Fictional Worlds

Author: David Barber The man in the window seat on the late train from London is Charles Biggins. This is before he became a hero. He’d been to see As You Like It and was enjoying having the carriage quietly to himself when a man settled into the seat opposite. “Mr Charles Biggins?” Charles’ gaze […]

Author: Antonio DIsi Yesterday, I turned forty, without even realizing it. My life has become an endless sequence of days and nights, of bicycle deliveries, all dictated by an unrelenting app. Every morning, I wake up not knowing what the day holds. The only clue is my smartphone, incessantly vibrating, announcing new orders to deliver. […]

Author: Mikki Aronoff Our vinyl patches proclaim our purpose. ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MINERAL WE WATCH THEM ALL DECIDE WHO PASSES We are birthed to serve, groomed to wait and watch, to scrutinize and assess. We follow guidelines. Detractors regard us as arbitrary, but if we were not here to filter, what would this world be? We […]

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.

Tor.com is honored to reprint “Amicae Aeternum” by Ellen Klages, as featured in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 9—publishing May 12th from Solaris. Distant worlds, time travel, epic adventure, unseen wonders, and much more! The best, most original and brightest science fiction and fantasy stories from around the globe from Read More »

1926 Washington, D.C. Shaw District   “There’s a man on the front stoop.” The words spilled from her in a much more mundane way than Judy had expected, considering how her neck was fluttering with her excited pulse. Alvin looked up from the new Langston Hughes poetry collection he was reading under the lamp in […]

In a new Little Brother story, when schools make war on their own students, something has to give . . .

In a new Little Brother novella, there is no security in obscurity. But there can be redemption in mutual aid.

Window Boy by Thomas Ha

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.

Imagine: Purple-Haired Girl Shooting Down the Moon by Angela Liu

Better Living Through Algorithms by Naomi Kritzer

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...

When Hurston Hill is threatened by a suspiciously powerful urban development firm, Miss l'Abielle steps up to protect her community with the help of a mysterious orphaned girl in this charming follow-up to “St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid,” featured on LeVar Burton Reads.

Ada's holiday trip to meet her girlfriend's family becomes a bit more fraught than usual when she discovers the family’s unusual Christmas Eve tradition...

Phosphorescence by Ben Berman Ghan

Nine Beauties and the Entangled Threads by D.A. Xiaolin Spires

Rugg was ready to turn back and try to make Ganvill when a bright dot of light appeared through the churning murk of the storm: a campfire. Never trust a light too bright in a dark hole, the speaking goes, but then he smelled roasting meat. And then he heard the flute. A sweet, sad little song, a flutter of music. Bone flutes had a tone distinct from those carved of wood or reed; lonelier, somehow. A sweet breath of music sighing out to the wild.

History was being made. It was being made in the cold and lively city of Glasgow: dug out of archives, translated from handwriting, combed out of the cloud of digitised court records. It was being hammered out in study-bedrooms with Freecycled task chairs. It was refined in pubs whenever Ali Wishaw bought a friend a […]

The dose hits, blindsiding me with a gentle, warm light, and at once each of my trembled breaths is filled with a sweet taste like water ice. I will float over every ache and smooth over every edge until I indulge in the deliberate, ponderous, redshifted joy of living. And indulge it is. Even though […]

I To learn the craft of witches, one must cultivate the pillars of magical living: curiosity, attentiveness, and perseverance. Those who are curious desire to understand the mysteries of the world; those who are attentive observe and apply their focus to achieving that understanding; those who persevere embrace the challenges inherent in the unending pursuit […]

The thirty-third annual convention for the Lefthand Metro Worm Cosplayers Club was, not surprisingly, ruined by drama. Helk, the convention committee chair, was a micromanager, which meant that they weren’t allowing anyone else to do anything. And that meant nothing got done. Including arrangements with the venue they’d been working with for the past twenty […]

The country was at just over ten thousand deaths the morning that the door appeared. On Kosmo’s phone NPR was interviewing a doctor with a nasal voice about the need for social distancing, while Kosmo himself collected empty cans from around his home office. They were everywhere. Walls of recyclable cans dominated his room. Just […]

Thuận Lộc stared at the cup.  It was dark, and mottled with the characteristic patterning of silver-eye fungus. The tea inside was trembling—the faint vibrations from the Mausoleum, the dead ships’ atrophied motors that would never again allow them to hang, weightless, among the stars. Even now—even standing far away from it in that small […]

“Ambition!” Trevor emphasized, rapping knuckles hard on the wood table. “That is what makes the great men!” He took a satisfied swallow from his mug. Across from him, Barnaby put down the daily he’d been reading and sipped from his own beer. Pulling out a handkerchief to dab froth from his lips, he scratched thoughtfully […]