How many planets are there in our solar system?

Do you know?

We ask the question, because the question is asked– and tentatively answered– in our new feature short story, “Hey Mr. Tombaugh Won’t You Name a Star for Me” by Zach Smith. Whether you answer the question eight or nine might depend upon what year you were in school– a question of time. Any question involving space, as this story does, also gets us thinking about the question and meaning of time: our own, and maybe that of the universe itself.

Anyway, the story is an unusual one– science fiction and science fact. Zach Smith is a unique writer, with the gift of writing with clarity but also intelligence and meaning. We can safely say there’s no writer out there quite like him, nor so consistently worth reading– if you wish to expand your boundaries, your sense of time and space, as you escape for a few minutes the hectic pace of life, and jump into that alternate universe known as a short story–

I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, said Xarlox, as he reached out a beam of energy, that by a certain definition could be described as a hand, toward the probe.