#lost futures

PAPERBACKS FOR TODAY # 19 : on through the nether we must go

I’m gonna throw a wild guess and say that Lost Futures cover might be a Marshall Arisman piece, or at the very least Arisman-lite? He was involved with the Dell Abyss line, though seemingly (as far as I can tell) with covering Kathe Koja’s novels.

Those in question…

Lost Futures by Lisa Tuttle, Dell Abyss 1992, art by [uncredited]

Death’s Master by Tanith Lee, DAW 1979, art by David Schleinkofer

Altered States by Paddy Chayefsky, Bantam 1979, art by Lou Feck (uncredited)

They once believed the future would be gentle.

A city where machines hummed softly,

where the sky was never hostile,

and progress wore pastel colors instead of shadows.

Steel rose like hope,

glass reflected dreams,

and every street promised tomorrow.

This is not how the future became.

But perhaps…

With vent art-

(⚠️Warning ⚠️: Eye strain, pixelated, substance abuse, bright colors.

And a little shading practice with my series of Lost Futures and a pride month S.

Very excited to announce that two of my poems are being included in the upcoming issue of Lost Futures!

I've had a look at the proof, and it's both beautiful to look at and haunting to read.

I'll include the link here to purchase a copy, digital is also available!

LOST FUTURES is a zine about worlds that could have been, should have been, or weren't. Futures that tried to bring themselves into existence but whose spark burned out. Of the lives you might have had if things were different.

We are faced with the crisis of capitalism as the killer of futures, of the failure of people to imagine new futures beyond the horizons of modern society. The Ideology of Capitalist Realism forces us to only imagine and live within the framework of a capitalist society, and to lose our sense of original futures. We look the past, to cyberpunk and vaporwave aesthetics, to movie reboots, to robots and ideas already discovered; we are left destitute in our current times for something new.

Yet, there is hope for humanity. If we can break from the chains of capitalist economy, if we can be liberated by technology instead of fettered, if we can live outside the capitalist framework with new systems of change; then, we can imagine new futures.