A Flame in the Dark by Sam W. Pisciotta – 4.0
Set in 1775 in the American wilderness, A Flame in the Dark is told through the journal entries and letters of Annette Lacroix, a French naturalist living on the frontier…
“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.…
“The Trajectory of Memory is Forward” by Rajeev Prasad – 3.4
Clarkesworld, April 2026 “The Trajectory of Memory is Forward” is a sprawling, biopunk novella set in a far-future Earth scarred by climate catastrophe, radical genetic engineering, and centuries of exploitation.…
“Where the Dream Train Goes, Pt. 2” by Jason Sanford – 3.8
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, March 2026 The story concludes the two-part novella following Lande, a young mountain-touched mechanic working at an Outranger-controlled dreamstone mine deep in the veil — a liminal…
“Where the Dream Train Goes, Pt. 1” by Jason Sanford – 3.8
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, March 2026 Lande is a nineteen-year-old woman living in a narrow mountain valley under the occupation of the Outrangers, an industrialized outside power that has built a…
“Scion” by Thomas Ha – 3.4
Clarkesworld, March 2026 On the storm-wracked moon of Rai, an unnamed young lord navigates a vast, labyrinthine manor whose shifting concentric rooms reflect the deteriorating mind of the Levinlord —…
“What Any Dead Thing Wants” by Aimee Ogden – 3.1
Adventitious, February 2026 (Originally published in psychopomp, 2024) Hob is a weary exorcism specialist leading a crew tasked with clearing the ghost-life from a freshly terraformed planet — a world…
“The Placemat at Baldy’s Diner” by Michael Libling – 4.2
Asimov’s Science Fiction, March/April 2026 A grief-stricken man named Shore drives aimlessly through New England, barely sleeping, living in his car, haunted by the loss of his daughter and wife.…
“The Ghosts of Goldilocks” by Kevin J. Anderson & Rick Wilber – 4.6
Asimov’s Science Fiction, March/April 2026 Forty years after the damaged generation ship Hind barely managed to land its passengers on the planet Goldilocks, humanity struggles to survive on a world…
“Satan’s Slave” by R. Garcia y Robertson – 3.2
Asimov’s Science Fiction, March/April 2026 In a future where slavery has returned to the outer solar system, Diana Spartaca is a gladiator fighting to survive in Nova Roma, a colony…