It’s that time of year when humans are planning their summer vacations. Your task this week is to create a vacation brochure for any destination found in speculative fiction. You can’t upload images here, but if you want to use images, you could create your brochure elsewhere (e.g. Google docs) and submit a link. Here’s my vacation brochure for Arrakis, which I think would be a great place to take a Honeymoon:

Visit Arrakis!

Looking for a change of pace from frantic tropical vacations, with all that hang-gliding, drink-sipping, body-surfing, massage-getting madness? Considering a quiet, exclusive getaway where you and your true love can focus on each other, without unnecessary distractions? Where you can grow even closer? Visit Arrakis!

Visit Arrakis!

Visit Arrakis!

From its blazing, stark deserts to its monochrome underground passageways, Dune offers nothing to distract you from your loved one. Sharing a glass of the water of life together will draw you even closer to each other as you learn each other’s secret hopes, fears, and genetic legacy. For a change of pace, join the friendly natives for a bracing day of worm-riding; schedule a tour of the ruins of the imperial embassy or observe spice harvesting from a presumably safe distance. Join your hosts for delightfully austere dinners around the crackling campfire, black-tie-optional, black-stillsuit-mandatory. Dune exists only to serve… your every whim.

DISCLAIMER: Trips to Arrakis are not recommended for children, pregnant women or members of the former Imperial family. Some people exhibit an immediate, severe allergic reaction to Arrakis. If this happens to you, contact your travel agent immediately. In some instances, death, disappearance, dismemberment, dehydration, delusions, dementia, discoloration of eyes, bad soothsaying, random pontificating, self-mutilation, abrupt sexual interest in a close family member for no particular reason, possession by ancestors, poor wardrobe choices, challenging a training robot to a knife fight while naked, hearing more voices in your head than usual, or an irrational belief that you are both part sandworm and the emperor of the universe can occur. The agency assumes no liability for these occurrences. All waivers must be signed and witnessed before disembarkation. Please enjoy Dune responsibly.

Author

  • Marion Deeds

    Marion Deeds, with us since March, 2011, is the author of the fantasy novella ALUMINUM LEAVES. Her short fiction has appeared in the anthologies BEYOND THE STARS, THE WAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE, STRANGE CALIFORNIA, and in Podcastle, The Noyo River Review, Daily Science Fiction and Flash Fiction Online. She’s retired from 35 years in county government, and spends some of her free time volunteering at a second-hand bookstore in her home town.