“The Girl Who Stole Life” by Zhou Wen, tr. Xueting C. Ni – 4.0
Asimov's, May/June 2026 The story opens with an unnamed narrator standing in an ominous alley, the scent of decay seeping from behind a door, contemplating a woman whose choices led…
“Hot” by Cecelia Holland – 4.3
Asimov's, May/June 2026 “Hot” is a climate collapse novella set in the near-future California coast, following Francie Beuerlein, a teenage girl navigating civilizational breakdown during a catastrophic, lethal heat wave.…
“Half Inside the Spirit Box” by Stephanie Feldman – 4.0
Asimov's, May/June 2026 The story opens on a pier in Atlantic City, where Winston Montecarlo — the famous “Handcuff King” — performs a shackled ocean plunge before a rapt crowd.…
“D0G” by Tania Fordwalker – 4.0
Clarkesworld, April 2026 In a post-apocalyptic near future, a woman known as Billie survives alone on a small island in a river near Moosehead Lake, Maine, somewhere upstream from a…
“What We Mean When We Talk About the Hole in the Bathroom” by Angela Liu – 4.0
Uncanny, March/April 2026 A woman and her husband discover a two-foot circular hole in their bathroom wall, emanating cold wind that smells of wet soil and river water. Their argument…
“The Woman Who Stole Flowers” by Theodora Goss – 4.0
Uncanny, March/April 2026 The story is narrated by an American academic on sabbatical in Budapest, researching changes in the Hungarian educational system in the post-Soviet era. One spring morning, she…
“Permanent Press” by Sunwoo Jeong – 4.6
Uncanny, March/April 2026 At the heart of the story is a neighborhood laundry-mat run by the stingy Mr. Lee, whose flickering neon sign alternates between two spellings—LA NDRY and L…
“The Tawlish Island Songbook of the Dead” by E.M. Linden – 4.0
PodCastle, Episode 879, February 2025 The dead of Tawlish Island watch from the shore as the last thirty-seven living inhabitants evacuate their remote, failing community. The freshwater has gone brackish,…
“Chimera” by Anjali Sachdeva – 4.3
Uncanny, March/April 2026 Savita, a sixty-five-year-old Indian-American woman, has long dreaded Thanksgiving — not merely for its excess, but for the grief that has shadowed every November since her youngest…
“Lotus Dew for the Emperor’s Tea” by Vanessa Fogg – 4.4
Lightspeed, March 2026 In a mythic First Age, the First Emperor rules an immortal paradise where no winter falls, orchards bloom endlessly, and death is banished from the court. Each…