Fiction

Science Fiction

I had this virus, and it was inside me, and it could have been causing all these weird kinds of cancers…. All sorts of weird stuff I’d never heard of, like hairy cell leukemia, and cancerous lesions in parts of your bones, and cancer in your pancreas. But I wasn’t sick. I mean, I didn’t feel sick. And now, even after all the antivirals, now I worry about it all the time. Now I’m always thinking I’m sick. It’s like something was stolen from me that I never knew I had.

In May 2013 (Issue 36)

Fantasy

The Aarne-Thompson Classification Revue

by Holly Black

Author spotlight

There is a werewolf girl in the city. She sits by the phone on a Saturday night, waiting for it to ring. She paints her nails purple.

In May 2013 (Issue 36)

Science Fiction

Water Finds Its Level

by M. Bennardo

Author spotlight

When people asked where I met Roger, I always told the truth. “We met in the Collision,” I’d say. Then they’d give me that look that people used to give you when you told them you met somebody online. The look that said you must be reckless or naive or desperate, and that no good would come of it.

In May 2013 (Issue 36)

Fantasy

Always, They Whisper

by Damien Angelica Walters

Author spotlight

She was not a monster, nor did Perseus cut off her head. The whole Athena and shield bit? Bullshit. Perseus was a self-absorbed fool who barely had the strength to lift a sword over his shoulder, let alone swing it hard enough to sever sinew and bone. As far as the rest of her story, the snakes and stone might be true, but not in the way you think. It’s always easy to paint a villain; harder to scrape below the gilt to find the real.

Illustrated by Galen Dara

In May 2013 (Issue 36)

Fantasy

The Missing Metatarsals

by Sean Williams

Author spotlight

His head swiveled to track me as we walked in lockstep through security. A birth defect called Möbius syndrome inherited from distant Nepalese ancestors left him with underdeveloped VI and VII cranial nerves, so he can’t blink, bite, or form expressions without the help of a series of tiny implants. My girlfriend Billie is a muscle artist, and she’s tweaked the inspector’s presets a couple of times, giving him conscious control of his face, but that’s not the same as the real thing. Not the same at all.

In May 2013 (Issue 36)

Fantasy

The Man Who Carved Skulls

by Richard Parks

Author spotlight

“I married your mother for her skull. It’s no secret.” Jarak put aside his rasps and gouges for the moment, resting his eyes and mind from the precise, exacting work his trade demanded. He didn’t mind his son’s persistent questions at such times. Akan was at an age when he should be curious and, if curiosity was a duty, Akan was a dedicated boy. It wasn’t as though Purlo the Baker, whose skull rested patiently on Jarak’s workbench, was in a hurry.

In May 2013 (Issue 36)

Science Fiction

The Traditional

by Maria Dahvana Headley

Author spotlight

By your first anniversary, the world’s stopped making paper, and so you can’t give your boyfriend the traditional gift. You never would have anyway, regardless of circumstances. You’re not that kind of girl. You pride yourself on your original sin. It’s the hot you trade in.

2013 Award Finalists 2013 Shirley Jackson Award Finalist Illustrated by Galen Dara Shirley Jackson Award Finalists

In May 2013 (Issue 36)

Science Fiction

Deep Blood Kettle

by Hugh Howey

Author spotlight

They say the sky will fill with dust in a bad way if we don’t do something soon. My teacher Mrs. Sandy says that if the meteor hits, it’ll put up enough dirt to block the sun, and everything will turn cold for a long, long while. When I came home and told Pa about this, he got angry. He called Mrs. Sandy a bad word, said she was teaching us nonsense. I told him the dinosaurs died because of dust in the sky. Pa said there weren’t no such thing as dinosaurs.

Illustrated by Galen Dara

In Apr. 2013 (Issue 35)

Fantasy

Dinner in Audoghast

by Bruce Sterling

Author spotlight

Delightful Audoghast! Renowned through the civilized world, from Cordova to Baghdad, the city spread in splendor beneath a twilit Saharan sky. The setting sun threw pink and amber across adobe domes, masonry mansions, tall, mud-brick mosques, and open plazas thick with bristling date-palms. The melodious calls of market vendors mixed with the remote and amiable chuckling of Saharan hyenas.

In Apr. 2013 (Issue 35)

Fantasy

Schwartz Between the Galaxies

by Robert Silverberg

Author spotlight

This much is reality: Schwartz sits comfortably cocooned—passive, suspended—in a first-class passenger rack aboard a Japan Air Lines rocket, nine kilometers above the Coral Sea. And this much is fantasy: the same Schwartz has passage on a shining starship gliding silkily through the interstellar depths, en route at nine times the velocity of light from Betelgeuse IX to Rigel XXI, or maybe from Andromeda to the Lesser Magellanic.

In Apr. 2013 (Issue 35)