The legendary scholar of the mystical arts known as Master Luminous Smoke came from a once illustrious noble family that had fallen on hard times.

Raimy trusts me implicitly. This is why she put me in charge of her entire physical home life, everything material that matters to her, for a full ten days.

“You could have screamed,” she said. I blinked. “What?” “For help, you know. I could try to drag you away to the world beyond.”

He thought a jumbie would look hunched and desiccated, like the twisted body of a man blackened by fire, something living that should be dead. But as the jumbie emerges from the club, it looks like it could be another queer man in the Village, another of the boys inside on the dance floor; it wears a tailored peacoat and Converse and has a face that would be beautiful if it wasn’t so long, if only its thin-lipped mouth wasn’t quite so wide.

No one will sleep until the Princess learns the Stranger’s name.

In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Ciro Faienza presents poetry from the Indian SF special issue and the week of May 7, including commentary by poet Alice Fanchiang. https://strangehorizons.podbean.com/mf/web/r2dgyr/Strange-Horizons-20180507-p.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Sacrifices have to be made. We didn’t do it then, so we have to do it now.

They were not the kind of dreams that you’d expect a dog to have. The dreams he’d had before the men came had been doggy dreams. The dreams he had after they grabbed him, though, these dreams were entirely new.

When we were young, we would always get lost in the house. Quietly but suddenly, we would find ourselves in rooms or corridors that had not been there before. Unfamiliar clothing hung on chairs or lay neatly folded on beds that we did not recognize. Sometimes there would be a half-empty tumbler of water on a desk, a book or a pile of loose change. Windows looked out on places we did not know. Even the sun and the trees looked strange. When this happened, there was nothing to do but wait until the house shook itself out and we were put back, a few hours later, with no one noticing we were gone.

The shortlists for the second annual Nommo Awards for Speculative Fiction by Africans have been announced. The Awards in the four categories of Novel, Novella, Short Story and Graphic Novel/Comics are shortlisted by the Members of the African Speculative Fiction Society, a body of published writers, artists or editors associated with speculative fiction who are Africans. Over the next three months, the members will vote for the winners in each category from these shortlists. The winners will be announced at the Ake Literary Festival to be held in Abeokuta, Nigeria in October. The shortlists for 2018 are: Best Novel Gavin Chait Our Memory Like Dust Masha du Toit The Real Deon Meyer Fever Tochi Onyebuchi Beasts Made of Night Deji Olokotun After the Flare Nnedi Okorafor Akata Warrior   Best Novella Nnedi Okorafor Binti:Home Sofia Samatar Fallow Tade Thompson The Murders of Molly Southbourne   Best Short Story Nerine Dorman ‘On the Other Side of the Sea’ Sibongile Fisher ‘A Door Ajar’ Chinelo Onwualu ‘Read Before Use’ Henrietta Rose-Innes ‘Snake Story’ Wole Talabi ‘The Regression Test’ (First published by The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)   Best Graphic novel Eru Writers and artists Tobe Ezeogu, Ozo Ezeogu Hero Kakere Writer and artist”Tobe Ezeogu, Artist Kelechi Issac, Ireti Bidemi Michael Balogun and Adeleye Yusuf Lake of Tears Writer Kwabena Ofei, Artiist Setor Fiadzigbey Guardian Prime Genesis Written by Wale Awelenje, Art Jide Martin Quest and the Sign of the Shining Beast Writer Robert S Malan, Artist John Cockshaw