New Orbit Magazine Online: Issue 03, June 2018

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_____________ It was long after selecting and compiling the works that would be featured in this issue of New Orbit Magazine that I realised that, contrary to the normal spread, all but one had been penned by female authors. This created an interesting lens through which to read the stories, and the connections (or lack thereof) between them, after having taken them in without consideration of any kind of common thread. Hitler and the Rabbit and Ctrl+Alt+Del both cover what I would consider to be human, not gendered concerns – largely parenthood, fear of the unknown, and self-preservation. Forecast for April and especially our wonderful featured story, Human Error, put a very specific female perspective on what are already frightening concepts, giving words to concerns that many female readers will identify with and creating a wider understanding for some male readers that may not have had comparable experiences. The one story with a male author stands out, not necessarily because of the author (who I very much doubt
shares his creation’s ideology), but because of its content. A Hermit and his Watch is a day with a man who considers himself too intellectually superior and yet socially awkward to integrate himself into society and relationships like a “normal” person. On second glance (or third, or fourth, or fifth, given the number of times I have read this issue cover to cover), his attitude shares some striking similarities with the relatively new social subculture and, as of the last couple of years, brand of terrorist, emerging largely in internet circles rather than in-person interactions – the “incel”, or “involuntary celibate”. These are groups of boys and men who blame their inability to foster romantic or sexual relationships with women on increasingly bizarre, misogynist and dangerous scapegoats, such as female intellectual inferiority, the existence of “Chads” (attractive, socially competent males) in a world where women have the authority to make partner selections of their own accord, and, far-fetched as it might sound, the lack of a social or governmental system of ranked pairing of men and women based on some universal scale of attractiveness, or “enforced monogamy”. Unlike the protagonist of A Hermit and his Watch, whose self-importance and entitlement manifests in a relatively innocent (and for the most part non-gendered) way, the Venn diagram of internet subculture sees the incel circle cross over with many other dangerous schools of thought, including white supremacy/neo-Nazism, toxic ideals of masculinity, and the condoning of what most would consider excessive use of force or violence. Several recent acts of terror in the West have been undertaken under the incel banner or following its ideology – in the past few months alone, a self-labelled incel ploughed through a group of predominantly female pedestrians in a van in Toronto, killing ten, after posting a Facebook status claiming “the Incel Rebellion has already begun!”, and an American 17 year old orchestrated a mass shooting at his Texas high school, also killing ten, sparked by his desire to “punish” a popular female student for rejecting the most recent of his repeated advances in front of his classmates. This is far from an issue themed around stories pertaining to womanhood and feminism (though this is absolutely an idea we will be exploring in the future), but the prevalence of relevant thought despite an active seeking-out of theme is an indicator of how important such ideas are to the writers, readers and everyone else of this day and age, moving into the future. I invite you, dear readers, to keep an eye open in this and any other issue for the way these stories and their contexts connect to today’s struggles and big news stories, even in unexpected or unintuitive ways. You never know which direction the future might use for its approach. Happy musing, Naomi Moore Editor and Founder of New Orbit Magazine
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Page 8 and 9: _____________ The TV screen at the
Page 10 and 11: “Ah,” said Cready. “And then
Page 12 and 13: example, you might want to send off
Page 14 and 15: a long pause. “I remember all my
Page 16 and 17: two objects moving at different spe
Page 18 and 19: Is Time Travel Really Possible? Sca
Page 20 and 21: _____________ Henry watched her fro
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Page 30 and 31: And isn’t that a form of faith? S
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Page 44 and 45: instead a requirement. Despite this
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Page 54 and 55: He shook his head slowly and set do
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New Orbit Magazine Online: Issue 03, June 2018

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