Frederico leaned close to smell the poison on his thirteenth wife’s cold, dead lips. It tickled his nose and he resisted the strong desire to kiss her that suddenly overcame him. That you might lose yourself from sadness by my lips, my husband and C…

This story is also available for download from major ebook retailers. I’m a TVA baby. My father was a Yankee, from Michigan I think, one of those educated engineers who came down here to dam up the rivers and bring electric lights and indoor plumbin…

This story is also available for download from major ebook retailers. John was born with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, and he often wondered why. But as a boy, it was simply wonderful to have those abilities. via Pocket

Please enjoy this reprint of Jenna Black’s story “Nine-Tenths of the Law” from Chicks Kick Butt, an anthology of short stories out June 7th from Tor Books. Nothing good ever comes from private citizens visiting my office. via Pocket

I FIND THE FIRST day of anything tough—first day of school, first day of camp, first day of the year. My tendency is to view the unknown future more with trepidation than joy. And now I could add to that list the first day of work. via Pocket

In a universe of harsh interstellar conflict, the practice of interspecies diplomacy—when possible—is important. So being a Colonial Union officer attached to an interplanetary diplomatic mission sometimes means taking a fall. Literally. Lieutenant …

Lawrence’s cubicle was just the right place to chew on a thorny logfile problem: decorated with the votive fetishes of his monastic order, a thousand calming, clarifying mandalas and saints devoted to helping him think clearly. via Pocket

Xareed had been waiting for the water truck for two days, seated in the dirt at the edge of the camp, his family’s plastic ten-liter water-jug tied to his ankle. He didn’t like being on the edge of the camp. Except for the piece of cardboard he carr…

Cthulhu, they call me. Great Cthulhu. Nobody can pronounce it right. via Pocket

We hope you enjoy this reprint, originally published in Unusual Suspects: Stories of Mystery and Fantasy, edited by Dana Stabenow, Ace Books, 2008. Sam Spade’s splayed body was a symphony in black and white on the hellfire-orange carpet of the Infer…

We hope you enjoy this reprint, originally published in The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance, ed. Trisha Telep, Running Press, 2008. I met my client at a seedy, unpleasant bar. via Pocket

In the year after Lorraine’s death I contemplated suicide six times. Contemplated it seriously, I mean: six times sat with the fat bottle of Clonazepam within reaching distance, six times failed to reach for it, betrayed by some instinct for life or…

This story is also available for download from major ebook retailers. My sword arm is mighty. via Pocket

This story is also available for download from major ebook retailers. Ten years after my parents died, my therabot, Bob, informed me that I should seek help elsewhere. I blinked at his suggestion. via Pocket

This story is also available for download from major ebook retailers. They pushed me out of the portal, dumped me into the sage and manzanita. The great orb’s pastel colors glowed against the clear night sky. via Pocket

This story is also available for download from major ebook retailers. Whatever else one might have said about the Apocalypse, it was thorough. via Pocket

This story is also available for download from major ebook retailers. Sam Gregory woke up one morning and found, to his dismay, that he had turned into a big cockroach. “Oh, no,” he thought. He had some idea of what was happening because of the Kafk…

This story is also available for download from major ebook retailers. Gretel was Gottlieb’s most troubling patient. She was clairvoyant. She was also, he feared, quite mad. via Pocket

This story is also available for download from major ebook retailers. Inspector Wilde was in a fine mood when he arrived at the headquarters of Salmagundi’s Legion of Peace, carrying three paper-wrapped sandwiches and an armload of printed broadshee…

This story is also available for download from major ebook retailers. Hurricanes did not perturb Horacio Gorrión, nor did rumors of an impending government assault on a barbarous drug cartel in the island’s interior rain forest. via Pocket

This story is also available for download from major ebook retailers. At a time now past, a cat was born. This was not so long after the first cats came to Japan, so they were rare and mostly lived near the capital city. via Pocket

Charlie is dealing with complicated grief, and even his therabot is out of ideas. But the back-alley grief counselors might have something to help: it looks like blue asparagus, and it’s call…

This story is also available for download from major ebook retailers. The floor of Borderlands Books had been polished to mirror brightness. A nice trick with old knotty pine, but Penauch would have been a weapons-grade obsessive-compulsive if he’d …

Not all things are built to obey… Reprinting Sarah Gailey’s “Bread and Milk and Salt,” originally published in Robots Vs. Fairies (Saga Press, 2018).

Love has no time limits, but life does. Elizabeth Bear gives us a future where life and love and identity have so many more options than they do today.

A dog detective is hired by a female human to investigate a murder that she committed. But of course, all is not as it seems.

Being a Lady Astronaut means being twice as dedicated, and twice as good as everyone else. And sometimes, handling a test run that has turned deadly serious.

An excerpt from “Second Chances”, a chilling ghost story from Megan Lindholm.

A powerful near future story about two people on a whale-processing rig: one a researcher, the other a worker—and the discovery they make by listening to whale song.

Egypt, 1912. In an alternate Cairo infused with the otherworldly, the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities investigate disturbances between the mortal and the (possibly) divi…