short stories – Locus Online

Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions by Nalo Hopkinson: Review by Gary K. Wolfe

November 24, 2024November 13, 2024 locusmag 0 Comments Gary K. Wolfe, science fiction, short stories

Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions, Nalo Hopkinson (Tachyon 978-1-61696-426-9, $15.95, 224pp, tp) October 2024.

Story collections almost never sell as well as novels, but maybe they ought to. A novel is the end product of processes that may have unfolded over months or years, while a collection offers us glimpses into those processes themselves. All of the sixteen stories in Nalo Hopkinson’s Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions were published ...Read More

Books Reviews

Deep Dream: Science Fiction Exploring the Future of Art edited by Indrapramit Das: Review by Niall Harrison

November 13, 2024November 8, 2024 locusmag 0 Comments Niall Harrison, science fiction, short stories

Deep Dream: Science Fiction Exploring the Future of Art, Indrapramit Das, ed. (The MIT Press 978-0-26254-908-0, 229pp, $24.95, tp). October 2024. Cover art by Diana Scherer.

Of the ten stories collected in Deep Dream that aim to, as editor Indrapramit Das has it, “both embody and visualize the future of art,” only one offers an explicit definition of what art might be. Many millennia in the future, the twinned ...Read More

Reviews Short Fiction

Analog: Short Fiction Reviews by A.C. Wise

November 2, 2024October 25, 2024 locusmag 0 Comments A.C. Wise, short fiction, short stories

Analog 7-8/24

The July/August 2024 issue of Analog opens with the “Great Martian Railways” by Hûw Steer. An engineer named Lowell oversees the first voyage of a new prototype steam train on Mars as a rail system is being built. When unexpected complications arise, Lowell and the other engineers on board must come up with innovative solutions on the fly to avoid a high-speed disaster. “Vouch for ...Read More

Books Reviews

Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima: Review by Jake Casella Brookins

October 9, 2024October 2, 2024 locusmag 0 Comments fantasy, Jake Casella Brookins, short stories

Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil, Ananda Lima (Tor 978-1-25029-297-1, 192pp, $24.99, hc) Cover by Jamie Stafford-Hill. June 2024.

Ananda Lima’s Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil is pleasingly hard to classify. One could take the easy route and call it a debut collection – and an exciting one, to be sure, an excellent mix of stories magical, speculative, and wholly grounded. But there’s reason to think ...Read More

Reviews Short Fiction

Fusion Fragment, Diabolical Plots, and GigaNotoSaurus: Short Fiction Reviews by Charles Payseur

September 15, 2024September 13, 2024 locusmag 0 Comments Charles Payseur, short stories

Hexagon 6/24 Fusion Fragment 6/24 Diabolical Plots 6/24 GigaNotoSaurus 6/24

The latest issue of Hexagon is devoted to stories focused on climate change and climate resilience – people coming together to push back against the forces that have led to ecological and societal disaster and trying to walk humanity back from the brink of ruin. As in Madi Haab’s “Heat Devils”, which features brisk action as two ...Read More

Reviews Short Fiction

Escape Pod, Strange Horizons, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies: Short Fiction Reviews by Charles Payseur

September 10, 2024September 13, 2024 locusmag 0 Comments Charles Payseur, short stories

Escape Pod 5/16/24 Strange Horizons 5/20/24, 5/27/24, 6/10/24, 6/17/24 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 5/30/24, 6/13/24

Rocky Cornelius returns to Escape Pod with Andrew Dana Hudson’s May story, “The Concept Shoppe: A Rocky Cornelius Consultancy”. Having left uncool hunting behind her, Rocky is a creative consultant for Primal, a new store that’s selling the postapocalypse experience in a future that feels in many ways postapocalyptic, right down to the ...Read More

Reviews Short Fiction

Analog: Short Fiction Reviews by A.C. Wise

September 9, 2024September 13, 2024 locusmag 0 Comments A.C. Wise, short stories

Analog 5-6/24

The May/June 2024 issue of Analog opens with “Uncle Roy’s Computer Repairs and Used Robot Parts” by Martin L. Shoemaker, a charming novella about a man who retires with his wife to her hometown and starts his own computer repair business only to find himself accidentally in a bitter rivalry with the town’s resident “whiz kid.” It’s a fun story that does a good job of capturing ...Read More

Reviews Short Fiction

Small Wonders, Flash Fiction Online, and Cast of Wonders: Short Fiction Reviews by Charles Payseur

September 6, 2024September 13, 2024 locusmag 0 Comments Charles Payseur, short stories

Small Wonders 5/24 Flash Fiction Online 5/24 Cast of Wonders 5/29/24

I’ll start off with May’s Small Wonders, a publication dedicated to flash fiction and poetry, which includes Angel Leal’s powerful poem ‘‘Music of the Seraphim’’. A child meets an angel and is filled with a desire for something new – new experiences, a new body, a new place to be – and find their prayers and ...Read More

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