Fiction

Science Fiction

No one said anything, but Sull could tell they were all a little jealous when he lost his arms and legs. The arms went first, the left one during a bath and the right one a few days later, while he was being fed. Then both legs went at once, which was rare, and Sull was proud of it. He was sitting in a marketing meeting with Glenda and Farook when suddenly his legs quivered and then turned into a slightly viscous liquid that ran out of his trousers like toothpaste from a tube. The liquid ran down the drain under the table with a soft slurping sound.

Illustrated by Galen Dara

In July 2013 (Issue 38)

Science Fiction

Alive, Alive Oh

by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley

Author spotlight

The waves crash onto the blood-red shore, sounding just like the surf on Earth: a dark rumbling full of power. It’s been seventeen years since we left.

2013 Award Finalists 2013 Nebula Award Finalists Nebula Award Finalists

In June 2013 (Issue 37)

Fantasy

Game of Chance

by Carrie Vaughn

Author spotlight

Once, they’d tried using sex to bring down a target. It had seemed a likely plan: Throw an affair in the man’s path, guide events to a compromising situation, and momentum did the rest. That was the theory—a simple thing, not acting against the person directly, but slantwise. But it turned out it was too direct, almost an attack, touching on such vulnerable sensibilities. They’d lost Benton, who had nudged a certain woman into the path of a certain Republic Loyalist Party councilman and died because of it. He’d been so sure it would work.

In June 2013 (Issue 37)

Science Fiction

Get a Grip

by Paul Park

Author spotlight

Here’s how I found out: I was in a bar called Dave’s on East 14th Street. It wasn’t my usual place. I had been dating a woman in Stuyvesant Town. One night after I left, I still wasn’t eager to go home. So on my way I stopped in.

In June 2013 (Issue 37)

Fantasy

Paranormal Romance

by Christopher Barzak

Author spotlight

This is a story about a witch. Not the kind you’re thinking of either. She didn’t have a long nose with a wart on it. She didn’t have green skin or long black hair. She didn’t wear a pointed hat or a cape, and she didn’t have a cat, a spider, a rat, or any of those animals that are usually hanging around witches. She didn’t live in a ramshackle house, a gingerbread house, a Victorian house, or a cave.

2013 Award Finalists 2013 Nebula Award Finalists Illustrated by Galen Dara Nebula Award Finalists

In June 2013 (Issue 37)

Science Fiction

Mono no aware

by Ken Liu

Author spotlight

The world is shaped like the kanji for umbrella, only written so poorly, like my handwriting, that all the parts are out of proportion.

In June 2013 (Issue 37)

Fantasy

The Huntsman

by Megan Arkenberg

Author spotlight

“It’s the best bargain you’ll get in this town,” the faery woman says. She’s standing by a cracked kitchen sink with mold between the tiles, rinsing diced tomatoes and crooked green jalapeño rings. “A heart for a heart. And my heart’s more than what she’s used to, I’ll tell you that. You couldn’t find better if you went door-to-door from every house in the tithe-projects.”

In June 2013 (Issue 37)

Science Fiction

The Ballad of Marisol Brook

by Sarah Grey

Author spotlight

Her name, this time, is Marisol Lysium Brook. The media, long bored with the minutiae of her death, occupies itself by speculating which stars will grace the guest list at her reconstruction gala.

Illustrated by Galen Dara

In June 2013 (Issue 37)

Fantasy

Princess Lucinda and the Hound of the Moon

by Theodora Goss

Author spotlight

When the Queen learned that she could not have a child, she cried for three days. She cried in the clinic in Switzerland, on the shoulder of the doctor, an expert on women’s complaints, leaving tear stains on his white coat. She cried on the train through Austria, while the Alps slipped past the window of her compartment, their white peaks covered with snow.

In June 2013 (Issue 37)

Fantasy

Leaving the Dead

by Dennis Danvers

Author spotlight

Darwin thought he might be more alive than other people. Not a whole lot, but ever increasingly, until finally, in a checkout line at Target, he was the last person left alive but his checker. Gabriella, her nametag said, and she was drifting off. Good for her he was the sort of person who reads nametags. Good for them both.

In May 2013 (Issue 36)