Chip by D.A. Xiaolin Spires – 3.5
Clarkesworld, February 2026 "Chip" is a thoughtful science fiction story about Mengxiang (Meng), a jobless newcomer to a futuristic city, and their unexpected friendship with an AI robocab named Chip.…
Remember Me in the Meat by Sarah Pauling – 3.5
Clarkesworld, February 2026 In a near-future where the "Mindmesh" technology allows humanity to store memories in the cloud rather than biological memory ("lobemeat"), Iris recounts her mission to assassinate billionaire…
Conversations with You by Teresa Milbrodt – 2.6
Baffling Magazine, Issue 5 April 2025 This poignant short story explores grief, memory, and the different ways people preserve connections to those they’ve lost. The narrator prepares eggplant parmesan using…
Pandora’s Formula by Hannah Yang – 3.6
Strange Horizons, April 2025 The narrator, Em, marries Minju—the girl who bullied her in middle school—on the same day that “Pandora’s Formula” is published online. This formula is a simple,…
Crisis Actors by Maddison Stoff and Corey Jae White – 4.4
Strange Horizons, 20 January 2025 In a dystopian near-future America, the Department for a Safe America employs “Watchers” who monitor surveillance feeds across the country, flagging suspicious activity to law…
Technical Subconscious: A Review of Laila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel (Novel) – 1.2
Introduction In The Dream Hotel (2025), Pulitzer Prize finalist Laila Lalami delivers a chillingly prescient exploration of the intersection between technology, state surveillance, and the human subconscious. Building on her…
The Patron by Thomas Ha – 4.0
The Sunday Morning Transport, March 2025 Thomas Ha’s “The Patron” presents a haunting exploration of commodified human connection through a gig economy service called “the program,” where people hire others…
Came the Last Night of Sadness by Catherynne M. Valente – 3.6
The End of the World asWe Know It This post-apocalyptic novelette follows Fern Ramsey, a mysterious seventeen-year-old wandering alone through an America devastated by plague. Most of humanity has died…
The Legend Liminal by Ren Hutchings – 4.0
Stars and Sabers Publishing Version 1.0.0 Stacey M. Kells and her two brothers, Spencer and Shelton, along with their best friend Faye, set out on a road trip west in…
Every Dark Cloud by Marisca Pichette – 3.7
Ghost Orchid Press In a future Earth shrouded in permanent darkness, humanity survives beneath artificially generated clouds that protect them from a sun turned deadly. Eighty years ago, the Coalition…