Snake Eyes (Planet Scumm #11) features eight SFF stories by both exciting up-and-comers and established authors like Lindsay King-Miller (author of Ask a Queer Chick: A Guide to Sex, Love, and Life for Girls who Dig Girls) and environmental journalist, Sim Kern. Stories of star ghosts, love in the time of climate catastrophe, childbirth in space, and more fascinating flights of imagination await the lucky reader. 

Submissions for this issue of Planet Scumm were limited to authors who are femme, nonbinary, and/or trans. A guest editorial team helmed by horror novelist Hailey Piper curated this stellar collection of SFF.  All stories were lovingly illustrated by Maura McGonagle, who also did the sunshiney cover art. While staying true to the pulpy roots of the magazine, this issue lives in its own aesthetic space that merges humour and heartbreak, prophecy and dreamscapes, plant zombies in outer space and a cephalopodic sorority sister. The book spans eight fully formed narrative voices as they take us through the past, the future, and the eternal. 

Mom’s oblivious act is so convincing, I actually believe she thinks “these nice young men” are giving us a ride to the “flea market,” even as they confiscate our tasers and usher us up into the back of the truck. They take the road north, of course, towards the Dells, the old country club-turned-crime syndicate. My terror is a ringing in my ears and a heaviness in my limbs that make me docile and obedient. But Mom is chatty. Mom comments on the beauty of Mirror Lake and the golf course-turned-prairie, and the pretty architecture of the old clubhouse, despite its windows wrapped in plastic, its bricks streaked with acid rain. She smiles as they lead us into the gutted building and down a stairwell to the basement. 

But as soon as we hear the ka-chunk of the bolt lock in the door, Mom collapses to the damp cement and chucks her respirator across the cement floor.

From “Real Sugar is Hard to Find” by Sim Kern. 

To purchase the ebook: https://www.planetscumm.space/shop/planet-scumm-issue-11-ebook 

To purchase the paperback: https://www.planetscumm.space/shop/planet-scumm-issue-11 

Check out Duffy’s other Sci-Fi and Fantasy reads and recommendations!