When an AI that monitors casino gambling in Reno taunts a magician by revealing all his tricks, the magician is determined to exact his revenge. Best trick I ever saw? A lanky streak-of-piss Dutchman did it right in front of my eyes. A ring, a watch… The Guile | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2IBC3hI

Can dreams come true? They can if you win the lottery, which promises to provide what your heart desires. For a humble shopkeeper in Yiwu, it’s a living, selling lottery tickets. Until a winning ticket opens up mysteries he’d never imagined. via Poc… Yiwu | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2IBq5oa

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Erinia was at the table to win, more than anything else. The need for it filled her bones, burned through her lungs, steadied her will. She wanted it more than earning the Empresses’ favor, more than testing her mettle, more than the pleasure of def… Beneath Ceaseless Skies - The Ghostpotion Games by Christian K. Martinez via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2OReUXp

The sun beat down like a hammer. Stoneseeker scoured the base of the cliff, looking for rock samples to take back to the elders. It was his first solo exploration, and his brief was simple: find more flint. The chief had relieved him of hunting duti…

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I die a little | Nature via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2OJOiHE Parting is such sweet sorrow. I trudge back to the plass bubble separating us from the rest of the planet after weeding my row of beans. They're just-in-case beans, if we're stuck here for another six months. I take my place at the outer point of th…

Looking back at the century that's just ended, it's obvious that Australian writer Greg Egan was one of the Big New Names to emerge in SF in the nineties and is probably one of the most significant talents to enter the field in the last several deca…

Brian W. Aldiss The far future seems to hold a special fascination and allure for Brian W. Aldiss, and in a field where such stories are relatively rare, he has almost made a specialty out of writing about it. via Pocket

Rogue Farm Back | Next Contents Rogue Farm Charles Strass Although he made his first sale back in 1987, it's only recently that British writer Charles Stross has begun to make a name for himself as a Writer to Watch in the new century ahead (in fact…

Manhattan smells like rain. The last drops fall from the sky or else the rooftops, drifting down through the high air. With every step, her dress shoes throw out splashes from the thin, oily puddles. It’s ruining the leather, and she doesn’t care. v… When We Were Heroes | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2OITgEz

The leader of House Hawthorn’s Court of Birth lived in a part of the House that Samariel had never been to: a wing of dusty, disused corridors where the wainscoting had rotted away and the wallpaper’s elegant asphodels were obscured by elongated smu… Beneath Ceaseless Skies | Court of Birth, Court of Strength by Aliette de Bodard via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2y0Btme

Yes, I went walking with him near the Deaf King Inn. There are some in Quadril who will call that my first mistake. via Pocket

The folk of the Infinite Forum swore in nine languages and ninety dialects as a cat’s black shape darted up Via Antiqua’s hot white stones. They hissed again as they spied the magic-twisted bloodhound bounding after it like a carnelian thundercloud.… Beneath Ceaseless Skies | Shadowdrop by Chris Willrich via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2PebcYm

The rot hound struck in the dark hours of the morning. It took one of our horses and left a geld woman bloodied and wild, telling tales of a two-headed wolf with eyes like the last embers of a fire. I had known this would come. Not the wolf but some…

After marrying the prince and having her own child, Snow White visits her stepmother—promising to kill her in ever more horrible ways, at the same time attempting to stay away from the mirror that started it all. I shall drown you in the river where… Triquetra | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2M0P8Of

Years after their friendship had ended, Ser Maerwynn heard tales of the evil Queen Loreen: her curse of silence on the centaurs; her demand that each stone used to build the townspeople’s homes be paid for in daily drops of blood; and finally, the m… Beneath Ceaseless Skies | The Crow Knight by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2R1y7Xr

“—and she said, well, that’s as may be, lad, but if you don’t recall what color it was, then I don’t see how I can help you!” Roars of laughter seemed to shake the hot taproom. via Pocket Beneath Ceaseless Skies | The Tragedy of Zayred the Splendid by Grace Seybold via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2Ahrmed

A provocative story about the relationship between the humans on a British airbase and the AI security system that guards that base. When a group of humans are killed, the question is who is responsible and why. via Pocket AI and the Trolley Problem | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2RW4lo8