December 2009

Welcome, reader.

I have always considered Atomjack as a point of pride. In 2006, when this all began, it was a simple magazine with a simple goal: to deliver the best free science fiction on the web. I think we've done a pretty good job together, Atomjack and the internet.

So it is with great sadness that I have to deliver the following news. As of 2010, Atomjack will no longer be providing hot and fresh science fiction nor any other new fiction. This will be the last month for Atomjack. We are not going out with a whimper, though, but with a bang. Three among the best stories to grace these webpages will be published right now.

First, we have a tale of a Nigerian who uses AI spam filters to increase his own fortune. Atomjack presents Keith P. Graham's "The Nigerian Soul."

Here's a taste:

 

Dear friend ________

Let me introduce myself. My name is Samson Oladejo Balogun, Master of Technical Science, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology in Ogbomosho class of 2032. You may not have heard of me, but I am deeply interested in your future well being. I live in a small village near the major city of Ogbomosho, Nigeria and I am the pupil of the renowned scientist Professor Edward Kwame who has studied the mysteries of computer science in the University of Lagos.

While walking by the river last Sunday with my future wife, the most beautiful Deborah Apum, I discovered, to my surprise, a small soul which had recently escaped from its human abode. Such souls are not uncommon, but this one shined with such a heavenly light that I immediately captured a digital representation of it in a small memory chip and decided that I must find the person who was missing this soul ...

 

The rest can be found here.

 

Next up, we have a tale of the end of religion as seen by a woman who was given the gift of immortality by Christ himself. Atomjack presents "Memory" by Jennifer Shumate.

Here's a taste:

 

They are burning crosses again. I am sitting at a bar across the street, watching the flames flicker across the faces of uniformed officers. A life-sized crucifix is at the center of the fire, the flames melting Jesus’ plastic face and distorting it into expressions of agony. Statues of Mary and Buddha, menorahs and Hindu diyas litter the ground at Jesus’ feet. The gray uniformed men are armed, but their guns hand idly from their shoulders. They do not expect any resistance. The vote to ban religion was as good as unanimous. I did not bother to vote. It would have been like voting Democrat in Texas a few decades ago. I still voted Democrat then, but you learn to recognize futility after awhile when you’re as old as I am.

We are living in the age of reason, after all. The mysticism of religion has no place here. Even before the ban, the churches were falling down and decrepit, their statues of Christ covered in dust and cobwebs. Jesus probably wouldn’t have minded, though. He was not about pomp and flash. He was a regular Joe, who happened to be the son of God ...

 

The rest can be found here.

 

Last but not least, we have a tale of colonies on the moon, three, but there are rumors of a fourth, a secret colony. Atomjack presents the last story of 2009, and the last story of Atomjack, Brian Trent's "The Titans of Camp Four."

Here's a taste:

 

“What do you think of my office?” Cyrus asked.

Randall made a show of looking around. As he did, he noticed a few things he hadn’t before; on the governor’s desk were some decidedly odd paperweights. One looked like the inner workings of an elaborate timepiece, with a dozen gears interlocking in mechanical harmony. The other was a strange metal bird with a pilot’s cabin dug into its feathered back.

Cyrus followed his gaze. “Ah! That device with gears is an accurate replica of the Antikithera mechanism, discovered off the coast of Greece in 1901.”

“I’ve heard about,” Randall nodded. “A relic of anachronistic complexity from two thousand years ago. One of the great mysteries of archaeology. What about the mechanical bird there?”

“The Archytas plane.”

“Excuse me?”

Cyrus grinned. “In 400 BC, a Greek inventor named Archytas designed and built a steam-powered aircraft. You can look it up for yourself. It could launch, fly, and land under the controls of a pilot. Historians hate it since it screws up all their notions of when flight was invented. And they also hate the manuscripts recovered from the lava-sealed library at Herculaneam, which shows that Archytas’ invention was improved upon by later generations ..."

 

The rest can be found here.

 

Thank you all so much for a great four and a half years. I hope we can do it all again sometime.

Adicus Ryan Garton, editor Cosmic

P.S. The Susurrus Press blog will continue to be active with reviews and updates for print and online anthologies.