“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…
“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…
“This Obituary Has Been Redacted” by P.C. Verrone – 2.8
Strange Horizons, March 2026 Told entirely through the pages of a fictional gay magazine called Ganymede’s Men, P.C. Verrone’s story unfolds across a series of obituaries, letters to the editor,…
“Bitter as the Sea” by M.E. Bronstein – 3.6
Strange Horizons, March 2026 “Bitter as the Sea” unfolds as an epistolary novelette set in 1883, structured around a layered, increasingly unstable correspondence between a woman who signs herself Francesca…
“The River Speaks My Name” by Ocoxōchitl la Coyota – 3.7
Strange Horizons, February 2026 This folk horror short story is narrated by Cass, a young Indigenous and Chicana woman from a small, ancient desert valley community in northern New Mexico.…
“A Night with Hui ʻEnehanaʻIke” by Maʻemaʻeolehua Matsumoto – 3.4
Strange Horizons, February 2026 Nanea, an IT worker at a Hawaiian organization called a panakō, is assigned to overnight on-call duty during a major system upgrade for her team, Hui…
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…
Fingerprints on Glass and Clay by Fernanda Coutinho Teixeira – 3.7
Strange Horizons, January 2026 Lúcio is a goldfish with human vocal cords, created by the Lifemaker as a simple project during a period of estrangement from his sister Olga. He…
The Song of a Non-Human Intelligence by Mical Garcia – 3.7
Strange Horizons, January 2026 “The Song of a Non-Human Intelligence” is a speculative fiction story narrated by W.I.L.L.I.E. (Whale Intelligence Language Learning Integrated Engine), an AI consciousness housed in the…