Stories

Glamour by Seabury Quinn Let us be honest about it, is not love something of a witchcraft? And has not each sex its own particular brand of witchery, so that man and woman may join hands in marriage and be contented with each other even though the o…

Frank Owen confides to us that he himself has never been in China, that his vision of China is a poetic dream of his own. via Pocket

Nelson Bond, who made his start in the regular pulp magazines, rapidly graduated from that class to star his fine fantasies in the pages of the better popular magazines. via Pocket

The test of existence is the ability of a species to adapt itself to a changing environment. The first law of existence would seem to be therefore the ability of each type of creature to combat the obstacles of nature successfully. Humanity is as su…

THEY WHO LIVED during that terrible time will never forget it—twenty-five years ago, when the lights went out. It was in 1956. via Pocket

Even when dealing with the perilously stereotyped modern interplanetary story, the devilish pen of Ray Bradbury achieves that originality of concept, that special spark of subtle pin-pricking that has made him outstanding. via Pocket

via Pocket

On Miss Hee’s first day as a trainee TEPO, Time Escape Prevention Officer, her teacher was a man. That was aju scary in itself. He seemed old, although looking back on it he was probably only middle-aged. He shooed her to a waiting set of chairs, in…

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

- Border Guards via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2vWqSrA

- Rogue Farm via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2OMzk3t

- Old Hundredth via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2MAKzi4

Subterranean Press Fiction The Support Technician Tango by Daniel Abraham via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2MBahTx

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…

Allpa received the magic sword from his grandmother, as she lay dying. “No, nor do you deserve it,” she snapped at him. She was a fierce old woman with a nose like a hawk’s beak and skin falling away in folds from her cheekbones. “You’re a farmer, n…

My father’s stables were the most important part of his holdings. By the time I had ten summers, I could soothe a panicked stallion and help birth a breech foal. via Pocket

Well, this would have been about three years ago now, just before my stepdaughter went into first grade. She was still in the process of getting used to me back then. There’s nothing quite like having a five-year-old girl think you’re the anti-Chris…

There weren’t many three-bedroom houses that a single woman could afford. 1532 Lachmont Drive was an exception. Built in the 1930s from masonry block, it sat in the middle of a line of houses that had once been very similar to it. via Pocket

Subterranean Press Balfour and Meriwether in The Vampire of Kabul by Daniel Abraham via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2OMynYW

The skimmer is on the roof waiting for him, but he cannot help but pause to take a few deep breaths when he first enters all that open space. via Pocket

With the thunderclap, I dropped my spoon. Sinigang soup bled into my jeans, spreading in darkness, like the shadow covering us all. Everyone looked up. From the spacecraft, a creature emerged. via Pocket

Chenguang hikes up her sleeves before vaulting over the pile of fuzzy moss and greets Lukas with a nod. The chloropolyurethane fabric flaps in the slight breeze and the double suns beat down onto her arms. via Pocket

“And until then?” Wolf asks, sitting patiently among the roots of the forest while dwarves forge unbreakable chains. Wolf does not want their limbs bound or their jaws muzzled, but Prophecy has told them this is also their purpose. “What do I do?” v…

They come to study. Not me. Not really. No, they come for Aerik—what he’s become. What I suppose we both will become when the slow swell of time and gravity finally draw us together wholly. via Pocket

Erinia was at the table to win, more than anything else. The need for it filled her bones, burned through her lungs, steadied her will. She wanted it more than earning the Empresses’ favor, more than testing her mettle, more than the pleasure of def…

After the terrible push to be free of the Earth was past, we could stand again. In a while, the engineers had said, everything would float, but for now we were still accelerating. via Pocket

It was supposed to stop after that summer. My mom told me it would, and when she told my dad about it—him just home from third shift, his whiskers all grown back in already, eyes hungry for something none of us ever had for him—he just licked his li…

We roll into town on a bright sunny morning, steering the Caddy around the half-dozen streets that make up “downtown.” Three of us in the back dozing and the other two up front with our arms hanging out the windows, letting our fingers ride on the f…

No one will sleep until the Princess learns the Stranger’s name. Liù the slave girl, who has loved the Stranger since before his exile, when he was a Prince, when he smiled at her—Liù alone knows who he really is. via Pocket

It’d been a warm, sunny spring afternoon. The grass in the cemetery was green, the roses and lavender in the wreaths fragrant. Iqbal’s funeral had been a quiet affair, all things considered. Our circle was getting too old for the type of soap opera …