Return to 2016
Best SF/F Short Fiction
Score: 16 →
8-9 Recommendations
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(Horror) Following a disaster in
Antarctica, MacReady spends summer 1983 in New York and starts to wonder what
he might have brought back with him.
Other
Reviews
RSR
Mini-Review [3] Recommended By: SFRevu+1 GDozois+2 RHorton+2 NClarke+2 JStrahan+2 CPayseur+2
Nebula+2 Sturgeon+2
BASFF+1
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Score: 15
Score: 14 → 7-8 Recommendations
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(Fairy Tale) Tabitha has been walking
a long time, trying to wear out seven pairs of iron shoes; Amira has been
sitting alone on a glass hill that suitors try to climb.
Other
Reviews
RSR
Mini-Review [4] Recommended By: RSR+1 JStrahan+2 Nebula+2 Hugo+2 Eugie+2 Locus+2 Sturgeon+2
BASFF+1
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Score: 13
Score: 12 → 6-7 Recommendations
Score: 11
Score: 10 → 5-6 Recommendations
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(SF) Despite not being a telepath,
Calla worked out a way to play chess with her captor, Major Larn, during the recent
war. Now they're going to finish their game.
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(Modern Fantasy) A young hustler
discovers that he's supposed to play a big role in transforming New York from
a city to a City. If he can survive it.
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Score: 9
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A Fist of
Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers by Alyssa Wong Time: 11m (ShortStory) Issue: Tor.com 03/02/16
(Magical Realism) Hannah watched her
sister Melanie die, incinerated with her own magic. Hannah can't accept that
and sets out to use her own magic to put things right.
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(Planetary SF) A vast fleet of
"jalopies" carry individuals on a one-way trip from Earth to Mars.
People do it for different reasons, some of which we learn about in this
story.
Other
Reviews
RSR
Mini-Review [2] Recommended By: GDozois+2 RHorton+1 NClarke+2 JStrahan+2 CPayseur+2
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Score: 8 → 4-5
Recommendations
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(Horror) The girl he killed was much
more than merely human, and there will be consequences.
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Welcome to
the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station | Hours Since the Last
Patient Death: 0 by Caroline M. Yoachim
Time: 07m (ShortStory) Issue: Lightspeed 70
(SF Humor) A choose-your-own-adventure
story in which you navigate the clinic on a space station full of aliens.
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Score: 7
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(Chinese Fantasy) Sometimes a unicorn assisted Judge Kao Yu, and because
he was so just and honest, he never feared its judgment. Until now.
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(SF Thriller) The narrator is a con
man in near-future Thailand, and he has a scheme that might net him enough to
retire.
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Score: 6 → 3-4
Recommendations
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(Space Opera; Xuya) Thuy seeks her
daughter's remains in the twisted parts of unreal space where salvagers pick
over the remains of wrecked starships.
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And Then,
One Day, The Air Was Full Of Voices by Margaret
Ronald Time: 17m (ShortStory) Issue: Clarkesworld 117
(SF) Dr. Kostia spent thirty years
interpreting broadcasts from the Coronals for other people on Earth. The last
broadcasts have caused a lot of disruption, even in her own family.
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(Hard SF) Four Warm Currents leads a
project to drill through the ice at the Roof of the World to finally discover
what’s on the other side, but the closer he gets, the more opposition there
is.
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Not by
Wardrobe, Tornado, or Looking Glass by Jeremiah Tolbert
Time: 17m (ShortStory) Issue: Lightspeed 69
(Portal Fantasy) Rabbit holes open at
random, summoning people to fairy-tale universes where they are the heroes.
Louisa keeps waiting for one to open for her.
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(Far Future SF) Mia marks her
birthdays as powers of 7, which gives her lots of time to work out her issues
with her mother.
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Score: 5
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(SF Humor) Nigerian astronaut Abacha
Tunde has been abandoned in space since 1990 and he would appreciate some
help getting home.
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Dispatches From The Cradle: The Hermit -- Forty-Eight Hours In The Sea
Of Massachusetts
by Ken Liu Time: 22m (ShortStory) Issue: Drowned Worlds 2016
(Post Apocalypse) Around 2650 AD, the
narrator interviews a wealthy recluse who lives above the sunken ruins of Boston.
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Score: 4 → 2-3
Recommendations
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Caspar D.
Luckinbill, What Are You Going to Do? by Nick
Wolven Time: 22m (ShortStory) Issue: F&SF 01.02|16
(SF) When "mediaterrorists"
attack, the disrupt Caspar's comfortable life in a near-future where everyone
is connected.
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(Historical Fantasy) On the eve of the
Nazi takeover, a young German man's first assignment fixing a living statue
becomes more complicated than he expected.
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(Near-Future SF) A refugee from a
drowned island nation works on the Antarctic peninsula, where he studies
mysterious stones with elven runes in his spare time.
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(Post Apocalypse) Just as things are
looking up, survivors in a Northwest community face a threat from the east.
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(Slipstream) Jack has been stranded at
summer camp for seven years, since his parents keep forgetting to pick him
up. On the bright side, his dragon egg is about to hatch.
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(High Fantasy) To defeat the armies of
the Efficate, the Cteri train some of their children to be weapons of mass
destruction.
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(SF) A police detective tries to cope
with an attractive female robot who confesses to murder.
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(SF) A woman on death row is offered a
fortune for her children if she'll let another woman take over her body.
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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(Far-Future SF; Great Ship) An ancient
robot tells a human how it helped build a planet-sized ship and what the
consequences were.
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(Black Historical Fantasy) In the
closing years of segregation, Emmaline uses her magic to help neighbors and
protect her children, for trouble is coming.
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(SF) When a feral robot steals her
phone, Renee acquires a keen interest in the little robotic ecosystem that
flourishes in the park.
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(Hard SF) In an near future when
everyone has brain implants, a computer virus can be a health issue.
Especially when it turns users into killers.
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(SF) Agatha wants a svelte replacement
for her plump body, but since she can't get one grown in a reasonable time,
she looks into an illegal swap.
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Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee by Alastair Reynolds
Time: 14m (ShortStory) Issue: Bridging Infinity 2016
(Far-Future SF) Kamala discovered an
alien artifact inside the sun, and she spent her life finding a way to reach
it.
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(Horror) Four friends meet for a
writer’s critique group, on a stormy night when a dangerous beast is on the
loose outside.
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(SF) After an alien terrorist kills
Majd's little brother back on Earth, he struggles to accept it, and starts
making changes to his own life.
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(High Fantasy) An immortal assassin
threatens the new king, so he has his sister trained as the ultimate
bodyguard.
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(High Fantasy) The old magician rarely
takes students, but young Schmendrick has so much potential--if he could just
make his spells come out right.
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(Indian Steampunk) Mr. and Mrs. Coates
came to India to hunt the most difficult prey, and no one can convince them
that hunting the Great Worm is suicide.
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(SF) A woman appears to be helping a
child recover from some form of brain damage. His perceptions and memory are
off, but something is off about her too.
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(Modern Fantasy) In the near future,
Ben uses cryosleep for a side-effect: while he's under, he can meet his dead
wife. Trouble is, he has a new wife.
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(Chinese Fantasy; Candyman Ao) New to
Chengdu, young Ao doesn't expect the fearsome tiger spirit to ask him for a
favor--to rescue the Guardian of Chengdu. Ao has some magic, but cleverness
may be more important.
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(Fairy Tale) A young, newly minted
witch meets an equally green knight, and they go off together in search of
dragons.
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(Portal Fantasy) Ellie used to travel
freely to the other world, but lately her door doesn’t work. In fact, all the
portals are broken for some reason.
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(Military SF) On top of fighting
against an anarchist revolution, a soldier copes with what he's sure is a man
pretending to be a woman in the Women's Volunteer Corps.
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(High Fantasy Humor) A warrior woman
and a thief fleeing from the south meet a male warrior fleeing from the north
in the middle of a bridge. Then it gets complicated.
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(SF Horror) EncelaCorp
"streams" the consciousness of explorers to distant parts of the
galaxy. Jonathan worries that the experience may have changed his wife
somehow.
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Score: 3
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(SF) A disabled human veteran takes in
a disabled AI veteran. The AI doesn't talk anymore due to trauma, but Tawn
tries to get through to it, even though his mother thinks it's dangerous.
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(Post Apocalypse AI) Carver Seven
spends a lot of time talking to the Human Being and helps him make spears and
things. They each want something from the other, if they can manage to
express it.
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(Military SF) Constanza flies a
stealthed warplane for the US in a near-future war, and she's picked for a
series of special missions carrying a single, silent, soldier up to the front
and back.
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(Fantasy) Dr. Kampfe's group of
travelling players visits Sevengraves, a place so poor that every performance
feels like charity.
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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(Climate Change) On the edge of the
ruined land, village people worship Orcas as gods. Unbeliever Kelb is up to
something, and Adze tries to help him because she loves him.
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Life In
Stone, Glass, And Plastic by José Pablo
Iriarte Time: 14m (ShortStory) Issue: Strange Horizons 06/13/16
(Modern Fantasy) Sergio is called to
remove an offensive mural, but when he touches it, it makes him
"remember" things from other people's lives.
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(SF Android) You adopt an android
baby. You name him Ben. He grows amazingly fast.
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(Fantasy Horror) The narrator resents
being transformed into a monster to fight for her tribe, not least because
she thinks they're screwing it up.
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(Modern Fantasy) Malka is a little
Jewish girl living in Brooklyn in 1920. She likes her new friend, David, even
though he’s older than her, black, Christian, and claims to be dead.
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Something
Happened Here, But We're Not Quite Sure What It Was by Paul
McAuley Time: 20m (ShortStory) Issue: Tor.com 07/20/16
(Hard SF; Jackaroo) On the planet
First Foot, the small town of Joe's Corner faces conflict over building a
radio telescope close to local alien artifacts.
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(Slipstream) Electricity does strange
things around Arthur, especially when he gets excited. He's excited about
Christina, so their first date is going to be a real adventure.
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(SF) The narrator visits an alien
world to negotiate a trade deal with a race of alien predators who have a bad
reputation.
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The
Continuing Saga of Tom Corbett: Space Cadet by James Van
Pelt Time: 17m (ShortStory) Issue: Analog 12|16
(SF Adventure) Everyone calls Tomika
"Space Cadet," but she really feels she doesn't belong in this
world.
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(SF) An AI trying to establish a human
colony discovers there's an individual it cannot account for.
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The Grocer's Wife: Enhanced Transcription by Michael Libling
Time: 18m (ShortStory) Issue: Asimov's 02|16
(SF) Thomas is in the early stages of
Alzheimer's, and his wife, Lynn, is trying to support him. Andy is spying on
him, and wondering why the government is interested in a retired grocer.
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(Slipstream) An old man lies dying,
his faithful companion at his side.
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(African Fantasy) After her father's
death, Tausi needs someone to take her from Epoulu before her aunts marry her
off.
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(SF) Noel's mom is trying to raise an
alien child. Noel, age 10, hates this alien "brother" but can't
seem to get that across to him.
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Score: 2 → 1-2 Recommendations
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(SF Horror) Daniel is 17, attends a
British boys school, and is very happy except in those moments when he
remembers a very different life.
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(High Fantasy) The stakes on Yildirim
and Ramadami's duels have risen to where they threaten the economies of Onsen
and Dushiq.
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(Near-Future SF) Jesse Is just in the
third grade, but his dad sends him letters telling him about the time-machine
experiment he's working on.
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A Non-Hero's
Guide to the Road of Monsters by A.T.
Greenblatt Time: 19m (ShortStory) Issue: Mothership Zeta 3
(Slipstream) Rather than killing the
monsters, Devon would rather negotiate with them and blog about it later.
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A Partial List of Lists I Have Lost Over Time by Sunil Patel2
Time: 02m (ShortStory) Issue: Asimov's 03|16
(SF Short-Short) Entirely via lists,
the narrator tells a story about fighting his duplicate from another dimension.
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A Spell to
Retrieve Your Lover from the Bottom of the Sea by Ada Hoffmann Time: 08m (ShortStory) Issue: Strange Horizons 11/07/16
(Magical Allegory) Your lover has sunk
to the bottom of the sea. You're a witch with tremendous powers, but can you
really save him?
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(SF) The destruction of the new Space
Elevator puts human expansion into space at risk.
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(Horror) Five twenty-something kids
from Manila take a beach vacation to reminisce about their college days. It's
the off season, but it's odd that no one else is there.
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An Open Letter To The Person Who Took My Smoothie From The Break Room
Fridge by Oliver
Buckram Time: 02m (ShortStory) Issue: F&SF 07.08|16
(Cartoon Humor) Someone in the
Alliance of Doom has stolen Dr. Nemesis's smoothie, and he e-mails his fellow
super-villains to complain.
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An Unimaginable Light
by John C. Wright
Time: 00m (ShortStory) Issue: God, Robot 2016
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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Applied
Cenotaphics in the Long, Long Longitudes by Vajra Chandrasekera
Time: 21m (ShortStory) Issue: Strange Horizons 09/05/16
(Near-Future SF) An interview with a
simulation of the dead artist, Satka, who still has a big online following
years after her death.
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Because Change Was The Ocean And We Lived By Her Mercy by Charlie
Jane Anders Time: 21m (ShortStory) Issue: Drowned Worlds 2016
(Post-Apocalypse) Pris abandons
22nd-Century Fairbanks and moves to a commune that floats above the ruins of
San Francisco.
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(Military SF) The war against the
alien Trefoil was going well until they unleashed an unexpected weapon.
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(Fantasy) Three college kids infected
with the plague head off to quarantine, still believing their music can make
a difference.
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(Hard SF) Deep under the lightless
ocean of an alien planet, you study the only lifeform ever discovered there.
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(SF, ~2060) A man reviews drawings and
descriptions of animals he knew and loved during his life, updating them to
reflect recent changes. Very moving.
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(Slipstream) Marisella's so obsessed
with the hot lady plumber that she almost doesn't hear that her drain is
clogged by a baby monster.
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(Science Fantasy) Charlotte is tired
of being a disembodied brain; she wants a real body of her own, as soon as
she can afford it.
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(SF Fantasy) When Earth's day changed
to 96 hours, some adapted (with drugs) and some did not (with lights). Now
they hate/fear each other. But two young people are curious.
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(Climate Change) Derek and Zack visit
the underwater ruins of New Orleans, where they'd honeymooned fifty years
before.
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(Tale) In the style of the Arabian
Nights, this story tells the tale Batyr related to his wife after an evening
with a great poet.
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(Alien Invasion) You are building a
home on an alien world, despite the objections of the natives and the
complaints of your wife and children.
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(Hard SF) Trying to find
"outside," Ogby's team digs into the ice at the bottom of the
world, but Roov's team has been getting better results blasting rocks at the
top.
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(Modern Fantasy) Abused by his father,
Rafi leaves his small town, but he sends his best friend Becca a gift that
will change both their lives.
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(Drug SF) In the middle of
preparations for Tindal’s roommate’s funeral, two teenagers show up and start
eating the psychotropic drugs off the wall.
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(Slipstream Metafiction) Once upon a
time a man’s therapist asked him to write a story about himself, his family,
and the strange world he lived in, with its dragons and lawyers, witches and
doctors, and the darkness closing in.
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(Far-Future SF) Irtholin visits her
friend Anketil to tell her that a long-lost starship has been found, and to
try to interest her in helping salvage it.
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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(Alternate History) In 1949,
researchers attempt to harness "oriental lovebird energy" to cure
human comas.
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How High
Your Gods Can Count by Tegan Moore1 Time: 12m (ShortStory) Issue: Strange Horizons 05/02/16
(Modern Fantasy) A troop of monkeys at
a Mayan Pyramid interacts with the tourists and broods on their creation
myths.
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(High Fantasy) Having no heir, King
Rulf sends Harlan, his most trusted adviser, to find the son of the king he
overthrew 20 years ago
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KIT: Some Assembly Required
by Kathe
Koja and Carter Scholz Time: 15m (ShortStory) Issue: Asimov's 08|16
(SF AI) Christopher Marlowe thinks
he's been reincarnated as a 21st Century AI.
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(Post Apocalypse) Filip is an advanced
AI, and his job is taking care of Ella, who may be the last person left on
Earth.
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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(Sports SF) Gloria and her friends
play one last game of hockey before they leave the alien space station
they've been stuck on ever since their dreams of interstellar competition
collapsed.
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(Magical SF) Derthye is a human who
likes eggs. Her husband is a Barlishya, who is forbidden from eating eggs.
This presents a problem.
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(Horror) In near-future Toronto, a
young Chinese-Canadian girl sneaks out to seek the services of an illegal
underground surgeon.
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(Chinese Post-Apocalyptic Slipstream)
Long after the fall of humanity, a dragon/horse robot wakes up and explores
the ruins of Beijing.
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(SF Humor) The AI vacuum cleaner
didn't mean to suck up the baby, but now what?
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Not Recommended for Guests of a Philosophically Uncertain Disposition by Michelle Ann King Time: 08m (ShortStory) Issue: Interzone 263
(Magical Realism) Just outside Las
Vegas, The Fracture is a place where reality itself seems to be broken.
Damita manages the visitor center and gift shop.
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(SF) Three different people share a
remote robotic body. They have three different reasons and three different
experiences.
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On the
Fringes of the Fractal by Greg van
Eekhout Time: 13m (ShortStory) Issue: 2113: Stories Inspired by the Music of Rush
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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(Hard SF) A corroded railing gives
way, and Kent falls from a Venusian cloud city to near-certain death. But it
takes a long time to fall fifty kilometers.
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(Superhero) Mary hasn't seen her
ex-boyfriend in eight years, but when she witnesses super-villain
"Techhunter" robbing a bank, she sees a strong resemblance.
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(SF) Luis signed up for a six-month
solo tour of duty on an almost-complete space station. He should be alone,
except for the AI, but he's sure he hears other people.
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(Post Apocalypse) When fan #6 fails,
the underground city's AI decides to abandon it, but an overachieving worker
is determined to fix it anyway.
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(SF) Baseline humans on Eris are
fighting modified ones. The natives will accept some refugees, but Gwen is
afraid her family won't pass inspection.
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(Sports SF Humor) KayT means to lead
her girls to victory in the cheerleading event at the Galactic games,
provided the Snargs don't eat them first.
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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(SF Humor) Sion and her best friend
get invited on the first interstellar flight, which is odd, since they're
teenagers, and that kind of technology doesn't really exist.
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(Folk Tale) Sal, the country witch,
took a razorback hog as her familiar and named him Rawhead. Sal was a good
witch, but then Rawhead disappeared. Simple, but effective.
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(Near-Future SF) Lydia's boyfriend,
Ross, was just a brain in a jar. So how, exactly, did she injure him during
sex?
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(Horror) America has imported
policemen from Nigeria to patrol black neighborhoods, and they’re struggling
to solve cases where people seem to simply explode for no reason.
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See The
Unseeable, Know The Unknowable by Maria Dahvana Headley Time: 16m (ShortStory) Issue: Lightspeed 76
(Modern Fantasy) A circus comes to
town, but the tickets are for fifty years ago or fifty years from now.
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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That Which
Stands Tends Toward Free Fall by Benjanun
Sriduangkaew Time: 18m (ShortStory) Issue: Clarkesworld 113
(Military SF) Rinthira retired from
the Thai military a while back, but her former commander (and ex-lover) has
come to call her back to duty.
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(SF) Randall, a robot, investigates an
unfamiliar place: a home garden.
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The Birth
Will Take Place on a Mutually Acceptable Research Vessel by Matthew Bailey1 Time: 17m (ShortStory) Issue: Lightspeed 71
(SF) You're having a baby. The first
Human-Tharkan hybrid. And everyone wants into the act--including both
governments.
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The Desert
Glassmaker and the Jeweler of Berevyar by Rose Lemberg
Time: 11m (ShortStory) Issue: Uncanny 8
(Fantasy; Birdverse) Vadrai and Maru
begin a professional correspondence as fellow artisans, and over time it
becomes more than that.
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(Horror) Reinhart wanders in his
sleep, drawn by the ghost of a long-dead ancestor determined to drown him.
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(Horror) Ignoring how the adult world
is falling apart, teenage Annie tries to lose herself in a new video game.
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(Paranormal) Fifteen-year-old Kayla
can predict the future, but she wants to avoid the bad things that have
happened to her other gifted relatives.
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(High Fantasy; Stormwrack) Captain
Gale Feliachild and her handsome first mate, Garland Parrish, must find the
inscription for a spell that turns people's skins into glass. Entertaining.
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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The
Magical Properties of Unicorn Ivory by Carlos
Hernandez Time: 15m (ShortStory) Issue: The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria 2016
(Magical SF) Writing a story on
Unicorns in Scotland, Gabby tangles with some poachers.
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(African Fantasy) The narrator's twin
died in a caisson, but he's sure the foreigner supervising the construction
sacrificed him to the water spirit.
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(Steampunk Horror) Justice Latch
investigates the curious case of a girl who exploded.
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The Night
Bazaar For Women Becoming Reptiles by Rachael
K. Jones Time: 16m (ShortStory) Issue: BCS 203
(High Fantasy) Hester sells eggs that
turn you into a reptile if you eat them. It's the only way out of the city,
but they never work on Hester herself.
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(SF) Noel works at his uncle's company
managing a machine that predicts when old fads will come back into style. He
peeks at historical trends and finds something disturbing.
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(Historical Fantasy) Horace was a
celebrated blues player, but he failed to make the move to jazz. Now he's
washed up, and desperate enough to sell his soul, if need be.
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(Modern Fantasy) A Hatian girl and a
Syrian girl flee their countries but with very different results.
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(Historical Fantasy) In 1961, Larry
joins the LA mob as an enforcer, keeping the wrong people from fixing the
horses. But does that include an old man who only talks to them?
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The Tale
of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle by Sofia
Samatar Time: 11m (ShortStory) Issue: Starlit Wood 2016
(Meta Fiction) Mahliya will be down in
a bit to tell you the story, but we'll begin by telling you a love story.
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(SF Horror) Professor Macguire's work
on multiple universes drove him insane, but Dean hopes to learn enough from
him to finish his dissertation.
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(High Fantasy) Despite the rebellion,
the narrator makes friends with a local girl, and she wonders when their
bird-like overlords will come to replace her heart.
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The Voice in the Cornfield, the Word Made Flesh by Desirina
Boskovich Time: 17m (ShortStory) Issue: F&SF 09.10|16
(Present-day SF) An alien crash lands
in a cornfield. It tries to get help, but no one can see or hear it. Almost
no one.
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(Psionic SF) Ava recounts the visit of
the "Needlers" to Earth and her part in the attempts to communicate
with the aliens.
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(Military Fantasy) On a remote planet,
the narrator uses a mix of magic and technology to control the drones that
fight his country's enemy.
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Tower of
the Rosewater Goblet by Nin Harris2 Time: 19m (ShortStory) Issue: Strange Horizons 01/04/16
(Fantasy) Erheani wanted to be a
master storyteller, and the first task her teachers set for her was to update
an old classic tale. But there are tales within tales...
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(Near-Future SF) A dying young black
man writes notes for his future self.
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(Hard SF) The Chinese Mars base asks
old First-Expedition crew members Julia and Viktor for help with a problem
involving Mars's only large native life form.
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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(SF) On Ariel, some people have
modified themselves to fly. Other people can't accept that. Anna is going to
need to choose sides.
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(High Fantasy) A boy and his sister
flee their home city during a crackdown on the underclass, but the soldiers
chasing them are closing in.
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(Navajo Fantasy) An old Navajo myth
intersects the modern world unexpectedly.
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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Whisper Road (Murder Ballad No. 9) by Caitlín R. Kiernan Time: 00m (ShortStory) Issue: Sirenia Digest 125
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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(Hard SF) The transmitter sends copies
of people to remote locations, but the copies don't want to do their jobs,
and Margery is in trouble if she can't figure out why.
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(SF; Luna) Five Irish sisters enjoy a
celebration using money their aunt sends them from the moon.
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(SF) A scientist mourns the failure of
scientists to anticipate the consequences of making contact with an alien
race.
|
|
(Fantasy Humor) Angels who operate the
Celestial Switchboard fielding mortal prayer requests get frustrated and even
depressed.
|
Score: 1
|
(YA SF) Two kids get together at a
summer science camp after one tricks the other into eating her "psychic
ice cream" which causes people to read minds.
|
|
(SF) A woman spends the night with a
man who seems like no man she's ever met in this world.
|
|
(Historical Fantasy) Boswell recounts
a story of Dr. Johnson that he never revealed before. Involving a country
estate, a scandal, and a ghost.
|
|
(Historical Fantasy) Pippa and her
automaton attempt to destroy an undead pest infesting the future site of a
chalet.
|
|
(Sports SF) At the 2144 Olympics,
hosted by the thriving space colonies who survived Earth, Zory aims to win
despite her lack of augments.
|
|
(Portal Fantasy) Blank and Cipher
walked away from Solution City for moral reasons, but once they see what our
world is like, they have regrets.
|
|
(Time Travel) An "illness"
causes a man to wake each morning in the previous day, and as he lives his
life backwards, he sees the mistakes he made.
|
|
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
(Transhuman SF) StateCorp has made a
fortune creating modified humans with animal characteristics. They take care
of failures like Cat, but at a price.
|
|
An Advanced Reader's Picture Book of Comparative Cognition by Ken Liu
Time: 00m (ShortStory) Issue: The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
And Men Will Mine the Mountain for Our Souls by Seanan
McGuire Time: 00m (ShortStory) Issue: Unfettered II
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
(Hard SF) The human colony on Kokkal
IV can't expand without permission from the "Evermother," but the
local aliens require they "assimilate the shadows" first.
|
|
(Near-Future SF) Willem loves Dr.
Isley more than he loves his real life. Even though she's just a character in
a soap opera.
|
|
Aphrodite's
Blood, Decanted by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks
Time: 08m (ShortStory) Issue: Clarkesworld 120
(AI Fantasy) The humans disappeared
years ago, but the Factory AI can't accept that they're gone, so he makes a
plan to bring them back.
|
|
(Modern Fantasy) When Penny's house
burns, she rebuilds a smaller place on the ashes. She only misses a few of
the contents, and really wishes for a way to get them back.
|
|
(SF) A young man who just lost his arm
in an accident struggles to adjust to his loss. And something funny is
happening to the stump.
|
|
Between
Dragons and Their Wrath by An Owomoyela and Rachel Swirsky Time: 15m (ShortStory) Issue: Clarkesworld 113
(Fantasy) Teenage friends Domei and
Hano live in a refugee camp for survivors of a war fought with dragons.
|
|
(SF) Suzanne's worries about her aging
father are interrupted by her ex-husband, who left her two years ago to go
explore the frontier of the solar system.
|
|
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
(Dark Fantasy) Maggie's fisherman
father died at sea recently, and since then, she seems to have acquired some
supernatural powers.
|
|
(Urban Fantasy) Julia hunts for a
mysterious white horse in Central Park, certain it must be a unicorn that can
heal her friend who is dying of cancer.
|
|
(SF) Gas leaking from a deep well is
slowly asphyxiating everyone in a community, and two boys discuss what they
can do about it.
|
|
(Android) Brother Francis is an
android in an orbiting monastery. Their human patron has taken an interest in
him, and involves him in studying a mysterious, ancient golden android.
|
|
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
(Hard SF) Adia pursues a herd of
resurrected mammoths in Alaska. She seems to admire them greatly, so why is
she bringing a gun?
|
|
(Slipstream) A mother tries to find
something for her teenage daughter at a beach resort where four different
worlds seem to intersect.
|
|
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
(Modern Fantasy) Anwar and Joe get an
unexpected cat and a promise of nine years of good luck. Things are great,
until nine years later they get another cat.
|
|
(Fable) A crocodile visits a man whose
ambitions have led him far away from home and family.
|
|
(Space Opera; Xuya) Dan Linh returns
from twenty-years exile to head up her old lab again. She’s a scientist, not
a politician; can she really make it work?
|
|
(SF Mystery) When Maria witnesses a
ten-year-old boy being abducted, she chases the van with her delivery drone,
and calls for everyone on the net to help.
|
|
(Near-Future SF) Julie had
reservations about using hardware that can make people fall in love, but at
age 35, she let herself get talked into it.
|
|
(Horror) Perdita lives in the house on
the hill and tends the graveyard. A traveler on a mission disturbs her
solitude, and a thing under the graveyard needs to be killed.
|
|
Deep Waters Call Out To What Is Deeper Still by Sarah Frost
Time: 13m (ShortStory) Issue: Analog 09|16
(SF) Pascal uses a mind link to
control fish in a public aquarium. Pascal's big success has been a swordfish,
but a bigger challenge beckons.
|
|
(Fantasy) She was 15 when a dragon
abducted her. 16 when a prince rescued her and married her. Now she's 55,
returning to the cave where she was held.
|
|
(Slipstream) Grandpa is gone, but the
young narrator is determined to win the Tastiest Ribs competition in his
memory, even if he's not quite sure how you're supposed to use the dragon.
|
|
(Time Travel) Art's
twenty-years-future self returns to warn the graduate student that he's about
to ruin his life.
|
|
(Slipstream) B's werewolf dad beats
her, but what really gets her down is she hasn't become supernatural like her
friends have.
|
|
(Multiverse) The narrator walks the
worlds while waiting for her husband to get home.
|
|
(Horror) Halla is an artist, and every
winter she rents a villa where she can work with almost no human interaction
at all.
|
|
(Hard SF) A radio astronomer comes to
a conference prepared to deliver a shattering paper, but fully expecting to
die before he gets the chance.
|
|
Fade To
Red: Three Interviews About Sebold's Mars Trilogy by Stephen
S. Power Time: 14m (ShortStory) Issue: Lightspeed 77
(SF) Across twenty years, a director
made three films about a remarkable discovery on Mars.
|
|
(Hard SF) Charlie's team has been out
of touch with the Mars mission for a month. While she's attending her
mother's funeral, a mysterious 47-second-long message arrives.
|
|
(Military SF) Corporal Beckett wants
to avenge his father, who was killed by a legendary sniper. The rebels
against Terra sing songs about the sniper, and they may hold the clue to finding
him.
|
|
(Sports SF) Pawl Maricelli, a referee
in the athletic contest meant to strengthen the fragile peace between humans
and Errellians, is threatened by those who don't want peace.
|
|
From the
Editorial Page of the Falchester Weekly Review (A Lady Trent Story)
by Marie
Brennan Time: 06m (ShortStory) Issue: Tor.com 04/05/16
(Fantasy) In which we read an exchange
of letters between a naturalist who claims to have discovered a cockatrice
and a lady who is skeptical.
|
|
(Hard SF) On 61 Virginis b, Keller
endures the cold, the two gravities, and the poisonous air at 30-atmospheres
to study the only alien artifact ever found by humans.
|
|
(Alternate History Fantasy) In a
modern San Francisco in a world with super heroes and monsters, a retired
super villain hires a detective to investigate the death of a giant octopus.
|
|
(Hard SF) Daisy's efforts to build a
stasis machine are failing, and she's failing as a mother too.
|
|
(Modern Fantasy) Twenty years ago,
Jess was a teenage swamp witch in the Everglades. She flirted with the boys
and took what she wanted, but Ben saw her for what she really was.
|
|
(Near-Future SF) Christian returns to Anguilla
to say goodbye before an attempt to raise it covers the island with lava.
|
|
(Climate Change) A tour guide leads
tourists through the remains of a flooded country.
|
|
(Near-future SF) A gene designer and
her husband visit the tomb of Charlemagne and think about how they're about
to turn the world upside down.
|
|
(Fashion SF) Maria is a super model in
a future that doesn't hesitate to modify the bodies of the models for maximum
impact.
|
|
(SF) Shi handles elderly clients who
are recruited to help steer starships through space. Her job is winding up,
and one of her last clients presents a special challenge.
|
|
(Near-Future SF) A former critic of
the new US president works on a labor camp building a wall. Then the new
government gives him a way to earn his freedom.
|
|
(Christian Fantasy) Andrew obsesses
over a used soul he picked up in the gift shop during a tour of Hell.
|
|
(SF) Teenage Bess and Aline go to
comfort their friend Vera after a computer virus disabled her online
"Face."
|
|
Mice Among Elephants
by Larry
Niven and Gregory Benford
Time: 24m (ShortStory) Issue: Bridging Infinity 2016
(Hard SF) Sunseeker decelerates into
the Excelsius system to investigate a gravity-wave generator built by potentially
hostile aliens.
|
|
(Historical Fantasy) In a prison in
18th-century France, Montague struggles to redeem himself by completing one
last magical device before he dies.
|
|
(Climate Change) An AI tries to carry
out the last wishes of the last human governors to bring back snow and ice.
|
|
(Horror) A dead woman sees her
doppelgänger watching over her remains and wonders what she's up to.
|
|
(Zombie) Ever since he became a
zombie, Professor Wissen has felt unwanted by the university, although some
of his students think it's kind of cool.
|
|
No Matter
Which Way We Turned by Brian Evenson Time: 01m (ShortStory) Issue: People Holding... Spring 2016
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
(Modern Fantasy) Two couples come to a
cabin by the lake to relax and enjoy four days together. Then one of them
disappears.
|
|
(Climate Change) In 2048, things are
bad in Malaysia, especially for young refugees with no papers. Maslinia is
sure she could be successful, if she could only get a break.
|
|
(Zombie) Jay helps hunt zombies at
night, but he secretly want to find his wife's zombie to say goodbye.
|
|
(SF) A robot discovers it has artistic
talent and sets out to save the world by tattooing stars on people.
|
|
(Historical Fantasy) In the Old West,
a murder under a full moon brings a thing across “The Line.” A thing seeking
vengeance, and with a broad idea of responsibility.
|
|
(Allegory) Young people enter the
pyramid on the first floor, but although the parties are great, they aspire
to ascend.
|
|
(Fantasy) Aril knows not to let
rabbits into the garden--no matter how politely they ask. Picket's an awfully
nice rabbit, though, and he needs her help.
|
|
(SF) Fourth-grade Emma lives in
Florida with her grandparents. Emma doesn't fit in at school, and Grandma
doesn't help by saying the family is from outer space and aliens are coming
for them soon.
|
|
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
(SF) A science writer describes the
events that turned a rat experiment into a space-time disaster in downtown London.
|
|
(SF Horror) An asteroid miner is cast
adrift by a collision. Her suit can preserve her life indefinitely, but not
her sanity.
|
|
(Science Fantasy) As a physics grad
student, Sophie researches mirrors as potential gateways to alternate
realities. She shares her unexpected results.
|
|
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
(SF) About 100 years from now,
eleven-year-old Theodore meets a robot from "the far future" which
demands he find gasoline for it, but Theo isn't even sure what that is.
|
|
(SF) Badar has a 4-year contract sits
all alone at a salvage site on Kepler-186f.
|
|
(High Fantasy) Exiled emperor Ierois
lives alone on the shore of the Sea of Dreams. Then another exile joins
him--a boy who refuses to give up quite so easily.
|
|
(Cyber SF) Anj and EJ's fledgling
hacking business gets a contract to decrypt an old AI-encrypted USB drive.
|
|
(Time Travel) Narrator, in 1983, takes
a job that involves going back to 1945 to do some dirty work, but she becomes
infatuated with her target.
|
|
(Fantasy) Tamalat has come to a priest
to find out how to restore her friend Brio's shadow, in the hopes it will
restore him to what he once was.
|
|
Six Degrees of Separation Freedom by Pat Cadigan Time: 19m (ShortStory) Issue: Bridging Infinity 2016
(Transhuman) Recruiting people to live
in space is harder when they have to accept irreversable body modifications.
|
|
(Horror) Helena's mom's a witch, their
small town is blaming them for a missing boy, she and her girlfriend have to
stay in the closet, and to top it off, there are chicken skeletons walking
around.
|
|
(Essay) How to make an SF protagonist
interesting.
|
|
Some Things I Probably Should Have Mentioned Earlier by Laura Pearlman
Time: 05m (ShortStory) Issue: Mothership Zeta 3
(SF Humor) A man gets a letter from his
wife, explaining a few things. She's not exactly human, but that's not the
worst part.
|
|
Spells Are Easy If You Have The Right Psychic Energy by Dominica
Phetteplace Time: 10m (ShortStory) Issue: F&SF 07.08|16
(Modern Fantasy) Hruta is a young
American-Norwegian witch. She's great with love spells, but struggling to
figure out how to undo them.
|
|
(Horror) The singer in a band copes
with the discovery that one of his songs caused people to commit suicide.
|
|
(Hard SF) AIs are too expensive to discard,
even after a major disaster, but how do you fix one that seems to have gone
crazy?
|
|
(Near-Future SF) Gwen and Eliza are
college roommates who start a business making miniature houses that can talk
about the murders committed there.
|
|
Ten Confessions of Blue Mercury Addicts by Anna Spencer by Alexander Marsh Freed Time: 17m (ShortStory) Issue: Interzone 263
(Science Fantasy) Anna investigates
people addicted to a drug that slows down time so much that they can
experience a year in the time it takes to fall from an airplane.
|
|
(SF Humor) Around 50 to 100 years from
now, a group of scientists resorts to counterfeiting money to shore up their
inadequate research grants.
|
|
(Fantasy Science) Out on Europa,
Marius has vanished and Kotto has come to rescue his partner, Bolaji.
|
|
(Hard SF) Edith’s lab wants to improve
the Casimir pump enough to use it for space travel, but Edith can’t help
running her own experiments even without permission.
|
|
(Fantasy Humor) The world's greatest
assassin sits in his lair, waiting for people to come to him to beg his
assistance.
|
|
(Hard SF) Katrina and Jeff operate an
asteroid mining station for the S.P.C. It's not bad work except that the
mining companies are at war, using gravel as missiles.
|
|
(Slipstream Horror) Fifteen-year-old
Cillian finds the love of his life buried in the peat of an old bog where she
died long, long, ago.
|
|
The
Carpenter and the Beast of Teeth by Micah Dean
Hicks Time: 11m (ShortStory) Issue: Territory Issue 2
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
(Mainstream) Two women mourn the death
of a childhood friend and try to make peace with themselves by returning the
mysterious skeleton that tore them apart as teenagers.
|
|
(Hard SF) Seventeen-year-old Allegra's
mad father has trapped them both on 51 PegasiD. They'll both die there unless
she can find a way to get help.
|
|
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
The First
Confirmed Case Of Non-Corporeal Recursion: Patient Anita R. by
Benjamin
C. Kinney1 Time: 11m (ShortStory) Issue: Strange Horizons 06/06/16
(Paranormal) Anita used to study
ghosts, but now she is one, and she's finding it frustrating to always seem
to be arguing with her husband.
|
|
(Sports SF) The human team awakens naked,
with no memories, but speaking a shared language, and ready to compete--at
something.
|
|
(Near Future Fantasy Dystopia) In a
2042 Ireland beset by ecological catastrophe, the narrator meets a fairy at a
protest.
|
|
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
(Fantasy Horror) Despite her parents'
best efforts, Agatha was born to be a witch, and eventually they turned her
over to St. Medusa's school.
|
|
(Hard SF) Irit wants to do her Ph.D.
thesis on quantum physics and the mind. She lost her girlfriend four months
ago, but she thinks there may be a way to change reality.
|
|
(SF) In near-future Cornwall, England,
Travis and his wife specialize in arrangements of genetically engineered
flowers that release pheromones that mimic their traditional virtues.
|
|
(SF) Riley hacked his personal teleporter
to make illegal copies of himself. The police have found him out, and he's
trying to lead all 17 of him to safety.
|
|
(Present-day SF) Four retired men meet
every day for conversation. One of them worries he's showing symptoms of
Alzheimer's.
|
|
(SF) The narrator's farm is threatened
by a sequence of increasingly irrational demands by the distant emperor.
|
|
(Superhero) A combination of teenage
hormones, a rare gene, and the right stressful event turns a few kids into
superheroes. Liam wants to be one too.
|
|
(SF AI) In a world ruled by AIs, the
only work that pays is entertainment.
|
|
(SF Humor) Quigby's philosophy is to
find employment that will let him spend the rest of his days doing nothing as
enjoyably as possible. A little philosophy can be a dangerous thing.
|
|
(Math SF) Explorers find a wrecked
alien spaceship, a dead alien, and a logbook that suggests he came from a
world with different laws of physics.
|
|
(Steampunk) An agent from the
city-state of Montreal lies in prison after unsuccessfully trying to
apprehend a man who stole Montreal's secret immortality treatment.
|
|
(Hard SF) Ten-year-old Lee and his
best friend Ben discover a dead animal near their school playground--an
animal that shouldn't exist at all. Chilling.
|
|
(Historical Fantasy) Martin fulfils
his dream of entering the dragonlands via a secret mountain pass in France.
|
|
(Post Apocalypse) An Arab-American
girl and her mother wander the Dakotas while the girl tries to get in touch
with a boy she once knew.
|
|
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
(Cyber SF) Stricken with muscular
dystrophy, the teenage narrator lives almost entirely in VR, where she hopes
a rogue AI can save her.
|
|
(Fantasy) Neal and Killian are young
lovers. Together they think they can keep the dragons from destroying the
world.
|
|
(Fantasy) Every year, Far Island rises
from the sea, and the spirits of the dead return to Near Island, until the
bone horses usher them back on the third day. The horses need a living rider,
and Rowan is sure she can do it and survive.
|
|
(SF) Janet chairs the governing board
for the asteroid 1820 Geographos, so she's on the hook when a mystery vessel
shows up, hacks their computers, and docks without permission.
|
|
(Urban Fantasy) Jimmy and Morrie's
"Paranormal Services" investigates a haunted forest--tree farm,
actually.
|
|
(Religious Fantasy) An old man quizzes
a dying youth in a place between life and death.
|
|
(SF) A disfiguring illness drove Lilly
to leave Earth and live in a community of aliens who think she's beautiful.
Trouble is, they like her too much.
|
|
(Near Future SF) Kellsey's a
transsexual 11-year-old girl. Improved technology makes that easier, but also
creates new problems, and she seeks advice from recordings her mother made
for her "son" before she died.
|
|
(SF) Vincent is a famous painter, but
he fears he's grown stale. He has a wild plan to reinvigorate his painting,
which starts with making a backup copy of himself.
|
|
(Fantasy) Hilil weaves and ties the
best knots in Sulik, but a curse causes made things to fall apart at her
touch.
|
|
(Far-Future SF) Kiu Alee escapes a
death sentence by agreeing to pilot a very special vehicle to a very
xenophobic arcology in deep space.
|
|
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
|
|
Turing de Force
by Edward
M. Lerner Time: 12m (ShortStory) Issue: Science Fiction by Scientists 2016
(Hard SF) Two extraterrestrial AIs
arrive in our solar system and try to decide whether human beings are
intelligent.
|
|
(Horror) A mad little child speaks
only to the boarder, and her message is too terrible to believe.
|
|
(Horror) When newlyweds Courtney and
Josh rent an old Victorian in Baltimore, they're told to stay out of the
attic. But they hear noises up there at night. Footsteps.
|
|
(High Fantasy) After a long absence,
Melishem returns to Talyut to challenge her rival to single combat. But
Sikata is already dead.
|
|
We Have a
Cultural Difference, Can I Taste You? by Rebecca
Ann Jordan Time: 12m (ShortStory) Issue: Strange Horizons 04/18/16
(SF) Filo/Gee, an intelligent giant
amoeba, isn't the ideal college roommate, particularly since he experiences
the world through touching and tasting, which is hard on books, electronics,
and relationships.
|
|
(Fairytale Fantasy) A member of a group
of powerful beings who make stories real tells us the truth about Solomon
Grundy and why he had to die.
|
|
(Horror) Death comes for the
witch-doctor, but he's not ready to go quite yet.
|
|
(SF Humor) If Liz can just get a few
more species to participate, she can get bowling added as an event in the
Intergalactic Games. It's a bad time to have fone problems.
|
|
(Mythological Fantasy) In biblical
Egypt, a Hebrew woman driven mad by the loss of her son finds a baby in the
bulrushes.
|
I read and reviewed a lot of 2015 and 2017 short fiction at my old website and for Tangent but only read some stuff for Tangent in 2016 and read some of the Year's Bests, so there is a lot of stuff I didn't read but, FWIW, from the list above, I also enjoyed
ReplyDeleteInitial Tangent readings:
6 "Seven Birthdays" by Ken Liu
1 "Chasing Ivory" by Ted Kosmatka
1 "Mice Among Elephants" by Larry Niven and Gregory Benford
1 "The Right Place to Start a Family" by Caroline M. Yoachim
Later web stuff from the Year's Bests:
10 "That Game We Played During the War" by Carrie Vaughn
4 "Mika Model" by Paolo Bacigalupi
4 "Successor, Usurper, Replacement" by Alice Sola Kim
4 "The One Who Isn't" by Ted Kosmatka
2 "Down and Out" by Ken Wharton
While I liked "That Game" I wouldn't give it a 10 (i.e., I didn't like it as much as everyone else cumulatively did). On the other hand, I'd give "Down and Out," especially, and the 1s much more than they got.
Another oddity is that "Right Place" came from the anthology, Humanity 2.0, but I also liked "An Endless Series of Doors" by David Walton and "E^H" by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro and appear to be alone there. There were several good stories in an anthology called Conspiracy!, edited by Judith K. Dial and Thomas A. Easton, and stories from FSF, FFO, and Tor that were also like that.
Treesong by Sheree Renée Thomas is now online at Lightspeed 99:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/treesong/
Thanks, updated in the spreadsheet. The current version of the 2016 Best SF/F page doesn't have this story because its score of 1 doesn't make the cutoff (and even so there are 275 stories).
Delete"The Incursus by Asimov-NN#71" by Gord Sellar reprinted at Lightspeed:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-incursus-by-asimov-nn71/
"An Advanced Readers’ Picture Book Of Comparative Cognition" by Ken Liu reprinted at Lightspeed:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/an-advanced-readers-picture-book-of-comparative-cognition/