February 2024 (Issue 165)

We have original science fiction by Everdeen Mason (“Scarlett”) and Phoebe Barton (“But From Thine Eyes My Knowledge I Derive”). We also have two terrific flash pieces: “Companion Animals in Mahō Shōjo Kira Kira Sunlight” from Stewart C. Baker and “The Pearl Captain” by Christopher Rowe. Plus, we have original fantasy by P H Lee (“A Sojourn in the Fifth City”) and Wen-yi Lee (“What Becomes of Curious Minds”). We also have a flash story (“Further Examination and Capture of Candle Skulls Associated with the Baba Yaga”) from Mari Ness, and another (“An Elegy for the Former Things”) from KT Bryski. All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team. Our ebook readers will also enjoy an excerpt of Redsight by Meredith Mooring.

Cover art by Tithi Luadthong / Shutterstock

February 2024 (Issue 165)

Editorial

Editorial: February 2024

by John Joseph Adams

For a rundown of this month’s content, be sure to check out the editorial.

Science Fiction

Companion Animals in Mahō Shōjo Kira Kira Sunlight

by Stewart C Baker

Mahō Shōjo Kira Kira Sunlight is an American web series created by an unknown animator or animators. The show combines magical girl anime tropes with cosmic horror, following high schooler Sally Hoshino (Kira Kira Sunlight) and her friends.

Fantasy

A Sojourn in the Fifth City

by P H Lee

Author spotlight

The coffin she carried had felt like an imposition at first—a holy imposition! a welcome imposition! but an imposition nonetheless. But by now she had carried it on her shoulders out from the tenth school, carried it across plains, up and down canyons.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: P H Lee

by Laurel Amberdine

How did “A Sojourn in the Fifth City” originate? What inspirations did you draw on? In the broadest sense, this story is a version of the science-fantasy novel that I started writing when I was fourteen years old, wrote and rewrote many times over high school and early college, but never managed to turn into […]

Science Fiction

Scarlett

by Everdeen Mason

Author spotlight

Scarlett’s eyes had to be perfect. Jon was the artist who’d made her, so it bothered him to think that so much of Scarlett would be crafted by other people. Scarlett’s limbs were carved from silicon polymer and coated in a soft synthetic skin from the best prosthetics companies in the world.

Fantasy

Further Examination and Capture of Candle Skulls Associated with the Baba Yaga

by Mari Ness

Recent scholarship has shed considerable light on many previously puzzling or mysterious aspects of the life of the Baba Yaga—or, as some would still have it, the Baba Yagas. But one element has remained largely unstudied, and indeed, almost completely ignored.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Everdeen Mason

by Laurel Amberdine

The original inspo stems from a drunken debate about what makes Scarlett Johanson so appealing to casting directors for science fiction movies of a certain type, and how she must feel about it. What would it be like to be idealized for a form you didn’t choose?

Nonfiction

A Sneak Preview of 2024 Books

by Aigner Loren Wilson

Building your TBR list? Here are some of the books Aigner Loren Wilson is most looking forward to reading this year!

Science Fiction

The Pearl Captain

by Christopher Rowe

Josea Dream was the pearl captain at the heart of the bivalve ship Blue Spring, which had swum the black for a thousand years. It was a mystery to Josea—it was a mystery to anyone who’d ever thought about it—why the bivalves suffered their captains’ proddings.

Fantasy

What Becomes of Curious Minds

by Wen-yi Lee

Author spotlight

On the third evening of every week, dozens come to Stalactite Keep to hear the storyteller teach about the place beyond Wonderland. Tonight, with only dewdrops of honeycomb light seeping through the cells of the sky, Creed told them of toys.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Wen-yi Lee

by Laurel Amberdine

It was also fun to subvert the portal fantasy trope with that diasporic lens and think about how a kid who’s grown up in Wonderland would find Wonderland normal, and find their “human world,” which they don’t remember, the actual fantasy land.

Nonfiction

Book Review: Captive: New Short Fiction From Africa (Rachel Zadok & Helen Moffett, editors)

by Arley Sorg

Craving a fresh new anthology? You can trust Arley Sorg when he recommends Captive: New Short Fiction From Africa (edited by Rachel Zadok & Helen Moffett).

Science Fiction

But From Thine Eyes My Knowledge I Derive

by Phoebe Barton

Author spotlight

It was a long fall in-system from the warp point, so Va Sojourner had plenty of time to observe. She found a peace in her observations that was expensive or painful to scratch out anywhere else, when she had to organize herself around the demands and expectations of everyone around her.

Fantasy

An Elegy for the Former Things

by KT Bryski

You’ve been driving for hours and I wish you would stop. You clutch the steering wheel so hard, your knuckles pop white, your palms slick with sweat and desperation. Sunken, glassy, your eyes flick between the fuel gauge, the endless road, and the trembling land through which we pass.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Phoebe Barton

by Laurel Amberdine

One significant sticking point was where I had to stop to figure out enough of what warp drives did when turned on to present a valid threat to Va’s life at the end—with something like that, I couldn’t cheap out and invent something out of technobabble.

Nonfiction

Book Review: The Year of the Locust by Terry Hayes

by Chris Kluwe

A fast-paced thriller that will appeal to science fiction fans? Yes, please! Chris Kluwe explains why he’s recommending The Year of the Locust by Terry Hayes.