Future Science Fiction Digest Issue 5: Future Science Fiction Digest, #5

By Filip Wiltgren, Alexandra Seidel and Rodrigo Assis Mesquita

Future SF is a magazine focusing on international science fiction. In this issue we feature stories from Sweden, Germany, and Brazil:

* A virtual priest of the Fundamental DOS must help a young wanderer in post-apocalyptic Europe.
* A cultural officer for the Circle of Suns is forced to decide which members of the conquered alien species will live and which will die.
* Two artificial intelligences meet in a fan fiction forum.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alex Shvartsman
• Release date: Dec 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393313410

Book preview

Future Science Fiction Digest, Issue 5

Future Science Fiction Digest, Issue 5

Edited by Alex Shvartsman Filip Wiltgren Alexandra Seidel Rodrigo Assis Mesquita

UFO Publishing

Contents

Foreword

A Prayer to the Fundamental DOS

Six Weeks in the Life of a Cultural Documentations Officer

Soul Searching Search Engines

Foreword

Alex Shvartsman

As Future SF enters its second year, we do so without a safety net.

Our first year’s run was sponsored by the Future Affairs Administration. Together we were able to publish a considerable amount of excellent international fiction, and we thank FAA for their help and support as the magazine launched and found its footing. While FAA is still considering their options regarding any future partnerships with us, at this moment they're not affiliated with the magazine.

So, what does it mean for Future SF going forward? We aren't going away, but we have to considerably scale back until we secure alternate funding, or follow the path of many other e-zines in our field and slowly build up a subscription and patron base.

I'm currently talking to the FAA, as well as to a couple of other companies, to see if we can work out another sponsorship or partnership. But even if that proves successful, it is a temporary solution. Only a substantial base of subscribers can ensure stable funding in the long term.

Our team is going to have to work on a much tighter budget for the time being. You will no doubt notice that this is a considerably slimmer issue. Previous issues featured over 50,000 words of fiction each, whereas issue five includes three stories totaling 11,300 words. Going forward, the issues will contain roughly this amount of material and will grow slowly as our budget permits.

The stories in this issue hail from Sweden, Germany, and Brazil. We're committed to our international focus and will continue to feature voices from outside the Anglosphere as frequently as possible. We already have some very exciting stories lined up for 2020.

Meanwhile, please consider subscribing via Patreon at www.patreon.com/ufopublishing for as little as a dollar per month. For all the sponsorships and advertisers, the success of this endeavor is ultimately up to the partnership between our staff and our readers.

A Prayer to the Fundamental DOS

Filip Wiltgren

I'm in the middle of the sermon, giving thanks to the Blue Lady for safe passage beyond her screen, when the doors slide open.

The temple has good doors, two massive slabs of semi-frosted glass, smoke swirling through them in meditative patterns designed to draw the eye. The doors glide on magnetic tracks, their power requirement negligible. Thus they only make me dim slightly, not impeding my processes or making my image flicker. Silently, they retract into the walls. In the rectangle of sunlight beyond them, stands an urchin.

There is no other way to describe him. He's slim on the verge of starving, wearing a patched, brown, knee-length tunic as ragged as he is. His black hair is unevenly chopped short just above his shoulders. He has no shoes, his bare feet dirty and calloused.

I stretch my lips in a broad smile, and add a crinkle to the corners of my eyes. There hasn't been a visitor in untold cycles, and I want to make him feel comfortable, to feel the calmness of our small temple, and want to be part of it.

Two decades ago, there would have been ten presences