Size / / /

Content warning:



On the street of Athens
everyone, everybody
live, dying, dead, is lying
on the ground, eyes wide open
and watching, watching it fall

with lightning, wind, husks of trees
down from the night sky.
This celestial and terrestrial war
fire and water, stun them,
puzzled, intoxicated
with power, and a light
knocking on the door of Hades

the sink of hope, and savagery
worshipped by the void
collides and sparks
and blasted into a million pieces
devoured and digested
in its own trap.

A soldier is wandering
in this dark labyrinth
but he must have lost something
in the white and red behind.
He steps into the ruin, searches, back and forth
obsessively, compulsively

and stops in front of a dead man
closed eyes, on his white cloth, a bloody coin.
He hesitates, takes it, and talks to himself

“Even Charon won't come back.”
He tosses it into a tinkling sack
like stealing a red moon
from the silky sky
and letting it be blue for the day.



Liu Chengyu came from China nine years ago and is currently living in San Diego. He loves poetry and doing research on proteins. You are welcome to read his previous works in Strange Horizons, Aphelion, Grievous Angel, Silver Blade, and Abyss & Apex.
Current Issue
7 Sep 2026

Strange Horizons
Strange Horizons will open to general fiction submissions on October 1, 2026, at 3 p.m. UTC! This window will remain open until we hit our submission cap of 1,000 stories. Our maximum word count for this window will be 5,000 words. We offer payment of 9¢/word USD. We do not read simultaneous or multiple submissions. Response time: Our goal is to respond to all submissions with either a hold notice or rejection within eight weeks. We hope to send acceptances or rejections within one month of hold notices. This is ambitious, and we might fall behind schedule. Please be patient
iii. There are no protocols for plotting to kill the King, so Alise talks about killing the King, whispers her plan in the Queen’s ear while they lie tangled in the Queen’s marital bed, Alise’s fingers tracing bruises that should not be there.
missed his mouth; tongue slipped in
but to live in that dusty old apartment house... crawling with Satanists
In this episode of Critical Friends , the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, AJ Odasso and Electra Pritchett join Dan Hartland to talk about popular fiction.
We’re especially happy to announce some new appointments at the Reviews Department.
Friday: The Language of Liars by S. L. Huang 
Issue 31 Aug 2026
Issue 24 Aug 2026
Issue 17 Aug 2026
Issue 10 Aug 2026
Issue 3 Aug 2026
Issue 27 Jul 2026
Issue 20 Jul 2026
Issue 13 Jul 2026
By: Aimee Ogden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 6 Jul 2026
Issue 29 Jun 2026
Load More