Sci Phi Journal, Autumn 2025/3
“An Inflationary Problem” by Geoffrey Hart
“Half-Rapt” by Karen Heuler
“Patriot Graves” by Liam Hogan
“Unspoken” by Chris Edwards
“I Know What I Desire” by James C. Clar
“Leapers” by Umair Khan
“The Religious Education of Rotisserie Opera” by Timothy Quinn
“The Prayer” by Humphrey Price
“Arbor Ad Infernum” by George Salis
“Heaven Bound” by Russell Fee
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
“An Inflationary Problem” by Geoffrey Hart takes place in a fantasy world much like the one created by J. R. R. Tolkien for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. A dwarf, concerned about rising prices, offers a dragon a plan that could keep costs under control.
This is essentially a lesson in basic economics sugar-coated with fantasy content. As such, it is mildly amusing.
In “Half-Rapt” by Karen Heuler, people find themselves floating high above the Earth after what seems to be the Rapture predicted by some Christian sects occurs. They wonder why they have not ascended all the way to Heaven, and why atheists and Muslims have risen in the same way as Christians. The answer is unexpected.
This is a sardonic look at religion and at humanity in general. The ending offers a darkly ironic twist. Readers of all faiths, or of no faith, are likely to find it provocative.
In “Patriot Graves” by Liam Hogan, a developer of virtual reality games enters the world of one such program. The avatar representing the game’s artificial intelligence shows the developer a vast cemetery full of tombstones bearing the name of the program’s antagonist, and explains the reason for this grim display.
The author may be saying something about the way in which video games may cause players to disregard the impact of violence in the real world. There also appears to be some discussion of how an enemy may be a hero in another’s eyes. In any case, the story offers food for thought.
The narrator of “Unspoken” by Chris Edwards reveals how human colonists fought, exiled, and destroyed the original inhabitants of an alien planet. The analogy with the abuses of colonialism in the real world is clear and worthy, but hardly original.
“I Know What I Desire” by James C. Clar is a variation on the familiar theme of magical wishes. As such, it offers little that is new other than the paradoxical outcome of the protagonist’s wish.
“Leapers” by Umair Khan is narrated by a caribou, one who has acquired the knowledge of words by eating hallucinatory mushrooms. The narrator discusses the relationship between humans and others of its species that have acquired the same knowledge.
Written in dense, poetic language, this story is more evocative than clear. The nature of the so-called Leapers, mentioned near the end of the piece, remains mysterious.
“The Religious Education of Rotisserie Opera” by Timothy Quinn features children grown and raised by an artificial intelligence in a spacecraft that has lost its crew. The AI provides them with their own theology, relating to the star that the ship is approaching. A shift in viewpoint in the story’s second half reveals more of what’s really going on.
The premise is intriguing, but one wishes that more had been done with it. The sudden change in viewpoint wraps things up a little too neatly for full enjoyment.
In “The Prayer” by Humphrey Price, humans lose a war with aliens. The narrator is a representative of defeated humanity. The aliens make the representative address their god, which takes the form of the fluctuation of matter on the quantum level. The result reveals more than the skeptical representative expects.
The combination of theology and quantum physics is interesting, with the constant creation and destruction of particles and antiparticles acting as the god’s brain. The story’s last sentence is a bit too much of an ironic twist ending for an otherwise thoughtful work.
“Arbor Ad Infernum” by George Salis takes place after humanity has been replaced by a forest that covers the entire Earth. The tree that rules the forest prevents any tree from growing taller than any other. One of the ruler’s disciples is a traitor, leading a rebellion that ends tragically.
The fact the ruler has twelve disciples and that the traitor is a Judas tree suggests a religious allegory, although there is little evidence of this otherwise. Perhaps the intent is to warn against rebellion, although the ruler’s restriction on growth might be seen as tyrannical.
In “Heaven Bound” by Russell Fee, easy space travel makes it possible for many people to have funerals in which their bodies descend to Earth in space capsules, burning up as they enter the atmosphere. The narrator relates how a grandfather, near the end of his life, lost his fear of death when he witnessed such a mass funeral.
The image of an astronaut creating a bright visual display while falling to Earth goes back at least as far as Ray Bradbury’s 1949 story “Kaleidoscope,” although that involved an accident rather than a funeral. I’m not quite convinced that seeing a dramatic funeral would lessen one’s fear of death, but the story is otherwise an intimate and quietly emotional one.
Victoria Silverwolf cut her finger this morning.