April Foolery

It’s April, and I like to get a little silly.

ZigZag Strikes Again is by Professor Jonathan Vos Post. I think it’s better to let him tell us about it. “It is a in one sense Hard Science Fiction (the historical episodes about Einstein come to me from him, as he was mentor to Rebert Oppenheimer, who was mentor to Richard Feynman, who was my mentor and co-author), and the specific incident in Heisenberg’s lab was verified to me from the great Freeman Dyson at the Institute for Advanced Study. In another sense, as the humor and odd diction suggest, a parody of Time Travel tales within Hard SF. But, in its heart of hearts, it is fantasy or meta-fantasy, in that it probes the origin of Blake’s Fantasy poetry and etchings, Bosch’s Fantasy/Horror paintings, and Dante’s epic fantasy poems.” All I really know is that I enjoyed the zany voice and funny time-travel humor.

The Zombie Of His Early Days is a darkly humorous piece by Tom Crosshill, and, I’m happy to say, it’s the sale that popped him over the top into full membership in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). One of his prior qualifying sales was the Writers of the Future contest, in which he took first place: Look for more from this guy.

Our third story, Alligators by Twitter by John Wiswell, is a hoot. It’s also, as you might guess, a tweet stream. This story probably only fits in an April issue. If you’d prefer to see it in its natural form, follow us on Twitter and it’ll roll out once or twice during April. Look for the retweets of holegatorguy — the name will make sense once you read it or follow it.

Our Classic Flash this month is a practical joke — suitable for April Fools, and originally published in April — from 1863 called Bust-Head Whiskey. It’s been just slightly edited to reduce the heavy dialect.

Bruce Holland Rogers’s column focuses on Prose Poems, and gives two examples. I didn’t break them out separately this month, so just go straight to the end of his column to read them.

Thanks for joining us!