A young academic has been granted permission to travel to a mining outpost on a small planetoid far from the sun to study the culture of a small squatter population that lives in total darkness.
A comatose patient undergoes an experimental procedure that uses favorite childhood stories to pull the patient back into consciousness—but the experiment doesn't go quite as planned...
A new Lady Astronaut story! Dawn struggles to fit in with the rest of her team--the backup crew for the next lunar mission--but she and her colleagues may have more in common than anyone realizes...
The survivor of an apocalypse event in an alternate universe tries to rebuild and avoid being dragged back into the past when a visitor crosses the in-between and asks for help.
You Don’t Belong Where You Don’t Belong - Reactor
With her friends vanishing and her home planet of Ayeshij crushed under the weight of occupation, gemologist-turned-con artist Mitayre’s planning a very special retirement--the kind with telepathic birds, sharp teeth, and gory retribution...
If I had only learned to drive, or better yet, refused to visit my parents in their apocalyptic bunker, we’d be happily at home, cuddled on the couch in front of the Criterion collection.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies - The Tale of the Scout and the Pachydormu by Gregory Norman Bossert
The Poet Laureate was fetched from his retirement in a lighthouse on the far shore of the Founder Mer to compose a song of eighty-six interlocked stanzas like steps on a stairway spiraling down into a cool dim quiet. But on the forty-seventh stanza of its recitation, the Governor squinted into the space over the Poet's shoulder and said, "listen, any deeper and we shall hear the words those beasts sing as they pass" and demanded that the previous stanzas be read in reverse; "back to the surface," he said.
The Mote in Bird’s Eye; or, Note Attached to a Frozen Corpse Retrieved from Deep Space - Lightspeed Magazine
Dear Aunt Harriet, If you’re reading this note it means you survived. That’s wonderful news: I always loved you the most. The notes I sent out with Aunt Anita and the cousins are friendly letters, I promise, us being kin and all, and I surely hope they survive too. But I’m happiest about you.
Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont - Fantasy Magazine
On the island of Manhattan, there’s a building out of time. I can’t tell you where it is, exactly. It has an address, of course, as all buildings do, but that wouldn’t mean anything to you. What I can tell you is that the building is called The Oakmont.
While learning the ropes from a crafty Jazz Age bank robber, a young stowaway discovers their authentic self, a hidden gift, and that there are no straight lines when you run the fox roads...
Three pieces of toast—dark on one side, light on the other. A cup of coffee. Rosh’s preference is Blend 14, with hints of Sub-Saharan Africa and caramel, delivered tepid with more milk than expresso.
Simon thought he left his fascination with the infamous “Sunshine Killer” and his cult, the “Sunshine Circle,” behind in childhood, but the past may be closer than he realized…