The Plague, by Yan Leisheng

[Clarkesworld]

★☆☆☆☆

(Epidemic SF) A plague that turns people to stone is depopulating the planet, and the narrator has the job of incinerating the bodies. Weirdly, some of them scream. (5,692 words; Time: 18m)

The Mad Cabbage, by Céline Malgen

[Analog]

★☆☆☆☆

(Hard SF) A Ph.D. student struggles to figure out why her fermented cabbage experiment has produced a result that’s almost as acidic as car-battery acid. (3,121 words; Time: 10m)

Refuge, by Ben Peek

[Lightspeed]

★☆☆☆☆

(Dark Fantasy Adventure) The story of how Aned Heast, having lost a leg and his entire army, reclaimed his honor in a drought-ridden town whose adults mysteriously vanished. (6,568 words; Time: 21m)

The Postictal State of Divine Love, by Julianna Baggott

[Lightspeed]

★☆☆☆☆

(Vampire) It turns out there’s a secret society of vampires all around us, and they offer immunity to viruses. (7,343 words; Time: 24m)

Moral Biology, by Neal Asher

[Analog]

★☆☆☆☆

(First Contact Adventure; Polity Universe) A first-contact team visits an alien planet where the aliens have a defense system meant to keep anyone from crossing in either direction. (23,275 words; Time: 1h:17m)

This story is set in the author’s “Polity Universe,” which contains over a dozen novels and shorter fiction, but this story seems to be completely stand-alone.

Cooling Chaos, by Gregory Benford

[Analog]

★☆☆☆☆

(Climate SF) When Sandra almost dies fighting a wildfire in the California Sierras, she gets an inspiration for a better way to fight fires in the future. (3,539 words; Time: 11m)

The Host, by Neal Asher

[Clarkesworld]

★☆☆☆☆

(SF Adventure) Captured for his crimes, Ivebek expects to be executed, but an AI is taking him to another planet to meet with an alien for some reason. But why? (8,486 words; Time: 28m)

The Perfect Sail, by I-Hyeong Yun

[Clarkesworld]

★☆☆☆☆

(SF Adventure) A wealthy woman has the multiverse searched for divergent versions of herself who’re near death, offering to add them to her personality, and they always accept. Up until now. (9,308 words; Time: 31m)

Symbiosis Theory, by Choyeop Kim

[Clarkesworld]

★☆☆☆☆

(Fantasy Science) Scientists look for a link between an eccentric artist with “memories” of an alien planet and odd voices that only infants can hear. (8,918 words; Time: 29m)

Eclipse our Sins, by Tlotlo Tsamaase

[Clarkesworld]

★☆☆☆☆

(Climate Dystopia) Two children observe their mother’s horrible death as the spirit of the Earth, ravaged by climate change, forces her to give birth to death. (7,953 words; Time: 26m)

Operation Spring Dawn, by Mo Xiong

[Clarkesworld]

★☆☆☆☆

(Post Apocalypse) The Great Freeze has left the Earth almost lifeless for 20,000 years, but robots have awakened a genetically modified human to start a warming process—if they can figure out how to. (12,290 words; Time: 40m)

Keep the Line Tight But Not Too Tight, or Esteban and the Moon, by Joe M. McDermott

[Analog]

★☆☆☆☆

(SF Drama) A man struggles to bear up under the stress of building starships on the moon knowing that any mistake could kill thousands of helpless colonists. (6,414 words; Time: 21m)

Just a Guy and Some Aliens, by Michael Carroll

[Analog]

★☆☆☆☆

(SF Epic) A Spanish exoplanet specialist joins a team launching a probe to τ Ceti and spends the rest of her career with it. (3,996 words; Time: 13m)

High Hopes, by Kali de los Santos

[Strange Horizons]

★☆☆☆☆

(Near-Future SF) People in Brazil are happy when flying cars finally become available, but over time there are complications. (678 words; Time: 02m)

Something in the Air, by Carolyn Ives Gilman

[Anthology]

★☆☆☆☆

(SF Fantasy) Suppose there were a star system where quantum entanglement operated on a grand scale. Three researchers explore a planet that seems to keep changing based on what they want to find. (9,153 words; Time: 30m)

Genesong, by Peter F. Hamilton

[Anthology]

★☆☆☆☆

(SF Thriller) The crew of a ship routing ice from the Oort Cloud to Venus is attacked by pirates. (8,684 words; Time: 28m)

The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations, by Minsoo Kang

[Anthology]

★☆☆☆☆

(High Fantasy) In which we learn how bad translations averted a war and led to lasting peace. (7,867 words; Time: 26m)

The Second Nanny, by Djuna

[Clarkesworld]

★☆☆☆☆

(SF Adventure) Post-humans on a space station at Triton try to defend their “Mother” AI from attack by an evil “Father” AI. (16,046 words; Time: 53m)

One in a Million, by Rodrigo Juri

[Clarkesworld]

★☆☆☆☆

(AI Apocalypse) No longer entirely human, Luis revisits his childhood home and reflects on how the world ended. (8,896 words; Time: 29m)

If you can read this in the original Spanish, it’s a 3-star story.

The Universe Within the Universe, by Dominica Phetteplace

[Asimov's]

★☆☆☆☆

(Virtual Reality) The narrator wants to visit her own past to try to make her life better, but all she has to work with is a simulation of the past. (3,700 words; Time: 12m)