Unfit Magazine: Vol 4

By Daniel Scott White

Some say the first real science fiction story is Frankenstein. This classic has always fascinated me because Dr. Frankenstein, the creator of the monster, was actually trying to make the world better through the application of technology. Little did he know how wrong his experiment would go. He could cheat death, but there were deadly consequences. And out of this we find the basis for many modern science fiction stories in which technology is ultimately evil, technology leads us to an unpredictable and dangerous future. It's the fear of technology that many modern stories root themselves into, and the evil that ensues, that they thrive upon.

"The Hitter" by Emily Devenport is perhaps the best short story she has ever written, in my opinion. For some people, life is arrested, meaning they remain the same age until they die. Unlike Frankenstein, this one was a positive twist at the end.

"Eternal Boiler" by Taiyo Fujii is one of the first stories I've had translated. I'm a big fan of Taiyo and his brilliant book, Gene Mapper. The story here deals with immortal coils, engines that keep the world running. Translated by Toshiya Kamei and edited by David Grigg.

"The Algorithms for Love" by Ken Liu is, in his words, inspired by Ted Chiang's "Division by Zero". A man meets a woman raising a child, but he's unaware the little girl is really a doll. Then they have a real child. It gets complicated.

"The Year of the Rat" by Chen Qiufan is, many would agree, one of the best science fiction stories ever written. Mutated rats are hunted by unemployed college graduates who are despondent with life. Translated by Ken Liu.

Like the original Frankenstein, these stories play with the value of life, of tampering with the original biological design. However, they don't all have a frightening theme. Technology isn't exactly evil in some of the stories. It's more like the applications are either misunderstood or the technology goes beyond expectations. I put these stories in this magazine because they take science fiction farther than the classics did. I think they'll surprise you in many ways.

Here is a shorter explanation of the stories as appears on the back of the magazine.

• "The Hitter" by Emily Devenport is the story of the first and last inhabitants of a dead planet and how they remain there undetected.
• "Eternal Boiler" by Taiyo Fujii tells of the transformation of the world by an ammonia based engine and the folly of those who adapt to the changing technology all too quickly.
• "The Algorithms for Love" by Ken Liu puts a a real daughter in the lives of a couple raising an artificial doll.
• "The Year of the Rat" by Chen Qiufan tells of modified rats being hunted by special extermination squads.

Thanks for reading these pages. See you next time in Vol. 5!

Daniel Scott White
November 2019

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Scott White
• Release date: Nov 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781970134124

Daniel Scott White

Member of a band of Stray Tablets. Winner of more than fifty film festivals. I was born in the mountains but now live by the sea.

Book preview

UNFIT MAGAZINE

VOL. 4

EDITED BY

DANIEL SCOTT WHITE

LONGSHOT PRESS

Copyright

Published by Longshot Press

ISBN-13: 978-1-970134-12-4

Unfit Magazine Vol. 4 © 2019

by Daniel Scott White

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without the written permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

Smashwords Ebook Edition

Unfit Magazine is an imprint

of Longshot Press.

unfitmag.com

longshotpress.com

Compass

Overture

....

The Hitter

Emily Devenport

Eternal Boiler

Taiyo Fujii

The Algorithms for Love

Ken Liu

The Year of the Rat

Chen Qiufan

....

Your Turn

About the Editor

More from Longshot Press

Acknowledgments

All stories used by permission of the authors.

Thanks to Juan Ignacio Gil-Hutton for

his contribution to the cover artwork.

Overture

Some say the first real science fiction story is Frankenstein. This classic has always fascinated me because Dr. Frankenstein, the creator of the monster, was actually trying to make the world better through the application of technology. Little did he know how wrong his experiment would go. He could cheat death, but there were deadly consequences. And out of this we find the basis for many modern science fiction stories in which technology is ultimately evil, technology leads us to an unpredictable and dangerous future. It's the fear of technology that many modern stories root themselves into, and the evil that ensues, that they thrive upon.

The Hitter by Emily Devenport is perhaps the best short story she has ever written, in my opinion. For some people, life is arrested, meaning they remain the same age until they die. Unlike Frankenstein, this one was a positive twist at the end.

Eternal Boiler by Taiyo Fujii is one of the first stories I've had translated. I'm a big fan of Taiyo and his brilliant book, Gene Mapper. The story here deals with immortal coils, engines that keep the world running. Translated by Toshiya Kamei and edited by David Grigg.

The Algorithms for Love by Ken Liu is, in his words, inspired by Ted Chiang’s Division by Zero. A man meets a woman raising a child, but he's unaware the little girl is really a doll. Then they have a real child. It gets complicated.

The Year of the Rat by Chen Qiufan is, many would agree, one of the best science fiction stories ever written. Mutated rats are hunted by unemployed college graduates who are despondent with life. Translated by Ken Liu.

Like the original Frankenstein, these stories play with the value of life, of tampering with the original biological design. However, they don't all have a frightening theme. Technology isn't exactly evil in some of the stories. It's more like the applications are either misunderstood or the technology goes beyond expectations. I put these stories in this magazine because they take science fiction farther than the classics did. I think they'll surprise you in many ways.

Here is a shorter explanation of the stories as appears on the back of the magazine.

• The Hitter by Emily Devenport is the story of the first and last inhabitants of a dead planet and how they remain there undetected.

• Eternal Boiler by Taiyo Fujii tells of the transformation of the world by an ammonia based engine and the folly of those who adapt to the changing technology all too quickly.

• The Algorithms for Love by Ken Liu puts a a real daughter in the lives of a couple raising an artificial doll.

• The Year of the Rat by Chen Qiufan tells of modified rats being hunted by special extermination squads.

Thanks for reading these pages. See you next time in Vol. 5!

Daniel Scott White

November 2019

The Hitter

Emily Devenport

The machines and I built a house, but it took forever. The actual building part lasted about eight weeks; it was the design stage that hung us up.

That part took almost a year. It was frustrating, because it had all seemed so fun at first. John always promised it would be easy, he even had a model kit for it. You could put the house elements together, and then show them to the machines, and they would plot how it could be done—but the machines kept sending me back to the drawing board.

This is not a load-bearing wall, they would say, or the plumbing schematics are incorrect, or a hundred other things. I kept getting disgusted and putting the project down. I would return to the work John and I were doing before he died, documenting the world he had discovered and assessing its monetary value. After Claudia showed up, I spent even less time on the model.

Claudia arrived in an escape pod. She crashed into the sandy hills next to our research bunker. She was able to walk out of the pod, but she seemed very woozy. She didn’t know what ship she had come from, and she couldn’t remember anything about her family. My name is Claudia, was all she could tell me that first day.

She remained listless, and spoke very few words. The doctor bot assessed her and told me Claudia’s developmental age was approximately eight.

"Developmental age," I said, hearing an odd stress in its mechanical voice as it relayed that information.

She is an arrested person, said the doctor bot.

I was surprised to hear that. Though I’m an arrested person myself, my aging process was stopped at twenty-two, so I would remain a desirable lover. I was conditioned to be a companion for John Petrie, scientist and oligarch. John was also an arrested person, but unlike him, I had no choice in the matter. I suspected Claudia hadn’t, either. Why would anyone arrest some poor kid? I wondered. She’s going to be eight forever?

Not forever, said the doctor bot. She has outlived her purpose.

I was glad we were holding this conversation out of range of Claudia’s hearing. She was in the kitchen picking at a plate of spaghetti. I lowered my voice anyway. Then she’s shutting down, just like John did.

The doctor bot matched my tone. John Petrie lived for one thousand years. Claudia seems to have been designed for a shorter span, perhaps one hundred years.

I shook my head. One hundred years was the average span for people who weren’t oligarchs or arrested companions. But why would anyone want some poor kid to be eight years old for one hundred years? She was cute, maybe that was it. She had brown eyes and curly hair. Maybe she had laughed, and danced, and played once—but for a hundred years? That was either very mean, very odd, or both.

The doctor bot and I decided to keep an eye on Claudia, to make life as comfortable for her as possible. She made that easier by shadowing me, sitting with me while I was working on samples in the lab, hanging out with me in the garden. She especially seemed to like the herb garden and the elephant topiary. Most of the time she just sat and stared into space. I was always happy when she mustered the energy to ask me a question.

One day she wandered into the lab while I was weighing a rock sample. I like rocks, she said. I think they’re fun.

I showed her the spot on our evolving quadrangle map where the survey bots had collected the sample. She grasped the concept of the map quickly, and sat there studying it while I shaved a sliver off the rock and magnified it so I could see the crystals. Interesting,