We're thrilled to reveal the fantastic cover for Cosmic Consequences, illustrated by the supremely talented Nicole Alessi!
The theme of this anthology is whump ... but in space! There are over 30 space-whump themed stories, covering everything from equipment malfunctions to hostile aliens. The table of contents includes:
Shield Fall by Kras Nebula @scrawlingmouse
Between Darkness and the Void by John M. Campbell
Subject 371 (Homo Sapien) by Scarlett Skyes
Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions, As Interpreted by An Ex-Space space station, by Yasmeen Ambro
The Specimen by Dr. Suvajeet Duttagupta
A Lesson in Cooperation by Marti @galaxywhump
Thunderstorm by Marti @galaxywhump
The Gamble by Nox Spacey @not-a-space-alien
In the Event of Total Annihilation, Please Take Some Calming Breaths by Scarlett Skyes
Flesh and Bone, Wires and Steel by LadyWallace @lady-wallace
Test Mission by Moss @mossteriouslydrawn
Shine Bright For Us by Scarlett Skyes
Courier by Nate Jaros
Adrift Among a Quiet Sea of Stars by Loralei Deasy
World Eaters’ Return by Booker G.A. Feniks @up-in-flames-writing
To Take an Order (to take a life) by Scarlett Skyes
Microbial High by Sarina Dorie
It Can Still Play Card Games by Nox Spacey @not-a-space-alien
Last Night by Zi Trone @whumpshaped
Sneezes and Space Pirates by E.J. LeRoy
Celestial by C.L. Urbana @pigeonwhumps
The Rediscovery of the Starship Aurora by Kay Hanifen
Martian Wallpaper by Wen Wen Yang
Echoes of the Lost by A. E. Pillow @nature-wants-you-dead
Insults from the Universe by Leanne Albillar
Ananke by T. Lane @t-lane-writes
Kenophobia by Booker G.A. Feniks @up-in-flames-writing
Specter by Aiden E. Messer @aidenemesser
The Great Red Frontier by Asidian Morris @asidian
The Cost of a Life is Measured in Blood by Lux Thorn @whump-me
Lost by Zi Trone @whumpshaped
Found by Mil Cohen @whumpsday
Cosmic Consequences launches on BackerKit on May 28, 2026! You can check out the project here.
Character who is an astronaut. Something goes wrong during a mission, and the whole crew dies except them.
Now they have to make it back to earth. It'll be fine, but it's a long journey.
They're all alone. Filled with trauma and guilt about what happened, and no one is there to offer comfort and human contact.
Nightmares and waking up to an empty ship. Auditory hallucinations. Sometimes they hear their name, equipment beeping, a shout or a voice. But it's never real.
Space was cool. Obviously, it’s space! Whumpee would stare out at the stars for hours on end, admiring all the planets which would pass them by. The only downside was the inability to leave. There was nowhere to run, no one to signal to for help. It was just Whumpee and the captain for lightyears around.
There were no laws in this vacuum. Whumper could do whatever they wanted to Whumpee and they couldn't do a thing about it. Plus, there was always the lingering threat of throwing them off the ship. While their assistance was nice, they weren’t really needed to help run the ship.
So, unless they wanted their body to be left floating in the endless void, they would do exactly as Whumper says.
Whumpee, raised into this damn system. The one that taught them how to fix a ship's control before they could write, the one that sent them up here. Promised them salvation. Promised them fame.
...
Where was that salvation now?
...
Whumpee floated around the main pod of their small ship, staring out at the stars; the distant view of earth coming into view once more. Just barely out of reach.
If you're leaning more into the horror aspect, the setting your story on a spaceship, space station, or isolated outpost on the edge of the galaxy can really up the tension. No one is coming to save you, and if you're being hunted by a big bad whumper... there's no where to run, just the void of space surrounding you.
Weird space viruses/bacteria/pathogens/diseases. Your whumpee might not have any immunity to that disease that they encounter on an alien planet. Great for sickfic and find-a-cure plots. Also a fun opportunity to play with advanced medical technology!
Getting thrown out the airlock would not only most likely kill your whumpee (assuming that they're human) but it would be a painful and scary way to go.
Life support systems failing or running out of food would up the tension and generally be unpleasant.
Getting stranded on an alien planet. Just that. Having to find shelter and food, maybe encountering new diseases, hungry alien animals, and a hostile environment... whumpee is going to be having a bad time.
Related to the above, but whumper holding whumpee hostage on a spaceship/space station so that there's no where for them to run.
Note: this is not the first book in a series, and this post may contain unavoidable spoilers as a result! Click here to see the whump review of the first book in the series.
Summary: Harrowhark suffers many, many consequences as a result of the first books events. Probably nobody has ever experienced consequences quite like Harrow.
Whump rating: 5/5
Tropes: nausea, vomiting, not eating, hallucinations, severe dissociation, severe sensory overload, loss of consciousness/fighting to remain conscious, muscle loss, stabbing oneself, time loss, religious distress, murder attempts, murder attempts while naked in the bath, surviving murder attempts, returning murder attempts, failed murder attempts, painful magical healing, facial trauma, head trauma, paranoia, penetrating eye injury, bone fuckery, bone overgrowth, pathetic whumpee, extreme sleep deprivation, internal bones, tricked into minor cannibalism, bombs inside of people, DIY amputation without anesthesia, etc, etc, etc.
Review: "You would crawl like a worm to whatever clinging scrap of solace she would give you. You would have whored yourself to her as necrosis to a wound". — God's most pathetic whumpee in a time of need.
EVERYTHING about this book is delicious. While the first book is my favorite plot wise, this book is multiple hundreds of pages of Harrowhark and Gideon getting whumped in insanely creative ways. Sometimes it's physically, sometimes it's emotionally, and a lot of the time it's both. Coming into this after the end of GtN may have you feeling confused, bewildered, wondering what is happening. Harrow is asking the same questions as you are, so it's okay. Just read it. It's so worth it.
WAIT wait wait hang on i just remembered that thing that happens to astronauts when they come back to earth and their blood pressure is weird for a couple days cause now their cardiovascular system has to deal with gravity again so they can pass out a couple times until their body adjusts again and I just think you could do that to your sci-fi whumpee anyway thanks that’s all keep scrolling
There's some comfort in his story finally being at its end.
This isn't how Coin thought he'd go, bleeding out in a hidden service centre at the ass end of the galaxy, mechanical body parts severed and strung over his head like the worst of party decorations. But if he's being honest - and Coin may be a crook and a thief, but he's not a liar - it isn't exactly out of scope. By all accounts he should be halfway to Turniget by now, or getting his brain fixed in a reeducation clinic in Realto 9. Worse things have happened to better crypto-anarchists than he.
At least he's been left alone for a minute, with Deputy Commissioner Deren Rieger, AKA the De-Commissioner, having left the cell a little while ago. It's a weary but welcome reprieve, to breathe, to starve, to lie in a steadily growing pool of his own blood, and to drive himself crazy with all the things he should or should not have done in order to not wind up in here.
Coin flexes his muscles, and immediately regrets it - it's super weird, wiggling your toes at one end of the room when your thighs are on the other.
His limbs are still connected to the little integration chip in his brain, at least until they take that out of him that too. Not only can he feel the magnetic cuff tethering left leg, right leg, right arm to the rack, but also the points at which the fingers of his right hand rest against the smooth, white wall. The faint damage alerts where certain sections are scratched or dented. The wetness of his own blood dripping off the integration ports, down the back of his wrist.
They're useless to him now, though - every single enhancement he's put into himself, rendered to nothing by brute force and a couple of magnets. Coin would feel hopeless, or frightened, if he could give the emotions any space amongst the pain.
Minutes turn to hours, and when he hears the shh-whoomph of the pneumatic door, Coin has no energy to spare except what he uses up in a pathetic groan. But at the slap of a wet mop Coin does look up, to see -
Oh. Oh good gods, he's alive.
Coin sees an android, one who has patched him, and been patched up by him countless times. One here to his rescue.
"Art," Coin says.
He knows it's really him from the visual history - the slightly miscoloured synthetic skin under his left eye, from that time Coin only had #DFC183. The silver stud in a single pierced helix, the android asking does this typically cause pain to a human? As the needle went through. The section of neck plating that doesnt quite sit right ever since it was torn off that once.
But if they were old acquaintances not-quite-recognising each other across a room, at least Art would have had to look at Coin to check. As it stands, not a single glance is afforded. The mop swipes slowly left to right.
"Arthur. Hey. Art."
His voice is hoarse from the screaming earlier. Stupid, in the end, to use a vital resource up so quick. When Coin reaches his flesh arm towards the android, in the path of the mop, his hand is deftly circumnavigated.
"Arthur," he tries again, knowing its no damn use - the thing has been wiped. "Tag one-eight-three-four. Oi. Pause subroutine." If he can just get Arthur to take his arm down off the wall, maybe he has a chance of getting them both out of here.
The android pays no mind, completely focused on his task of dragging the mop side to side through the leakage of Coin's blood. His movements are smooth and efficient, like in all things, and he's wearing a thin vest in fluorescent green that reads I'M HERE TO HELP on the breast. His eyes, dimmed like when they're in night mode, carefully track where the offending liquid escapes the sweep of his tool. He retreats to the interior corridor once, to rinse the mop when it's doing nothing but making things dirtier.
It's then that it clicks. Art came in here because of a cleaning main routine adjustment made by Coin himself - a bid to get him to clean into the access chamber, and not just to the threshold. He probably thinks he's doing that right now. Coin lifts a shaky hand to press thumb and forefinger into closed eyelids.
"Give me my arm. Or, or a leg - void, Art, give me anything. Look at me."
For just a second, it seems as though he's used the magic words - mercifully, Art looks at him. Moves a little closer with that blank but open expression on his face, the same one he gets after gently advising Coin that his heart rate is elevated, asking if he'd like to do a breathing exercise.
Then the android pulls a cloth from his vest pocket, and wipes up a missed smear of blood by Coin's head.
Coin can't help the unearthly laugh that escapes him.
"She's gonna kill me." He laughs again. "She's gonna fucking kill me, and you're gonna hear it. You're gonna be right outside the fucking door."
If Arthur understands, there's not a single indication of it. He moves back into the corridor, internal service ticket closed, moving to the next. The fluro vest has the same cheerful slogan printed on the back in block letters, this time with a smiling cartoon dog underneath.
"Don't you dare leave me here," Coin pleads.
The door closes.
Maybe there are worse ways to go, Coin just can't think of any right now.
