Lectori salutem.
As the current incarnation of Sci Phi Journal is completing the 11th year of its ‘print’ run, we’ve looked back over the past decade and decided to diverge slightly from our usual approach in crafting our 2025 winter edition.
Over the summer, we invited authors who had published with us before to create a spiritual sequel to their previous works that appeared on our pages – whether a direct follow-up of the first story, or rather an associated reflection on the themes and ideas contained therein.
The resulting tales range from the woes of the ancient Greek pantheon to an alternate history of French North America, from an imaginary visit to a utilitarian heaven to a somnolent descent into Dante’s inferno, from a cosmic hunt for impossible objects to a theological response to Le Guin’s “Omelas”.
These are complemented by two essays, as we continue our tradition of surveying lesser-known SF language communities, this time marking the 200th anniversary of Mór Jókai, the “father of Hungarian SF”, while also featuring a piece of speculation fiction and philosophy in memory of the work of the late Anand Vaidya, founding member of the SF & Philosophy Society and past contributor to Sci Phi Journal, who had passed away recently.
Preparing for the Northern winter months, the Sci Phi crew has been active on other fronts, too. Co-editor Ádám contributed a short story to the European Union Joint Research Centre’s first SF anthology, Future Snapshots. He also continued his string of encounters with science fiction clubs around the globe, with special thanks to MonSFFA for their generous hospitality in Montréal, Québec. Meanwhile, Mariano was hard at work on the latest edition of our sister journal, Hélice, containing critical SF essays and translations of unjustly neglected works in both Spanish and English, as well as author interviews.
With this, we welcome you to our Sequels Issue, and wish all our readers, contributors and their loved ones a happy Christmas and a safe start into the future year.
Speculatively yours,
Sci Phi co-editors and crew
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** 2026 Fundraiser: Sci Phi Journal is volunteer-run, ad-free, AI-free, and pays human authors of niche, handcrafted fiction. We rely on donations to keep philosophical sci-fi free to read in 2026 and beyond. If every reader were to donate just a single euro/dollar once a year, we could buy more stories and commission translations. It is your generous support that got us this far. Thank you ✿ **(◠‿◠)
