Utopia Science Fiction (Vol 7), August 2025

“Sylvester is an Asshole and Must Die” By Calie Voorhis

“Damage Abatement” by Dawn Vogel

“Speak” by Nico Martinez Nocito

“The Black Dragon” by Robert Bagnall

“Too Late Never” by Ken Foxe

Reviewed by Chuck Rothman

“Sylvester is an Asshole and Must Die” starts the August issue of Utopia Science Fiction with an intriguing title. The protagonist is grieving, and the grief takes on the form of Sylvester, an annoying creature that she can’t get rid of. Calie Voorhis’s story quickly goes through the process of how she deals with it. It’s an OK story, but not much more.

“Damage Abatement” by Dawn Vogel follows Lisa Lopez, whose job it is to clean up the damage after superheroes finish their mission. She must deal with some sort of alien weapon and with the bureaucracy that doesn’t want anything to do with it. But Lisa has some special abilities that make her job easier. Slight but entertaining.

Nico Martinez Nocito contributes “Speak,” where Andre is competing in a debate contest and discovers his former best friend Nyla will be going up against him. Nyla is an AI, which was one reason their friendship failed, and the debate topic, “Should AI creations be granted human rights?” hits far too close to home. Nice resolution to his dilemma.

“The Black Dragon” by Robert Bagnall is set in a future where dragons have come to life and are bent on wiping out the human race. The war against them is fought by humans commanding robots called “Boxers.” Jensen leads a group of them, only to discover they have an odd request. While the story sets up an interesting situation, it is bogged down by a long and unnecessary info dump in the first half. The story doesn’t begin to take off until the second half, a major flaw in a story that’s so short.

“Too Late Never” by Ken Foxe is about To-La-Ded, an alien that is surveying Earth to decide their plans for contract: whether to destroy it or wait until later, his judgment impaired by being bitter from being ghosted by a date. It reminded me of Alfred Bester’s “Not Yet the End,” though not as strong a story.

Chuck Rothman’s novel The Cadaver Princess has been published by Experimenter Publishing, the book imprint of Amazing Stories. Details at chuckrothman.com.