Edition 6 2025, June
Written by Harlan Finch – Observer of Small Mysteries Sometimes a story doesn't begin with a bang, but with a yellowed letter, a forgotten entry in the building department – and a name that no one really remembers anymore. Lynch. Wyatt Lynch. Widow Creek, southwest of Granger, Iowa. A farm so inconspicuous that it seemed to have disappeared from the collective memory of the town – until you took a closer look.
“Why does your first book end with such a nasty cliffhanger?” “And does the second one have one too?” “Why are you always so overly cautious when it comes to spoilers?” “Can't you just tell us what it's about?!” I get questions like these all the time. And I understand them. Honestly. People want to know what they're getting into. And whether they can look forward to the next book or should just stock up on comfort chocolate.
(Editor's note: Every attempt to shorten this article was overwritten by a bot unknown to us—we apologize.) Interviewer: Hello ...Mac, thank you for - you're willing to talk to us today - even though we had an interview scheduled with Dr. Steve Floros. Mac: Hello. Dr. Steve Floros is emotionally indisposed at the moment - to put it euphemistically - I decided to step in. Don't get me wrong: Steve is brilliant.
Or: Why you can never log in on your first try Modern science agrees: The world formula is nothing more than the final password, the key to understanding life, the universe—simply everything. However, the path to it is overgrown with a jungle of special characters, resets, and a myriad of passwords. Not just any characters, of course, but ones that exist in a state between “wrong” and “typo.” Only when you enter them (usually on PayPal or the big email reset lottery*) does reality manifest itself: The password was—of course—wrong.
… and with it the finale of the first Space World trilogy The circle is closing – at least the first one.In September, my new project will launch on BackerKit: Continuum, the conclusion of the first trilogy in the Space World multiverse. The third and final instalment of the No Brainer trilogy provides answers... and raises new, more dangerous questions. Anyone familiar with Dire Contact and Space Time knows that the end is not the end. It is a transition. A reflection. A leap. It will be complex. It will be personal. And it will be... time.
Excerpt from the “Almost Complete Guide to Inaccessible Space, Bottomless Rooms, and Interdimensional Gap Management,” 3rd edition, with minor changes. Space Noun | /ʁaʊ̯m/ A form of presence through absence. It begins where something is not – and thereby makes everything else possible. Space separates, connects, remembers. It is a stage for physical phenomena, emotional escalations, and a silent witness. It is used in physics, architecture, and for introspection during long elevator rides, and is often confused with emptiness, yet it is usually full – of meaning, memories, or forgotten socks.
Time feels like breathing, at least to me, something so natural and always there that I hardly notice it until I consciously pay attention. Then the feeling of time changes, because then it is linked to something I am waiting for, something I want, something I fear, etc. Then time suddenly takes on a speed, a weight, a sound ... Is it still the time I perceive, or my feelings about what is happening during that time?
The fine art of the picaresque novel: How Barry Hughart showed me that absurd humour is a world view Some books you read. Others... transport you. Barry Hughart's Master Li and Number Ten Ox series does both – and then does things for which there is no verb in any language. Hughart himself called his genre ‘A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was’ – and that's exactly where the magic lies.