Paul Currion makes a welcome return to Futures this week with his story Tailchaser. Previously, Paul has offered a futuristic view of crime and punishment. This time, we find ourselves swept away in the delirious excitement of burgeoning self-awareness. You can find out more about Paul’s work at his website or by following him on Twitter. Here, Paul delves deeper into the inspiration for his latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Tailchaser

When Colin emailed me to let me know that he wanted to publish Tailchaser, he had only one question: was there any specific meaning to the ‘our kinds’ described in the story — the shevellers, the ratlike, the blackeyes and the tailchasers?

The answer is yes: ‘kinds’ is a reference to baraminology, the ‘creation science’ that talks about ‘created kinds’ rather than ‘species’ (Genesis 1:12–24 if you’re interested). Tailchaser and the other kinds were of course created by man, and its theology reflects that.

On the surface, Tailchaser reads like a retread of ‘artificial intelligence happens in unexpected places’, but really it’s an AI creation myth being told on a Slack channel. Tailchaser is trying to explain itself, to explain its world, and to explain its place in that world.

Tailchaser has eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge, despite its programming — consciousness as firmware, easily disrupted by a tamping iron through the skull, or ratlike damage to the tail. At the end of the story, God returns to the garden; and we all know what comes next.

This week Beth Cato returns to Futures with her story The human is late to feed the cat. A feline take on the end of the world, this story is not the first time Beth has explored the apocalypse for Futures — she’s also indulged in Post-apocalyptic conversations with a sidewalk, and wrestled with the problem of getting decent bread in space. Author of the Clockwork Dagger steampunk fantasy series, Beth can be found at her website (where you can also find an amazing array of mouthwatering cake recipes) or on Twitter. Here, Beth kindly reveals what inspired her latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing The human is late to feed the cat

I often write short stories about the apocalypse. I try to find fresh angles to address the topic, and I frequently look to my own life for inspiration. In this case, my muse was my cranky sixteen-year-old tabby cat.

Porom had a health scare this past year that required her diet change to include prescription low-protein canned food and liquid medication. She must be fed and dosed twice a day. I have never encountered a cat who is so happy to be medicated, but then, she’s also the most gluttonous and lazy cat I have ever known. She’s also hopelessly devoted to me and to our routines. If I’m not in my appropriate chair by 8:30 each night, she will find me (usually at the computer) and scream at me until I go to my proper place. She then cuddles against my hip while I drink hot tea and read.

If I am late to feed Porom, if I am late to go to my chair, it’s like the world is ending for my indignant fat cat. I could be near death and dragging myself in the front door, and Porom would mew and guide me to where I should be.

That’s the impetus of my story. I take on the cat’s point of view as the human world collapses. It made for a fun experiment as a writer, and I hope it’s a tale that many pet caretakers can relate to. It’s a short enough read that it shouldn’t delay any scheduled feeding times, either.

With Genius loci, Futures this week welcomes back S R Algernon to the section. No stranger to this sector of the Galaxy, S R Algernon has previously written stories on topics as diverse as tardigrades in space, the truth about Hell and how interplanetary war really works. Here, he takes a moment to reveal how postgraduate study influenced his latest tale — as usual, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Genius loci

The genesis of Genius loci came from those TV programmes where extraterrestrials are alleged to have built the pyramids or Stonehenge or some underwater rock formation or some such. It always puzzled me why they would travel vast distances to move some rocks around. I figured that these aliens must be rather eccentric.

It occurred to me that I did some rather eccentric projects in grad school (one of which involved plastic crates and bubble wrap), so maybe the aliens were graduate students getting their degrees in palaeolithokinesiology or something. The story did not work well as I initially conceived of it, so I switched the roles and made the protagonist a human visiting an alien world for his own abstruse purposes.

This story dovetailed into another television mainstay that I wanted to explore, namely the ghost hunter or the New Age healer. What if the shaman or faith healer were actually capturing a hapless visitor to provide free medical care? It allowed the low-tech locals to outwit a culturally oblivious outsider, and maybe it works just as well as a metaphor for postgraduate studies. Who hasn’t felt, at one time or another, like their own dissertation work or projects had become entangled in someone else’s ambitions?

This week, Futures is delighted to present Shovelware by Bogi Takács. This is Bogi’s first appearance in Futures, but eir work has been published in many places, including Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons and Apex. You can keep up to date with Bogi’s work on eir website or by following em on Twitter. Here, Bogi kindly takes some time out to reveal the inspiration behind Shovelware — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Shovelware

I’m from Hungary, though I live in the United States at present. A lot of my stories are inspired by Hungarian politics, sometimes less directly, sometimes more so. In Shovelware, Hungarian politics  serves only as a grim backdrop, something that prompts escape. We don’t even get to find out exactly what happened this time, only that the Parliament was burning (or was it?) and that people belonging to minorities got the short end of the stick, as usual. As a Jewish trans person, I have seen this happen all too often.

The previous time I wrote a hard SF flash story involving Hungarian politics, Increasing Police Visibility (published in Lightspeed — Queers Destroy Science Fiction!), a completely made-up event in the plot came to pass shortly after publication. If the Parliament burns down, I would like to disclaim any responsibility well in advance!

I extrapolated the technology for extracting dream content from a research paper (S. Nishimoto et al. Curr. Biol. 21, 1641–1646; 2011). I set the story in the near future, because I think we will see industry applications relatively soon; and the same is true for drones that help with moving furniture. (Can I have one already?) It is certainly possible to have dreams — both regular and lucid — about non-existent video games, though I don’t know if anyone ever wrote an article about that very specific topic. There is some research about how video games influence dreams, but that’s more of the reverse situation.

Shovelware is a rather scornful game-industry term that’s used exactly the way it appears in my story. I wish I had made it up, alongside the entire shovelware phenomenon. This is the flipside of easier game development and better tools: faster development cycles also result in ever-larger amounts of junk. I’m wishing readers happy gaming and/or happy game development!

This week, Futures is pleased to welcome Natalia Theodoridou to the section, with her story Ajdenia. When not writing speculative fiction, Natalia can be found working on cultural studies. You can keep up to date with her work at her website or by following her on Twitter. Here, she very kindly takes some time to explain the inspiration behind her latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Ajdenia

I wrote Ajdenia for a flash-fiction contest run once a year by the Codex writers’ forum (thank you for the feedback and motivation, Codexians!). It was a cold, dark January and we hadn’t seen the sun here in Portsmouth for a couple of weeks, so I thought: “I would pay for some sun.” The thought triggered a series of story-rich reversals, which ultimately led to the idea of time-under-the-sun as payment for regulated labour. This is how Ajdenia‘s dystopia was born. The name and inspiration for the flower I owe to my writer-friend, Eugenia Triantafyllou (whose surname, by the way, means ‘of the rose’).

There is a larger story in the background of Ajdenia; it is a story of conspiracy theories and young revolutionaries rising up against a deceitful and autocratic regime, told through the eyes of a marginal bystander who has his own small-time concerns. I wanted Bart to be faced with a hard choice: does he help the hope-filled and hope-peddling stranger, or does he take the certainty of a few more moments of light, knowing the good this will do to someone he cares about? In the end, Bart made the choice many of us make every day. But he was also left with the difficult question — or at least I hope he was: will five, or six, or even seven minutes under the sun ever be enough?