SHORT STORIES: The Wasteland by Marc Schooley He lives in a bubble. It’s a nice artificial 72 degrees year-round. Because it’s that or the death moss. Welcome to Houston’s future, where a lone rover goes on patrol to burn off the toxic moss that encroaches on the city’s dome…and finds himself face to face with his questionable youth. The Purpose of Rain by Ashley Clark Water coats the street and sidewalk outside the library. The city’s made of reflectiv...

SciendaQ Spring 2012 features philosophy, magical realism, humor, and faith-based interviews. Short Fiction - Jacques Derrida and Ricardo Montalban present the realities of life in two existentially gritty, magical short stories by Ashley Clark and Marc Schooley. In creative nonfiction essays, Socrates deals firmly with Paul Mathers’s hypochondria in our resident married couple’s ongoing dialogue, while everyday superhero P.A. Baines presents clear eligibility guidelines...

Dr. Cayley Willows is a chaos mathematician with a disgustingly orderly life--until a gargoyle on a balcony starts talking to him. Either there's something in the punch at the alumni reception, or Cayley's about to learn the secrets of the universe.

In a moonlit world that blurs dream and reality, a man recounts a haunting vision born of fever and fear. Drawn by a mysterious presence that seems deadly, he confronts forces older than reason itself. Blending dreamlike imagery with the terror of the unknown, "The Dream Snake" reveals Howard's mastery of atmosphere, madness, and nightmare intertwined.

The King of FoolsA Fool must save his kingdom from a tyrant with a dolt for a jester in this hilaric tale of majestic, motley mockery.I'm off to make a fool of a fool, and a fool of a king as well.Only a fool can fool a fool, but, with a kings wits, who can tell!I'm off to make a fool of a fool, and a fool of a kingdom too.I might lose my head by the kings-man's ax, but I'll try to fool him too!"-The King of Fools

For fearless, rough and tumble, Carol's, life was hard, but good, she had a loving family, and an imagination that could take her on any adventure, or anywhere, she wanted to go. Alice was even the leader of her own club, The Weaver of Shadows Club, complete with Secret club name. Alice thought it would always be this way.Unfortunately, an unforeseen mix of events would soon be shattering the world Alice lives in. The incantation from the book, the campfire stories, the old man, wer...

Food doesn't grow easily on New Earth. Much of it arrives on massive supply ships and when one goes missing, the planet’s few thousand inhabitants are in grave peril. Chloe Meeks, a beautiful and gentle soul longing for a human utopia, is a rookie space pilot who doubts her abilities. Putting those insecurities aside, she joins her stern British captain Gordon and Nix, a wise-cracking young man vying for her affections, to find the lost craft. Dodging asteroids and other dangers in a ricke...

World War III has broken out over the South Pacific and is on Australia's doorstep. The brutality of the fighting has caused the normally passive organisation, Psychicae United, to become involved. But not everyone in Psychicae United is interested in peace with the humans who have spurned them for so long. Caught up in the mess is the high-ranking psychicae Avalon who must beguile her way amongst warfare and deceit if her people are to have any hope of survival. And it is no easy task wit...

Magic: more contagious than the common cold…Kelley Strickland and her twin brother Jeroan accidentally step into an ancient battle between a power-hungry Sorcerer—who wants to rid the world of what he calls “renegade” magic-users—and a good Sorcerer who can barely remember his own name.Kelley soon learns that her new-found way of using magic just might save her adopted city, her brother, and her new, magically infected friends.Or it could doom them all....

Here are three flash science fiction stories collected in one volume for the first time. (Flash fiction is the name given to ultra-short stories of 1000 words or less.) These stories were originally published by the British science journal Nature in their Futures series of original one-page sci-fi stories. “My Morning Glory,” is a curious tale of a man and his apartment and the helpful entity that rules them both. In “Timed Release,” good housekeeping was never so compellin...

Sometimes to save a world, you must destroy it.The witches of Etlantium are charged with keeping the children of Liliah safe, but when an oracle accuses the ruler of seeking to destroy his own city through civil war, there is only one witch brave enough to do what must be done.Readers of Water Witch will find this background story full of historical intrigue, enchantment, and old world mythology and legends with just a dose of reincarnation theory thrown in...