Size / / /

Another double-bill of contributor news, this time from November and December, to finish the year off. Where shall we start?

How about with some new stories? The latest Interzone includes among other things Samantha Henderson's "My Generations Shall Praise" and Rich Larson's "You Make Pattaya". Larson also has a story in Compelling Science Fiction: "We Are Destroyers." Bogi Takács' new novelette, "Standing on the Floodbanks", is at GigaNotoSaurus, and downloadable in ebook formats. The new Fantasy Magazine is the People of Colo(u)r Destory special; your SH alum count includes stories by Shweta Narayan, N. K. Jemisin, Sofia Samatar and Darcie Little Badger, as well as non-fiction by Karen Lord, Brandon O'Brien and Chinelo Onwualu. Lightspeed, meanwhile, will be featuring new stories by Rich Larson, Carlie St George, Shweta Narayan and Charles Payseur. Charles has a second story upcoming in this year's Dreamspinner advent calendar. The Hex Publishing anthology Cyber World includes stories by Sarah Pinsker, Nisi Shawl, Alyssa Wong and others. Genevieve Williams' "Love Pops!" was in the November Analog. Aidan Doyle's story "The Robot's Guide to Online Dating" appeared at Daily SF. Also at Daily SF: M. K. Hutchins' "Words of Creation; and also by M. K., "Dragon Soap" at Fireside. Su-Yee Lin has two microfictions in the 10th anniversary issue of NANO Fiction, and a short story, "A Ceiling of Sky", forthcoming in The Forge in December. Stephen Case's "The Aeroliths", a story in his "Wizard's House" universe, appeared at Beneath Ceaseless Skies In Jonathan Strahan's Bridging Infinity, you'll find stories by plenty of SH alums and staff, including Charlie Jane Anders, Ken Liu, Karin Lowachee, An Owomoyela, and more. Natalia Theodoridou's "The Island in the Attic" appeared at Apex. Karolina Fedyk's story "A Silent Blue" is in the Polish SF anthology for this year's Eurocon, which can be found here as a free ebook. The latest Bourbon Penn includes A. C. Wise's "How to Host a Haunted House Murder Mystery Party" and Daniel Ausema's "The Front." Daniel also has a story in You Are Here: Tales of Cartographic Wonders, edited by N. E. White. At Clarkesworld, you can read Genevieve Valentine's "Everyone from Themis Sends Letters Home", Nin Harris's "What the Stories Steal", and Maggie Clark's "A Tower for the Coming World". The upcoming issue of LampLight includes Ada Hoffmann's "As Hollow as a Heart". The new Lackington's includes Gwynne Garfinkle's story, "The Hedgehog and the Pine Cone" James Dorr has reprints in the Elder Signs Press anthologies Dark of the Moon and It Begins with the Sound. And in Michael Brotherton's Science Fiction by Scientists, you'll find Marissa Lingen's latest, "Upside the Head."

On the audio front, Kurt Hunt's "Chatter the Teeth" appeared at Podcasle, Carmen Maria Machado's "The Husband Stitch" was read for the Granta Halloween special, and Rachael K. Jones's "This Story Begins With You" was at Cast of Wonders. And Faith L. Justice's collection Time Again and Other Fantastic Stories is available as an audiobook from Audible.

In new books Justine Larbalestier's new one is My Sister Rosa, described by Publishers Weekly as "a chilling contemplation of human morality." Octavia Cade's novella The Convergence of Fairy Tales was published by the Booksmugglers. Ken Liu has edited Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, bringing together many of the stories he's translated over the last few years. Tina Connolly's Seriously Shifted, sequel to Seriously Wicked, and featuring the continuing adventures of teen witch Camellia. Marie Brennan's Onyx Court series is now available in omnibus form: In London's Shadow. And a belated mention for The Year's Best YA Speculative Fiction, edited by Julia Rios and Alisa Krasnostein, which includes Heather Morris's SH story "Probably Definitely", plus stories by Sarah Pinsker, Shveta Thakrar, Sabrina Vourvoulias, and others.

Bonus award-winner: Jenny Blackford has won the Kerry Greenwood Award for Best Malice Domestic Story in the Scarlet Stiletto Awards, for a murder mystery set in Ancient Greece featuring a water nymph. You can find it in the competition anthology Scarlet Stiletto: The Eighth Cut.

What about poetry? Lisa Bradley's "Heliotrope" can be found in Polu Texni. Peg Duthie has six Tanka in the new anthology Neon Graffiti. Wendy Rathbone's collection Dead Starships includes lost captains, alien princes, timeless androids, sorrow, longing and ecstasy. David C. Kopaska-Merkel has 2 poems in The Martian Wave, 2016. Gwynne Garfinkle has two poems and an interview at Postscripts to Darkness. Jessy Randall has three visual poems in Jellyfish Review. Davian Aw is in the next issue of Not One of Us with "repast", and in the next Star*Line with "job interview" and "archaeological puzzle". Neile Graham also has a couple of new poems out: "Spell for the Gleaning of Water" at Twisted Moon, and "The Ozette Tartan" at Interfictions. That issue of Twisted Moon also includes Andrew Watson's "sympathetic systems and work by Sonya Taaffe, Omar Sakr, Margaret Wack and others. Su-Yee Lin's "Garden Party" is in the current issue of Meniscus (pdf link). Deborah P. Kolodji has three haiku in the anthology Lupine Lunes, and another in the Halloween feature at Haikuniverse. Andrew Kozma will have three poems at Blackbird in December.

Fancy some pictures? Marie Brennan is having a limited-time sale of her architecture and objects.

And how about a calendar? Liz Argall's Things Without Arms and Legs are available on a 2017 tea-towel calendar.

Some non-fiction to finish off, as usual: Jonathan McCalmont has a long, contentious but significant history of the New Weird at Big Echo. Carmen Maria Machado has s short essay on "How I Should Have Known Trump Would Be Elected President" at HTMLGIANT. Octavia Cade gave a paper on "The Scientist in Horror" at The New Research on Horror Conference. James Dorr's essay "It Begins with Sound", on writing poetry, was in the autumn issue of Alban Lake. Adam Roberts looks at the Year in SF for the Guardian; Sofia Samatar runs down her year in reading at the Millions. And to finish, Nader Elhefnawy has published his thoughts on the end of science fiction.



Niall Harrison is an independent critic based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. He is a former editor of Strange Horizons, and his writing has also appeared in The New York Review of Science FictionFoundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, The Los Angeles Review of Books and others. He has been a judge for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and a Guest of Honor at the 2023 British National Science Fiction Convention. His collection All These Worlds: Reviews and Essays is available from Briardene Books.
Current Issue
25 Mar 2024

Looking back, I see that my initial hope for this episode was that the mud would have a heartbeat and a heart that has teeth and crippling anxiety. Some of that hope has become a reality, but at what cost?
to work under the / moon is to build a formidable tomorrow
Significantly, neither the humans nor the tigers are shown to possess an original or authoritative version of the narrative, and it is only in such collaborative and dialogic encounters that human-animal relations and entanglements can be dis-entangled.
By: Sammy Lê
Art by: Kim Hu
the train ascends a bridge over endless rows of houses made of beams from decommissioned factories, stripped hulls, salvaged engines—
Issue 18 Mar 2024
Strange Horizons
Issue 11 Mar 2024
Issue 4 Mar 2024
Issue 26 Feb 2024
Issue 19 Feb 2024
Issue 12 Feb 2024
Issue 5 Feb 2024
Issue 29 Jan 2024
Issue 15 Jan 2024
Issue 8 Jan 2024
Load More
%d bloggers like this: