Posted on Leave a comment

Stories I’ve Liked, 2nd Quarter 2025

As Safe As Fear, Beth Cato (Daikajuzine)

In the Shells of Broken Things, A.T. Greenblatt (Clarkesworld)

The Name Ziya, Wen-yi Lee (Reactor)

Barbershops of the Floating City, Angela Liu (Uncanny)

Everyone Keeps Saying Probably, Premee Mohamed (Psychopomp)

Lies From a Roadside Vagabond, Aaron Perry (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For, Cameron Reed (Reactor)

Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything, Effie Seiberg (Diabolical Plots)

Unbeaten, Grace Seybold (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

Unfinished Architectures of the Human-Fae War, Caroline Yoachim (Uncanny)

Posted on Leave a comment

The Bee Wife, by Francesca Forrest

Review copy provided by the author, who is an online pal.

This is a stand-alone short story with a lavish illustration. It features a well-delineated family despite the short length of the tale, each member an individual–and each showing a different facet of grief. There’s beekeeping magic here, but the core of the tale is a family’s loss and how they move through it together, not always in sync but always with love. The prose style reminded me of fables, of just-so stories, but the human heart is stronger than in most of those.

Posted on Leave a comment

Stories I’ve enjoyed, first quarter 2025

The Witch and the Wyrm, Elizabeth Bear (Reactor)

Mail Order Magic, Stephanie Burgis (Sunday Morning Transport)

“To Reap, to Sow,” Lyndsey Croal (Analog Mar/Apr 25)

Six People to Revise You, J. R. Dawson (Uncanny)

The Otter Woman’s Daughter, Eleanor Glewwe (Cast of Wonders)

What I Saw Before the War, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Reactor)

Kaiju Agonistes, Scott Lynch (Uncanny)

One by One, Lindz McLeod (Apex)

10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days, Samantha Mills (Uncanny)

Last Tuesday, for Eternity, Vinny Rose Pinto (Imagine 2200)

Ghost Rock Posers F**k Off, Margaret Ronald (Sunday Morning Transport)

After the Invasion of the Bug-Eyed Aliens, Rachel Swirsky (Reactor)

“Holy Fools,” Adrian Tchaikovsky (Of Shadows, Stars, and Sabers)

“An Asexual Succubus,” John Wiswell (Of Shadows, Stars, and Sabers)

Posted on Leave a comment

more than all the courage I can muster up inside

New story out! “If the Weather Holds” appears in the Mar/Apr 2025 issue of Analog. For all the work we have ahead, we’ll need a big team…and just the reasonable people won’t do. Analog is available for order here.

Yes, I wrote this because the Indigo Girls left this title lying on the table when they called their song “The Wood Song.” The ways of creativity are mysterious and here we are.

Posted on Leave a comment

Oh we like sheep

New story out today in Diabolical Plots: The Year the Sheep God Shattered. You might think that the presence of divinity would make growing up easier, but….

In addition to being a story I wrote because I have big feelings about the godkids growing up (yes, another one, there are a lot of feelings to process here, they’ve been doing this for a minute now), this was one of the stories I write when I’m turning over the standard fantasy worldbuilding premises in my mind and going, “Okay, but….”