Jetse de Vries’s near-future, optimistic anthology Shine (see this article from last October) is scheduled to be published in April 2010 by Solaris Books. Heralding that arrival, and, as de Vries tells us “with exuberant SF as thin on the ground as bankers without bonuses, DayBreak Magazine will alleviate the waiting and fill the gap. Simultaneously quenching your thirst for upbeat stories while also whetting your appetite for the main uplifitng dish, DayBreak Magazine will feature a positive, forward-looking story every second Friday until the print Shine anthology is released, or possibly even a bit beyond that date.”
DayBreak is scheduled to debut on Friday 16 October, “on the eve of Diwali, with ‘The Very Difficult Diwali of Sub-Inspector Gurushankar Rajaram’ by Jeff Soesbe. The second story will be released on Friday 30 October, one the eve of Halloween: ‘Horrorhouse’ by David D. Levine.” de Vries promises a new story every two weeks: “stories set all over the world, all depicting a future in which you would actually love to live. All for free, and all for your delectation.”
He reminds readers that “these online stories are different from the ones in the print Shine anthology: It’s just that I liked them so much I’ve decided—after negotiations with the authors—to put them online as a free showcase for upbeat science fiction.”
de Vries offers these teasers for the stories:
“The Very Difficult Diwali of Sub-Inspector Gurushankar Rajaram”: It is Diwali in Bangalore, but not everyone is partying as Sub-Inspector Gurushankar Rajaram and his colleagues are working overtime to keep certain things from escalating:
* There will be helicopters, wobbling!
* There will be children, rebelling!
* There will be elephants, marauding!
* There will be monkeys, harassing!
* There will be the third eye of Shiva, watching from the sky!
* There will be song!
* There will be dance!
* There will be party!
* There will be the ghost of Dev Kapoor Khan, the Indian Elvis!
“Will Sub-Inspector Gurushankar Rajaram overcome the increasing madness around him, or will he become mad, himself? Confused? You won’t be, after reading ‘The Very Difficult Diwali of Sub-Inspector Gurushankar Rajaram’, an exuberant tale of a near-future India that puts most Bollywood pictures to shame!”
Of “Horrorhouse”, he writes: “Contrary to popular belief, things will get better in the future, as a change of lifestyle has developed. Not everything is completely rosy, though, as word spreads, like an electronic flash, about a horrorhouse that holds the next generation completely in thrall. Adults not allowed, and the young people who have visited the horrorhouse refuse to talk about it. Ethan Cole—the famed forerunner of the Twitter Revolution—is sent in to investigate…”