Robotic AI
Alive as any spirit
Built by Tinker Gnomes
By DS Davidson
Elves in Space
By DJ Tyrer
The primordial Elf-Dwarf war
Continues far from forest groves and mountain holds
In depths of space between stars
Hollowed-out asteroids versus delicate ships
Grown not made, organic, alive
Orbital bombardments and stellar spells
Bring doom to unsuspecting worlds
A brief flash of despair
Magic Circles
(Any sufficiently advanced technology is undistinguished from magic – Arthur C. Clarke 1973)
By Cardinal Cox
There’s a resonance from CERN
Put your ear to the ground
To hear the hum – the AUM
Ring vibrates – singing to hidden
Masters – ripples out concentric
To encircle the world – tiny fungi
Shaking imperceptibly – their
Rhizomes reaching through loam
Touching old bones in ancient graves
And the mushrooms are eaten
World tilts slightly – magic sneaks
Back in – once stones were
Raised to forgotten gods –
Now the silicon and quartz are
Their homes again – Quantum
Entanglement replaces Frazers’
Law of Contagion – Telepathy
Is hacking another’s neural
Implants – Invisibility cloaks
Spun from nano-fibres of metamaterial
Through cosmic portals
Sorcerers step between worlds
With wands and iPads
By Aeronwy Dafies
Rites of Way
By Harris Coverley
The towers of steel and stone went up
And they all fell fast
In a sprouting of mushrooms
For a millennia mankind lived in utter darkness
Minute in number
Poorer in skill
All mechanics rusted and useless
All technique lost
Not even a water clock could turn
Nor grain be milled
Power was a club or sharpened bone in hand
Not a unit of energy
In gradual shifts the shamans made their stride
And the wizards and the warlocks followed after—
Magic!
That was it!
The arts long forgotten with the coming of the machines
Spells cast against sickness
In favour of health
Hostilities to an enemy tribe
Small crops failing
And cattle perishing
Wars of enchantments
Charms against charms
The raising of ghouls
And the employment of beasts
The pooling of common blood
In wars of the mystical
The wizards grew fat
And the masses turned serfs
But explorers deep still carried on
Content to rediscover the older ways—
Fresh veins of copper, iron, lead, and coal revealed
The burning and the smelting
The rotation of cogs…
The wizards grew weak
And their oligarchy faded
As many gained riches on their own merits
The towers rose once more
Great stacks eructing filthy blackness
Vast twisting highways of concrete
Rolling with wheeled cages
Voices and visages blazing
Across the face of the Earth and far beyond
And mankind yet again strove to strike the stars…!
And the wizards become myths
Bedtime stories half-remembered
And mostly dull to tiring ears
But their arts remain still
Dormant in the recesses of human thought
Waiting to take pride of place
When the mushrooms sprout another time…
Robotic huntsman
Quasi-mammal hunting hound
Pursue chimeras
Fantastic fire-breathing beasts
Through primordial jungles
By DJ Tyrer
The Unicorn from Uranus
By Mark Hudson
I took my spaceship to Uranus,
to have a latte and a Danish.
A silence greeted me in the café,
the clients observed me with dismay.
I pulled up to the counter, asking for service,
everybody seemed a bit nervous.
I asked a bloke sitting right next to me,
“What is the nature of this mystery?”
“The unicorn of Uranus has come to visit,
and his magical horn is exquisite.
A rarity, a magical aphrodisiac,
that will make you a lover with nothing to lack.”
“How many people are seeking this quest?”
I asked, “Because I am the best!
I am the best bounty hunter ever,
and the unicorn’s horn will help me forever!”
“No, you don’t dare!” replied the opponent,
“It was originally mine, I own it.
The unicorn originally belonged to me,
but it broke loose and it got free.
If you steal my unicorn, just for a thrill,
it is only you I will have to kill.”
So I shot him with my computerized-laser beam,
and I was off to pursue my unicorn dream.
I punched unicorn into my spaceship GPS,
found him with very little stress.
Cut off his horn, he sounded maniacal,
but I saw his body was all mechanical.
I grinded the horn, to check if it was potent,
but the unicorn was about as useless as a rodent.
Then, the queen of Uranus appeared at my side,
and said, “Hey, Cowboy! Want to go for a ride?”
Suddenly the effects of the horn kicked in,
and the Queen of Uranus led me into sin.
It’s a long spaceship trip to go, very far,
on cruise control I enjoyed a love so bizarre!
Orcs on Bikes
By DS Davidson
Orcs armed with AKs
Terrifying biker hordes
Rampaging through urban warzones
Employed by Dark Lord mob bosses
For prosaic plots layered on greed
The magic having gone out of the world
Fantasy subordinated to progress
Warriors replaced by cops
Lunar Dragons
By Aeronwy Dafies
On strange worlds
Beneath tapestries of blazing stars
Dragons fly down from their moons
Far from questing knights, cynics
Breathing essence instead of air
Magical and alive and free
Knomes
By Cardinal Cox
metre wide metal sphere – Knome
dwell within (they say) – swap
limbs depending on circumstances
or need – no visible sensory
outlets – inside (whatever it is)
that exist in the magma beneath
the crust – shiny ball maintains
pressure/temperature of outer layer
of core – our world might as
well be outer space to them
soil thin atmosphere of
mountain peaks – magnetic
fields probe surroundings
communicate – manipulate – notice
(if they can) iron in our blood
someone knits them coloured hats
to aid identification – tinsel
in the trim – they exchange
hats when no one is around
enjoying the foil strips’ distortion
of the magnetic flow
Tame ghouls held on leash
Hungering for human flesh
Advance before tanks
Let loose to hunt enemy
Impervious to bullets
By DJ Tyrer
View From Atlantis 