Podcast

Science Fiction

Dekar Druid lives in an infinite library. Besides Ebizenum, who is in a special category of their own, he is the only living person in the library’s single tower. Outside, a forest surrounds the tower. There’s a lake a short walk to the north and a peak to the distant south. And nothing else. The lake is easy to get to, a respite on hot summer days, but Dekar Druid has never made it to the mountains, not even close, though he’s walked for miles southward.

In Mar. 2025 (Issue 178)

Fantasy

Chickenfoot Soup

by Marika Bailey

Author spotlight

A scream rises from the bush. One last call to the living: a warning of pain. Katarina’s heard that same sound more times than she’s had hot dinners but still a ribbon of unease unfurls in her gut. She sets her cleaver down for a moment, shifting from one foot to the other.

In Jan. 2025 (Issue 176)

Science Fiction

After the God Has Moved On

by Kate Elliott

We saw her staggering down the promenade, gills flaring as she sucked for the gods’ aether that no longer fueled her breathing. By her gasping breaths we knew the god had moved on, swimming the invisible aether to another, leaving her gasping in the void as she fell back into the strained, recycled, and slightly fishy-smelling air of the space station.

In Jan. 2025 (Issue 176)

Fantasy

I Eat the Sky for Us

by Vijayalaxmi Samal

Baba’s skin splits open with the sound of thunder. A parent’s intuition, he says, switching on the news. A ticker tape warning runs across the screen telling us to leave, leave, leave. The sky over our home is cracking but Baba will not go. He runs up to the roof instead and grows larger than I ever knew him to be.

In Jan. 2025 (Issue 176)

Fantasy

Dyson Spheres of the Vaba Cluster

by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko

Author spotlight

The Map Sphere consists of thirteen stellar sails, circular in shape, arranged asymmetrically around the host star. They are easy to miss but look closely and you will see them: specks against the dark, clustered in no more than thirty degrees of arc. They are not really a sphere, this is true. Their total power production is so low you would be forgiven for doubting their function.

In Jan. 2025 (Issue 176)

Fantasy

Bone and Marrow, Woven into Song

by Neon Yang

Author spotlight

“This is it,” says Sister Auralee. She stamps on the ground beneath them. “This is where we’ll plant the church.” The turf yields to her bare feet, warm and spongy like bruised flesh. Grass peeks between her toes. She smells moisture, the tang of fibrous peat deep below, a thousand years of bones and dead leaves packed into the dirt.

In Jan. 2025 (Issue 176)

Science Fiction

The Exquisite Pull of Relentless Desire

by Will McMahon

The dancer switches the camera on as his ship falls into orbit around the black hole; the opening image of his unmuscled chest squeezed beneath translucent polyester blasts out toward a thousand points of watching light. He’s shaved his body for the first time in his life, the nicks of the razor lingering in little scabbing cuts. He hits the music.

In Jan. 2025 (Issue 176)

Fantasy

A Heap of Petrified Gods

by Adelehin Ijasan

It was a different kind of migration when our parents moved to Lagos; Dad, a young accountant, had got a job at the federal secretariat, and Mum, a teacher, lugging three boys aged one, three, and five, transferred later from her state civil service job to the Federal School of Arts and Sciences on the island.

In Jan. 2025 (Issue 176)

Science Fiction

Tell Them a Story to Teach Them Kindness

by B. Pladek

Author spotlight

USER: this is a message for Milwaukee Elementary’s curator Jude Towers, I hope this is the right address. anyway thanks for the story you had RIGHTR generate for my 10th graders’ Empathy Week. it was really great! can you tell me more about it?

CURATOR: I am happy to have fulfilled the assignment.

In Jan. 2025 (Issue 176)

Fantasy

Three Birds That Came Out of Grayson Huff and a Bunch More That Fell from the Sky

by David Anaxagoras

I was on the school bus when the second bird came out. The bus struggled up Trabuco Hill Road. Gears ground. This was the part every day when we all joked about getting out to push. Another year and I’d have my driver’s license. Then no more bus.

In Dec. 2024 (Issue 175)