It’s the same old story. Take a chance and pick up a hitchhiker. But only after midnight and only when you need some company. Of course, the hitchhiker will disappear. That’s the way the story goes, right? But this time you are the hitchhiker. And t… You Know How the Story Goes | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2CA08O2

A mother. A son. A virtual world they both share where each could live forever and achieve their fullest potential. Until one of them decides that isn’t enough for life. via Pocket The Need for Air | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2tHgcv2

Two women who have been friends since they were children—one a recovering alcoholic brought up by parents who believe they’re alien abductees, the other an orphan with an eating disorder—contend with a secret that might doom their friendship. So her… Recoveries | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2MHzBVq

Enjoy this reprint from Joan Aiken’s short story collection The Monkey’s Wedding: and Other Stories  from Small Beer Press. Francis Nastrowski was a young Polish officer. He had once been rich, but was so no longer. Some of the habits of his bygone … Reading in Bed | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2L3esmh

A futuristic murder mystery about detective partners—a human and an enhanced chimpanzee—who are investigating why a woman murdered an apparently random stranger on the subway. “Doesn’t look like a killer, does she,” Huxley remarks. Cu shrugs a hairy… Meat And Salt And Sparks | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2szUw3Z

Here is the whisper in the night, the creak upstairs, that half-remembered ghost story that won’t let you sleep, the sound that raises gooseflesh, the wish you’d checked the lock on the door before it got really, really dark. via Pocket

In a dark future America where consumerism and gun culture are unchecked, a young family teams up to celebrate the first shopping day of the Christmas season in the most patriotic way possible. via Pocket

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

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

The mission: to survey the galaxy and beyond. An endless stream of probes and starships heading out into the universe, surveying, cataloguing, assaying. Forever. And on board those ships, the intrepid explorers who give it all meaning. We are a way … Grace’s Family | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2rIVDhG

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

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

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

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io The New Prometheus | Tor.com via Instapaper http://bit.ly/2KrTwd6 The Arctic wastes stretched wide in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice which seemed to have no end. At their center, barely visible in the weak light provided by a sliver of sun at the horizon, was a rapidly moving sled. via Pocket

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io For over 25 years, the Wild Cards universe has been entertaining readers with stories of superpowered people in an alternate history. “Long is the Way” by Carrie Vaughn and Sage Walker sheds light on what people will do to escape the sins of their p… Long is the Way | Tor.com via Instapaper http://bit.ly/2VEs3ut

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io In  this standalone short story by N. K. Jemisin, author of The Fifth Season, the winner of this year’s Hugo Award  for Best Novel, New York City is about to go through a few changes. via Pocket The City Born Great | Tor.com via Instapaper http://bit.ly/2wbjbOD

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io 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 forever isn’t the same as living a beautiful life. via… The Three Lives of Sonata James | Tor.com via Instapaper http://bit.ly/2x2XemM

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

As an orphaned sixteen-year-old, Lynette was haunted by the ghost of Mirror Boy, the drowned child who replaced her reflection. Ten years later, she’s built herself a new life, but all that is threatened when Mirror Boy returns, warning of danger. v… Circus Girl, The Hunter, and Mirror Boy | Tor.com via Instapaper http://bit.ly/2Wx5lBA via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io In war-torn Kurdistan, a group of traumatized orphans is given a gift that could change their lives and the lives of everyone in the world, while in Washington, DC, an elderly woman undergoes medical procedures that radically change her life. My bro… OneZero | Tor.com via Instapaper http://bit.ly/2UAInv4

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io The state took Aphra away from Innsmouth. They took her history, her home, her family, her god. They tried to take the sea. Now, years later, when she is just beginning to rebuild a life, an agent of that government intrudes on her life again, with … The Litany of Earth | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2yotAZH

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io  In the deepest canyon in the inhabited worlds, giant mantas soar through the air and leave patterned structures behind. A team of sapiologists seek to prove that these delicate filaments are true language, not just bee’s dance. But time has run out… The Deepest Rift | Tor.com via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2YCj2Qc