History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Poetry and Microfiction in Droplets from the Universe

| March 28, 2024

In addition to the short stories I’ve talked about previously, Droplets from the Universe contains a number of joyful sci-fi poems and a couple of very short fiction pieces. The fiction pieces include “Explore Savois,” a microfiction piece written as a tourism enticement for an out-of-the-way planet, and “Life on Pluto,” a very tongue-in-cheek drabble (exactly […]

“When Science and the Gods Fail” in Dead-Starred Futures

| February 29, 2024

“When Science and the Gods Fail” is a microfiction story about a robot who takes matters into their own hands when calamity strikes. However, since this is one of my darker sci-fi stories … well, I’ll let you guess at the ending, but I won’t say anything more than that. “When Science and the Gods […]

Review of Be the Sea by Clara Ward

| January 31, 2024

Clara Ward’s Be the Sea (Atthis Arts, 2024) is an amazing sci-fi novel filled with found family, lost friends found again, stories, and dreams. Set in a world where climate change has occurred but been mitigated in places, it has a fairly cozy storyline and an eclectic cast of queer and disabled characters. Wend, a marine […]

“Kleptoparasitism” in Dead-Starred Futures

| January 30, 2024

While “Kleptoparasitism” isn’t the darkest of stories in Dead-Starred Futures, it is set in a potential dystopian future in which insects are a widespread protein source. It’s a microfiction story about how a visit to a location where insects are processed might go awry. If you like the idea of this story, check out Dead-Starred Futures […]

“Gratitude” in Droplets from the Universe

| January 16, 2024

Sometimes, you come up with a truly ridiculous concept for a story and then run with it. I don’t remember why I decided velociraptors could be genetically engineered to be sanitation engineers, but I decided to do it and play it like this was just a normal thing. Nothing weird about it at all. Then […]

Fun for Friday: Sci-Fi Writing Prompts for the FUTURE!

| January 5, 2024

If you want to kick off the new year looking toward the future, here are 101 Epic Sci-Fi Story Prompts from screencraft! There are a variety of ideas that could lead to stories set in space or on Earth, depending on which direction you’d like to take it!  

“Good to the Last Drop” in Dead-Starred Futures

| December 28, 2023

“Good to the Last Drop” is a dark sci-fi flash fiction piece that involved research into hydroponics and growing coffee, along with some other searches to pull together the plot. I can’t say much more about that research without giving it away, but suffice it to say that some people will do ANYTHING for their […]

My Recent(-ish) Sci-Fi Stories and Collections!

| December 19, 2023

It’s been quite a while since I did a sci-fi roundup of things I’ve published. So here goes! My poem, “Portrait Day at Zapus Zone 9 Academy,” which imagines a school attended by multiple alien species, appeared in Star*Line in October 2022. My flash fiction piece, “Senchado in Microgravity,” was podcast at Manawaker Studios Flash […]

“Corporate Career Counseling Construct” in Droplets from the Universe!

| December 14, 2023

“Corporate Career Counseling Construct” began as me goofing around with the idea of a sci-fi themed tarot deck and someone turning it into a program for employees of a corporation to use for career counseling. As might be expected, the construct tries to give useful advice, but … it’s a little overly enthusiastic, shall we […]

“Vantablack” in Dead-Starred Futures

| November 21, 2023

My flash fiction piece “Vantablack” was, unsurprisingly, inspired by the ridiculous but entertaining artist’s feud over the blackest black. In this story, I combined that with a newly discovered unusual planet and the weird trend of crowd-sourcing names for things. It’s a shock “Planet McPlanety-Face” didn’t win. (I considered it. But I liked my original […]