Author : Dakota Brown “We are born out of darkness,” she told herself begrudgingly. “Certainly it holds no true power.” Around her, the frightened masses had gathered (after, of course, a stretch of panicked footfalls and curses towards the heavens). They found each other in the confusion, linking arms and muttering their fears. The generators […]

Author : Rodger Parr If you have ever awoken in the morning to find yourself with the body of a human and the head of an insect then you must surely empathise if not at least sympathise with me. For it was with this strange dilemma that I awoke to one Sunday morning. At first […]

Author : Willis Weatherford The piercing rays of a fiery star filtered through thickly opaque clouds to light Gerder’s face with a rosy hue: his first dawn on NovaTerra. As he peered through the narrow hatch of Probe Alpha 7, allowing his eyes to adjust to the relative brightness, a few motes of dust floated […]

Author : Jenna Bilbrey A breeze rustled through the corn field, drying the sweat from the day’s planting. The sky twinkled brighter than the Fourth of July. A shooting star rocketed past. I wished for my girl to come back from the city. Another, brighter light flashed. Two in one night was a good omen. […]

Author : Sean Kavanagh The 3rd Planet-Formation Cadre sounded like an impressive title, but Dhan – like the others in his team – knew all it meant was that they were civil servants. Civil servants who got to fly about the galaxy seeding life on far flung barren planets, but all for mid-grade pay. For […]

Author : Britny Musson I was singing in my sleep again. “And then there was none, and then there was all.” My throat is dry but the words still manage to croak out. Something is different, today. My sleep is being compromised, my mood is shuddering under the weight of my transition. I try to […]

Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer He scanned the desolate horizon through ancient hollow eyes from beneath the brim of a very weathered top hat. All around him was the smoldering ruin that had once been the world of man. Endless heaps of scorched garbage and piles of twisted and rotting corpses were set against […]

Author : Denis Bell Morbid fear, for God’s sake. Driving home from the shrink, Hugh turned on the car radio in an attempt to blot out the thoughts churning in his head. The radio was tuned to WPB. It was Science Monday and they were discussing Hugh’s least favorite subject in the whole world, that […]

Author : Stivi Cooke They didn’t think about that… In all the plans, all the awesome designs, the mind blowing concepts, all the calculations, the deals, the engineering and finally the launch… they forgot that part… As humanity reached out to the planets and the asteroids, landed and started to colonize the Moon (china), Mars […]

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer One world. Seven hundred and ninety-two people. Less than a hundred berths on the ship out. It’s a recipe for bloody mayhem and that’s how they want it. Only the most committed make it to upship. We did basic training for five weeks before being shipped out here in […]

Author : Stefan Aeschbacher The ancient city had been buried for over five thousand years. The digbots were digging at this spot for two hours, fifteen minutes and thirty-five seconds. They were making good progress. So far they had found three plates and a container of unknown purpose. Due to the ideal conditions at this […]

Author : Andrew D. Murrell I awoke. I could still feel the remnants of foreign thoughts gently receding from my consciousness. Then I felt today’s check deposit into my account, twenty one thousand dollars. Minimum wage jobs just don’t pay like they used to do they? I waited to feel the disconnect signal and then […]

An Anklet Broken by Chaitanya Murali   There is a man I am meant to love. He is the son of a sea-merchant, wealthy and well-connected. A friend of Karikalan, the Chola King. And this man is my husband and a wastrel. A sin it is for me to say these words, think these thoughts, […]

The Greenhouse Bargain by Tanya Aydelott He sent my mother’s ghost to deliver the terms of the bargain. I accepted; there was no choice. When I asked what to expect, she said, Ten good years. The Whipstitch Man had visited me twice, once to take my sister and once to collect my mother. The second time, […]

Scales By M. Stevenson The boy stands at the edge of the forest, bare toes digging into the cold loam. Mist curls between the trees like the breath of a living thing. As if the woods are alive. Monsters live in this forest, so it’s said. Demons of scales and teeth and fur, creatures that […]

Biographical Notes to “A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-planes” by Benjamin Rosenbaum by Benjamin Rosenbaum It is true that I had not accepted Prem Ramasson’s offer of employment — indeed, that he had not seemed to find it necessary to actually ask. It is true also that I am a man of […]

La Vitesse By Kelly Robson   March 2, 1983, 30 kilometers southwest of Hinton, Alberta “Rosie,” Bea said under her breath, but the old school bus’s wheels were rumbling over gravel, and her daughter didn’t hear. Rosie was slumped in the shotgun seat, eyes closed. She hadn’t moved since Bea had herded her onto La […]

Of the Body By Eugenia Triantafyllou     When Osarah and I finally lie sweaty in our bed that night, I know that when the three moons align we will have a baby. Osarah looks back at me. Smiling. The wetness of her face is lined by the cold light of the moon shining outside […]

The Girl Who Never Was Harold R. Thompson   I met Kate Krimple at a downtown coffee shop. Kate’s new children’s book was called Tayo and the Wolves, about a dog who claims to have lived with wolves for a week. I was to provide the cover and interior illustrations. This was the first time […]

As part of our 15th anniversary celebrations, we want to gather recommendations from you, our listeners, for favourite stories from our archive. We’ll read selected recommendations out at the end of our shows through the end of 2023; you just need to complete this short form, anonymously if you prefer, and we’ll take it into […]

The evolution of trickster stories among the dogs of North Park after the Change by Kij Johnson (It’s a universal fantasy, isn’t it?—that the animals learn to speak, and at last we learn what they’re thinking, our cats and dogs and horses: a new era in cross-species understanding. But nothing ever works out quite as […]

The Captive River By C.T. Muchemwa   It was Siba’s eighteenth birthday, but instead of having a party to celebrate, she was standing by the Zambezi River in a thin, white, cotton slip, shivering despite the hot October sun. It was Commitment Day, the day she would be given to Nyami Nyami, the River God, […]

Black Feather by K. Tempest Bradford Exactly one year before she saw the raven, Brenna began to dream of flying.  Sometimes she was in a plane, sometimes she was in a bird, sometimes she was just herself–surrounded by sky, clouds, and too-thin-to-breathe air.  In the dark, in the light, over cities and oceans and fields, she flew.  Every night […]

A Thousand Echoes in One Voice by Deborah L. Davitt   You’ve snuck through doors that should have been locked to get here. Here, the subway station is silent, the kind of silence that comes deep underground, isolated from the hum of the human hive overhead. No electric lights. No neon. No vibrations. No voices. […]

Never Yawn Under a Banyan Tree By Nibedita Sen The moment I swallowed the pret, I knew I should have taken my grandmother’s advice. Never yawn under a banyan tree, she used to warn me. A ghost might jump down your throat. Well touché, grandma. I’m sure you’re shaking your head at me in heaven, but consider this: Was […]

A Girl Is Blood, Spirit, and Fire by Somto Ihezue   Scattering through the bushes, blades of elephant grass swaying high above her, Njika could see the Sanctuary etched into the mountainside — she only had to reach it. Across the shifting streams and the trees once men, she made it to the mountain’s foot, […]

The Morthouse by Maria Haskins   In her forty-two years on God’s wide Earth, Gerda has read no books other than The Bible and Luther’s Small Catechism, but once, after Sunday service, she heard the sexton say that there are places where the dead traverse a river after death, paying a boatsman to ferry them across the water. Gerda […]

Yung Lich and the Dance of Death By Alex Fox   My Christian name was Thomas Kanfor but ever since that bastard wizard rose me from the grave I go by Yung Lich. On that moonless night he spoke some words from a tattered grimoire over my naked, somewhat-recently-dead corpse and voila, here I am. […]

Mama uat-ur By Z. K. Abraham   Pressing her forearms against the first-floor window’s metal frame, Temesghen watched aegean-blue waves splash against the concrete walls, searching for another flash of the being’s presence in the sea below. The stars were partially shrouded by the clouds; the sky was a milky greenish swirl like rotting leaves and […]