“A Tree That Can’t Be Chopped” by Timothy Mudie – 3.5
Kaleidotrope, April 2026 The story is narrated by Brinnen Ott, a mill worker at a frontier timber company town built on the edge of a vast, ancient forest. Brinnen’s closest…
“Skiinfolk” by Jamie McGhee – 4.1
Strange Horizons, April 2026 In a near-future America where Augmented Skiins™ — artificial second skins that transform one’s appearance — are as commonplace as clothing, Ogden is a young Black…
“Unspeakable Knowns” by Donald McCarthy – 3.5
Asimov's, May/June 2026 The story unfolds in first person through the voice of an unnamed Secretary of Media for Maldrove, the oldest human colony world, distinguished by its pervasive red…
“The Sky Above The Earth Below” by Steve Rasnic Tem – 3.7
Asimov's, May/June 2026 Grace is twenty-nine years old, American-born, and supervising three experimental carbon capture beaches along the Chilean coast for the Civilian Climate Corps. The beaches are surfaced with…
“The Language of Machines” by Betsy Aoki – 3.7
Asimov's, May/June 2026 The story is narrated by Rach, one of the New Humans — beings engineered by sentient spiral machines from the corpses of Old Humans who once tore…
“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.…
“Alpha Gal” by Greg Egan – 3.8
Asimov's, May/June 2026 Elena, an entomologist at a Sydney university, wakes in the middle of the night in anaphylactic shock — swollen eyes, constricted throat, collapsing blood pressure. Her partner…
“Six-Gun Vixen and the Machinist of Doom Valley [Part 2]” by Ashok K. Banker – 3.8
Lightspeed, April 2026 Part 2 opens with Six-Gun returning to New Providence to find the town has turned against her. Beauchamp has spent the day working his influence, the sheriff…
“Six-Gun Vixen and the Machinist of Doom Valley [Part 1]” by Ashok K. Banker – 3.5
Lightspeed, April 2026 The narrator — known by the handle Six-Gun Vixen — is a deeply compelling outsider figure: a brown-skinned, six-armed, wolf-eared woman of South Asian origin, shadow-cursed and…