I’ve been considering an idea for a new project: to take concrete events from one’s life and cast them as science-fiction lullabies or folktales.
The rules are simple:
The author shall not reveal the autobiographical event from which the tale arose.
The event will be rendered obliquely; the rules of the world will be offered without explanation as though everyone knows and accepts them: a vampire cannot cross a threshold without being invited, one ought not look back when exiting the underworld, a witch cannot cross running water, and so on.
The pacing and cadence should evoke the spirit of fable, folktale, saga, urban legend and myth. It should resemble something remembered and recited rather than something written. The impossibility of the tale should be accepted as naturally as the impossibility of folklore and myth.
Science-fiction and horror are not trappings; they are the language and the lens through which memory is disguised and transformed.
(c)2026 Kent Gutschke
MARTIAN DEATH RAY 