Fiction

Science Fiction

The stores are selling off their inventories and clearing out. The trains and buses have posted their shutdown schedules. People are returning borrowed objects, cleaning out their refrigerators, and packing to leave for the assembly spots. What to bring? Parents tell children to bring warm clothes, just in case, and toothbrushes, but no one knows if we will need them. We are vacating, leaving everything behind, taking only what we can carry or drag in a roller bag.

In Feb. 2025 (Issue 177)

Fantasy

Standardized Test

by Seoung Kim

DIRECTIONS: Fill in the correct letter with a #2 pencil on the answer sheet. Do not use ink or ballpoint pens. Questions left blank will be marked incorrect. Completely fill in each circle.

In Feb. 2025 (Issue 177)

Fantasy

It Holds Her in the Palm of One Hand [Part 2]

by Lowry Poletti

Author spotlight

“You have singularly bad timing, Sun,” Hati says as he leads Sun back into the lab. Glass cabinets overhang black-topped benches. At the end of the aisle, the hatchling is suspended in a tank of proteinaceous fluid. Sun gasps at the sight. It’s only been a few days since the poor thing was eating in the video. “What happened?” She steps past Hati, putting a hand on the glass.

In Feb. 2025 (Issue 177)

Fantasy

An Omodest Proposal

by Andrew Dana Hudson

Esteemed neighbors, emissaries, ambassadors, and dignitaries, I write to you today not only as a statesman but as a scientist. We in the city of Omelas have been exceedingly lucky in recent years. The wars, diseases, and financial instability that have rocked the world have so far passed us by. Partly that’s been due to prudent precautions and smart public investments, but it’s also true that our fine city benefits in unique ways from ancient, dearly-held customs.

In Feb. 2025 (Issue 177)

Science Fiction

It Holds Her in the Palm of One Hand [Part 1]

by Lowry Poletti

Author spotlight

On Miphre, a planet hardly larger than a moon, jagged mountaintops stab above the cloud cover and harbor small ecosystems in the palms of their hands: rock eels and ribbon mosses and seabirds with rodents clutched to their breasts, each one nestled between those stony fingers. “The perfect nesting spot for gastor,” the captain of The Cyclops Cradles Her Sheep said when they arrived on board a few hours ago. “It’s basically a buffet for them.”

In Feb. 2025 (Issue 177)

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)