The train up the avenue begins to fade from view as it switches over to the liminal track. She watches, gritting her teeth, and swears that she will get on the next liminal train, that she will make it to her appointment in time, that she will not cop out and catch a mundane train and arrive fifteen minutes late for a job interview that she really ( Read more... )

Utopia vs. dystopia depends on what people do with it. Could be fun to set up some dystopic premises with tech, etc., and have it *not* be a dystopia.

Inspiration: CONvergence 2013 "Dystopic vs. Optimistic SF" panel.
Story potential: High.
Notes: Fun worldbuilding.

He didn't find out about the ordinary places where the regular workers could retreat to until he went to Space Bob's burger, ordered the basic burger, and burst out in tears when the waitress glided up with a burger on a bun, with lettuce and tomato and pickles cut in the shapes of the planets, with fries extruded to resemble space elevators, and ( Read more... )

It's not all it's cracked up to be, being a prince from fairyland. First thing, there's only one prince. Sure, I know the media around here call all of us "princes" and "princesses," and we try to match that for any public appearance or declared fairyfolk. Coronets, clothes of silk, waist-length hair, the full nine yards, as your saying goes. Every ( Read more... )

The kinderwar that year was feroicious; the little ones had found a new leader and were actually using tactics that might--granted, over centuries--let them win ( Read more... )

Codify working until retirement, where one can retire at any time and live at a bare minimum (dole, but for apartments, food, trips, etc). Choose a living level? Can always go back to work at any time--but might need to have a rejuvenatory surgery to get done. Is this a terraforming situation?

Inspiration: From "Let's Build a World" panel at ( Read more... )

The cemetery fairies were lonely. Nobody buried the bodies in winter, and it made them restless. Not to mention the cold made their wings stiff and likely to tear if they tried to move too fast. The fairies made little snow fairies over the graves, they cleaned away lichen that was stiff and dried, and they recited the names and lives of the people ( Read more... )

They pedaled through the streets, hooked up to the sippy cups of alcohol. They would have swerved and swayed all over the place, but the person at the head of the train, the one in charge of steering, was sober. That was the rule. Eventually, 1 or 2 of them would stagger off to their homes, and a new person would hop on, eager to get a free drink ( Read more... )

See, here's the thing. There's some things a man just can't tolerate in his backyard, and constant ghosts of his wife and the pool boy rolling around is one of them. So I called for the exorcist. Some memories are so strong and so painful that they just stick around like glue. I knew that even if I sold my very nice home and moved, there was about ( Read more... )

The twist of her hips told a story of long-forgotten passion bent to a deadly whim--there were the faint echoes of romance of all the beauty that the game of courtly love may have offered. But on top of it were layered hard levels of pain and old scars, not figurative, but literal. She had turned from the game of courtly love to the game of ( Read more... )