Ripped Genes Out Now

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Coming Soon from Morpheus Tales

Ripped Genes, the Biopunk Special I edited for Morpheus Tales should be out sometime in September. It will be available in e-book and print-on-demand formats. To preview the issue, visit http://issuu.com/morpheustales/docs/rippedgenes or check it out below:

Open publication - Free publishing - More biopunk

Binary Simon

...is my first (and so far only) attempt at creating something for the comic book medium. I put it together for a desktop publishing class in 2007 using stock images, Quark and Photoshop. I've been holding this back since then because it comes off as so ridiculously pretentious -- God makes a cameo and assumes control of the narrative for a few pages -- that it was hard for me to read after I graduated from college and got my mind right. That being said, I feel that by now I've matured to the point where I can laugh at all this and take some measure of pride in a few panels. One last note: I've since forgotten how to use Quark and Photoshop entirely and all that remains of this is the final .pdf that was taken to the printer. For one reason or another, the cover is the last page.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BxktYCTX8KuWTmNUS0xaY2pPa0E

Original Biopunk Stories Wanted

I will be editing a special biopunk-themed issue for UK-based horror/scifi/fantasy magazine Morpheus Tales. We are looking for cover art and story submissions. If you're interested in contributing please read on. If you're not, but you know somebody else who might be, please spread the word.

From William Gibson’s groundbreaking Sprawl trilogy to the Wachowski brothers’ highly entertaining, if also highly derivative, Matrix trilogy, the literary subgenre known as cyberpunk has seen crossover success in just about every entertainment medium. Ditto for steampunk, which has even made its way into everyday forums such as home décor and fashion. Biopunk, on the other hand, has not yet seen nearly the amount of exposure as its literary kinfolk. One of the main reasons for this is undoubtedly the limited amount of work that this subgenre has produced thus far.

For those who don’t know, biopunk fiction, in short, looks toward a future (or at an alternate present) in which the biotechnology revolution affects everyday life. Look at it like this if it helps: cybernetics and cyberspace are to cyberpunk as biology and biotechnology are to biopunk. The “punk” comes from the subgenre’s frequent use of dystopian settings and the political (or perhaps more accurately, apolitical) implications of the open-source philosophy to which many real-life biopunks (aka biohackers) subscribe. Some seminal works of biopunk fiction are the films Gattaca and Splice; the comic book serial Fluorescent Black by writer MF Wilson and artist Nathan Fox; and perhaps most importantly, the book Ribofunk by Paul Di Filippo, who has actually cited H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau as a precursor to the subgenre.

Morpheus Tales is looking for short works of biopunk fiction for an upcoming special. As always, try to think outside of the box. You don’t have to steer entirely clear of the genre’s main tropes (after all, not too many have been established), but we’re not going to publish a handful of stories about clone armies alongside another handful about Dr. Mephesto’s four-assed turtle and other such genetic oddities. Also, biopunk stories have for the most part taken on a dystopian tone so far, but there’s nothing saying that this has to be the case. Try utopian, try ecotopian, try whatever you like so long as it’s original and readable.

Deadline for submissions will be July 31, 2012.

Please put "Biopunk Special Issue Submission" in the subject of your email and send to: morpheustales@blueyonder.co.uk

Other than that, all regular Morpheus Tales submission guidelines apply: no simultaneous submissions, standard manuscript format, only high quality character- or plot-driven stories of no more than 3,000 words.

The Biopunk Special Issue will be available as an ebook and via print-on-demand services. Contributor copies will be in ebook format.

The Editor

Wrote this Poe/Lovecraft inspired short back in February.
Hope you enjoy.

I once had an editor who fancied himself a better writer than I. This is the story of how we severed ties.

###
I’d just completed my masterwork, a tome of prose so vibrant, so passionately effervescent; to say the words merely “leap off every page” would be at best a clichéd understatement, at worst pure invective. So when my editor, Daniel Simon, not only mouthed this exact phrase, but then called chapter twenty-one “a dull exercise in pointless self-indulgence,” I resolved to terminate our working relationship and move on the next.

“Gor wants a draft by the end of the week and I guarantee that as soon as they read this chapter they’re going to hot-rush the whole manuscript back to my office attached with some pimpled paralegal’s formal request for a return on their advance,” he lamented. The volumes lining my study shuddered in their shelves.

“Well in that case I suppose they’ll hear from my attorneys,” I joked.

“Get real,” he sneered, his polyurethane countenance looking like it was about to ‘leap’ from his skull. “We’re talking about one chapter here, and it’s not as if we’re in the position where we can make demands of the genre’s pre-eminent publishing house.” His imagined gavel drop was followed by the standard consolatory silence.

In this interim I sighed convincingly; his words didn’t so much sink in as they did ooze along the unresponsive surface of rational thought.

Just as he was about to continue I interjected with a humble concession: “I suppose you’re right,” I murmured like a frustrated author settling for the only available offer. “After all, it’s only one chapter.”

“Exactly,” he said. “And honestly, I get it. The drastic tonal shift, the sudden appearance of the third person narrator, the neologisms, broken prose: these meta-fictitious elements lifting the veil to re-emphasize your take on existentialism; and all the while, you get to show off your chops. I get it.” He placed a fatherly grip on my shoulder. Every fiber of my inner-being danced with voodoo hysterics, but I held back, kept still. “It’s just that the publisher isn’t going to see any of that. All they’re going to see is a reclusive writer basking in his own talent without any regard for the audience.”

It became too much; I had to stand. I walked to the opposite end of my study and peered out the window. Ghostly winds roared wild between the narrow spaces separating my Kew Gardens loft from the neighbors. Grey branches rattled on ancient cobble. The streets were almost totally vacant, the harsh cold keeping even the most desperate fiends behind closed doors…

“I mean, maybe you can turn that chapter into a one-shot short story,” Daniel said. “I’m sure there’s a ton of genre ‘zines out there that would still kill for one of your shorts, and in all likelihood it’ll get anthologized by year’s end,” he opined over my shoulder.

I wondered how long he’d stood there, his tiny gears turning at full steam, trying to draw up a way to make that last bit come off as non-patronizing as possible. I raised my gaze from the sidewalk to the studios across the street, making sure Daniel noticed my smile in the window’s reflection. “You know what, Dan?” I said, turning to face him. “For once, you’re absolutely right.”

“Well, I appreciate that,” he said with a crass chuckle.

“How about we grab a few drinks down the street?” I offered.

He took his Blackberry from his front pocket, asked the digital planner for permission. “Uh, yeah, I’m free for at least a few hours,” he said. “To be honest, I’d planned for you to fight me harder on this.”

“Ha, my reputation precedes me,” I replied.

###
As we sat across one another at a booth in the last-of-its-musty-kind barroom two blocks from my apartment, Simon jabbered on; about what, I couldn’t say - some mundane industry gossip, no doubt. I kept the conversation moving along, but unbeknownst to him, my thoughts dwelled elsewhere. When he once again paused to finger his Blackberry I took the opportunity to change the subject.

“I noticed you scoping my shelves earlier.”

“Ah yes,” he said, his thumb wiping condensation from the glass of his vodka-tonic. “Quite a collection you’ve got there.” He took a large, reckless gulp then placed his drink back on its coaster, his eyebrows rising as he went to speak. “Maybe someday it’ll rival my own.” He belched.

“Well, you must have some collection then.” I took a small, calculated sip of my lager. “Funny though, your name never once came up in my frequent haunts.”

Simon coughed, barely struggling to hold back a drunken snarl. “It’s time you found some new ones then, man.”

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps definitely,” he proclaimed, the liquor raising his audacity by the ounce. “I hate to brag, you know, but I’ve been called one of the foremost collectors of contemporary horror in the country.”

Is that so?” I prodded.

“Damn, right. There isn’t a bookseller in the state that I don’t know on a first name basis. Go ahead and try me.”

“No, I couldn’t really.”

“Come on.”

“I really can’t.”

“Oh, come on,” he insisted.

“No, you don’t understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I should have spoken more clearly about those haunts of mine. You see, most of my collection comes from overseas."

“What are you talking about? I saw what you had: first edition Vonnegut, PKD, some early Poe anthologies. None of that comes from overseas. None of it’s particularly rare either,” he scoffed.

“Ah, but you only scratched the surface of my collection, the bulk of which I keep in a separate storage facility.”

“And where is that?” he demanded. The foolish look in his eyes told me I now had his full, drunken attention.

“A warehouse, two levels, not far from here actually. We could walk over if you like – it would only take about fifteen minutes.” I finished my beer and grabbed my coat as if preparing to leave, but Simon reached out to stop me, as I expected he would.

“Er, hold on a minute there.” His tone grew amusingly condescending with his level of intoxication. “Just what kind of jewels do you have over there?”

“Oh, let me think: an obscure printing of Will’s Horrid Mysteries, an early copy of Lyrical Ballads—”

“Early this, obscure that. Come on, man!” he shouted then laughed. “I’m just kidding. It sounds like you’re on your way. Let me know if you ever find something really valuable. Until then, I think it’d be best if we kept our relationship strictly editorial, if you catch my meaning.” He looked at his phone, checked the time, temperature, four-day forecast, who the hell knows what? “It’s getting late. Hate to drink and ditch, but I’ve really got to run,” he said sliding clumsily from our booth to balance on tilted legs.

“There’s one other thing,” I said.

“Oh, what’s that?”

“I have, in my storage facility, an original Necromancer.” His eyes became agog. “The original, I should say.”

“It can’t be. It doesn’t exist”

“Oh, but it does, and I have the only copy.”

“But how?”

“Through an anonymous source.”

“Who?” he demanded.

“Sorry,” I laughed, “but then it wouldn’t anonymous.”

"You’re serious. You really have the original Necro?” he asked, his doublespeak abbreviation turning my stomach over; the man even spoke like a text message.

“Yes, I am and I do,” I said through gritted teeth.

“I must see it,” he shouted.

“I don’t know,” I teased. “After all, like you said, it’s getting late. Perhaps another time—”

“Fuck that, man. That was then, this is now. Come on, you said yourself that the place is nearby. Let’s head over now.”

“Alright then, one more drink and we’ll be on our way.”

###
As I fumbled for the key to my warehouse’s front entrance, I relished in the success of my ruse; my editor had absolutely no idea that his presently vodka-redolent breaths, colored grey by frigid moonlit night, would be the last this world would ever see of him.

“Come on already, shaky,” he taunted, his teeth chattering in the cold.

“A thousand apologies - could you lend me your phone for a second? I can’t seem to find the right key.” Before I could finish my sentence the phone appeared in my hand, beaming an unearthly shade of blue. “Ah, there we go,” I said, quickly picking out the key and opening the door.

“About time,” Simon said, “I thought we were going to freeze to death out here.”

I flicked a switch on the wall and the room became awash with fluorescent light, revealing a hoarder’s trove of penny-paperbacks, classic comics, and other various discarded diamonds in the rough; walls of books stacked ceiling high, forming aisles upon aisles.

Simon coughed or made some other atrocious sound. “In here?” he gasped, as I led him past the entry-way.

“Of course not,” I laughed. “This floor only houses everyday reading material. I doubt you’d find anything truly collectible down here. The real treasure awaits us upstairs.”

I led the way, craftily negotiating the aisles’ twists and turns, while Simon followed kicking up dust. If the depth of my collection didn’t overwhelm my editor, then surely the sheer state of it must have. The aged assemblage of paper on paper stood as an outright offense to his Broadway-born couture. This man was no writer; he was barely a reader. As we scaled the steel steps leading to the next floor, I felt the vibrations of his trembling hand on the banister.

When the electronically sealed stainless steel door came into sight, Simon let loose a sigh of relief so long-winded it bordered on vulgarity. “Something troubling you?” I asked.

“Oh, no, just glad to see you’re paying the rarer books the respect they deserve.”

“But of course,” I said, placing my eye before the door’s retina-scanner. With an affirmative beep the mammoth safety lock unlatched and the door cranked open to reveal a white-walled room containing one shelf, one desk and one chair. As we entered the temperature control system hummed into effect, dropping the stasis temperature a fraction of a degree to compensate for our added body heat.

“Most impressive,” Daniel said. “Now, let’s see if this well-maintained, albeit meager, collection lives up to its hype.”

We approached the lone stainless steel shelf, which was finished with baked enamel and sealed behind a thin pane of glass. I let Simon sidle before the shelf several times, his eyes - still red from booze - peering eagerly through the glass. Then, when he scratched his head and came to halt at the shelf’s left-most section, I swung the chair out from the desk, placed my right hand on his shoulder, motioned with my left to the chair, and said, “If you wouldn’t mind.”

His lips motioned to make some smart-aleck retort, but all that came out was a reserved if not cordial “Sure.” I watched him sit, then turned back to the shelf and pulled out the same key chain from before. “Not those damn keys again,” he moaned.

“No worries,” I replied. “This one, I never miss.” I unlocked the glass window and removed The Necromancer, which had laid flat on its side in a home-made, black leather bound book jacket. Slowly, I walked over to the desk, all the while studying Simon’s naive enthusiasm. I gently placed the book on the table and removed its jacket. Again, his eyes became agog. “Now, before you examine the rest of the book, I hoped you might take a look at the colophon. You see, there’s an odd phrase there that I can’t seem to decipher. Perhaps you’ll have some luck with it.” I turned to the book’s final page and pointed at the backwards-Latin printer’s mark.

“sirednocsba rotatlucco sibrev A,” he read.

By the time he raised his confused little head to meet my frenzied gaze his figure had already begun to fade. He opened his mouth, as if to scream, but not even air escaped. No ‘ptoof,’ ‘whoosh,’ or other ridiculous onomatopoeia accompanied his disappearance; the fibrous strands of his being merely blurred into nothingness.

When he was gone I returned the book to its place and went home a happy man.

###
As for the chapter my oh-so-ambitious editor hoped to hide, it remained undisturbed in its rightful place and never affected the book’s critical or commercial reception in the least.

There was, of course, some vague inquiry into the whereabouts of Mr. Simon, for although he was now hidden from existence, he had indeed existed and I was the last to see him before his sudden disappearance occurred. But what could I tell them? We looked at some books and then he left, and that was all.

A Fable From 2005

“The Wormhole”

Once upon a dimension of perception, there was a boy named Stephen. Stephen was similar to most young children in that he loved to explore. It was on rare occasion that he came in for dinner without scuffed pants and plenty of extra dirt added to his already dirty-blonde hair. What differentiated Stephen, however, was the unique rapidity with which his curiosity evolved into determined fascination. Even as an infant, he was possessed by an obsession with the unknown. At the ripe young age of seven days, Stephen made his first solo journey into uncharted territory. When his parents found him, he was lying on his back underneath the crib, his little legs squirming in a victory dance. Indeed, his young mind grew to embrace the continuous expansion of his surrounding world.

By age nine (years), Stephen had learned all he could understand about math and science, and some he couldn’t. He still wanted more. The world, it seemed, was not big enough for Stephen. So he took to the stars. Stephen began reading everything there was to read about space. In his mind, he was making the obvious jump from physics to astrophysics.

Eventually, astronomical phenomenon became Stephen’s main focus. Black holes, in particular, sparked his interest. Stephen made it his personal duty to read every book ever written on the subject. He discovered that there were different types of black holes. Some were located at the centers of galaxies. These supermassive black holes acted like nuclei or suns, powering their systems. Other black holes were left over from the deaths of massive stars.

The black hole that intrigued Stephen most was the Schwarzchild black hole, one characterized by its nonrotating, collapsed core. Stephen believed that this particular entity acted as wormhole, through which one could enter alternate universes. It was within these regions of dark matter, Stephen decided, that he had found and would find his grand purpose. He would find the gateway to more.

So at the seasoned age of twelve, Stephen traded his muddy sneakers for work boots and his grass stains for oil streaks, and he began building his spaceship. He worked day and night on the spaceship, isolating himself in his garage, leaving the rest of the world behind. Days became years.

Sometimes “by the will of physics,” so he told himself, a young girl from the neighborhood would approach Stephen. She would ask him questions about why exactly he spent so much time locked in a garage. He would reply by asking if she would like to see his spaceship. Usually if this didn’t just scare her away, it would earn Stephen a slap in the face. But that didn’t matter much.

On his twenty-first birthday Stephen wished the world farewell and launched himself into space. He’d set his course for thousands upon thousands of light years away to the Schwarzchild black hole. As decades became millennia, two things kept Stephen alive: blind determination and the advanced stellar-powered computer system wired to his brain and other organs.

By the time a few hundred thousand years had passed, only mind and machine remained. Stephen was consoled thinking of himself as a powerful mechanized druid traveling on a necessary quest for the greatest truth. His many gears and circuits agreed. His spaceship affirmed that the destination grew nearer with each passing light year.

When the event horizon finally became imminent, Stephen’s mind prepared itself for entry. The memory banks erased any and all doubts from their emotional database. There would be no turning back now.

Stephen watched the surrounding light experience extreme shifts from blue to red, and for a second he felt a bit younger. Then, Stephen and his machines entered the event horizon. As he was sucked in beyond the speed of light, Stephen’s robotic hindsight witnessed the end of the universe. Shattered fragments of universal catastrophe reflected themselves in passing instances. Stephen bid his universe a final farewell as he approached the lightless core.

The instant he entered, however, was the instant in which he was completely destroyed. Even the strongest, most rare metals in the universe could not have saved Stephen from the immense pressure of the core. As soon as he began his journey through the wormhole, he was crushed into nothingness.

THE END

Some Science-Fiction From 2005

“The Cursed Wench of Lucia Falls”

Somewhere, a student body of armed children gathers for assembly. The speaker addressing the young cadets and their teachers is a thirty-three year old Elder General. He tells his warrior people the famed story of his legendary encounter with the cursed wench of Lucia Falls.

“I was just a small boy, not a day older than four years, when I first encountered the cursed wench of Lucia Falls. Upon initial re-creation of the event, I understood why our people, the razor-toothed Vermanian Rodentianoids, had banished the fiend so many years ago. I was a gifted young scout; a Class G Infantrot with well-honed psychic ability. Nevertheless, her toxic aura alone was enough to cloud my intuition. Indeed, it was my poisoned senses that lured me to within her grasp.”

“What I witnessed of her entity was viler than anything I had ever conceived. Her fur had already gone far beyond the patching stage that normally marks a Rodentianoid’s final days. Those few curly strands that remained were silver and brittle. On contact they disseminated, like ash in a breeze. Her skin, as far as I can determine, had no true physical texture. By the looks of it, she was a smoky shadow of our Vermanian image. By her touch, things became ever more obtuse. As her overwhelming fog absorbed me, I felt as the undead must feel, numb and disgusted. It was a dreadful loss of control I experienced that day. There were no prerogatives or commands except for hers.

My father, a wise and respected Vermanian elder, would later explain that it was an evil spirit called ‘Peace,’ which had forced me to succumb to the wench’s will. Up until today, I have not dared speak that word aloud, for fear that the wench may return and offer me to her demon once more.”

A few of the children fidget anxiously in their seats. There appears to be a growing air of suspicion amongst the teenage Professassins. They recognize a brief addition to the story has been made.

“Upon my capture, I was ordered to drink a mysterious elixir. Of the wench’s many poisons, this was surely by far her deadliest. As the foul liquid quickly took its course through my small digestive track, I became more and more…”

There is a long silence as the Elder General struggles with his words; words he himself has spoken countless times. The Professassins look to each other with heightened expressions of alert.

Finally, the General continues: “I became more and more disillusioned. You see, the wench’s elixir contained a hallucinogenic toxin, which transported my psyche to a dream world of useless impotence. There were no battles to fight, no enemies to kill, no lands to conquer, and no war to win.”

All the young children look on in confused disbelief.

“Well, I’m personally honored to inform you that we need not fear the cursed wench’s mysticism any longer. Earlier today at zero-two-hundred hours, an elite squad of proud Rodentianoid warriors under my command bombed and destroyed Lucia Falls, leaving the cursed wench as dead as the rubble under which she now burns.”

The Professassins all stand as if on cue. The oldest speaks first.

“Lies,” the elder Professassin declares.

“You can see it in his face,” another shouts.

“He’s under the wench’s spell!”

“The evil spirit has him!”

“We must kill!”

The Professassins do what they have been trained to do. The Elder General stands frozen in shock as his pupils approach the stage. There is a final plea for mercy followed by consensual rejection. The assault does not yield a quick and efficient death. It is slow and grueling. The young children rise and yell in bloodlust. Every Professassin gets a turn, one after another, until finally there is nothing left of the Elder General to kill. The student body roars on in victory.