Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Zooscape, Cast of Wonders, and Worlds of Possibility

Zooscape 8/23 Cast of Wonders 8/29/23, 9/3/23 Worlds of Possibility 8/23

I’ll kick things off with the August issue of Zooscape, which focuses on furry specula­tive fiction. So it makes sense that the issue lingers on the deep wounds that exist within and between animals, including humans. From extinctions and apocalypses to quieter hurts and the kindnesses that heal them, Zooscape once more shows the versatility of furry speculative fiction, ...Read More

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A Ramble on How Short Stories Have Shaped my Chaotic Writing Career by Ai Jiang

I suppose, before diving in, to put it in short, short fiction has opened a tremendous num­ber of doors for me personally as a writer – craft-wise, career-wise, opportunity-wise. I don’t think the trajectory of my writing journey so far would have been as wildly fortunate and luck-filled – at least to me – without short stories.

In the summer of 2019, I met a man in a coffee shop ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Tobi Ogundiran, Author

TOBI OGUNDIRAN is the author of Jackal, Jackal, a collection of dark and fantastic tales. Ogundiran has been nominated for BSFA, Shirley Jack­son, Ignyte, and Nommo awards. His work has appeared in The Book of Witches and Africa Risen, and in several Year’s Best anthologies. His debut novella, In the Shadow of the Fall, is out from Tordotcom in 2024. Born and raised in Nigeria, he spent seven years in ...Read More

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A.C. Wise Reviews Short Fiction: Asimov’s and Clarkesworld

Asimov’s 9-10/23 Clarkesworld 8/23, 9/23

Asimov’s “Slight Spooky” September/October 2023 issue starts off strong with the novelette “Deep Blue Jump” by Dean Whitlock. The story is set amongst a group of children who have been sold or abandoned into a life of harvesting drug-like dream berries. The conditions are brutal, working long hours, risking their lives climb­ing on dangerous vines to reach the berries, and watched over by slappers ...Read More

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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Strange Horizons, Hexagon, and GigaNotoSaurus

Strange Horizons 8/21/23, 8/28/23, 9/4/23, 9/11/23 Hexagon Fall ’23 GigaNotoSaurus 7/23

Some wonderful poetry bridges Strange Horizons’ August and September content, starting with “Stoic” by Mukut Borpujari, which confronts simplicity and the philosophical stoicism that focuses on knowledge over possessions – over the physical. The poem follows a divesting of things, the narrator part of a couple who are cleaning house and getting rid of a lot ...Read More

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Paul Kincaid Reviews The Big Book of Cyberpunk edited by Jared Shurin

The Big Book of Cyberpunk, Jared Shurin, ed. (Vintage 978-0-59346-723-7, $32.50, 1,136pp, tp) September 2023.

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the pre-War experiment of tele­vision was reintroduced. For a time, there was unease that the abyssal screen into which we stared might also be staring into us – “Big Brother is watching you” as George Orwell put it. Events such as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth ...Read More

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The Stormy Age of SFF Magazines by Neil Clarke

When people proclaim that we’re experi­encing a ‘‘Golden Age’’ for short fiction, I tend to look at them sideways. While we’ve seen an explosion of new markets over the last two decades, it’s never been a particularly healthy time for the overwhelming majority of them. For print editions, increasing postal and printing costs are eating away at profits. Those publishing online struggle face steeper challenges and often have unpaid or ...Read More

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DIMENSIONS OF WONDER: George Saunders in a Haunted Mansion with Chocolate Mint by Eugenia Triantafyllou

Welcome to our special short fiction issue! We’ve got an interview with Carmen Maria Machado, best known for her National Book Award-nominated collection Her Body and Other Parties. We hosted a roundtable discussion with short story powerhouses Ted Chiang, Kelly Link, and Usman T. Malik – among them they’ve won seven Nebula Award, five Hugo Awards, four World Fantasy Awards, and a couple of Stoker Awards, too.

We’ve invited some ...Read More

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Caren Gussoff Sumption Reviews Let’s Go Let’s Go Let’s Go by Cleo Qian

Let’s Go Let’s Go Let’s Go, Cleo Qian (Tin House 978-1-95353-492-7, $18.00, 256 pp, tp), August 2023.

Everyone – and everything – in Cleo Qian’s debut short story collection, Let’s Go Let’s Go Let’s Go – feels deliberately, surpisingly out of focus, at least, to me. Edges are indistinct, images muddy and untrustworthy. It’s dizzying, disorienting, and, at times, heart-stoppingly effective.

The collection itself is difficult to describe. Neither ...Read More

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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Cast of Wonders, Fantasy, The Book of Beijing, and F&SF

castofwonders.org/ Fantasy 8/23 The Book of Beijing, Bingbing Shi, ed. (Comma) July 2023. F&SF 9-10/23

Cast of Wonders ranged from poignant to bitingly sarcastic in its July originals, but I was most taken with its first August story, Dani Atkinson’s “The Raven Princess”, which quickly introduces read­ers to a classic fairytale setup – a princess trapped in the body of a raven, trying to help a ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews The Privilege of the Happy Ending by Kij Johnson

The Privilege of the Happy Ending, Kij Johnson (Small Beer 978-1-61873-211-8, $18.00, 302pp, tp) October 2023.

It’s been more than a decade since Kij John­son’s second story collection, At the Mouth of the River of Bees, and while no one is likely to accuse her of reckless profligacy since then (she’s been busy with academia, among other things), no one is likely to accuse her of playing it ...Read More

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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Flash Fiction Online, GigaNotoSaurus, and Diabolical Plots

Flash Fiction Online 8/23 GigaNotoSaurus 8/23 Diabolical Plots 8/23

The August Flash Fiction Online features stories about families, longing, and cycles. Not always in a positive way, as Phoenix Alexander shows in ‘‘Nancy Shreds the Clouds’’, which explores the complexities of agency, rage, and corruption. Nancy is a girl with a lot of anger, punished for her mistakes while others are not – unrewarded for her virtues while ...Read More

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Niall Harrison Reviews You Are My Sunshine by Octavia Cade

You Are My Sunshine, Octavia Cade (Stelliform 978-1-77809-264-0, 206pp, $19.99, tp) September 2023. Cover by Rachel Yu Lobbenberg.

Octavia Cade’s new collection You Are My Sunshine begins with ecological fury. ‘‘Look at what we woke’’ is both the first line of and a repeated refrain throughout the first story, ‘‘We Feed the Bears of Fire and Ice’’, in which heatwaves and famines are imagined by the narrator as the ...Read More

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Paula Guran Reviews Black Static, The Deadlands, The Sunday Morning Transport and Uncanny

Black Static 7/23 The Deadlands 7/23 The Sunday Morning Transport 8/13/23, 8/6/23, 7/30/23, 7/16/23, 7/2/23, 6/25/23 Uncanny 7-8/23

Established by Andy Cox in December 1993, British SF/fantasy/slipstream/horror magazine The 3rd Alternative ran for 42 issues. It re-emerged in 2007 as Black Static with a tighter focus on weird fiction and horror. The magazine has always been an at­tractive publication with good black-and-white art, standout non-fiction, and consistently first-rate fiction. Combined ...Read More

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A.C. Wise Reviews Short Fiction: Augur and khōréō

Augur 6.1 khōréō 3.1

Augur issue 6.1 is packed with a mix of fic­tion and poetry and includes Bailey Ma­cabre‘s “âniskac”, a comic which features lovely art and is set in a world recovering from environmental collapse looking back on the follies and failures of the past. Several of the stories and poems in the issue reflect on similar themes of climate change, regret over the past, ...Read More

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Karen Haber Reviews The Keeper, by Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes and Marco Finnegan; Spectrum Fantastic Art Quarterly: Volume Two edited by Cathy Fenner and Arnie Fenner; The Corset and The Jellyfish: A Conundrum of Drabbles by Nick Bantock

The Keeper, Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes & Marco Finnegan (Abrams Comic Art Megascope 978-1-4197-5155-4, $24.99, 150pp, hc) September 2022. Cover by Marco Finnegan.

The Keeper is a gripping tale of family love and the supernatural, guaranteed to grab anyone interested in urban horror served with a slice of poignancy and social realism. According to the afterword, it began life as a script that had a hopeful journey through Hollywood ...Read More

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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Three-Lobed Burning Eye, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Strange Horizons

Three-Lobed Burning Eye 7/23 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 7/27/23, 8/10/23,  8/24/23 Strange Horizons 7/24/23, 7/31/23, 8/7/23,  8/14/23

July saw a new issue from Three-Lobed Burning Eye, with a strange new story by J.L. Jones, ‘‘The Sticky-Sweet Path’’. The dreamlike nar­rative follows T’quan, a young man who chafes at the expectations and responsibilities of his life. People depend on him, and in the face of that he tries to ...Read More

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Alexandra Pierce Reviews Medusa’s Sisters by Lauren J.A. Bear, The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older, and The Year’s Top Tales of Space and Time 3 edited by Allan Kaster

Medusa’s Sisters, Lauren J.A. Bear (Ace 978-0-59354-776-2, $28.00, 368pp, hc) August 2023.

Medusa may be one of the most familiar monsters from Greek mythology: snakes for hair, turns anyone who looks in her eyes to stone, eventually killed by Perseus because he looks only at her reflection. You can find carved images of her everywhere from the Roman baths in Bath to the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul. Recently her ...Read More

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Russell Letson Reviews Lockdown Tales II by Neal Asher

Lockdown Tales II, Neal Asher (NewCon 978-1-914953-43-9, £13.99, tp; £29.99, hc, 372 pp) July 2023. Cover by Vincent Sammy.

Lockdown Tales II is Asher’s second collection of shorter pieces written since COVID prompted the titular restrictions. Of the nine stories (pro­duced between 2020 and 2023), four are new to this volume; three are of novella length; and seven are set in the Polity future history. (Note: These categories overlap.) ...Read More

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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: GigaNotoSaurus, Fantasy, and Lightspeed

GigaNotoSaurus 7/23 Fantasy 6/23 Lightspeed 7/23

GigaNotoSaurus dives into secondary world fantasy with July’s “Canyon Masks” by Reed Mingault, which imagines a world where gods Mark individuals with their power, and goddess sisters of luck have chosen Lyssa to be their agent in the world. A deft hand at manipulation and planning, Lyssa finds years of work on the edge of ruin when a Marked of the ...Read More

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Alexandra Pierce Reviews You are My Sunshine and Other Stories by Octavia Cade

You are My Sunshine and Other Stories, Octa­via Cade (Stelliform Press 978-1-77908-264-0, $19.99, 384pp, pb) September 2023. Cover by Rachel Lobbenberg.

Across the 15 stories collected in You are My Sunshine and Other Stories, Octavia Cade takes the reader through possible outcomes of climate change – what it may be like to through it, what might come out the other side. Written across the better part of a ...Read More

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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: FIYAH, Diabolical Plots, and Flash Fiction Online

Fiyah 7/23 Diabolical Plots 7/23 Flash Fiction Online 7/23

The theme for the July issue of Fiyah is ‘‘Car­nival,’’ celebration, costume, and commu­nity. Things that Salmik, the main character in Nkone Chaka’s novelette ‘‘Sentience’’, initially refuses to take much part in. They are a scien­tist – a famous one – who helped to stop the spread of a deadly fungal infection responsible for untold devastation across the ...Read More

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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Baffling, and Kaleidotrope

Strange Horizons 6/19/23, 7/3/23, 7/10/23, 7/17/23 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 6/29/23, 7/13/23 Baffling 7/23 Kaleidotrope 7/23

Samovar’s sibling publication, Strange Horizons, opens July with, among other, C. H. Lindsay’s poem “The Legacy of Granny Van Helsing”. The piece fleshes out a bit more of the family tree of the famous vampire hunter, revealing a rich line of people who know how to keep evil at bay through herb ...Read More

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Alex Brown Reviews Magic Has No Borders edited by Sona Charaipotra and Samira Ahmed

Magic Has No Borders, Sona Charaipotra & Samira Ahmed, eds. (HarperTeen 978-0-06320-826-1, $19.99. 352pp, hc) May 2023. Cover by Jyotirmayee Patra.

Given how many young adult fiction heavy hit­ters there are in Sona Charaipotra and Samira Ahmed’s new YA fantasy anthology Magic Has No Borders, I came in with high expectations. Fourteen authors, all of whom I’ve read and loved before, coming together to share their South Asian ...Read More

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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Escape Pod, Cast of Wonders, Worlds of Possibility and Samovar

Escape Pod 6/22/23 Cast of Wonders 6/24/23 Worlds of Possibility 6/23 Samovar 6/26/23

This June saw a new original from Escape Pod with Andrew Dana Hudson’s “The Uncool Hunters”, which follows Rocky, an uncool hunter (or a fucking uncool hunter to properly capture the seriousness of the profes­sion) – who wades through the actual habits of the median consumer, helping corporations to understand and profit from the ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter

Terrace Story, Hilary Leichter (Ecco 978-0-06326-581-3, $28.00, 288pp, hc) August 2023.

Hilary Leichter’s Temporary was one of the few joys I experienced during the COVID lockdowns of 2020. The novel took a satirical jab at the ephemeral nature of the gig economy, with Leichter’s protagonist temping in roles as varied as a mural artist, a pirate (of the parrot and eye-patch variety), and a CEO of a multinational corporation. ...Read More

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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Lightspeed and F&SF

Lightspeed 7/23 F&SF 7-8/23

Pushing on into July, Lightspeed opens with J.B. Park’s timely ‘‘Six Months After All Life on Titan Died’’, which is framed as a prompt for an algorithm-generated story, where the narrator is the prompter trying to coax out a marketable drama about a whistleblower and an accidental genocide. It’s a layered piece, commenting both on the ways algorithm-generated art can flatten and play ...Read More

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Alexandra Pierce Reviews The Year’s Top Tales of Space and Time 3 edited by Allan Kaster

The Year’s Top Tales of Space and Time 3, Allan Kaster, ed. (Infinivox 978-1-88461-264-0, $18.99, 309pp, pb) August 2023. Cover by Maurizio Manzieri.

The Year’s Top Tales of Space and Time 3 is (ob­viously) the third volume by editor Allan Kaster collecting the year’s top stories about space and time. All the stories were originally published in 2022, in online magazines (Clarkesworld, Tor.com) and paper ones (Asimov’s Science Fiction, ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews Like Smoke, Like Light by Yukimi Ogawa

Like Smoke, Like Light, Yukimi Ogawa (Mythic Delirium 978-1-95652-200-6, $17.95, 260pp, tp) June 2023.

Yukimi Ogawa is an exophonic writer. Don’t worry if you’re unfamiliar with the term; so was I until I discovered (via Google) that ‘‘exophonic’’ refers to authors who write in their second lan­guage. Ogawa is Japanese but writes in English, a language she rarely speaks. It sets her apart from other exophonic luminaries like Vladimir ...Read More

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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Beneath Ceaseless Skies, GigaNotoSaurus, and Fusion Fragment

Beneath Ceaseless Skies 6/1/23, 6/15/23 GigaNotoSaurus 6/23 Fusion Fragment 6/23

The first of Beneath Ceaseless Skies’s June is­sues features stories revolving around memory, death, and resistance, seen clearly in Kat How­ard’s moving “Eleanora of the Bones”, which finds a religious order dedicated to tending the bones of the dead in order to give their spirits time to come to terms with moving on to the next stage ...Read More

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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Flash Fiction Online, Diabolical Plots, and Fantasy

Flash Fiction Online 6/23 Diabolical Plots 6/23 Fantasy 6/23

Flash Fiction Online celebrated a month of fantasy stories in June, including Daniel Galef’s strange and captivating “The He-Bear, which follows a man enjoying some time out in the country, away from the concerns of the busy hustle of city life. Until, sent on a walk with a different guest at the estate (and a terribly ob­noxious ...Read More

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Paula Guran Reviews The Sunday Morning Transport, Tor.com, The Deadlands, and The Dark

The Sunday Morning Transport 5/7/23; 5/14/23; 5/18/23; 5/28/23; 6/4/23; 6/11/23; 6/18/23 Tor.com 5/10/23; 5/24/23; 6/4/23; 6/7/23; 6/11/23; 6/18/23 The Deadlands 5/23, 6/23 The Dark 5/23, 6/23

The Sunday Morning Transport contin­ues to publish excellent fiction. Victor Manibo’s “An Incomplete Catalog of the Birds of New York” is a sweet and optimistic story. A young woman, Amaya, learns how to help the birds crashing into the glass of ...Read More

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