Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: The Long Haul From the ANNALS OF TRANSPORTATION, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009 by Ken Liu

The tiny cottage at the edge of Sanli Village—away from the villagers’ noisy houses and busy clan shrines and next to the cool pond filled with lily pads, pink lotus flowers, and playful carp—would have made an ideal romantic summer hideaway for some dissolute poet and his silk-robed mistress from nearby bustling Yangzhou.

There is no definitive census of all the intelligent species in the universe. Not only are there perennial arguments about what qualifies as intelligence, but each moment and everywhere, civilizations rise and fall, much as the stars are born and die. Time devours all.

The world is shaped like the kanji for umbrella, only written so poorly, like my handwriting, that all the parts are out of proportion.

Officially, the five exiles on the station were the Initiates of the Fermata. Unofficially, the Concert of Worlds called them the swanwatch.

I have been ordered to write an honest accounting of how I became a Midwestern Jesus and the subsequent disastrous events thereby accruing, events for which I am, I am willing to admit, at least partly to blame. I know of no simpler way than to simply begin.

Lloyds was not willing to insure a phoenix egg, not even of the most impeccable pedigree. Hence the inspection of the purchase became a great deal more important.

Languages simply differ from one another, in ways both great and small. If you're a linguist, it's part of what attracts you to the field. And if you're not...it can be confusing.

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees by E. Lily Yu

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: Assassins by Jack Skillingstead and Burt Courtier

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: Prosthetic Daughter by Nin Harris

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: Meshed by Rich Larson

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer

Madeleine remembers being a different person. It strikes her when she’s driving, threading her way through farmland, homesteads, facing down the mountains around which the road winds. She remembers being thrilled at the thought of travel, of the self she would discover over the hills and far away. She remembers laughing with friends, looking forward to things, to a future.

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: An Evolutionary Myth by Bo-young Kim

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: First Light at Mistaken Point by Kali Wallace

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: The Abduction of Europa by E. Catherine Tobler

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: Between Dragons and Their Wrath by An Owomoyela and Rachel Swirsky

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: Left Behind by Cat Rambo

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: Communion by Mary Anne Mohanraj

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: Breathe by Cassandra Khaw

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: Jonas and the Fox by Rich Larson

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: Things With Beards by Sam J. Miller

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: Touring with the Alien by Carolyn Ives Gilman

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: Urchins, While Swimming by Catherynne M. Valente

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew by Catherynne M. Valente

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica by Catherynne M. Valente

Subscribe to Clarkesworld and never miss an issue of our World Fantasy and Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. This page: Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time by Catherynne M. Valente