Reading Time: 3 minutesFirst generation rock’n roll. The influence of way too many 60s sitcoms. Mix it into a drink and…is this story the drunk or hangover? Who knows – but I hope everyone loves it!
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Reading Time: 3 minutesThe five second burst of sound cycled over and over, breaking against his thoughts like waves against a levy, overwhelming him, washing him away.
Reading Time: 4 minutesOne can spend an entire lifetime searching for something, only to find it lies just beyond your grasp – and your lifetime has vanished in the blink of an eye.
Reading Time: 4 minutesRosie O’Connell smelled only dust where once there had been life.
Reading Time: 2 minutesJenny hangs the traps every sunset. She measures the string against her arm and wraps it twice around each jar tied with a double knot. She hangs them from the strongest branches of the big dead oak on Hangman’s Hill.
Reading Time: 4 minutesThere is something special about desert at night: A dark-grey sea of emptiness stretched before us, with nothing but sand dunes and tall, sharp rocks for miles around. If we watched closely, we’d see it was crawling with life, with snakes, scorpions, and other little nightmares, but I kept my eyes on the road, and the hitchhiker – Joey – stared at the sky.
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe oldest mask shop in Venice has a mask for everything, and the owner will take whatever you have to offer.
Reading Time: 4 minutesShe flails her arms and legs against the straps that bind her to a wooden chair in the middle of the boutique.
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhen I mentioned the Kintoc spring tale of relocating entire lakes using braided ropes, a herd of elk and sub-zero temperatures, I didn’t consider that I might soon be living all of it.
Reading Time: 3 minutesA century ago, a question blossomed in our awareness that has tormented each subsequent generation’s brightest scientific minds. Since other intelligent life must be out there in a universe so vast, why haven’t they found us yet?
Reading Time: 4 minutes“My name is Calder Freeman. I am the head arcanist at GraveSecure.” He said it casually, like someone offhandedly mentioning they were a garbageman or an accountant, not an honest-to-God necromancer.
Reading Time: 4 minutesAs William ambles into the kitchen to retrieve his morning coffee, he slips on a patch of melted ice. When he falls on his back, the dishwasher swings its door open and smacks him on the head.
Reading Time: 2 minutesWe live in an old red schoolhouse in the forest. The forest is thick and woolly, and at night you can hear the wolves sing. It is safe here.
Reading Time: 4 minutesBrother Gregor bent close to his work, his hands trembling as he lifted the taper. Candlelight flickered in the gloom; incense sticks pierced the fetid air. A drab grey light trickled through the tiny windows, illuminating the chalk circle drawn across the floorboards.
Reading Time: 3 minutesI found it in the usual place, where I always find them. Under the rock. “Hello,” I said. “What’s your name, little feller?” No answer. But I expected that.
Reading Time: 4 minutesEarth is about to launch a satellite into deep space with a sole AI on board — until the AI has another idea.
Reading Time: 4 minutesLove is blind. It feels like a gift from heaven but when it is vengeful there is hell to pay.
Reading Time: 2 minutesTattoos. High-fantasy identities. Zeppelins. Magic. Diversity and Inclusion. Oppression. Hope.
Reading Time: 4 minutesGrace is a cult survivor who is called to identify the body of her former cult’s leader and captor.
Reading Time: 3 minutesA particle traveling from the beginning of time to the end and back contemplates the balance between hope and fate. Though powerless to control its direction, the particle still has choices.
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhen reaching out to the stars above, the space beyond or the ether, we allocate disproportionate energy into preparing to cast the nets over catching the fish. What do we do with it?
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe allure of prospecting a deserted Mars becomes so compelling that nothing else matters. Not even love.
Reading Time: 3 minutesWill this be the doctor who finally takes on Aki’s limb regeneration? It’s the sixth alien specialist and hope is slowly vanishing from his eyes.
Reading Time: 4 minutesBuilding a planet used to be harder. There was a real art to it. It required raw talent polished to a diamond’s edge.
Reading Time: 4 minutesLightyears from home, a miner toils on a moon, gradually being hollowed out. They scrape a life, money to support their family, and something like friendship, from the dirt. But when disaster strikes, they are forced to make a hard decision.
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhat happens when a young mage tries to contain a hell breach? Well, it’s hell.
Reading Time: 4 minutesOne day a rabid animal took a bite out of Breeder’s beloved pet and sidekick Top Dog. Top Dog is a muscular, spoiled canine with a colossal appetite. Breeder always let Top Dog play with Creatures, even dangerous and wild ones. He secretly got a kick out of watching Top Dog’s nature grow hellish and animated when he toyed with them. Top Dog also had a talent for dominating Creatures of all kinds. Breeder bragged to Brother often.
Reading Time: 4 minutesA hitman hired to kill the Four Horsemen and prevent the apocalypse has one last target waiting for him in the parking lot of an abandoned strip club. But how do you kill Death?
Reading Time: 3 minutesInspired by both the art of Louise Bourgeois and a news story about a sex-bot repairman, “Spiral Woman” gives a kind of agency to a member of the already-marginalized servant class of the future.
Reading Time: 4 minutesYou can change your appearance with the touch of a button. But should you?
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhat happens to science fiction when aliens actually do show up on Earth?
Reading Time: 3 minutesI haven’t seen what the world is running from, and my father won’t tell me. But I have heard what they say in the village. The monsters came from the sky to live in our oceans.
Reading Time: 4 minutesTwo cyborgs, a woman, and a parrot, are outmatched by their deep space competitors.
Reading Time: 3 minutesFinding a laptop in Mr. Chapa’s secondhand shop was like discovering an Apple watch on an Egyptian mummy. But Vern’s find was another’s tragic loss.
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhen Maria wakes up covered in Marigolds she knows she’s dead.
Reading Time: 4 minutesWith great power, comes a great deal of pressure to chose a cool super-name!
Reading Time: 4 minutesA hayride with an old friend from the past unveils uncomfortable truths for Max and his family.
Reading Time: 4 minutesA step-by-step guide on what to expect when you’re preparing the universe’s most elusive delicacy.
Reading Time: 4 minutesLizzie Williams kept the head in a burlap sack. We’d pay to look at it, pay even more to hear its secrets. We hated that head.
Reading Time: 4 minutesAn apprentice talecrafter constructs her first magical tale.
Reading Time: 3 minutes“I feel like I left my mind on Mars. Even now, I can still hear the wind.” Rosie reaches over from where she sits on her rocking chair and winds her fingers around mine. She hasn’t changed a bit, despite the years I was gone. Her face is still every bit as bright and optimistic
Reading Time: 2 minutesA dying physicist makes a desperate attempt to spare his daughter grief by flying into a black hole.
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhat if your past was a lie and you had the opportunity to go back and change it?
Reading Time: 3 minutesAnd then I was fading, ears ringing and body broken by shrapnel that jingle-jangled in my pocket, before I failed Christiane.
