Reading Time: 5 minutes While burning barrels light the state capital’s torn paint and hunger pains ravage his stomach, a man looks into a mirror, seeing what he could become and reliving what he had to do to survive.

Reading Time: 9 minutes Suddenly, something hard and strong strikes his back, knocking the wind from him, propelling him onto the ground. He thrashes wildly. Two needle sharp spikes pierce his neck. A warm, sensuous peace floods over him. He smiles and despite the beard, looks momentarily like a small happy child.

Reading Time: 4 minutes “I’ve heard it’s still contaminated,” Ollie says, a hint of a question in her voice. Her eyes shimmer, opalescent with reflected fog as she looks at me. A definite challenge. “I heard people were getting sick, some kind of virus.” I grit my teeth, realizing that Ollie is definitely more than she seems. But then, so am I.

Reading Time: 8 minutes At 2:00 am, there are no children about. The police still on duty are sleeping in their cars or hunching over coffee in all-night dives. Even the homeless are asleep, huddled in doorways under blankets of cardboard and crumbled newspaper. But as River walks past, the scent of the sweets weaves into their dreams and makes them smile. Some dream of a time they’d been full of hope. Others live for a while inside illusions, as knights on horseback, or sprouting vast shimmering wings to rise above the city and soar. 

Reading Time: 10 minutes Ro No Na, the thief, breaks into a gangster’s pleasure palace in Pendír, Bijoon, and ends up being chased by gangsters, revolutionaries, clones, and Agent Wood and the Z’Dhia, in the third volume of The Book of Dreams series.

Reading Time: 8 minutes Do we need new rules for a society where androids are becoming more and more lifelike?

Reading Time: 4 minutes As the world untethers from reality, moderate to severe distortion in time, leading to invasions from Normans, Saxons, and Romans in Dover; possible Vikings in Thames. High likelihood of property damage and loss of prevailing cultural norms. Squally showers.

Reading Time: 10 minutes A prisoner with no knowledge of their own identity is kept in solitary confinement, visited daily by human projections designed to prevent mental deterioration. When the opportunity for escape is presented, a dormant instinct resurfaces in the prisoner, and the need to fulfill this drive supplants the desire for freedom.

Reading Time: 8 minutes When he leaves Bert’s in the wee hours before first light, River feels extremely foolish, but warmer and happier than he can remember. Huck lands on his shoulder, squawking loudly. He complains noisily the entire walk home.

Reading Time: 4 minutes June joined the Memory Keeper team to help her family forge a path to abundance. When it became harder to meet quota, June learned that she was trapped in a business that viewed her as another commodity. And sometimes, the consequences of faith in an idea are greater than we can imagine.

Reading Time: 2 minutes In the dark, something shambles toward you, its squelch squelch squelch sound getting louder, and louder. Is it here for you?

Reading Time: 3 minutes When I get the call for a Code 43, I have to pull my truck over and consult my Codex of Supernatural Beasts and Cryptids to make sure I’m not mistaken. “Forty-three?” I ask over the walkie. Maybe Dispatch meant 42 (Mothman) or 44 (Batsquatch). “A Nightraven? You sure?”

Reading Time: 3 minutes Some expected the aliens to solve the problems of humanity, while others were afraid of genocide or enslavement. But it all turned out differently.

Reading Time: 6 minutes San Francisco has a wealth of vampires. The city calls to them. Perhaps it is the early morning fog that keeps the sun from their flesh a bit longer than most places. Perhaps it is the nightlife. Perhaps it is the dearth of werewolves, who tend toward more rural haunts. Or maybe they just feel at home in the cool, grey city of love. 

Reading Time: 11 minutes Mirabyi has been tapped to join the moon colony to explore the possibility of converting the dusty surface to life sustaining soil. Her experiments have unexpected results and maybe not the good kind.