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 …

The dragon-horse awakens in moonlight. Drops of cold dew drip onto his forehead, where they meander down the curve of his steel nose. via Pocket

Look at what we woke. We feed them lies and watch them burn for it. via Pocket

They never gave her a name; when she needs one she names and renames herself after the birds she sees from the watchtower, the birds she sees in the forest, whichever most recently caught her eye or arrow. via Pocket

The silent proctors walked beside Ukeme into the examination village, checked him for iron and palm leaves and concealed cloth-patterns, and brought him to a hut. He stood at the threshold for a moment, looking down at the floor just inside. via Poc…

The mission: to survey the galaxy and beyond. An endless stream of probes and starships heading out into the universe, surveying, cataloguing, assaying. Forever. And on board those ships, the intrepid explorers who give it all meaning. We are a way …

When an AI that monitors casino gambling in Reno taunts a magician by revealing all his tricks, the magician is determined to exact his revenge. Best trick I ever saw? A lanky streak-of-piss Dutchman did it right in front of my eyes. A ring, a watch…

Can dreams come true? They can if you win the lottery, which promises to provide what your heart desires. For a humble shopkeeper in Yiwu, it’s a living, selling lottery tickets. Until a winning ticket opens up mysteries he’d never imagined. via Poc…

Stormchases’ little skiff skipped and glided across the tropopause, skimming the denser atmosphere of the warm cloud-sea beneath, running before a fierce wind. via Pocket

In a dark future America where consumerism and gun culture are unchecked, a young family teams up to celebrate the first shopping day of the Christmas season in the most patriotic way possible. via Pocket

This month, Small Beer Press releases The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories from the legendary Joan Aiken. We’re delighted to bring you this double dose of strange magic: the title story from the collection, and Kelly Link’s introductio…

In a writing career spanning six decades, Joan Aiken wrote stories of wolves, naughty pet ravens, pirates, necklaces made of raindrops, and much more. This Christmas, we publish a collection of her favourite stories, including The Gift Giving, which…

Her name was Daisy and she was a smasher, the crispest colleen in Killyclancy. via Pocket

Here is the whisper in the night, the creak upstairs, that half-remembered ghost story that won’t let you sleep, the sound that raises gooseflesh, the wish you’d checked the lock on the door before it got really, really dark. via Pocket