius fiction log and i rather agree with him charactering this novel as tepid or at least i would have before skimming it again to make my notes about three months after reading it i finished it the same day as the towns must roll but remembered much less about this novel however i also happened to be reading reynolds novel from the previous year looking backward from year 2000 i plan on doing a post on it and the novel it honors edward bellamy s looking backward i ll be doing posts on both eventually you can see this novel s relation to looking backward from year 2000 in two different ways reynolds often casts a critical eye on some utopian scheme he argued for in a previous work or you can see this society as just a waypoint between now and looking backward from year 2000 first some notes on continuity never something reynolds was all that concerned with in his series while the online science fiction encyclopedia and the isfdb list as part of the bat hardin series he only shows up in one chapter and at the end he s with the rolling commune of new woodstock about to set out for mexico so it seems to take place before the towns must roll but hardin is already a revolutionary here we also get here mention of a drug that can accelerate learning which is nowhere mentioned in that earlier story more share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print share on reddit opens in new window reddit share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on tumblr opens in new window tumblr like this like loading august 12 2026 the towns must roll oh i m not done with mack reynolds by a long shot to regular readers grinding your teeth is bad for you essay the towns must roll mack reynolds 1969 cover by johnny bruck reynolds bat hardin series is a loosely jointed and spread across a magazine and two paperback publishers the individual books weren t marketed as a series the major commonality seems to be that frederik pohl was involved as editor for all the original versions as brian stableford s utopia and afterwards notes 1969 marked reynolds returning to a more serious version of sf specifically trying to extrapolate political social and economic trends in depicting a future america he had done some of that with 1962 s mercenary though of course it s a bit hard to take the whole televised gladiatorial combats replacing real war as plausible more share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print share on reddit opens in new window reddit share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on tumblr opens in new window tumblr like this like loading august 9 2026 nights in punktown review nights in punktown jeffrey thomas 2019 cover by tithi luadthong shutterstock punktown is a city of ceaseless and prodigious appetite and technology and alien flesh is there to satisfy some of those appetites is love just a good hard orgasm that s the question the emibittered isabella asks in draped in flesh in the chapbook s sole original story it s the eve of valentine s day isabella reflects on the absurdity of the heart as the holiday s symbol but maybe something has come into the world that will replace the heart as a symbol but a symbol of what exactly more share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print share on reddit opens in new window reddit share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on tumblr opens in new window tumblr like this like loading august 8 2026 welcome to punktown under his forma street press forma street s a neighborhood in punktown jeffrey thomas has been reprinting some of his work including several chapbooks of punktown stories review welcome to punktown jeffrey thomas 2021 cover by deviney designs shutterstock vera d cruz is surrounded by xenophilia her ex husband dario seems to like dating aliens and everybody seems to love the vertices they re punktown s latest newcomers in their case they shuttled down from a black two dimensional triangle floating above punktown their origin story is bizarre supposedly decades ago some humans got lost during an early teleportation experiment and ended up on a world with a dying alien race in another dimension the humans to sort of save the aliens agreed to be amalgamated with them to produce a third distinct species the vertices they look like brown skinned humans except they have a jointed appendage that comes out of the top of their skull and it has a hole at the end vera is a disturbed at the behavior she hears from her young daughter mia about a vertice classmate and she really doesn t like it when mia s vertice friend gives her a lump of some brown tissue to grow in a glass more share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print share on reddit opens in new window reddit share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on tumblr opens in new window tumblr like this like loading august 6 2026 1 2 3 223 next page search search receive our articles in your inbox subscribe twenty 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