Perihelion - July 2012

Now free online, the latest issue of the the very cool free science fiction magazine Perihelion.













Now Posted: Perihelion - July 2012.

"Super Plunge Lady and the 3D Printed Rocket Car" by Erin Lale
     "She opened her eyes. There it sat in its garage, finished at last. 2.78 meters of engine in multiple flaring cones like a retro space age rocket ship, its cooling welds hidden by her clever panel construction. Its six air intakes snaked around the lip of the wedge-shaped cab, opening like the maws of a demonic brass band"

"Scabs" by Daniel Huddleston
     "This café has always been a great spot for people-watching. Tiffany and I used to come here often. We’d get that extra-warm welcome whenever we dropped in, and eventually the eyes of the waiters stopped doing that perfunctory dart to the upper-right corner of their glasses; they could welcome us by name without even doing any facerec." 

"Portraits Hung in Empty Halls" by K.C. Ball.
       "Brown smudges suggested the presence of anxious workers, hurrying to bring in harvest before the weather changed. No sharp edges anywhere, no fine detailing, but thevincent vibrant colors, the flow of elements and sheer power of the work seemed magical."

"Mouse Trap" by Fiona Moore
      “It’s an old version of Mickey Mouse,” he said. He remembered a children’s book, pages worn thin, in the library of the small Nunavut town where he’d spent half his childhood, a scratchy DVD, a prized antique ceramic figure given away after his grandmother’s death.
 
"Basket in the Sky" by Igor Teper
      ".To ensure our survival as a race, there must always be those who deviate from any commonly accepted behavior. If we all eat beef, then humanity can be wiped out by a plague that spreads through beef, and that’s why we need vegetarians, and people who don’t consume milk products, and people who don’t watch television, and people who don’t brush their teeth—"

"Worlds Less Traveled" by John C. Conway
     "The deposition chamber is cold—like the rest of this poorly-terraformed world. I sit at a granite table with twelve other climate-defect attorneys from Earth. They are travel worn. Bethany’s hair strays in this inadequate gravity. Cameron is missing a jacket button. Tim’s eyes redden as he suppresses a yawn."

"Redemption of Colony Venturis" by Wayne Helge
      "'Aileron failure?' said Jancy from the co-pilot’s seat. Mihrani dismissed the suggestion with a scowl. It wouldn’t be like her instructors to throw an equipment failure at her, not during her check-ride. Today was about raw piloting skills."

"Where the Grass May Be Greener" by Rob Butler
      "The world was clean. The nanobots saw to that. But there wasn’t much else positive to say about it. Stenson shuffled along familiar streets to the RTF building. Security guards and police watched him, or at least he assumed they did, from behind their shades and CCTV cameras. Everybody else on the street wore better clothes than his. They probably smelt better than he did as well but nobody let him get close enough to find out."
 
"Double Time" by Rik Hunik
      "Curious, and a little bit apprehensive, he returned to his keyboard and called up the monitor camera inside the capsule. For a few seconds he couldn’t tell what filled the cramped space, but then he realized he was looking down on the body of a man squeezed into it in a fetal position."