Art’s funeral is full of crying girls. Law thinks this should tip some of them off, but there it is. Crying girls everywhere. White flowers in their hair. Black dresses and the scent of clean underwear and Ivory soap. There’s a ghostly snake wrapped…

Edna Selwyn’s old house still hadn’t sold. It had been eight months since she died, and the house had been on the market for six. It’s true that the place was in bad shape, and Edna’s daughter had been too cheap (or too deep in mourning) to have it…

This could have been the opening to a spy thriller or a rollicking cyberpunk novel, full of chase scenes and neon lights. It certainly felt cyberpunk, being hustled back through the airport to a waiting taxi, surrounded by over-enthusiastic grifters…

An earlier version of this story, with a different title, was shortlisted in the Atlantis Short Story Contest (2013). So many solid bodies, too solid; so many murky lives. My aching lonely journey has lasted centuries. At last, I feel, the end appro…

Once upon a time, on a little island off the coast of the Korean city of Busan, there lived an old hunter in a house at the bottom of a mountain. via Pocket

This work first appeared in Bewildering Stories, Issue 636 (September 2015). Alexander Pines stamped into Louie’s Bar and Grill, shaking unseasonable snow from his Timberland boots, and exchanged a few quiet words with the bartender. via Pocket

This work first appeared in Voluted Tales, #15 (August-September 2014). The night descended on the river stealthily, transforming water into a dark mass of waves and misery. via Pocket

Wanda knew better than the mesmerism that swept the spacestation. She had seen plenty of it in her long life. Wanda knew what close proximity did to one another, and their ideas. see them, wanda? they would all whisper look how they all float around…

This story was first published in Fantastic Stories of the Imagination (Nov/Dec 2016) and was shortlisted for the inaugural Nommo Award for best African SF short story. via Pocket

Pamela swallowed a cactus and grew spines. They shot up through her pores, inches long and thick and stiff. They lay flat with the hair on her head. Everywhere she had hair, she grew spines instead. She enjoyed it, that first day, feeling them push …

By the time you get this missive, the deed will be done. I think it is best this way—an old-fashioned letter and a fait accompli (that’s “an accomplished fact” for you, Raymond ? ). I know it may come as a shock to some of you. I know, Mom, you’re g…

Castle Jordan stands in a place that makes sense according to the logic of castles. It has a good view of a remote area, the better to spot siege-minded armies on the march. But castles do not fit the logic of the moon. Exposure and isolation aren’t…

But I don’t want new eyes, he thought. The surgery isn’t bad, as surgeries go. The one he had when he busted his knee ten years ago, as a teen, was much worse. Or maybe it was worse because of what it had meant: that he’d never go out on the ice aga…

Okay, this rogue robot recovery gig is getting old and I’m saying this as the tech geek of the team. So that should tell you something about our situation. via Pocket

Bella arrived late at the party, carrying a doll in a box in pink wrapping paper. She’d owned the doll when she was young, and she’d hoped Natalie would like that. Now, she wished she’d bought something. Her sister’s husband answered the door while …

Design a spaceship. Or a space station, if you prefer. Imagine an artificial planet, or a galaxy. But start with a spaceship. Start from nothing except the vacuum of space. via Pocket

Ninety-eight gazillion miles from anywhere I want to be and some teenage alley-captain and his squad manages to get the drop on me. That’ll teach me for daydreaming about places I’d rather be. Oh, great. He’s examining the rod. via Pocket

Author : CharlesHB I wasn’t your normal soldier, but then they weren’t looking for that kind of man. A young physically capable, malleable man, the kind that have been cannon fodder in all history’s wars, they were more interested in my psyche repor…

I did know, but that didn’t make it any easier. We’d been in a stalemate for three minutes; our pistols pointed at them and theirs at us. However, the advantage lay with them, as while the two damned space-pirates were clearly enjoying themselves, M…

Author : Jennifer C. Brown aka Laieanna Shimmering just before, the dome door melted away into nothing. The vibrations that came with the shield opening left Henrick feeling a little nauseous. Between the clear slats of the dome’s walls were colors …

Lunchtime sucked when your best friend was at home sick. Sure, I could hang out with those I labeled ‘school friends,’ but then I’d be the kid who didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the group. via Pocket

via Pocket

She was a young thing, plump and pale as milk, with watery eyes that barely qualified as blue. As ordinary-looking as it was possible for a child to be without turning invisible, Aelin thought. The girl nodded. Her shoulders were visibly trembling. …

Three young men were sitting a few seats away from me at the counter, sun-browned and neatly scrubbed in civvies. Newly assigned at the Coast Guard station out on the point. They weren’t difficult to spot. I could pick up a couple of the accents. vi…

When I was fifteen, my younger sister died. It happened very suddenly. She was twelve then, in her first year of junior high. via Pocket

Ruth knew there was a burn ban. The ban was until 6 p.m. and it was almost dark. She thought she could burn the trash. The fire had gotten away from her. She and Sam were using blankets to try to beat down the flames. The small volunteer fire depart…

PodCastle 538: Itself at the Heart of Things

“Colonel, we can’t hold the line. Radars don’t work. The bastards have taken our coasts and Rockies. If Kansas falls…” “Drop it, Major.” The aged Colonel McDaniel leaned over battle maps while dripping sweat in his dirt bunker, studying alien strate…