Magick Matters

04.07.2021

“The Fifth Science” by Exurb1a

Magick Matters

"The Galactic Human Empire was built atop four sciences: logic, physics, psychology, and sociology. Standing on those pillars, humans spent 100,000 years spreading out into the galaxy: warring, exploring, partying — the usual. Then there was the fifth science. And that killed the empire stone dead. The Fifth Science is a collection of 12 stories, beginning at the start of the Galactic Human Empire and following right through to its final days. We’ll see some untypical things along the way, meet some untypical folk: galactic lighthouses from the distant future, alien tombs from the distant past, murderers, emperors, archaeologists and drunks; mad mathematicians attempting to wake the universe itself up. And when humans have fallen back...>>

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04.07.2021

“The Prince of Milk” by Exurb1a

Magick Matters

"All of time is simultaneous. Matter tends towards perfection. Cats can be dicks sometimes. The Prince of Milk is a leisurely stroll from prehistory to the distant future, stopping for tea in the 21st century English countryside. Before the time machine, before the undead mannequins, before the cat with the universe eye, there were the arbiters. They regulated the world and kept reality from banging into itself. All was well in paradise. But even the gods end up in love triangles from time to time. Several galaxies and a dimension away, Wilthail is a small English village alternating between flower shows and the occasional divorce. Life ambles. Old men and women make peace with their gods....>>

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04.07.2021

“Logic Beach: Part I” by Exurb1a

Magick Matters

"Mathematician Polly Hare is missing. She leaves behind: one cat, one scarf, and a hypergeometric theory of everything with the potential to end physics. Her husband Benjamin is determined to bring her home. Papers will be read. Cults will be infiltrated. Cats will be petted. Benjamin Hare cannot tie his shoes, but he may well steer the course of human history. Thousands of years later and humans have migrated into a great digital playground called Arcadia. Light is smelled. Music is eaten. Physics is near completion. These new humans have their own trials, however; an experiment in mind-blending has gone horribly wrong, giving birth to a rampant colossus. It is the end of history, but long-dead...>>

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04.07.2021

“The Bridge to Lucy Dunne” by Exurb1a

Magick Matters

"A mad astronaut ejects a starship's sleeping crew into deep space. A playwright conjures her perfect lover into existence. Three time travellers appear to a motorbike mechanic, drink a little tea, and ruin his life. Mankind discovers the secrets of travelling to the stars, and promptly forgets them again. Exurb1a has collected 18 of his best received short stories into a book. Some of them made it into magazines - others he wrote for friends - but always for fun and never on time. The Bridge to Lucy Dunne tries its hardest to convince you that in a universe this strange, an existential meltdown is a perfectly appropriate response to being alive. In any case,...>>

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03.07.2021

“Embryology and the Rise of the Gothic Novel” by Diana Perez Edelman

Magick Matters

"This book argues that embryology and the reproductive sciences played a key role in the rise of the Gothic novel in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Researcher Diana Pérez Edelman dissects Horace Walpole’s use of embryological concepts in the development of his Gothic imagination and provides an overview of the conflict between preformation and epigenesis in the scientific community. The book then explores the ways in which Gothic literature can be read as epigenetic in its focus on internally sourced modes of identity, monstrosity, and endless narration. The chapters analyze Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto; Ann Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance, The Italian, and The Mysteries of Udolpho; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Charles Robert Maturin’s...>>

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