Fictional Worlds

Miss Pippa Kipling and her automaton companion, the Porter, exterminate pests of the supernatural variety. What should be a typical job in your average haunted cavern soon derails in an inconvenien…

Does a renewed world still have a place for those who only know how to destroy? While defending a tea-growing commune in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, one person seeks an answer.

“Blue is a Darkness Weakened by Light” is about a lonely young woman, recently moved to the big city, who is looking for love. What she finds is a friend and confidante who is much olde…

In a cyber-enhanced, futuristic Chicago, Sonata knows near-immortality is achievable through downloading her mind into a cyborg body after death. But this young artist wants to prove that living fo…

A meditation about the evolution and influence of a song written in 1902 over the next 150 plus years.

When rumors of an uprising in Metaltown’s factories hits Bakerstown, sixteen-year-old wannabe reporter Caris knows she’s found the story that will finally prove her worth to the Journal…

Ratspeak is the the shrill and sly language of the rats of New York City’s subway. When a curious boy is granted his wish to speak and understand the secret language of the rats, he brings a …

Taranis and his men forage for the collected tribes of the Crow as they march against the Romans, but he brings back more than he bargained for when he frees a beautiful and mysterious prisoner, Al…

From the author of The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and the forthcoming Death’s End comes a story about unborn memories.

The saucer aliens are here. They’re healing the planet. They’ve got to be stopped.

Her Scales Shine Like Music by Rajnar Vajra is a moving science fiction novelette about an encounter and budding relationship between two aliens, one human, who are the only living creatures occ…

“The Art of Space Travel” by Nina Allan is a science fiction novelette. In 2047, a first manned mission to Mars ended in tragedy. Thirty years later, a second expedition is preparing to…

“Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was” by Paul McAuley is a complex sf story about politics and xenophobia when human colonists on an Earth-like planet are face…

“Once More Into The Abyss” by Dennis Danvers is the last of three novelettes about Stan, whose parents claimed to be aliens and either perished or went home via an abyss in the middle o…

In the hollowed-out skull of the sixteenth President of the United States, a miserable time traveler builds a modest studio apartment and isolates himself from his own time, his own space, his own …

A brilliant young physicist, alone on a Pacific atoll during World War II, begins to chronicle the laws of motion that govern her dreams.

Hannah and Melanie: sisters, apart and together. Weather workers. Time benders. When two people so determined have opposing desires, it’s hard to say who will win—or even what victory might l…

There’s a Thing in Lake Michigan and it’s after Beth’s roommate. Beth wants someone else to take care of it. But when no one steps up, not even the mysterious Paul, who does this …

“Waters of Versailles” by Kelly Robson is a charming novella of court intrigue in 1738 Versailles as a clever former soldier makes his fortune by introducing a modern water system (and …

A fantasy novella about a disenchanted young Pakistani professor who grew up and lives in the United States, but is haunted by the magical, mystical tales his grandfather told him of a princess and…

We thought we’d seen everything when John Scalzi’s Tor.com “excerpt” from The Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City was nominated for a Hugo Award, but th…

Welcome back to The Pop Quiz at the End of the Universe, a recurring series here on Tor.com featuring some of our favorite science fiction and fantasy authors, artists, and others! Today we’re join…

For over a year, Tor.com has brought you excellent short fiction on our site, but now we’re making the audio of these stories available to you in podcast form. We’ll be bringing you bot…

Which is harder: seeing your own future – or truly knowing your past? Enjoy this year’s Tor.com holiday story “The Ghosts of Christmas,” a new original story by Paul Cornell…

Swift, Brutal Retaliation: An original Tor.com story by Meghan McCarron

today on #diversestories #2: Super Bass by Kai Ashante Wilson on @tordotcom May 2013 - http://t.co/JIGI6qOHac

On International Women’s Day, several of the best writers in SF/F today reveal new stories inspired by the phrase “Nevertheless, she persisted”, raising their voice in response to…

On International Women’s Day, several of the best writers in SF/F today reveal new stories inspired by the phrase “Nevertheless, she persisted”, raising their voice in response to…

A stranger claiming knowledge of realms beyond the known world attempts to stop a war.

On International Women’s Day, several of the best writers in SF/F today reveal new stories inspired by the phrase “Nevertheless, she persisted”, raising their voice in response to…