SciendaQ Summer 2012

By Scienda

The Armchair Adventurer's Anthology: 2 stories, 2 essays, A good read and a good conversation.

2 SHORT STORIES: 1 STANDALONE + 1 SERIAL

The Wasteland by Marc Schooley

He lives in a bubble. It’s a nice artificial 72 degrees year-round. Because it’s that or the death moss. Welcome to Houston’s future, where a lone rover goes on patrol to burn off the toxic moss that encroaches on the city’s dome...and finds himself face to face with his questionable youth.

The Purpose of Rain by Ashley Clark

Water coats the street and sidewalk outside the library. The city’s made of reflective surfaces today. Zelda Rae hides inside among the books, then turns her favorite chair toward the window, sits and crosses her legs. One question plagues my mind still, as rain traces a path down to the earth: Who am I?

2 ESSAYS: 1 TO THINK ABOUT + 1 TO LAUGH ABOUT

Out, Damn Spot by Paul and Laurie Mathers

Lady Macbeth could not, or perhaps would not minister to herself. To be healed, it would be necessary for her to face the terror of the fanged serpent within. King David was a lowly shepherd and the runt of the litter. He killed Goliath. He got chased around by a mad king. His highly personal, emotional responses are unlike any other in the biblical record. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart?

The Great Dutch National Bicycle Race by P.A. Baines

Cycling in the Netherlands is easy because the place is flat. The whole country is flatter than a pancake used for target practice by the national Olympic Anvil-Dropping squad. In fact, the highest point in Holland is not a place but a person. You should know about this.
books and people: 1 good read + 1 good conversation

BOOKS: Cliff Graham’s Lion of War Series

T.E. George talks with Cliff Graham and gives a review of the historical novels that depict King David’s life. Brutally honest books that tell the story of broken men seeking to make some sense out of a broken world.

PEOPLE: Mike Duran on Life, Art and Faith

C.L. Dyck talks with Mike Duran about Chuck Norris’s skin care, gender perspectives, how postmodernism is affecting the social fabric, and Mike’s writing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scienda
• Release date: Apr 28, 2012

Scienda

Scienda Press is all about narratives with substance and an enjoyable style. Our focus is speculative, from sci-fi, fantasy and supernatural to lyrical magical realism.

Book preview

SCIENDA QUARTERLY

the armchair adventurer’s magazine

Summer 2012

Copyright Scienda Press 2012

Individual articles are copyright by the respective authors.

Smashwords Edition

Managing Editor: C.L. Dyck

Copyeditor: Linda Yezak

Find SciendaQ online:

Blog and purchasing info http://sciendapress.wordpress.com

Facebook http://facebook.com/SciendaQ

STORYTHINK

THE WASTELAND by Marc Schooley

THE PURPOSE OF RAIN by Ashley Clark

LIFE AND CULTURE

OUT, DAMN SPOT by Paul and Laurie Mathers

HUMOUR

THE GREAT DUTCH NATIONAL BICYCLE RACE

With Your Expert Guide, P.A. Baines

BOOKS

CLIFF GRAHAM’S LIONS OF WAR TRILOGY

Columnist: t.e. George

PEOPLE

MIKE DURAN ON ART AND FAITH

Columnist: C.L. Dyck

Editor’s Corner

And onward we go, into summer.

I began to wonder, as I assembled this little issue of our little zine, whether I’m crazy. I understand that happens to people who are doing what they really love and engaging with things they really believe in.

Once again, I’m inordinately proud to feature the work of these columnists. We are being politically incorrect on a variety of fronts this issue. We’re discussing manly stuff in books. We’re talking about people who say things like girls can’t do math and get fired, not so much for saying something stupid, as for saying something censorable. We’re telling stories about rain, about burying one of America’s greatest cities, and about the wish to die.

Mostly, we’re seizing on questions of purpose at a time of year when hammocks are called for. Very politically incorrect. (Just wait till you see our US election commentary in the fall issue.) But we didn’t start this gig in order to play safety zone.

It’s more about doing beautiful and unorthodox things with words and ideas—either one will do. So if I’m crazy, it’s for a reason. Onward we go. ~C.L. Dyck

STORYTHINK

Investigative fictionalism

_____

The Wasteland

Marc Schooley

I was a young man when it happened.

It was April, a time the old poets would have lauded as spring, rhapsodic in their word pictures of renewal and life born again from the wastes of winter. We don’t know about such things except from the artifacts; it’s always seventy-two degrees where I live, as long as the power stays on. A bubble city like ours over in Gaul—the artifacts say it once was called France—lost its power, and 122,000 people fried to death within hours under the great glass lens of the bubble, or died fleeing into the waste.

Our engineers are more capable, it’s rumored, so that shouldn’t happen to us. Even if it did, I might make it to the nearest bubble and survive. It’s over 180 miles away in Austin, but I have a crawler. And a G34A survival suit, since I’m a rover.

I work seven days on and seven days off out in the waste with a rotating partner selected randomly from a pool of rovers. The old hands say they do this to keep us from conspiring. Makes sense, and I’ve never worked with the same partner twice. Suits me, since I don’t like them much anyway.

We patrol a perimeter around the bubble, about thirty miles in all directions, give or take a few. Don’t know exactly how it got this way, because the artifacts go silent centuries back. Anyway, the land is saturated with gray moss as far as the eye can see outside the perimeter. It would be inside the perimeter, and probably inside the bubbles too, if it weren’t for us rovers.

Our crawlers are equipped with flamethrowers, and for seven days straight we travel the perimeter burning back the moss. It takes constant vigilance; the stuff multiplies so fast it takes all of us roving constantly just to keep it at bay. Crazy lichen some call it, others the fungus-among-us. I just call it the death moss, 'cause that’s what it is.

The perimeter is desolate all the way around; nothing