Saturday Storytime: One of Twins
I mentioned a couple of days ago that I’d been reading Ambrose Bierce. I read a bit about him as well, and I was struck by how little mystery there is in his “mysterious disappearance”. Bierce’s...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Teffeu: A Book from the Library at Taarona
Sometimes stories about books feel cheap and easy. “I know my readers like to read, so I’ll let them read about reading.” This story by Rose Lemberg feels anything but. Also, Strange Horizons, from...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Sheesha Ghat
Strange Horizons is two and a half days and about $2,000 from the end of the annual funding drive that allows them to make stories like those I share here free to you. They’re ending their drive by...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: The Upstairs Window
Not all speculative fiction requires future technology or magic. Nina Allan is the author of multiple short story collections. After Laura I stayed single. I don’t mean I didn’t have women. I was even...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Thief of War
Beth Bernobich‘s work isn’t what I’d classify as light reading. Nor is it difficult, simply rich with a mix of politics and the personal that will stick with you. I committed the message and drawing to...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Velvet Fields
Anne McCaffery is best remembered for her Pern books, but she wrote extensively in several other universes as well. She also produced the occasional one-off short story. So, suppressing our pervasive...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Go Through
Alma Alexander has lived in five countries on four continents. That background has fed into her work, as she has written not-your-average-European-setting fantasy in many of her novels. This is one of...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Yuca and Dominoes
Some of my favorite fantasy stories don’t necessarily have anything supernatural in them. This is José Iriarte‘s first fiction sale. Carmencita sways into Ana Teresa as they stagger down the sidewalk,...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: The Jackal’s Wedding
Vajra Chandrasekera lives in Sri Lanka but prefers to write in English. His speculative poetry has won him a Rhysling Award. That was the day she first tried putting her paws aside for hands. Father...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Hunger: A Confession
Dale Bailey recently noted that this story took him far less time to finish than his work typically does. It doesn’t seem to have hurt this piece of classical horror in the least. So that was my...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Blood Makes Noise
Gemma Files claims to be perfectly ordinary–until you take a peek inside her head. Have one such peek. I press my eyes closed, momentarily forgetting to remember just how deep we must already be. HPNS...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: The Ghosts of Christmas
Paul Cornell is most broadly known as a writer for Doctor Who, though he’s worked widely in television and comics as well. He wrote the scripts for “Father’s Day” and the two-part “Human Nature” and...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Boat in Shadows, Crossing
Tori Truslow says she’d like to be a genderfluid cyborg on Mars. Given her talent for making the suspension of disbelief a small thing, one would almost think it could happen. Thanks to AJ Fitzwater...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Significant Figures
I didn’t have much time to read stories just before Christmas. I’m very glad I didn’t miss this one by Rachael Acks in all the rush. That morning, at great personal risk, Stephen’s waffle iron...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Jackalope Wives
The new year brought a new editor at Apex Magazine, which is frequently featured here. Lynne and Michael Thomas are moving on, and I expect good things from them wherever they end up. Joining Apex is...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: The Innocence of a Place
I admit to having a weakness for gothic horror, though the overwrought emotionality of much of it makes me giggle when I take a step back. That made finding this story by Margaret Ronald all the...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: A Hollow Play
Sometimes I read a story, and I wonder why I bothered to write any. This story by Amal El-Mohtar was one of those, and I’m glad that it’s inclusion in the “2013 Locus Recommended Reading List” has...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Fire Above, Fire Below
Garth Nix is well-known as a prolific writer of young adult fantasy novels, his Old Kingdom and Keys to the Kingdom series in particular. It’s always nice when he finds time for shorter works. “What’s...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Home by the Sea
Science fiction has a long and noble past as the fiction that explores what it means to be human, that wonders how much of our inevitable coming change humanity can endure and still be what we are....
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: The Sounds of Old Earth
The 2013 Nebula nominees are out! I’ve only featured one of these stories here previously, as I usually try to find stories by authors I haven’t already featured. I have no excuse for having missed...
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