Esteemed neighbors, emissaries, ambassadors, and dignitaries, I write to you today not only as a statesman but as a scientist. We in the city of Omelas have been exceedingly lucky in recent years. The wars, diseases, and financial instability that have rocked the world have so far passed us by. Partly that’s been due to prudent precautions and smart public investments, but it’s also true that our fine city benefits in unique ways from ancient, dearly-held customs.

Sappel whistled as he walked to the construction site, the sound echoing off nearby buildings in a muffled way. It was early spring, and the city was bursting with the vibrant green of new growth.

Author: Timothy Wilkie Swathed in star shine and hidden behind the sun was our destination. I couldn’t wait to be buried in the bosom of old mother earth where the worms and insects thrived on bacteria not chemicals. A long time ago I threw away my mother for life among the stars. I had forgotten […]

Author: David Barber Across the gulfs of space, intellects bold and curious observe our world and hasten their plans against us… Buried deep in our cold, slow cities, age after age passed unregarded and we cared nothing for the world above until fiery scouts began falling from the skies. The Elders would have ignored this […]

continued from Part 3) MICHAËLLE-ANNABELLE FEAT. JEAN-MICHEL I strap into my rig, take a really big swig from my hydration dispenser tube I call The Ultra Black Vig, and settle back to begin this…

Continued from Part 1) JEAN-MICHEL FEAT. KINSLEY CHASE Lòske jounalis sa yo gade m— Hold up. Let me say that again. I’ll wait. Y’all go grab y’alls paper an’ pen. When these Stater journos look at…

INTRO: ALL I’M EVER GON’ DO IS STAY BLACK AND DIE JEAN-MICHEL FEAT. KINSLEY CHASE Kinsley Chase sits on manman mwen plastic-covered couch. The InTell HumbleBrag subprogram Stanford Sutton Industries…

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...

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...

Strange. Beautiful. Shocking. Surreal. Publishers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror books.

During one of the much smaller disasters that preceded the really big disaster, I met a lot of my neighbors online. I can’t remember if we set up the WhatsApp group because of the pandemic or the civil disorder or both. My Minneapolis block had always been reasonably friendly—people would take their kids around on […]

Author: Mark Renney The moment is almost here. At last, after all the speculation and rumour, the grand reveal. A cage has been wheeled onto the stage, sitting at its centre, covered by a white sheet, pristine and perfect. Everyone is certain that, when the cover is pulled away, it will be intricate and ornate […]

Author: Beck Dacus Each time the floor shuddered, all our chains rang like windchimes. The shackles around my ankles were linked to the wrists of the “inmate” behind me, on and on in a long line of us marching forward. As I stumbled I pulled on that man’s wrists, nearly bringing him down as well. […]

Author: Don Nigroni Yesterday on Christmas Day, I was at my filthy rich, albeit eccentric, uncle’s house. And that’s when and where everything went awry. After dinner, he took me aside to his library to enjoy a cigar and a tawny port. “We know our current materialistic paradigm is pure garbage, yet we still cling […]

Author: Aubrey Williams The cheap hotel room was draughty, the shadows ink in the recesses. Each sheet of green William Morris wallpaper was peeling in at least three places. For all the dinginess, though, it was a room, and I needed one. By a feeble light I’d tried to work, but the sound of the […]

Alessia frowned at the central circuit board of the Astral Dancer. Paw prints. Again. She heaved an exasperated sigh. “Mr Tumnus, I have told you a thousand times, you can’t go into the engine. I don’…

You are a baseball fan, sitting in the centerfield seats eating an overpriced hot dog. You are wearing a baseball cap, but not a batting helmet, of course. (Why would that be an issue? Hmm…

Teacher is an old-fashioned bug with a blue carapace and eyes like two domes of gold beads. She is very pretty and smells like follow, but when she flutters her wings you better look smart or you’ll…

Author: Majoki When the founders of Providence made planetfall, they had but one credo to establish their new civilization on the uninhabited world: Blind ignorance is unfortunate. Willful ignorance is shameful. Manufactured ignorance is unforgivable. Two hundred forty-one local years later, when the invading conquerors of Providence divvied up the planet, they wondered why the […]

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. […]

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.

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.

The seven siblings sit in a place beyond the boundaries of space and time, where everything is made of stories. Even them. Especially them. People are made of stories too, but only the versions of their stories that they tell themselves. Curated, limited, incomplete. Many of the stories people tell themselves are lies layered on partially-perceived things to give their lives structure and meaning. The siblings that sit beyond sit true, for they are made of all the stories that were, that are, that are to come.

Continued from Part 1) Kite was still curled into a bundle of blankets in front of the stove when Setti woke. The old woman sniffed, torn between surprise and annoyance. She’d have figured him for a…

Setti knew the woman for a ghost the moment she appeared. It was the pink hair that gave her away, short and spiky. Real people didn’t have hair like that. Also, you couldn’t see the scratchmarks on…

Planet Lion by Catherynne M. Valente in Uncanny: A Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy Issue Four.

The difficulties of transporting wine over interstellar distances are manifold. Wine is, after all, like a child. It can bruise. It can suffer trauma—sometimes the poor creature can recover; sometimes it must be locked up in a cellar until it learns to behave itself. Sometimes it is irredeemable. I ask that you greet the seven glasses before you tonight not as simple fermented grapes, but as the living creatures they are, well-brought up, indulged but not coddled, punished when necessary, shyly seeking your approval with clasped hands and slicked hair.

“Valley. Can you still hear me?” Julian’s voice filtered through her dying radio. The Prince of Cats was a speck of light, dimming through the gold-grey film that, atom by atom…