“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…
“Underneath the Underneath” by Audrey Zhou – 3.7
Strange Horizons, April 2026 Mina is a woman from elsewhere—a seafarer’s daughter who came to Dragon Pass Island when her family’s trade ship was wrecked at its port and who…
“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 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…
“Sophie Simpson’s Whizz-Bang Day at World War I” by Dale Bailey – 2.9
Asimov's, May/June 2026 Sophie Simpson is a sharp, plain, perpetually skint girl from a single-parent household who wears her cousin Mary’s ill-fitting hand-me-downs and eats cheese and pickle sandwiches every…
“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.…
“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…
“Saint Zero of the Hollows and the Eagle Knight” by V.M. Ayala – 3.4
Lightspeed, April 2026 Zero Santos — nonbinary, biracial, working-class, and known to the crowds as Saint Zero of the Hollows — is a jousting knight fighting their way through a…
“The Forgetting Code” by Malena Salazar Macía – 3.8
Clarkesworld, April 2026 On an orbital station adrift somewhere in the quiet of space, an old man named Joel has spent his life helping others forget. His gift is technical…
“Shelter” by Nadia W. Aldsen – 3.1
Clarkesworld, April 2026 The story unfolds at Chaska Punku Space Port in the Atacama Desert of Chile, where an unnamed social worker — employed under a punishing contract with the…