Review copy provided by the author, who is an online pal.
This is a stand-alone short story with a lavish illustration. It features a well-delineated family despite the short length of the tale, each member an individual--and each showing a different facet of grief. There's beekeeping magic here, but the core of the tale is a family's loss and how they move through it together, not always in sync but always with love. The prose style reminded me of fables, of just-so stories, but the human heart is stronger than in most of those.
The Witch and the Wyrm, Elizabeth Bear (Reactor)
Mail Order Magic, Stephanie Burgis (Sunday Morning Transport)
"To Reap, to Sow," Lyndsey Croal (Analog Mar/Apr 25)
Six People to Revise You, J. R. Dawson (Uncanny)
The Otter Woman's Daughter, Eleanor Glewwe (Cast of Wonders)
What I Saw Before the War, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Reactor)
Kaiju Agonistes, Scott Lynch (Uncanny)
One by One, Lindz McLeod (Apex)
10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days, Samantha Mills (Uncanny)
Last Tuesday, for Eternity, Vinny Rose Pinto (Imagine 2200)
Ghost Rock Posers F**k Off, Margaret Ronald (Sunday Morning Transport)
After the Invasion of the Bug-Eyed Aliens, Rachel Swirsky (Reactor)
"Holy Fools," Adrian Tchaikovsky (Of Shadows, Stars, and Sabers)
"An Asexual Succubus," John Wiswell (Of Shadows, Stars, and Sabers)
New story out! "If the Weather Holds" appears in the Mar/Apr 2025 issue of Analog. For all the work we have ahead, we'll need a big team...and just the reasonable people won't do. Analog is available for order here.
Yes, I wrote this because the Indigo Girls left this title lying on the table when they called their song "The Wood Song." The ways of creativity are mysterious and here we are.
New story out today in Diabolical Plots: The Year the Sheep God Shattered. You might think that the presence of divinity would make growing up easier, but....
In addition to being a story I wrote because I have big feelings about the godkids growing up (yes, another one, there are a lot of feelings to process here, they've been doing this for a minute now), this was one of the stories I write when I'm turning over the standard fantasy worldbuilding premises in my mind and going, "Okay, but...."
I spent the year feeling perpetually behind on reading short things, and I finished it the same way. The thing is, though, that I would rather shout about the things I got to and liked than hold off because I didn't get to everything. And so here we are.
Do Houses Dream of Scraping the Sky?, Jana Bianchi (Uncanny)
Testimony of an Encounter with the Death-Mage, Taken at the Canal Village of Po-Endenn, Stephen Case (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
This Mentor Lives, J. R. Dawson and John Wiswell (Haven Spec)
For Kristen, Who Would Have Turned 47 Today, Melissa Frederick (The Deadlands)
Father Ash, Rachel Hartman (Sunday Morning Transport)
Reciprocity, Valerie Kemp (Haven Spec)
Carbon Cycle, Lindsay King-Miller (The Deadlands)
Evan: A Remainder, Jordan Kurella (Reactor)
A Series of Accounts Surrounding the Risen Lady of the Orun-Alai and Other Alleged Miracles in the Final Days of the Riverlands War, Aimee Ogden (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Caring for Your Damage Sponge, Rich Larson (Small Wonders)
Morphology, Jennifer Mace (Strange Horizons)
Pockets Full of Stones, Jennifer Mace (Uncanny)
Sparsely Populated With Stars, Jennifer Mace (Flash Fiction Online)
The Ways the Woods May Answer, Jennifer Mace (Haven Spec)
Hot Hearts, Lyndsie Manusos (Lightspeed)
Further Examination and Capture of Candle Skulls Associated with the Baba Yaga, Mari Ness (Lightspeed)
Letters from Mt. Monroe Elementary, Third Grade, Sarah Pauling (Diabolical Plots)
The Only Writing Advice You’ll Ever Need to Survive Eldritch Horrors, Aimee Picchi (Lightspeed)
Blackjack, Veronica Schanoes (Reactor)
At the Stopping Place, Grace Seybold (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
The Empty Ones, Vivian Shaw (The Deadlands)
The Weight of Your Own Ashes, Carlie St. George (Clarkesworld)
Amitruq Nekyia, Sonya Taaffe (Strange Horizons)
“Hagstone,” Sonya Taaffe (Not One of Us, Issue #78)
An Intergalactic Smuggler’s Guide to Homecoming, Tia Tashiro (Clarkesworld)
Moon Pies, Taylor Thackaberry (Uncharted)
Skinless, Eugenia Triantafyllou (Haven Spec)
Five Answers to Questions You Probably Have, John Wiswell (Uncanny)
The Great Beyond Commands, John Wiswell (Small Wonders)
I’ll Miss Myself, John Wiswell (Reactor)
I feel like I haven't been reading as much short stuff this year, but that still lands me with some good stuff, hooray.
Morphology, Jennifer Mace (Strange Horizons)
The Ways the Woods May Answer, Jennifer Mace (Haven Spec)
Hot Hearts, Lyndsie Manusos (Lightspeed)
The Empty Ones, Vivian Shaw (The Deadlands)
Amitruq Nekyia, Sonya Taaffe (Strange Horizons)
New story out in Uncanny Magazine today! On the Water Its Crystal Teeth. This is a chosen family story that plays with fairy tale tropes about the childless old woman finding a fairy child, now that I am a childless old woman with fairy children. (By fairy tale standards. Don't worry, you don't have to reassure me that 46 is not genuinely old any more than you have to check in with whether I realize that my godchildren were not actually left for me by the Good Neighbors.)
My friend Caroline Yoachim did a lovely interview with me if you want to find out more about this story and other fun Marissa trivia.
New story today in Beneath Ceaseless Skies: Three Drops in the River! A lion, a bridge, a tinsmith's daughter, a magician...and some missing naiads....
(There's also a podcast version by the always-delightful Tina Connolly, if you prefer to get your stories that way.)
New story out today! Transits of Other Lands appears in Kaleidotrope. I wrote this story because writing "I MISS THE MONTREAL METRO" a hundred times during lockdown seemed like a less interesting way to express this. But also: I still do miss the Montreal Metro, gosh I miss the Montreal Metro, and also I miss the T-Bana and the T and BART. Other people's public transit is a magical thing.
In this story, literally so.
Again, please feel free to recommend things in the comments, I definitely have not read everything that's out there!
Testimony of an Encounter with the Death-Mage, Taken at the Canal Village of Po-Endenn, Stephen Case (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
This Mentor Lives, J. R. Dawson and John Wiswell (Haven Spec)
Father Ash, Rachel Hartman (Sunday Morning Transport)
Reciprocity, Valerie Kemp (Haven Spec)
Caring for Your Damage Sponge, Rich Larson (Small Wonders)
Letters from Mt. Monroe Elementary, Third Grade, Sarah Pauling (Diabolical Plots)
The Only Writing Advice You'll Ever Need to Survive Eldritch Horrors, Aimee Picchi (Lightspeed)
At the Stopping Place, Grace Seybold (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Moon Pies, Taylor Thackaberry (Uncharted)
Skinless, Eugenia Triantafyllou (Haven Spec)
I'll Miss Myself, John Wiswell (Reactor)
New story out today! Conjured from the Rubble is in Haven Spec magazine. Natural disaster, class mobility, and...wizards! I hope you enjoy it.
I'm walking a weird path with my natural disaster stories these days. The nearest inspiration for them, the thing my heart is still processing, is the tornado that hit my college in 1998. It can take some time for art to come to the surface, and it's only in the last few years that I've really been dealing with that one. On the other hand natural disasters in general are on the rise, and the more time goes on, the more I'm looking at what's coming rather than what's come before, on this topic. So the balance gets interesting. I hope you like this one.
Here's some of the new stuff I've liked this spring. I'm terribly behind on my new short fiction reading, because I keep being handed other short things to read, but I'll get there, one way or another. And in the meantime here are some gems.
Carbon Cycle, Lindsay King-Miller (The Deadlands)
A Series of Accounts Surrounding the Risen Lady of the Orun-Alai and Other Alleged Miracles in the Final Days of the Riverlands War, Aimee Ogden (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Blackjack, Veronica Schanoes (Reactor)
The Weight of Your Own Ashes, Carlie St. George (Clarkesworld)
An Intergalactic Smuggler's Guide to Homecoming, Tia Tashiro (Clarkesworld)
Five Answers to Questions You Probably Have, John Wiswell (Uncanny)
The Great Beyond Commands, John Wiswell (Small Wonders)
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