Love Pressed in Vinyl, by Devon Wong

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(Horror) It’s not healthy to listen to the music on the record, and Malik is determined to destroy whoever made it. (5,972 words; Time: 19m)

Rating: ★★★☆☆ Average

Terra Nullius, by Hanuš Seiner

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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. (6,546 words; Time: 21m)

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ Not Recommended

Concessions, by Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali

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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. (8,315 words; Time: 27m)

Rating: ★★★★★ Sophisticated and Moving, with Good Characters

Recommended By: JStrahan

London Calling, by Philip A. Suggars

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(Slipstream) Ingrid can talk to the soul of the city, and she has something she wants from it. And vice versa. (2,976 words; Time: 09m)

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ Not Recommended

Only Calculate the Motion of Heavenly Bodies, by Marcia Richards

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(High Fantasy) The kingdom’s security depends on its goddesses, so it’s a big problem that they all want to die. (2,392 words; Time: 07m)

Rating: ★★★☆☆ Average

The Lights We Carried Home, by Kay Chronister

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(Cambodian Horror/Mystery) Thirteen years after Dara’s sister Sopha disappeared, a foreign film crew comes to their village asking awkward questions about what really happened to the little girl. (4,977 words; Time: 16m)

Rating: ★★★★☆ Chilling and Gripping

BlueBellow, by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

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(Horror) Serena comes to London for a set of business meetings, but is haunted by mermaids calling to her from the mirrors. Or are they zombies? (4,896 words; Time: 16m)

Rating: ★★★☆☆ A very difficult read.

Bombyx mori, by Kerstin Hall

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(Metafiction) Cynae lives in a house in the woods, where she making a living spinning silk. She has reasons to want to be alone. (5,969 words; Time: 19m)

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ Not Recommended

The Monkey King Sleeps, by Su-Yee Lin

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(Mainstream) Young Kai takes a German couple up one of the Karsts near Guilin, China, to explore one of the caves. (2,471 words; Time: 08m)

Rating: Not Rated No Speculative Element

The Three Nights of the Half-Gent, by Mário de Seabra Coelho

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(Horror) In life, he loved her from a distance, and in death he still hesitates to look right at her, even though she can’t leave the theatre. Is a half-man’s love stronger than death? (2,490 words; Time: 08m)

Rating: ★★★☆☆ Average

Das Steingeschöpf, by G.V. Anderson

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(Historical Fantasy) On the even of the Nazi takeover, a young German man's first assignment fixing a living statue becomes more complicated than he expected. (6,388 words; Time: 21m)

Rating: ★★★★★ Moving story with strong characters

Recommended By: Readers

The Thanatos Mode, by Tom Hadrava

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(Far-Future SF) When a ship is ready to die, it spawns an intelligent self-destruct entity inside itself. These are their stories. (2,744 words; Time: 09m)

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ Not Recommended

The Dancer on the Stairs, by Sarah Tolmie

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(Portal Fantasy) A personel manager is transported to a medieval world as an outcast, but she does have a purpose there, if she can only find it. (13,130 words; Time: 43m)

Rating: ★★★☆☆ Average

Reprinted from Two Travelers (Aqueduct Press, 2016), so still Hugo-eligible in 2017.

One Giant Leap, by Jay Werkheiser

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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. (4,511 words; Time: 15m)

Rating: ★★★★☆ Good science, good story, tense and exciting

The Wreck at Goat's Head, by Alexandra Manglis

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(Fantasy Time Travel) A Greek free diver finds an ancient shipwreck where there was nothing at all just days earlier. (5,844 words; Time: 19m)

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ Needs Improvement

A Spell to Retrieve Your Lover from the Bottom of the Sea, by Ada Hoffmann

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(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? (2,477 words; Time: 08m)

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ Not Recommended

Recommended By: Readers

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