Sci-Fi

Clarkesworld Magazine - Science Fiction & Fantasy

Clarkesworld Magazine - Science Fiction & Fantasy

Rupert Weard leapt into the drawing room, escaping a hallway dense with impossibly angled, tentacular horrors trying to sell him insurance. “Ye gods, it’s bedlam out there,” he said.

Author: Janaya Young In space, hyper lanes operate like traffic lanes but with one important difference: you aren’t entirely in one place or another while traveling through them. Most people can’t tell. Maybe you feel a slight shudder of the ship, or for a moment you look down and your hand is not where you […]

Author: Andrew N. McCue I was 15 when I left home. Replacing schoolbooks from my pack with clothes and food, I steal my mother’s favorite can opener, some flatware and a small stash of cash. I walk mostly or hitch. Standing on the side of a road I read stapled, tacked and nailed sheets of […]

Author: David Barber “This is a rare photograph of Christ, taken before time tourism was banned,” said the Director of the Temporal Institute. The Senator stopped to examine it, and his entourage jostled and bumped awkwardly behind him. A picture-lined corridor led to the gallery overlooking the wormhole, and though each picture was an actual […]

Author: Majoki “I’m trying to tell you, Clem, I’m a Dusty Oyster. Just like you and Billy Lee, Davy, Sherm and Stevie. It’s me, Fizzy. You remember, don’t ya?” Clement Ellis stared unbelieving from his wheelchair at the young man jabbering at him. “Dusty Oyster? You? Nonsense. I’m old, but I haven’t lost all my […]

Author: James Flanagan Lying on the gurney, I slowly succumbed to the anesthetics. The last thing I recalled was a bright light and a frantic “Oh, shit.” *** I opened heavy eyelids and blinked. “He’s back.” My wife’s voice, distant, unsure. “Dad?” Andy, my son. They each held one of my hands. Restricted, restrained. I […]

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The scream of fighters passing overhead fades. Silence resumes. The three sat at the undamaged end of the table return their gazes to rest on the woman sitting at the other end. Minutes pass. Finally, the middle one of the trio speaks. “I’m not sure ‘you’re late’ adequately covers this.” […]

Author: Steve Kemple For one thing, they don’t prepare you for continental drift. How could they? We aren’t equipped to think on a geological time scale. You live eighty, ninety years and the tectonic plates move what. Thirty feet? Try this on for size: “I remember the Himalayas.” Not “I remember when the Himalayas were […]

Author: Alastair Millar Heeeeeeey starfolks, it’s me, the Galaxian Gourmet, back to bring you the lowdown on another extraterrestrial eatery! This week, we’re on Marchioness Prime, checking out the famous Black Hole Brasserie, this is an episode you DON’T want to miss! Before we get into that, don’t forget to check out our sponsors, who […]

Jaxon was not a connoisseur of art, but he could identify a work’s salient features. And the salient features of these particular works were that they were valuable, lacking any obvious security…

Author: E.L. Rose There are certain affordances that come with knowing your death can never be permanent. With every new reincarnation, you become a little wiser. The slate never gets wiped completely clean; you’re like a palimpsest of every life you’ve lived before, an old soul being rewritten indefinitely until every fragment of the past […]

Author: Soramimi Hanarejima After breakfast, I put on my smartglasses and launch Unfray. Even though lunch with her is still hours away, I need to get ready, need to gird my psyche. When the app opens, I’m met with an announcement that it’s going the subscription service route. Like so many of its ilk. While […]

Author: Chris Bullard Damn, now I’ve forgotten what I was saying, but it’ll come to me, eventually. Well, when you get to be my age, I suppose you have to expect the occasional “senior moment.” I thank God that my mind can still operate at a reasonable level of efficiency after eight decades of neurological […]

“Hey Marty,” Mom asks, “got a moment?” I cringe whenever Mom’s voice has that tone to it. I don’t know what she’s going to say; but if I’ve learned anything in my thirteen years on this desolate…

Author: James Flanagan Iain opened the car door for his father, Tom, inviting him to exit. “Three decades I worked for those uncouth S.O.B.s,” Tom muttered. “I raised you kids…of all the betrayals…” “I’ve heard great things about this retirement home,” Iain said, pleading with his father to step out of the car. “It’s affordable…” […]

Author: Kelian Quinn It certainly was some kind of plant. Maybe. I’d gone out to water the small garden my apartment complex had allowed me to have, hoping that I would find something other than dandelions this morning. Even if I didn’t, any moment away from my roommate was a moment I cherished. It sat […]

Author: Meg Carey I’m reaching around in the dark, touching up and down your soft, slimy body as you heave long sighs beside me. You’ve been asleep for a few days now, and I don’t know how long this is supposed to go on for. I press my face into your crocodile skin, I let […]

Trixie got out of her cherry-red godmobile and waved away the flitting cherubim waiting to bear her to her sedan chair. She wasn’t in the mood for a reverent chorus of hosannas, and the sedan chair…

Author: Lora Kilpatrick When you wake up, they tell you not to look in the mirror. You feel cocky like always, so you float over to the bathroom when they release you. You expect to see the person you were before you died. It comes as a shock to realize you’re just a floating board […]

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The sirens start to wail behind us. I hate this bit. “Time to do one!” Adey swings his backpack onto his shoulders as he starts running, dodging the spotlight of a hunting drones as he goes. Must be nice, being that fit. “Auntie Jin?” I look down at Little Em. […]

Author: Hillary Lyon “Hey, citizen!” A voice rasped from the shadowed alleyway. Bhodi glanced at the man but kept walking. “I said, hail citizen!” Bhodi stopped to look in the man’s direction. “Yeah, you,” the man rasped, waving Bhodi over. He approached the old man, assuming he wanted to sell him a contraband gadget. Grinning, […]

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer “Have you decided, Jared?” Eagle. The disk spins high into the air in the low gravity, polished metal reflecting the light from the fires about him. Jared smiles. If he had the acuity of vision, he could probably distinguish the reflections from the spotlights of the waiting army. Watching from […]

Author: Majoki I fancy myself quite a reader. I mean, I read everything. Everything. Even “Know your 8-inch Howitzer” published in 1984 by the Department of the Army, Headquarters, US Army Armament, Munitions and Chemical Command. I’m not particular. I wasn’t programmed to be. I’m a brute force. Scraping and scooping up every bit of […]

Author: Cliff McNish Eventually, once we’d screwed up everything in the ecosystem, Naomi and I were the final ones left – the last man and woman on Earth. Unfortunately, we didn’t get on. We felt some vague responsibility to repopulate the world, but kept avoiding sex. We did it politely, but even so. ‘Mm, what […]

Author: Timons Esaias This would be a nice planet, if not for all these places where the seabottom is sticking up out of the worldocean. It is most unseemly and immature. We are trying to be generous about it, trying to convince ourselves that this planet is too young, that the worldocean will tear down […]

A man using a social media app that reaches across dimensions to talk to himself in different timelines, discovers some of his problems are universal...and some are not...