The Space Cadet Science Fiction Review is an online literary journal of science fiction poetry, flash fiction, short stories, essays, interviews, book reviews and artwork. Published irregularly.
Editor’s Note: We are working towards establishing a quarterly publishing schedule for this journal. A print version is in development.
Science fiction is sometimes called the “literature of ideas.” Ideas are its driving force and the very reason that we are drawn to the reading and writing of science fiction. The realm of ideas is a fascinating one indeed, filled with ever-present wonder and endless possibilities for both good and evil, the beautiful and the vile, the magnificent and the ruinous. If you’re reading this, you love science fiction as much as we do. We look forward to seeing your work.
We are looking for sophisticated, exciting science fiction writing. Material that swiftly transports us to another time and place in the space-time continuum. An organic originality is always appreciated. Quality is required.
We are looking for writing that locks onto the reader like a tractor beam and inexorably pulls them into an intriguing science fiction reality. Vivid, boundlessly imaginative writing is prized over that which might be limited by an over-adherence to the parameters of a more conservative scientific plausibility. So we gravitate a little more towards the “gimmee bang bang” of Raymond A. Palmer than the deliberately scientific “weights and measures” of Dr. T. O’Conor Sloane, his predecessor at Amazing Stories. That being said, we are still totally receptive to hard science fiction and this is the genre of science fiction we’re talking about here, not fantasy (see another of our literary journals, The Lotus Tree Literary Review, which does accept works of fantasy), so find your literary Golden Ratio.
We will not publish anything that we deem to be objectionable or poetry with the words arranged to create a shape on the page, all text will be published left-aligned.
In terms of art, we are looking for photos that somehow capture the essence of science fiction in our everyday lives, obscure retro technology seen from odd angles, through dreamy-hazy filters, strangely illuminated, the use of juxtaposition, sunset surrealism and so forth; the objects and landscapes around us that bespeak a science fiction vision of the future. Go absolutely haywire and create tableaux vivants and dioramas! Paintings, drawings, sculpture and moiré patterns that famously capture the essence, the motifs and themes and the extraordinary visual extravagance of science fiction: going very short on the lurid (think no more so than the science fiction and other pulps of the late 1920s through 50s) and very long on breathtaking alien worlds, their skies, the otherworldly colors, alien inhabitants, the cities and landscapes, space travel scenes, spacecraft, space battles, alien and super-futuristic technologies and so on.
