On "At the Edge of the Earth" by Brandon Patterson (3896 words) ***

Patterson's tale is one of exploration, not unlike those of the 1400s and 1500s, when Europeans realized (again) that there was land beyond the sea. During that time, writers like Jonathan Swift could write fantastic tales like Gulliver's Travels and have some people believe them halfway seriously. Patterson wanders into that world through the life of John Cabot, or Giovanni Caboto, as he prefers to call him. But in the realm of fantasy, the world turns out not to be a sphere but rather flat--or, to be more precise, perhaps like a cylinder, with the top flat but the rest round. The meaning of this is what makes for a tale not unlike a Twilight Zone episode. Read the story here at Prime Number.