Oct. 2025 (Issue 185)

We have original science fiction by Osahon Ize-Iyamu (“O Mechfighter, O Starsinger”) and Megan Chee (“Everyone Hates the Auditor”). We also have two terrific flash pieces: “The Porniest Porn in Porntown” from Stephen Graham Joes and “Thaw” by An Owomoyela. Plus, we have original fantasy by Micah Dean Hicks (“Dirge and Gleam”) and A.L. Goldfuss (“Drosera regina”). We also have a flash story (“At the Bottom of the Bonfire”) from Martin Cahill, and another (“Dating Fortune”) from Sean McMullen. 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 Tithi Luadthong (aka Grandfailure)

Oct. 2025 (Issue 185)

Editorial

Editorial: October 2025

by John Joseph Adams

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

Publishes Online on 10/9

Science Fiction

O Mechfighter, O Starsinger

by Osahon Ize-Iyamu

The Starsinger, the Starsinger, the Starsinger, he sings. His histories have long been recorded—in every pit stop he has visited. In every station he has stayed. It may be just a minute of the traffickers slapping the Bini out of his mouth, or them telling him to recite the Western verse, or them colonizing his heart. But he remembers. Oh, the Starsinger remembers.

Publishes Online on 10/9

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Osahon Ize-Iyamu

by Phoebe Barton

Space is such a fertile ground for interesting world-building, and I thought this idea of characters living in asteroids to be a fascinating and also somewhat plausible world-building tool. I didn’t think so much of where to place them, so much as I knew where they would be based on the kind of people they are. I always think character first, and everything is in service to that.

Publishes Online on 10/9

Fantasy

At the Bottom of the Bonfire

by Martin Cahill

By the time he went to reclaim himself, it was too late. As a young man, he’d realized there was a power to being alone. Relationships were tethers that held you back, sapped you of strength, of will. People were poison. And not all poisons were bad; sometimes the toxic taste, the caustic kiss, was a good thing. But too much killed you all the same. No matter how alive it made him feel in the moment, he knew that in the end, it would cost him.

Publishes Online on 10/9

Science Fiction

The Porniest Porn in Porntown

by Stephen Graham Jones

The woman’s name was lost in The Fall, as was so much else we once thought vital—seasons, rivers, uncharred air—but her image persists, has become indelible. The giant wall of white upon which her travesties are projected once yearly has become a mecca for all in this, our new world. The desert for miles around is littered with the bleached bones of those who would gaze upon her bare body, to confirm for themselves and their outposts that one such as her ever actually existed.

Publishes Online on 10/16

Fantasy

Dirge and Gleam

by Micah Dean Hicks

My ghost bled through the shadows, an icy wind stirring the leaves. Eyes like candle flames shuddering and crescent moon mouth, it had found me as a girl and never let go—the only thing that was really mine. It led me to an overgrown graveyard, pelts of moss eating like acid through fallen tombstones. In the haze of tree-shadowed dark, huge stone towers loomed in the distance, wrapped by vine and tree limb.

Publishes Online on 10/16

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Micah Dean Hicks

by Delia Cullity

There’s an established trope that magic can be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing, and I thought, what if I really push that? What if someone without the proper training is a live wire, shocking everything and everyone around them? In that case, you don’t want these kids to know magic until they are emotionally ready to control it.

Publishes Online on 10/16

Nonfiction

Book Review: All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu

by Melissa A Watkins

Looking for a new series to sink your teeth into? Melissa A. Watkins recommends All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu, the first in a new SF thriller series with a realistic tech near-future and a hopeful, but honest commentary on our current world.

Publishes Online on 10/16

Science Fiction

Everyone Hates the Auditor

by Megan Chee

“Attention, please,” the Manager says over the office intercom. “The Auditor’s shuttle is scheduled to dock in one hour. I repeat, one hour. Warehouse staff, please ensure that all inventory is in place.”

Publishes Online on 10/23

Fantasy

Dating Fortune

by Sean McMullen

Mark was aware that he looked more dead than alive, so he did not have high expectations for his first, and last, night on the town. He had fled the hospital’s cancer ward fuelled by stolen methamphetamines, wearing stolen clothes, and armed with just his credit card.

Publishes Online on 10/23

Nonfiction

Book Review: Signos: A Fiction Anthology of Filipino Supernatural by Tilde Acuña, John Bengan, Daryll Delgado, Amado Anthony G. Mendoza III, and Kristine Ong Muslim, eds.

by Arley Sorg

Book reviewer Arley Sorg has another fun anthology to recommend: Signos: A Fiction Anthology of Filipino Supernatural.

Publishes Online on 10/23

Science Fiction

Thaw

by An Owomoyela

The thaw comes early. Though I’ve been held here for dreams upon dreams, I am not ready. Shoals of us overwinter in the ice. As our bodies slow to quiescence, the ice resonates between us: signals that would be battered unintelligible by moving water.

Publishes Online on 10/30

Fantasy

Drosera regina

by A.L. Goldfuss

The men knew before she did. Before this boy, before sophomore year, before even her twelfth birthday, they had jostled her on the sidewalk and hooted from cars, searching for something just past her skin. But now, with her panties stripped off and the boy’s eyes on her, Jackie felt a strange prickling. A warning pacing behind her ribs. A mouth about to drip.

Publishes Online on 10/30

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: An Owomoyela

by Mayookh Barua

I had a lot of scraps of ideas that hadn’t coalesced into a story yet, and after a long enough period of agitating in my head, they all clumped together. For example, I had this idea of a tidal-locked water world whose only surface liquid water was on the side locked to its star. I liked the idea but couldn’t really get a plot to adhere to it.

Publishes Online on 10/30

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: A.L. Goldfuss

by Phoebe Barton

I keep carnivorous plants, including a Nepenthes I’ve had for many years. I used to post photos of my Nepenthes online, but a subset of men would compare the pitchers to genitalia. Which configuration of genitalia changed each time, but there were always comments, and I began to resent sharing my plant at all.

Publishes Online on 10/30

Nonfiction

Book Review: The Lost Reliquary by Lyndsay Ely

by Chris Kluwe

Chris Kluwe recommends The Lost Reliquary if you like intriguing world-building, well-plotted storylines, and complex character growth with a dash of detective story.

Publishes Online on 10/30