This is the same set of stories listed in the Year-To-Date by
Rating page, grouped by score, filtered
by score > 1, where a recommendation is worth 2 points (RSR:5, SFRevu:5, GDozois:5,
RHorton:5, SFEP, NClarke, JStrahan, JMcGregor:5, CPayseur, LTilton) except RSR:4,
SFRevu:4, GDozois:4, RHorton:4, and JMcGregor:4 which are worth 1 point.
Score: 12 -> 6-7
Recommendations
|
(Chinese SF) A blackmailer forces
Helena to make entire fake steaks for him or else he’ll tell the authorities
about her business printing fake beef for shady restaurants. She’s never
tried to make a whole steak though.
Other
Reviews
RSR
Mini-Review [4] Recommended By: RSR:4 SFRevu:4 GDozois:5 RHorton:5 JStrahan JMcGregor:5 CPayseur
|
Score: 11
Score: 10 -> 5 Recommendations
Score: 9
|
(Apocalypse) As civilization is dying
on Earth, a woman building a monument on Mars by remote control gets a
message from a Mars colony long thought to be dead.
|
Score: 8 -> 4-5
Recommendations
|
(SF Thriller) After terrorists spring
her from cryo-prison, talented hacker Girasol goes into cyberspace to help
them target the rich businessman who put her in prison in the first place.
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(Horror) The narrator is an alien who takes
human form, but periodically has to change it. This is a problem if it falls
in love with someone.
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(Time Travel) A time traveler, an
immortal, an android, a telepath, and a variety of space aliens meet at cross
purposes in modern America.
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Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance by Tobias S.
Buckell Time: 20m (ShortStory) Issue: Cosmic Powers 2017
(Space Opera) After its side won the
space battle, an indentured robot with an uploaded intelligence finds an
important refugee who makes a dangerous offer it can’t refuse.
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Score: 7
|
(Modern Fantasy) Chaplin Win is in
trouble for letting an unauthorized ghost talk with hospital patients, and
inspectors are coming tomorrow.
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(SF Adventure) The ship hadn’t
activated Bot 9 in a long time—it’s an unstable model—but in a desperate
situation it needs all its resources. And how much trouble can it get into
hunting down a rat?
|
|
(SF) He spent his childhood on another
planet, but he’s trying to fit into highschool on Earth, and he really wants
a girl.
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(SF Humor) After Charlie is unfrozen,
Kit guides him around the future. It’s, like, TOTALLY not what he expected,
and yet, like, kinda familiar, LOL.
|
Score: 6 -> 3-4
Recommendations
|
(SF Mystery) The inventor of
trans-multiverse travel invites hundreds of instances of herself to a
conference. It’s great fun until one gets murdered.
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(Clockwork Fantasy) Zee lives with her
father in a windup world. Bored with her life, she decides to visit the
carnival. She meets a boy, and things
go from there.
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(Eldritch Horror) Delilah makes some money modeling,
and Crispin offers twice what anyone else does. He never lets her look at the
works in progress, though. He has his reasons.
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(Near-Future SF) Nathan watches
helplessly as the alternate currency he created collapses, taking down his
friends and family with it.
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How Sere Picked Up Her Laundry by Alexander Jablokov Time: 1h:04m (Novella) Issue: Asimov's 07.08|17
(SF Mystery) A struggling private
investigator in a city full of alien refugees, Sere risks her life seeking
connections between some mysterious aliens and an exterminator who blew
himself up.
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(Portal Fantasy) Corinna was eleven
when her magical journey to the Land of Nibiru ended with her returning to
her kitchen at home. Now she’s waiting for her friends to return for her.
Probably.
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(YA Portal Fantasy; Dungeonspace) Flip
and his teenage friends accept a dangerous mission to steal from a dragon.
They’re really too green to attempt this, the dragon is very old and
powerful, and they’re falling behind on their trigonometry homework.
|
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There Was a Crooked Man, He Flipped a Crooked House by David
Erik Nelson Time: 1h:18m (Novella) Issue: F&SF 07.08|17
(Horror) Glenn’s boss sends him to
check out a new house he plans to flip, but just getting inside turns out to
be harder than anyone could imagine—never mind getting back out.
|
|
(Fantasy Horror) When the world
changed and the sky turned silver, magic became real, Emma Anne became a
little girl and her neighbor became a pirate. But can a little girl fight off
an attack by the Loping Man?
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(Near-Future SF) Adam has 70% of the
memories of the man who created him, but something vital is hiding in that
missing 30%.
|
Score: 5
|
(Mainstream) In 1888 a woman suffering
a hideous deformity was murdered in London. Today, her descendent wants to
find the culprit.
|
|
(Dystopia) Sophie explains the events
that led to her fall from grace—that is, how she accumulated enough “unlike”
votes to be forced out of college.
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(Space Opera; Machineries of Empire) A
Heptarchate undercover mission lead by one of Jedao’s friends has gone
missing, so Jedao goes undercover to try and rescue them.
|
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(Alternate History Robot SF) Computron
was the only intelligent robot built in the 1950s. Now all he does is answer
questions from children and write fan-fiction about the robot in the
Hyperdimension Warp Record TV show.
|
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(Urban Fantasy; Jack Shade) Carol has
always felt a piece of her was missing, so she hires supernatural
investigator Jack Shade, to find it. It seems simple enough, but quickly
becomes much more than simple soul retrieval.
|
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(SF Adventure) Captain Bernsdottir
wakes from hibernation with her ship stalled next to a vast alien artifact
and a mutiny in progress.
|
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(Alternate History Fantasy) Taharah’s
magic makes language come alive for audiences, but she seeks knowledge of her
people’s ancient, forgotten tongue.
|
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(SF) Far in the future, Flaminio meets
the love of his life when a woman steps through a matter transmitter that
hasn’t worked for centuries.
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(Space Opera; Machineries of Empire)
Rhehan used to be a Kel supersoldier before being kicked out. Now the Kel
needs Rhehan for a dangerous mission—offering the only coin Rhehan might
consider.
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(Time Travel) The time travelers
across the road think they’re being clever, but Jade’s family spotted them
right away. Even so, they’ve got a daughter her age, and she wants to make
friends.
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(SF Epic) The narrator describes his
life in a very different North America, where everyone is male.
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(Historical SF) In 1899 London,
Inspector Grant investigates a lady who claims her big electrical apparatus
is for a camera, even though it looks like a bomb or a death ray.
|
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(Fantasy Adventure) Somewhere near the
every-changing Mocking Tower the Imagi Vert has hidden a sword that holds the
soul of the late emperor, and a thief has come to try to steal it.
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(Hard SF) Haley hopes the
"colony" on Bikini island will let her people survive sea-level
rise, but a problem with local birds presents an unexpected threat.
|
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(Historical Fantasy) A young
apprentice at making magic gloves considers breaking the rules to make a
special pair to control his sister’s epilepsy.
|
Score: 4 -> 2-3
Recommendations
|
A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime by Charlie Jane Anders Time: 35m (Novelette) Issue: Cosmic Powers 2017
(Space Opera Humor) Sharon and Kango
have to go back to their home worlds to capture an ultimate weapon that
threatens the galaxy, or else they’ll never achieve their dream of opening a
restaurant.
|
|
(Modern Fantasy (India)) Little
Kalyani might be autistic, but no one in her village knows what that means. A
passing sage offers her a boon, but it’s not at all a cure.
|
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(Climate SF) Caer brings an abandoned
robot back to his hideout in the flooded part of town and tries to prepare
for attack by the raiders who dumped it.
|
|
Bring Your Own Spoon
by Saad Z. Hossain Time: 15m (ShortStory) Issue: The Djinn Falls in Love, and Other Stories 2017
(Dystopic Fantasy) In a future,
polluted Dhaka, Hanu makes friends with a djinn, and they decide to open a restaurant—even
though almost everyone eats synthetic food.
|
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(Near-Future SFF) Bilqis, the only real doctor in a dying community
of religious exiles, finds something strange when she examines a pregnant
woman.
|
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(Contemporary Fantasy) Helping an old
man get over a chain-link fence leads the narrator into the world of the
occult.
|
|
(Military SF) The new tech the aliens
gave us created a golden age for some and abject poverty for others. MaryJo
joins the army to get out, knowing she may end up fighting rebels who are
friends or relatives.
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(SF) When scientists find a way to
test people and animals for what everyone assumes are souls, the narrator
feels left out because he’s one of the people without one.
|
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(SF) Hunting an ex-ruler who committed
genocide, Beadith ends up stranded on an island with him and a strange
psychoactive moss.
|
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(SF) Porous enjoys being a prison
guard up until a new prisoner arrives who stirs things up.
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Pan-Humanism:
Hope and Pragmatics by Jess Barber and Sara Saab Time: 40m (Novelette) Issue: Clarkesworld 132
(Climate SF) This story follows Amir
and Mani’s careers starting when they’re teenagers in water-starved Beirut.
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(Near-Future SF) Daniel, a lonely grad
student in Athens, Georgia, meets the girl of his dreams through an online
matching service. Now if he can just get her to meet in person . . .
|
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(Fantasy Adventure; Gorlen Stories) To
find the magician who cursed them, Gorlen and Spar journey to the swarming of
the Philosopher Moths, giant, telepathic insects reputed to cure even extreme
ailments.
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The Discrete Charm of the Turing Machine by Greg
Egan Time: 40m (Novelette) Issue: Asimov's 11.12|17
(Dystopia) Dan loses his job and goes
looking for something that hasn’t already been automated away. There’s not
much, and what he does find is rather strange.
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(Modern Fantasy Horror) Only Marianne
can see that her new brother-in-law is a horror, and although she knows she
can summon the faeries to get rid of him, she also knows the price will be
very high.
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(Fantasy) Tom takes a job as an
indexer in a library that exists outside of space and time for the purpose of
collecting books and manuscripts (among other things) that were lost.
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(Military SF) After spending almost
her whole life as a lunar soldier, Gita gives an interview to a reporter
about what it was like and how she’s adapting to life in India.
|
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(SF) A young woman reacts to the news
that our universe is just a simulation by making wild choices that her family
has to deal with.
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(Fantasy Adventure) Tarkaster Crale, a
young thief down on his luck, meets up with friends who want to assault the
Anvil, the mountain where the last dragon hid its hoard—and from which it
dares people to try to take it.
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(SFF) Ugo can “remember” things from
the future, which he shares with Cynthia—including the fact that she’ll be
his wife someday.
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(Mythic Fantasy) Because the gods
abandoned her people, she has sworn to kill them. Now only one remains.
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(Generation Ship) The ship lost most
of its historical records some years back, and the narrator tries to use
music to maintain a connection with distant Earth.
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(SF) Regina and Ilkay take an annual
holiday together in Istanbul, renting “blank” bodies for the occasion.
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(Portal Fantasy) Your house is full of
doors to other worlds, and you can’t keep yourself from exploring them—even
though they’re dangerous.
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Score: 3
|
(Horror) Helen comes to Meersee in
Germany to be a governess for her friend’s nephew. The child is young and
peculiar, the staff are old and peculiar, and more peculiar things turn up by
the minute.
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(High Fantasy) Lillian likes the most
recent world, and she doesn’t want her uncles to tear it down. But they’ve
already dismantled the sun, so she’ll have to move fast.
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A Touch of
Heart by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro and Adam-Troy Castro Time: 15m (ShortStory)
Issue: Lightspeed 86
(Chinese Historical Fantasy) Dou hates
his neighbor because Gan’s farm flourishes while his own languishes. Enough
to seek out the Black Touch.
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Cake Baby
(A Kango and Sharon Adventure) by Charlie
Jane Anders Time: 24m (ShortStory) Issue: Lightspeed 90
(SF Humor) To avoid having their
spaceship repossessed, Kango and Sharon go on a dangerous mission to
infiltrate a cult and steal DNA from their children.
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(Near-Future SF) Dave drops out of
school when he gets hooked on a drug that lets you experience being other
people.
|
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(SF) C.J. brings his dying daughter to
Ariosto to see Crimson Birds, an art installation that includes a vast flock
of artificial birds.
|
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(Detective SF) Emily agrees to help a
gangster find his missing octopus.
|
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Death on Mars by Madeline
Ashby Time: 27m (Novelette) Issue: Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities 2017
(SF Adventure) Four women staffing an
advance base on Phobos get a male visitor who brings them some bad news.
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(Near-future SF) Everyone knows
Jacob’s driverless-car company destroyed the world economy, but he wants to
tell his side of the story.
|
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(AI) The narrator’s therapy includes
some cute little robots that help cheer her up.
|
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(SF Humor) The squids from space
haven’t been very popular for a while, but washed-up director Tony Casagrande
has a can’t-miss plan for a detective thriller with a human and a squid.
|
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(Dystopia) The narrator is a normal
human in a world of hostile genetically modified people, and she’s desperate
enough to do anything for money to replace the failing body modifications
that let her “pass.”
|
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(High Fantasy) Jared has almost
brought the princess to safety, but he worries that Kat, the crazy women who
accompanies them, might have betrayed them.
|
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(SF Adventure) A team trying to
understand what happened to a human colony whose members have all regressed
to animal intelligence is distracted when someone uplifts their cat to human
intelligence.
|
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(Modern Fantasy) A young hemophiliac
American boy in Italy visits a creepy old house to try to get old stamps for
his collection.
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(Near-Future SF) In 2070, you can take
snapshots of your personality and talk to them later. Is it healthy talking
to your Keepsake self decades later? And should a Keepsake be allowed to
testify in court?
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(Epic SF) An alien intelligence, exiled
to our solar system, passes the time by interacting with the Earth.
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(Near-Future SF) Sam is a talented hacker who extracts
Jane’s personal info in order to seduce her.
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(Horror) A city inspection in a week
creates a crisis for the small creatures who scurry around Mag’s house. They
think she’s their mother. She thinks they’re rats, when she thinks about them
at all.
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(Historical Uncanny Horror) Fifteen
years after his lover died in World War I, Siegfried starts receiving letters
from him, dated just before his death.
|
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(Near-Future SF) Users who stop taking
a memory enhancement drug end up losing everything they learned on it, making
it possible for banks to repossess someone’s education.
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(Time Travel) At age 12, Marley loses
her parents, but instead of getting foster parents, her 28-year-old future
self comes to take care of her.
|
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(Alternate History) Adolph Hitler, a
failing private investigator in London, tries to locate a relic alleged to be
the spear that pierced the side of Christ.
|
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(Colony-Planet SF) When Iolus refuses
demands that it become part of the empire, the imperial agents are much too
smart to destroy the planet, but they’re definitely up to something.
|
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(SF) Donna’s cold and distant husband
has an industrial accident the day she planned to leave him, so she stays to
nurse him back to health. After that, he’s different—in ways she likes.
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(Alien Abduction) Cindy’s boyfriend
says alien’s abducted him, but she’s sure he was with another woman. Up until
the aliens contact her too.
|
|
(Contemporary Fantasy; Brit Williams)
Teenage Brit enjoys teaching little kids at a Seattle Experience Outreach
camp, even though she senses that something evil haunts the abandoned bunkers
up the hill.
|
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(Post-Human) Jin is a mercenary hired
to protect archeologists investigating an ancient ship built by the extinct
human race.
|
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(High Fantasy) Sarai’s talent lies in
scents, but she pursues poisons to get revenge on the queen who imprisoned
her on this island.
|
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(Multiverse) Sarah travels the
multiverse looking for a reality where her daughter isn’t a drug addict.
|
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(Near-future SFF) After the government
rules he isn't really human, Chris loses his human wife and hybrid kids.
|
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(SF) Liaison Rulii must travel into a
war zone to find a missing human linguist whom his king wants to meet in just
three days.
|
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(SF) Someone has attacked New York and
MIT, and 16-year-old Shipton is caught in the middle of it.
|
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(High Fantasy; Baldemar) Young
Baldemar gets a favor from a moneylender’s hired muscle. The challenge is
paying it back.
|
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(Modern Fantasy) Jeanne hires Mr.
Warlock because no normal attorney could cope with the problems her late
husband’s crooked relatives are causing her.
|
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(SF Conspiracy) Suffering from
writer’s block, the author agrees to house sit for some rich friends of his
agent.
|
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(Near-Future SF) Trips from flooded
Miami to the trading post are always hazardous, especially for an old man,
but Tom needs supplies for his family.
|
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(Horror) There are always three
sisters. When one gets big, Father eats her, and Mother has a new baby. This
is the story of how that cycle ended.
|
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(SF Adventure Humor; The Family) In
3V, Amanda is a proud space princess, but in the real world she’s a
17-year-old high school dropout who lives with her mom. Slavers are after
her, and some parts of the 3V world are more real than they ought to be.
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The
Greatest One-Star Restaurant in the Whole Quadrant by Rachael
K. Jones Time: 14m (ShortStory) Issue: Lightspeed 91
(SF Horror) A group of runaway cyborgs
has to prepare meals for unknowing human ships or else blow their cover. But
they’re short on one critical ingredient.
|
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The Last
Boat-Builder in Ballyvoloon by Finbarr
O'Reilly1 Time: 19m (ShortStory) Issue: Clarkesworld 133
(SF Horror) Meant to clear plastic
from the sea, the artificial “squids” have put the oceans off-limits to
humanity. Not everyone takes that lying down.
|
|
(Post-Apocalypse) Casey’s only
companion on the Airforce base is a robot, which is determined to protect
her. That includes keeping her from investigating frozen clones that might
survive in a distant vault.
|
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(Space Opera; Diving Universe) The
narrator leads a team salvaging long-lost technology from a graveyard of
starships, whose stardrives still disrupt the surrounding space in dangerous
ways.
|
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(Far-Future SF; Great Ship) To secure
a deal with a world ruled by what appear to be intelligent rivers, the Great
Ship sends three representatives on a long, sub-light-speed mission. By the
time they get there, things don’t look so rosy.
|
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(Magical Realism) Hamete lives in
Borges’s “Library of Babel,” and his life changes forever when he follows a
rabbit into the depths.
|
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(Horror) At a drunken party, Scarlett
tells the new boy a ghost story she’d promised her now-dead best friend she’d
never repeat.
|
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(Slipstream) A man who just stole the
universe hides in Howard’s apartment, interrupting his attempt to propose to
his girlfriend. Then it gets weird.
|
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(Military SF) Four international teams
develop combat robots to stage a fight on Mars—televised live, of course.
|
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(Military SF) Technically dead after a
terrorist attack, Asante gets a new body and second chance at life, provided
he serves 5 years as an experimental supersoldier.
|
Score: 2 -> 1-2 Recommendations
|
(Science Fantasy) Castaa and the other
initiates of the Water Caste travel with their master to try and fix a
problem with the machines that stir the lake.
|
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A Portrait
of the Desert in Personages of Power by Rose Lemberg
Time: 2h:07m (Novella) Issue: BCS 229
(High Fantasy; Birdverse) The Old
Royal has ruled the desert for millennia from their palace where a star once
fell, but the arrival of a young stranger brings chaos.
|
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(High Fantasy) Based on a new prophecy
she found, Heoli leads her people out of the desert to a ruined city rich
with water. Some fear that it’s too good to be true, though.
|
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(SF Humor) When Cjek guides her
damaged ship to an emergency landing in Roy’s cornfield, problems ensue
because she’s not the sort of UFO he was expecting.
|
|
(SF Adventure) Even after 500 years,
Earth is still after the founders of the Colony, so when a probe wanders into
their system Duke has to find a way to get everyone to safety.
|
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(SF Adventure; Prime Mondeign)
Unwanted third-son Luro leaps at the chance to join an expedition to find the
lost technological treasures of the legendary Empyrean.
|
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(SF Thriller; Murderbot Diaries) A
“security bot” assigned to support a survey team impresses them with its
competence as a series of things go wrong. What they don’t know is that it
has disabled the governor that prevents it from hurting people.
|
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(Planetary Adventure) Azuki travels to
Goliath to bring the ashes of his dead girlfriend home. Exporting human
remains is illegal, so he gets help from some poachers.
|
|
(Climate SF) After his teammate
disappears in the ruins of Las Vegas, a newsman goes to investigate—even
though he has a desk job and has never been in the field before.
|
|
(High Fantasy) Osrith helps people
near the end of life find a god who’ll take them, for in her world, no matter
how old, worn, or broken you are, death must be earned.
|
|
(SF Adventure) Even though she’s
blind, Nata’s one of the best smugglers, and because of the war, she’s in
great demand. This latest deal, though, pays so well for so little work
there’s got to be something fishy about it.
|
|
(Virtual Reality) Sonia used to be a
fan of the <i>Labyrinthiad</i> until they killed off her favorite
character. Now she sneaks online and kills other people’s favorites.
|
|
(Military SF) The courts removed
Imbra’s ability to get angry or fight back, but he still wants to help his
world fight off the invaders who’re threatening them.
|
|
Black Powder
by Maria Dahvana Headley Time: 24m (ShortStory) Issue: The Djinn Falls in Love, and Other Stories 2017
(Horror) The Kid wants to the other
kids in high school to pay attention to him, so he steals a rifle. The rifle
he steals is much more than just a gun, though.
|
|
(Mainstream) Cyd’s suicide brings his
friend Kelvin to Albany for his memorial.
|
|
(Alternate History Fantasy; Dominion
of the Fallen) Two people from a secret, underwater House try to infiltrate a
troublesome surface House that rules much of a Paris still recovering from
long-ago magical wars.
|
|
(Dystopia) The ability for women to
mix and match genes from multiple men leads to social unrest.
|
|
(SF) Dal approaches the end of it's
life and wishes to leave a worthy message to posterity--if the waterwraiths
will leave it alone long enough.
|
|
Destroy the City with Me Tonight by Kate Marshall Time: 11m (ShortStory) Issue: Behind the Mask 2017
(Superhero) The disease that turns
Cass into a superhero makes her almost invisible to ordinary people without
her costume.
|
|
(SF) 12-year-old Diamond gets involved
with a licensed terrorist group and manages to drag her mother into it too.
|
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(Horror) Jenna has lived in New York
City ever since she died forty years ago. Now something is happening to New
York City’s ghosts, and she’s determined to find out what and stop it—if it
doesn’t find her first.
|
|
(SF Sports) On an alien spaceship, the
Ecuadorian football team plays against France for the World Cup. But the
stakes may be a lot higher.
|
|
(Near-Future SF) Tullio and Irma serve
the eccentric, 104-year-old, Chief—the last prime minister of Italy—in his
“Shadow House,” a place immune from surveillance.
|
|
(SF) In the event of an emergency,
your body may be taken over by remote control.
|
|
(Near-Future SF) Locals plan a riot to
disrupt foreign factories in Vietnam which use a drug called “focus” to
control their employees.
|
|
(Hard SF) A secret 1970 space mission
sends a US and a Soviet woman on a one-way trip to deflect a killer asteroid.
|
|
(High Fantasy) Jeone has been
descending the World Cliff for years, but she's never seen a town quite as
strange as Shasten Dhu.
|
|
(SF) A woman approaches the narrator
to help her smuggle a special package to the human survivors of an alien
virus that could make people something more than human.
|
|
(Post-Apocalypse) Just before a
chemstorm strikes, Salpe encounters two demons between her community and the
bee hives. They don’t act like the demons in the stories, though.
|
|
I am a Handsome Man, Said Apollo Crow by Kate Elliott Time: 36m (Novelette) Issue: The Book of Swords 2017
(Historical Fantasy Adventure) Apollo
Crow takes an assignment from the Emperor to steal the sketchbook of a woman
whose speeches are fomenting rebellion.
|
|
I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land by Connie Willis Time: 1h:01m (Novella) Issue: Asimov's 11.12|17
(Urban Fantasy) A novelist finds a
bookstore in New York that sells “the rarest of rare books.” These books look
pretty ordinary, for the most part, and there sure do seem to be a lot of
them.
|
|
(Slipstream) Shelly’s grandma teaches
her how to deal with ghosts so she can continue the family ghost business.
|
|
(Modern Fantasy) Claudio tends his
farm alone down at the tip of the Italian peninsula until a young woman and a
pregnant unicorn disturb his tranquility.
|
|
(Chinese Historical Fantasy; Pan Bao
and Jing) Jing and her father climb a mountain to find and kill a Snake-Devil
that has been killing people and goats, but she’s not exactly what they
expected.
|
|
(High Fantasy) Bekka is apprentice to
the local witch, and she's off to collect pixies. Joakem wants to walk with
her, and she can't tell him no.
|
|
(Post Apocalypse) The four teens are
the last people left in their town, and they hold a prom night every few
days—while trying to ignore that crack in the sky.
|
|
(Superheroes) Ice Sickle joined the
Excaliburs to fight evil, but Sin-Master may be her match.
|
|
(Near-Future SF) Through the eyes of a
drone, a “Tourist” explores a Sri Lanka town from the comfort of his own
home, but ends up taking an unexpected detour.
|
|
Message in a Bottle
by K.J. Parker
Time: 16m (ShortStory) Issue: The Djinn Falls in Love, and Other Stories 2017
(High Fantasy) The narrator seeks a
plague cure a long-dead scholar may have left in a bottle. Or it might be a
new kind of plague. But how to decide?
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(Military SF) An ex-soldier on a
colony planet who hunts for mines with a modified giant rat finds
companionship in an injured soldier.
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(SF Adventure Pastiche) In which we
learn of a hitherto-undisclosed fifth voyage of Lemuel Gulliver, to a place
called “Chicago” in 2022, and of the marvelous things that happened there.
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(Post-Apocalypse) In 2284, Earth is
recovering from geological and ecological catastrophe, and in Arizona a group
of survivors on Kitt’s Peak reaches another group at the Montezuma Castle
National Monument.
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(Japanese Historical Fantasy) Kenji is
just a boy, and a commoner at that, but his extraordinary drawing ability
attracts the attention of nobles and draws him into their plots.
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(Post-Apocalypse) The world is gradually
being destroyed by what seems like an alien plague that attacks people and
software alike. Caitlin lives in a seaside Scottish town, nursing her dying
lover.
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(High Fantasy) Tarangkaya made Bidaten
into supersoldier from infancy, and she’s been content to serve them for
years. Then her mistress takes a new bride who makes her think differently.
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(Hard SF; Captain Nick Aames) When an
accident strikes, the Mars crew have to figure out how to salvage what they
can and somehow survive until help can arrive.
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(Hard SF) Long after the loss of its
crew, Kade-5 continues its mission of terraforming the planet. It finds
something interesting, but whom can it tell?
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(Modern Fantasy) Unexpectedly, you
woke up female this morning, in someone else's body. Now you have to decide
what to do about it.
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(Near-Future SF) Barry investigates
self-driving trucks that are being hijacked, although he has more than a
little sympathy for the unemployed truckers who he imagines are behind it.
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(Military SF) Rita’s success in AIs
for marketing leads to success in military applications. A bit too much
success.
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Owl vs.
The Neighborhood Watch by Darcie Little Badger Time: 11m (ShortStory) Issue: Strange Horizons 07/10/17
(Modern Fantasy) Nina knows that owls
appear to warn us of impending catastrophe, but what does it mean when one of
them keeps harassing you?
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(Time Travel) In which a chorus of
time travelers give us advice, in the paradoxical way of time travelers.
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(Modern Fantasy) Ten-year-old Polly
wishes she could see fairies like her friend Isabelle can. She wishes a lot
of things. Not all wishes should come true.
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(Utopian SF) Ben visits an asteroid
mining ship to study the people who live on it, and he falls in love.
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(Post-Apocalypse) Satellite City will
die if it can’t find a new source of power. Alia thinks the secret lies in a
library of ancient books, but she needs results soon because her support is
drying up.
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(Military SF) To evacuate his unit
before the attackers get them, Josh has to get them from the 38th floor to
the 88th floor of a damaged skyscraper. And they don’t know what’s above
them.
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(Steampunk/Horror) The narrator flies
a lantern ship, a balloon with a special light that keeps away the ghosts
that gather during storms. Out of money, she’s desperate enough to take a
dangerous contract from a man she hates.
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(SF Horror) Aris wanted a male slave
from off-planet, and she thinks Firen is a fine choice. Young, strong, flawed
only because he can’t speak.
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(Time Travel) A modest proposal for a
grant to experiment with a most imperfect time machine.
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(Hard SF) We read the log books that
survive from two human colony ships which arrived at Tau Ceti e. We know
things didn’t go well, but we don’t know why.
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(Military SF) Ensign Geary gets stuck
with shore patrol at the last minute, and he’s got his hands full. He’s got
four of the worst recruits to try to supervise five ships full of sailors,
marines, and airmen, and no matter how bad things get, they can al
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(Slipstream) When Finley gets bitten
by a vampire, he’s pissed because he didn’t consent. When he learns he’s
going to become a vampire, he’s really upset, because it’s not legal for a
trans person to be a vampire at all.
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Some
Remarks on the Reproductive Strategy of the Common Octopus by Bogi TakΓ‘cs
Time: 11m (ShortStory) Issue: Clarkesworld 127
(Far-Future SF) An uplifted octopus
finds a mysterious capsule in the water and wonders if one of the
long-vanished humans might be inside it.
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(High Fantasy) The city of Vannat
offers forgiveness to former war criminals, but those it deems unworthy get
trapped inside stone walls that appear out of nowhere.
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(High Fantasy) Allpa receives a magic
sword on his grandmother’s deathbed. Three spirits in the sword are supposed
to train him to be a mighty warrior, but he really just wants to be a better
farmer.
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(Climate Apocalypse Horror) As the
seas have risen, terrible things have come crawling out of them. Jersey wants
Mir to come with him and move inland, but she won’t go without her disabled
father.
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(Alien Invasion) Only juvenile aliens
are capable of original thought, so we can't even tell the adults that
they're destroying our world. Reaching the juvenile's means going deep inside
the enormous females.
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(Chinese Historical Fantasy; Candyman
Ao) To undo some of the damage caused the last time he invoked zodiacal
spirits, Ao needs to lift a pair of conflicting curses cast by two warring
spirits.
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(Post-Apocalypse) Alois wants to go
back to the university—not spend the rest of his life guarding an old bridge.
Even if it does talk to him about the world before the collapse.
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(Horror) As kids, Lila and Beth had
adventures exploring mysterious houses with strange rooms and scary
occupants. Forty years later, Beth tries to discover whatever happened to
those houses—and to her friend.
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(Horror) The narrator wants to bring
her father back from the dead, but first she has to trick her brother into
helping eat his cremated remains.
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The Dragon that Flew Out of the Sun by Aliette De Bodard Time: 12m (ShortStory) Issue: Cosmic Powers 2017
(Space Opera) As a child, Lan learned
her family lost their world when a dragon came out of the sun, but now she
wants to know the real truth.
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(Historical Fantasy) In the first days
of World War I, young Oskar is left to manage the Mundaneum as the Germans
approach. He’s nervous, but hopeful they’ll respect the institution and its
priceless artifacts.
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(Fantasy Adventure) Nev has been in
hiding for eight years, so when some men offer him too good a deal to sell
their fish, he suspects a trap.
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(Post-Apocalypse) Alone in the ruins,
Boy finds an “Amerigun,” and he’s sure she’s up to no good. His failing robot
tutor gives his strange instructions, and for the first time, he’s not sure
what to believe.
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(Hard SF) Things look bad for the
repair crew, come to fix an unresponsive space ship. Their AI expert is all
doped up, mourning his sister who died in transit, and the AI isn’t
broken—it’s insane.
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(Dystopia) Since the mist came down,
people are sorted into castes based on metal plates screwed into their
temples which determine how much thinking they’re allowed to do. A girl from
the top wants to break the system, and a man from the bottom may give
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The History of the Invasion Told in Five Dogs by Kelly
Jennings Time: 07m (ShortStory) Issue: F&SF 05.06|17
(Alien Invasion) The narrator
describes his/her efforts to stay alive over a period of years. Each segment
includes a dog who made a difference in the narrator’s life.
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The House
at the End of the Lane Is Dreaming by A. Merc Rustad Time: 22m (ShortStory) Issue: Lightspeed 91
(SFF) Alex’s town is being attacked by
aliens, and she needs to save it somehow.
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(Horror) ‘Nisha only has five hours to
get across New York to her dead aunt’s apartment before the city comes to
throw away all her stuff. She’s not even sure it’s worth it, but they said
her aunt was a witch…
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(Near-Future SF) Ethan gets an AI reconstruction
of his dead wife. He can’t touch her, but just being able to see each other
and talk should be enough. Right?
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(SF Pastiche) When Zena’s brother
disappears into a mysterious forest on her family property, she goes looking,
and she finds that not all of the Martian invaders perished at the end of the
War of the Worlds.
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(High Fantasy; Saga of the Redeemed)
Georges has to help his master torture himself as part of his plan to make
himself immune to almost all forms of death.
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(Modern Fantasy Horror) In the Glasgow
slums, the gangs meet a mysterious woman who inspires them to even more
violence than usual. Eighteen-year-old Baz watches it happen and struggles to
understand it.
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(Near-Future SF) At age 11, Teddy has
the best life, with great hardware and software toys. Those toys let his
parents keep him under tight control, but he doesn’t mind until he finds
something he really wants to do.
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The Ones Who Know Where They Are Going by Sarah Pinsker Time: 05m (ShortStory) Issue: Asimov's 03.04|17
(Fantasy) You have lain in your cell
long enough to forget how to walk. Then you see sunlight and realize someone
has left the door open.
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The Prisoner of Limnos
by Lois McMaster Bujold Time: 2h:28m (Novella) Issue: The Prisoner of Limnos 2017
(Fantasy Adventure; Five Gods) When
Nikys asks for Penric’s help rescuing her mother from an imperial prison, he
jumps at the chance to win her affections back. It’s obviously a trap, and he
doesn’t know anything about the place, but he does have a demon
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(Fairy Tale) The king programs a robot
to lie even more than he does, hoping to change his reputation as the biggest
liar in the kingdom.
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The
Scholast in the Low Waters Kingdom by Max
Gladstone Time: 22m (ShortStory) Issue: Tor.com 03/29/17
(Space Opera) The Scholast fell to
earth in the Low Waters Kingdom and called on them to prepare to defend
themselves from an invasion from another world.
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(Urban Fantasy) Some nights shining
lights appear atop hills in urban areas, and people who walk into them
disappear—some say to fairyland. A cop who thinks otherwise tries to talk a
young woman out of trying it.
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(Fantasy Adventure) Viorica attempts
to steal the famed Εiret Mask from CodruΕ£, brother of her dear friend. There
are lots of complications, not least of which that CodruΕ£ expects someone to
try to take it.
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(Fantasy Horror) Edgar Allan Poe’s
writing has brought a creature into this world and it inhabits a young woman
who wants to be rid of it. It has its own agenda.
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(SF Adventure) Eldrin and Althor have
grown up in the low-tech, honor-based culture of their father’s world, but they
are heirs to their mother’s high-tech, off-world culture. At age 16, each
will have to choose between honor and necessity, with results t
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(Horror) Jason struggles with a bully
in elementary school, a stepdad who hates him, and he thinks the local
equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle is causing local kids to disappear.
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(Dark Fantasy) Hiding from her own
problems, Winona volunteers at the local ornithological museum after she hits
a bird with her car.
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(Offworld SF) The Dunyshar are
stranded on an outpost, but NuTay dreams of going home to Earth.
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(Post-Apocalypse) Valentin’s implant
should let him talk to the machine gods, but he’s failed the test three
times, and he decides to run away before facing it again. Of course things
outside the town are even worse.
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They Will
Take You From You by Brandon O'Brien1
Time: 20m (ShortStory) Issue: Strange Horizons 05/01/17
(Alternate History) Back in the
fifties, the Benefactors came to Earth and made some people “geniuses.” Now,
as those people die, the Benefactors “harvest” their bodies. Akeem hates them
for this, and he fears his grandmother might be next.
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Three Can Keep a Secret...
by Bill Johnson and Gregory Frost Time: 31m (Novelette)
Issue: Asimov's 03.04|17
(SF Thriller) A resourceful assassin
from Earth comes to an unnamed planet on a mission to double-cross someone.
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(Near-Future SF) A homeless man fights
a government decision to put him in hibernation.
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(Near-Future SF) The narrator visits a
reserve in Northern Canada where they’re experimenting with resurrected
mammoths.
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(Military SF) The rebellion on Thor is
getting worse, and Jack has to lead a mission from orbit to rescue some
hostages. His craft isn’t designed for this, there’s no ground support at
all, and he’s got a newbie to nursemaid.
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(Near-Future SF) Each sleep takes
Artemus two years closer to his goal, but he wakes up weak and starving after
each one, and he doesn’t need nosey neighbors bothering him while he
recovers.
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(SF) The Arnos power grid has a
problem, but the entities that run the power satellite are having
difficulties of their own—including not knowing how long ago this problem
started.
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(Modern Fantasy (Russian)) Little
Marcus walks the Moscow Metro at Midnight looking for stray animals and lost
souls to heal. But he needs something too.
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Vanguard 2.0 by Carter Scholz
Time: 19m (ShortStory) Issue: Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities 2017
(Hard SF) In the early 2030s, Sergei
works for Uber collecting trash in low-Earth orbit. He’s surprised when
Uber’s boss comes up and has a special mission for him.
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(Rural Fantasy) Sam is a good boy who
works hard on the family farm, although he does tease his little sister
Maura. She’s not a bad girl, but one time she got mad and turned him into a
rat.
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(Space Opera) Xin’s orderly life on
Eighth Colony changes forever when she ushers a mutilated body through the
portal.
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Waiting
Out the End of the World in Patty's Place Cafe by Naomi Kritzer
Time: 13m (ShortStory) Issue: Clarkesworld 126
(Apocalyptic) The narrator wants to
spend the last hours before the asteroid strike with her parents, but she
runs out of gas in the middle of South Dakota.
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(Fantasy Adventure; Gorel of Gloris)
Searching for his lost homeland, addicted to a drug excreted by gods, and
suffering withdrawal, Gorel gets an invitation to an adventure—to kill a god.
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(Colony SF) People who don’t like
living underground in the colony can live inside giant “whales” that float
high in the planet’s atmosphere. That’s usually pretty safe.
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(Military SF) Lia’s top-secret work
uses hurricanes against America’s enemies by falsifying the weather and
satellite records to fool enemies into thinking no storm is coming.
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(Mystery) Ambrose runs a bookstore on
a remote Hawaiian island. He gets tangled up in the mystery of a visitor who
chained himself underwater and drowned.
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(Far-Future SF; Franden) Franden goes
to a fight club to get some ideas for characters in his stories. A peaceful
sort, despite his size, he has no intention of actually participating.
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(Horror) Lyle is having a bad day,
what with finding his wife in bed with a cop, but not as bad a day as this
lady he finds hanging from a tree because her neighbors decided she’s a
witch.
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(Fairy Tale) You are a knight cursed
to kidnap maidens and the die trying to keep them when a knight comes to rescue
them. Over and over.
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(Exoplanetary SF) On planet Isach, the
native Kites are enthusiastic converts to Islam, but they’re dying from a
virus that the local Muslims suspect was planted by the neighboring Christian
colony.
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(Time Travel; Martin & Artie)
Trapped in the past, Martin tries to engineer a change in reality that will
let him go home.
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