Author Archives: Claire L. Evans

Inside Outside

Through me you go to the grief wracked city; Through me you go to everlasting pain; Through me you go a pass among lost souls. Justice inspired my exalted Creator: I am a creature of the Holiest Power, of Wisdom … Continue reading

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Distrust That Particular Flavor

In the early 1990s, William Gibson wrote Agrippa (A Book of the Dead), a 300-line autobiographical poem saved on a 3.5″ floppy designed to erase itself after a single use. The book version accomplished the task in analogue: its pages were treated with … Continue reading

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The Food of the Gods

A villanelle is a kind of 19th-century French poem long derided by modern poets for its fusty, pompous formalism &#8212but, like many things, revived when the madness of the 20th century brought about nostalgia for structure. H.G. Wells was a … Continue reading

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The Zap Gun

The original cover’s horny pronouncement: “Alien Satellites Circle the Earth–and Man’s Only Hope is a Mad Cartoonist!?” The Zap Gun is one of Philip K. Dick’s lesser “pot-boiler” novels. It was originally serialized, so it’s shitty in the way that … Continue reading

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The Synthetic Man

This world is a Haven for Extra-terrestrial Stones. The Earth Yields them, Nestled in the dirt and Thoroughly unconcerned with Humanity. Every night, They quietly Invent perfect Copies of Men. A dream is all we are, the Nightmares of a … Continue reading

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Virtual Light

Virtual Light is the first book of William Gibson’s “Bridge” trilogy, in which an nonfunctional, shanty-town Golden Gate bridge is a major feature. Like his previous “Sprawl” trilogy, it leans low and hard into its dystopian city-scape, positing a completely … Continue reading

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Myths of the Near Future and The Venus Hunters

We are all haunted by the totemic images of our subconscious. They rise, seemingly of their own volition, out of the dreaming depths of our minds to color our experience of the world. While there are socialized symbols that have … Continue reading

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Artistic Education: Hannes Bok

Hannes Bok’s last published work, a wraparound illustration of Roger Zelazny’s “A Rose for Ecclesiastes,” printed in the November 1963 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Hannes Bok was a seminal figure in early science fiction culture … Continue reading

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Science Fiction You Can Dance To

Step into the tractor beam, and never come back. As some of you may know, when I’m not writing esoteric science fiction reviews, I’m a singer, writer, performer, and concept-maker for a band called YACHT. Occasionally, these wildly separate spheres … Continue reading

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Dawn

Dawn is the first book in Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, recently reissued as the infinitely-less-cool-sounding “Lilith’s Brood” series. It tells the story of Lillith, a woman who wakes up after a nuclear winter on Earth in an sealed room. … Continue reading

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