July 2025 (Issue 182)

We have original science fiction by Meghan McCarron (“Lord of Mars”) and Naomi Kanakia (“Domestic Disputes”). We also have two terrific flash pieces: “How to Win Against the Robots” from Katherine Crighton and “Finding Love in a Time Loop: A How-To Guide” by Leah Cypess. Plus, we have original fantasy by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe (“A Dish Best Served Cold, Or, An Excerpt From the Cookbook of the Gods”) and Paul Crenshaw (“You Knit Me Together in My Mother’s Womb”). We also have a flash story (“What Else, What Else, in the Joyous City?”) from sadoeuphemist, and another (“Un-Pragmagic: A Tyler Moore Retrospective”) from Spencer Nitkey. All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team.

Cover art by liuzishan / Adobe Stock

July 2025 (Issue 182)

Editorial

Editorial, July 2025

by John Joseph Adams

Be sure to check out the editorial for a rundown of this month’s terrific content.

Science Fiction

The Lord of Mars

by Meghan McCarron

Author spotlight

The grow pods clung to a red, humped ridge about a twenty-minute hike west from the habitats. Inside one of their plastic domes, a farmer named Oliver Judd nestled potato starts in the ground with nimble hands. It was tricky work in a forty-pound outside suit.

Fantasy

What Else, What Else, in the Joyous City?

by Sadoeuphemist

In Salemo, virtually the entire populace is kept in drudgery and toil. There are no public parks, nor libraries, nor song, nor wine, nor holidays. People slave away in seventy-two -hour workweeks, sustained by unnourishing meals of corn meal and grease, returning home to their miserable hovels at the end of each day to collapse on their stinking cots.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Meghan McCarron

by Delia Cullity

We’re so used to thinking of exploring other planets as a dream or even a privilege. But if all these wild dreams come true, going into space will become someone’s job. What is our dream for those jobs?

Science Fiction

How to Win Against the Robots

by Katherine Crighton

Mom lives in a little place off the old meat-packing district, the streets full of cobblestones peeking through asphalt as hipsters turn the bones of slaughterhouses into bespoke gin bars. It’s expensive.

Fantasy

A Dish Best Served Cold, Or, an Excerpt From the Cookbook Of the Gods

by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe

Author spotlight

The first thing you have to know is that I did not kill the gods. Now, I’m sure you must have heard differently from your parents when they tell you bedtime stories, your priests who tell you their selfish desires rather than the will of the gods, or from your teachers who pretend to know what they’re talking about.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe

by Delia Cullity

In the Yoruba translation of the Holy Bible, the devil is sometimes called Satani which is just an adjustment of the English word Satan. However, where the English version uses the word “devil” then the Yoruba translation is Éshu.

Nonfiction

Book Review: When Devils Sing by Xan Kaur

by Arley Sorg

Looking for your next gritty read? Find out why Arley Sorg thinks When Devils Sing by Xan Kaur ought to be it.

Science Fiction

Domestic Disputes

by Naomi Kanakia

Author spotlight

Once upon a time, on a spaceship traveling through the divide between galaxies, a married couple was bickering about whose job it was to clean the mouse shit that’d accumulated in the reactor tubes.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Naomi Kanakia

by Phoebe Barton

We all have a role in this world, but largely our role is not to be the hero. Tomas is a guy who grew up on some little hick planet, dreamed of getting off, and did in fact succeed in escaping.

Fantasy

Un-Pragmagic: A Tyler Moore Retrospective

by Spencer Nitkey

Tyler Moore’s spells strive to exist in and of themselves. They make no excuse or justification for their existence: no promise to speak to the dead, predict next year’s grain or gold prices, or read the mind of lawyers during a hostile takeover. They are simply beautiful, challenging, and awe-inducing.

Nonfiction

Book Review: The Memory of the Ogisi by Moses Ose Utomi

by Melissa A Watkins

Melissa A. Watkins thought the prose in The Memory of the Ogisi by Moses Ose Utomi was some of the best she’s read in recent years. Find out what else she loved about this new book.

Science Fiction

Finding Love in a Time Loop: A How-To Guide

by Leah Cypess

We all know, by now, how common time loops are. In less than a decade, they’ve moved from the realm of SF movies into the slightly less-realistic realm of self-help books—most famously, Moving On: How to Keep Going When Time Literally Stops.

Fantasy

You Knit Me Together in My Mother’s Womb

by Paul Crenshaw

Author spotlight

Because her sudden pregnancy doomed her—as she saw it—to diapers and daycares she couldn’t afford and the same drab job she already disliked, Abby asked for Marcia’s advice. At thirty months, Marcia was already the size of a glacier. She moved slowly and inexorably, lowering herself cranelike onto couches.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Paul Crenshaw

by Phoebe Barton

I think fantasy and science fiction have always been opposed to oppression. There’s always an evil man standing in a tower somewhere, a great all-seeing eye peering out at his domain, and there’s always band of men (or hobbits) rising up to meet him.