Skeletaxonomy

By Alyssa Alarcón Santo and Kels Hyde

ARE YOU WANING? WAXING? CRESCENT? FEELING GIBBOUS?

The Planet Scumm Institute for "Skeletaxonomy" is recruiting volunteers for a clinical trial of scummicillin, a probacterial designed to treat symptoms associated with body solidity, three-dimensionality, and organ, uh... having.

If you've exp

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spark and Fizz
• Release date: Nov 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781970154108

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Planet Scumm is a triannual short fiction anthology. Visit planetscumm.space for submissions.

All stories in this collection are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

SPARK & FIZZ BOOKS PRESENTS

MILKY WAY DISTRICT 3 MAD SCIENCE FAIR

WITH CELEBRITY GUEST, SPACE’S OWN SCUMMY SCUMM

AUTHOR BIOS

AN ABRIDGED HISTORY OF THE SKELETON 2 AND POST-TRANSHUMANISM

R.C. JOSEPH

CRAWL SPACE

DAN STINTZI

CAKE

KATIE SWEET

SELF REPAIR

LUCY ZHANG

EXODUS

JORDAN GRIFFIN

IT SEEMS SO DELICATE

ANTHONY M. ABBORENO

RAIN DELAY

CHRISTINA DELIA

WOMBAT

MATTIA RAVASI

THE LATE SHOW WITH JERRY PAPLOVICH

SCOTT J. MOSES

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

...WITH CELEBRITY GUEST, SPACE’S OWN SCUMMY SCUMM

MILKY WAY DISTRICT 3 MAD SCIENCE FAIR

Hey there you junior jumbo-brains! Scummy Scumm here, broadcasting live from Milky Way District 3 as an extra special guest for the District Science Fair! Why you, Scummy? I’m glad you asked!

As a new pater phlegm-ilias myself, I’ve grown to understand the importance of youth education. The children *are* our future, and sometimes our past if you leave the keys in your time tank.

And, as Deejay-For-Life on a roving intergalactic space-station née asteroid, I’m intimately familiar with the vital role mad science plays in stellar commerce. Also: I really like blowing things up, so I’m hoping one of these rugrats made a megalaser or some bathtub Ice-nine.

Let’s head over to our first table here. "An Abridged History of the Skeleton 2" by... R.C. Joseph, is it? Good to meet ya, R.C. What’s your exhibit here? Mhm, yup, yessir, interesting…

Now R.C., I have to admit, as an amorphous blob of cytoplasm held together by a thicc plasma membrane, I’ve never much seen the purpose behind a Skeleton 1, let alone any upgrade. Heck, I never even had the beta version! But I’m sure some of these mammal-types would find this exhibit real interesting—good work.

Moving on here… what was that? Okay, folks, we’ve got Dan Stinzi here, and Dan’s set up what looks like a multi-track recording studio crossed with a plumber’s worst nightmare! I’m just kidding Dan, this all looks mighty sciencey.

If I’m reading this little "Crawl Space placard correctly, you’ve developed a way to beam an artificial experience—what we might call virtual reality," a term I’ve just now invented—directly into someone’s brain. And what do you use this for, Dan? Haunted houses? You’re my kind of scientist, pal!

Katie Sweet’s captaining the aptly-named "Cake" booth—Katie, what can you tell us about your confectionary science? Mmm, yes, uh huh, I see.

You’re saying this booth has nothing to do with baking, or food at all, and actually covers the thorny philosophical implications of memory duplication and the continuity of mind. Lemme see if I wrote down any jokes that cover this… Uh, Boy, I guess it’s only a batter of time until everyone has their mind copied onto a hard drive! Ahem.

Bit of a theme developing as we head into these next few booths. Lucy Zhang seems to have stepped away from their entry, "Self Repair," for the moment, and I can only assume they’re off sabotaging another entrant’s booth, a practice that is not just allowed at this Mad Science Fair, but encouraged. I’ll do my best to muddle through here…

It looks like some sort of treatise on the psychological well-being of AIs, featuring a case-study of a robot who developed something of a love-hate relationship with their creator. I don’t want to harp on the just spawned my own brood thing, folks, but lemme tell ya—at a certain point, it’s all love-hate.

Meanwhile, at Jordan M. Griffin’s "Exodus" booth, we’re treated to the bleeding-edge in exosuit technology. If this presentation is to be believed, these exosuits can be used for almost anything! Prison labor, prison escapes, capturing escaped exosuited prisoners—the possibilities are endless!

Now, folks, I’m confident enough to admit when I’m out of my depth. And what Anthony Abboreno has going on here with their "It Seems So Delicate" presentation is definitely beyond my limited intellectual capacity. We’re talking family. We’re talking ghosts. We’re talking the god-damned hero’s journey, metamythic cycles, andhome improvement. Don’t take my word for it—check this one out yourselves if you drop by the fair grounds. (And seriously—don’t take my word for it. Part of my cogitation gel shut off as soon as I figured out Anthony wasn’t designing a weapon.)

Baseball. A great earther pastime. I would know—I’ve destroyed my fair share of stadiums from low orbit. Christina Delia’s fair entry is an anthropological study, of sorts, called "Rain Delay." In it, we get an in-depth, ground-level look at how an alien culture adapts to—and learns from—life on the earther planet, a planet known to some as…. Earth. A truly invaluable bit of research, especially for those of us who can’t return to Earth due to some outstanding parking tickets and/or war crimes.

Mattia Ravasi’s booth—and I’m not quite sure I can make it any clearer how excited I am by this entry—is full of COOL ANIMALS. Wahoo! There’s a badger, and a sloth, and what sort of looks like an armadillo, not to mention the titular "Wombat."

I’m a little disappointed that there aren’t any taxidermied humans here—that’d be points off, if I was judging things. Then again, some of these animals have a certain… intelligence, behind the eyes. Hmm. Weird! I’m just going to ignore the doubt gnawing at what’s left of my soul, and keep walking on.

And now, at the final booth of my little circuit, we find Scott J. Moses with an examination of the mental impact of late night television. In "The Late Show with Jerry Paplovich" experiment, Moses took your standard, run-of-the-mill late night talk show, and introduced a new variable—psychokinetics. I’m no scientist, but it looks like these results were explosive. If you’re ever looking for a radio show to experiment on, Scott, lemme know!

That’s all from the show floor for now, folks. Stay tuned as we reveal the judges’ scores. And, later, I’ll steal whatever I can get my cilia on, and try to jam all that experimental tech into my space station. Remember: if it isn’t brazenly announcing its plans to steal from noble scientists, it isn’t… Planet Scumm!

PLANET SCUMM ISSUE #12

SKELETAXONOMY

ISSUE #12, SKELETAXONOMY

AUTHOR BIOS

R.C. JOSEPH, a Pennsylvania cryptid, writes, draws, and still uses her original skeleton. Speculative fiction is her jam.

When she isn’t growing her plant collection, she can be found cooking with friends, or on Twitter @perihelianthus.

DAN STINTZI is a writer living in Wisconsin. He received his MFA from Johns Hopkins and was a member of the 2019 Clarion Writers’ Workshop. Find more of his fiction at danstintzi.com

KATIE SWEET, a Canadian digital arts teacher from the snow belt, spends most of her day training kids how to Photo-shop dank memes.

She’s responsible for the webcomics Juathuur and Gatecrash and wishes she could fast forward to a cyberpunk future full of transhumanist space colonies.

LUCY ZHANG writes, codes and watches anime. Her work has appeared in Black Warrior Review, The Cincinnati Review, West Branch and elsewhere. Her work was selected for Best Microfiction 2021 and Best Small Fictions 2021, and was long listed in the Wigleaf Top 50.

Find her at kowaretasekai.wordpress.com or on Twitter @Dango_Ramen.

JORDAN M. GRIFFIN is in her MFA program at Pacific University. She is an associate fiction editor at Northwestern Review and a high school teacher. She lives in California with her husband and her marshmallow of a husky, where she enjoys reading, long hikes, and board games.

She writes speculative fiction, sci-fi, and fantasy. She has been published or is forthcoming in Night Picnic Press and Beyond Words Literary Magazine. If you would like to know more, please look her up at jordanmgriffin.com.

ANTHONY MCGUFF ABBORENO is a community college instructor in Iowa, where he spends his free-time consuming powerful energy drinks and prognosticating from dreams.

He holds a PhD in literature and fiction writing from the University of Southern California, and an MA in the same subjects from the University of Southern Mississippi. His work has been featured in Future Fire and Outlook Springs.

CHRISTINA DELIA is a horror writer from New Jersey, and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA). Her stories are included in Shadowy Natures, the LGBTQ+ dark fiction anthology Unburied, and the Ramones-themed collection Gabba Gabba Hey.

When she isn’t writing, Christina loves spending time reading with her awesome daughter, watching classic films and drinking coffee, in that order. Follow her on Instagram @christinadelia_writer

MATTIA RAVASI is from Monza, Italy, and he lives and works in Oxford. He has written for The Millions, Modern Fiction Studies, and The Submarine, while his stories have appeared in independent magazines and anthologies.

He talks about books on his YouTube channel, The Bookchemist.

SCOTT J. MOSES is the author of Non-Practicing Cultist (Demain Publishing) and Hunger Pangs (independently published). A member of the Horror Writers Association, his work has appeared in Paranormal Contact (Cemetery Gates Media), Diabolica Americana (Keith Anthony Baird), Coffin Bell, and elsewhere. He also edited the anthology What One Wouldn’t Do.

You can find him on Twitter @scottj_moses or at scottjmoses.com.