While most of the subreddit is focused on novels, I wanted to pitch available reads at great short-fiction magazines that cost you absolutely nothing to check out. Short fiction is great for when you have precious little time to really conquer an epic fantasy, whether it's because your school or work schedule is insane or your kids have eaten into your reading time. They can also let you test out genres or authors before diving into a full novel of the same.
Each magazine tends to have its own focus or feel to its stories, so just because you try one and it's not your thing doesn't mean you won't absolutely love a different one. Short fiction magazines aren't as widely read as they used to be despite the ready availability of them online, and author compensation has dropped accordingly despite the amazing quality and wider diversity, so I highly recommend you give some a chance!
Abyss & Apex is a magazine that publishes shorter stories of both science-fiction and fantasy and is well-respected. https://www.abyssapexzine.com/
Apex Magazine publishes dark fantasy and science-fiction. Expect to be disturbed rather than delighted, but in a thoughtful way. Publishes entire issue for subscribers and then releases each story for free one at a time on their site. https://apex-magazine.com/
Apparition Lit publishes both short stories and flash to specific themes. https://apparitionlit.com/category/short-fiction/
Beneath Ceaseless Skies is a magazine that specializes in secondary world fantasy. They publish 2 new stories every two weeks with occasional special issues featuring four. Some of these stories stray into the epic fantasy but with a literary bent. They also occasionally offer a science-fantasy issue. http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/
Cast of Wonders is the young adult arm of a group of podcasts. They are still well-worth the listen/read even if young adult isn't your particular genre since they tend being more young protagonists reminiscent of your first reads. https://www.castofwonders.org/
Clarkesworld Magazine has stories that tend to be on the longer, denser side. They do many contemporary settings and try to press outside of norms. http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/
Constelación is a new bilingual magazine that publishes in both English and Spanish. They theme each issue. Like many magazines, they send their entire issue to supporters and post each for free on their site at intervals afterwards. https://www.c
... keep reading on reddit ➡I ran across this song on the radio and loved it. And I was pleased to learn that the music video is a sci-fi short story that parallels the theme of the song. Because this isn't likely to come up on many people's playlists, I thought it was worth sharing here.
I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say that I particularly enjoyed the way her fantasy changed as her physical situation changed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVxTsXRjNTw
(/r/scifi doesn't allow posting direct video links. But the mods confirmed that a link in a text post is OK.)
EDIT: I'm loving the suggestions. Please keep them coming.
Also just good sci-fi authors in general, or just specific short stories. If you want something to go off of, I like darker stuff. I’ve enjoyed the Ray Bradbury stories I’ve read, my favorite being “There Will Come Soft Rains”, I liked Stephen King’s sci-fi story “The Jaunt” as well. I like my fiction bleak. Thanks.
Edit: I really like their work on the anthology The Weird, so I ordered The Big Book of Science Fiction by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer. Thanks everyone
Copied from another book-finding site, where we've been unable to locate this story:
>Hi, just wondering if somebody can identify this story that I read about 3 decades ago . . .
>
>It was part of an anthology or collection, and I think it was a pretty major author (Asimov, or Clarke) but not sure.
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>Anyways, the stories each had brief introductions, and the author said that this story's origin came from an argument that they had with another SF writer (or SF editor - perhaps John Campbell).
>
>Anyways, the argument was that you couldn't write a story unless the protagonist was intelligent. So the author wrote a story about a dog to try to prove him wrong. He did admit in the introduction that it was very hard to make the story interesting.
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>All I remember about the story is that the dog does mundane things - there's no humans at all. I think the dog lays around a while, then goes looking for things, and then lays around again. But my memory is not so clear after all this time.
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>Anybody remember a story about a dog with no humans?
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>To clarify: This was a stand-alone story, not part of a fix-up, and not something the author ever came back to again.
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>If it helps, I think the dog was hanging around a university in an abandoned city. It laid around waiting for routine things to happen, then it got up and ran around, and then it came back again.
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>Not much to go on, but that's all I can remember after 3 decades. Actually, the only reason I remember it at all is due to the foreword, in which the author explained how this was written as an exercise (or perhaps as a dare) to do something that had been discussed as "impossible" among his writing friends.
"City" by Clifford D. Simak and "Friend's Best Man" by Jonathan Carroll had been suggested and eliminated.
Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon, and Philip K. Dick have also been searched and "eliminated", although we can't say with certainty that it's not a very obscure story by one of them.
TIA for your help!
Edit: Also specifically eliminated are all of the stories in Hound Dunnit edited by Isaac Asimov, Roog by PKD, After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned by Dave Eggers, Pelt by Carol Emshwiller, and The Emissary by Ray Bradbury.
When I was in High School, I wasn't really a reader until I came across this list of stories online when I was bored in class. After making my way through a few, I ended up not being able to stop reading. It has lots of the great Fantasy/Science Fiction authors and set me up to become a reader for life. I thought If someone's looking to start reading more or for something new to read, that this list may help.
http://scifilists.sffjazz.com/lists_short_stories.html
Science fiction about aliens getting revenge for a cat. The captain of a spaceship has the ships pet cat put down for something petty. They rendezvous with the aliens they're meeting who then ask where is the animal companion listed on the flight log. The captain has no good answer for them. The aliens let it go, and restock the ship to send the humans back home. The captain wakes up from hypersleep to see he was woken up 6 months earlier than anticipated and he can't go back to sleep. He decides to pass the time by eating regular meals and enjoying the process of cooking and planning meals. He goes to the ships pantry to discover the aliens had replaced all the ships human food with canned cat food.
Narrator is a physicist or astronomer and strange events start happening, he realizes this is actually a storm of tiny black holes heading to earth and there’s no chance to survive. He takes his daughter to the beach and comforts her before they die. I could be wrong on some details, but basically this guy knows there is no chance and so tries to make the passing comforting for his daughter while there is chaos around him.
It's an older one as I think I read it as a kid over 30 years ago. Not much to go off of, but any help is appreciated!
It’s often said that good fiction is a feast for the imagination. In today’s edition of The Audio File we’re going to take that saying a bit more literally. All of our stories will be about food, drink and sharing a meal. I could talk about the significance of food and drink throughout speculative fiction, and literature in general. After all, sitting around a fire and sharing a meal with friends is one of the oldest traditions of humanity. So, here is a list of speculative fiction short stories, all available completely free of charge, that deal with food and drink.
This glorious feast of fiction has been catered for us by the good people at The Drabblecast, Cast of Wonders, Escape Pod, PseudoPod, PodCastle, Lightspeed Magazine, Tales to Terrify, Mr. CreepyPasta, Strange Horizons, and Apex Magazine.
I thought it would be more fun if we set the table using our imaginations. Imagine you and I are sitting down for dinner at Chez Audio File. It is a fancy upscale restaurant renowned for the succulent audio offerings. The other patrons are spacemen, wizards, aliens, dragons, superheroes and anything else you can imagine. Our favorite drinks have been poured in our glasses and I have made an order for the restaurant’s finest offerings. Our meal has been prepared by some of the finest writers I have been able to find, and they’re cooking just for us.
Before long a team of waiters arrives at our table with steaming silver domes. With mounting anticipation the first dome is opening and our feast of fiction begins as we follow the link below to my blog for the full list.
Link to begin your feast of fiction is here: https://drakoniandgriffalco.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-audio-file-feast-of-fiction.html?m=1
A disgruntled scientist creates a virus that will kill only human beings. He infects himself and travels around the world coughing and sneezing, while over the course of two or three days slowly dying. His last thought is that "the bears" might evolve into something better than people. (Makes me think of "Bears Discover Fire," by Terry Bisson, but that's Another Story!)
Can't remember any specific details, other than that the scientist has decided humanity is a plague destroying everything else. Ahem.
Any leads greatly appreciated!
Yours truly, Bucky
...they were transported to Nirvana of some type, and because he chose not to wait he missed it. The details are pretty foggy, but that's all I've got!
Huge thank you to u/Sweetpug!!
Hey hey
Looking for some suggestions for hard scifi without a focus in aliens or rogue androids / Scifi
I’ve already read:
Dune series
The expanse
The Martian
Children of time
Forever war (oops, I forgot!)
Illustrated man + Martian chronicles
Red mars
Cold as Ice
And honestly, loved them all! Currently reading Hyperion with velocity weapon, project Hail Mary, and adrian tchaicovsky’s the doors of eden next already in my bookshelf.
More just looking for new suggestions. I’m much more a fan of action blockbuster type stuff like the expanse, children of dune, or the human chapters of children of Time, than am looking for philosophy heavy books of “why are we here” and “are androids people?” (So not 2001 space odyssey, do androids dream, i robot, etc )
Really have no interest in reading about space aliens or robots / androids. Although I know weapon velocity features a rogue AI lol.
Earth has a birth quota and his mom got pregnant which means the state will kill his sibling to enforce the quota. Kid reaches out to an alien mercenary to fix things, alien takes the job, solves it bloodlessly, and leaves the kid a crate of alien wartoys because he likes the kid's moxie.
What is the name of this short story?
"Humans are Weird: I Have the Data"
https://preview.redd.it/x0ys7rb544i71.png?width=712&format=png&auto=webp&s=b5923a49d575c5776b602a1bd77f2fcf40f8c7b6
Audible
Why does everyone get so uneasy when a human offers to misuse knives? Why does this simple phrase seem to terrify any alien that has first appendage experience with humans? #HFY #HumansAreWeird #HumansAreSpaceOrcs #EarthIsADeathWorld #EarthIsSpaceAustralia
Amazon (Kindle, Paperback, Audiobook)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RSVHL81
Barnes & Nobe (Nook, Paperback, Audiobook)
Kobo by Rakuten (ebook and Audiobook)
Google Play Books (ebook and Audiobook)
https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Humans_are_Weird_I_Have_the_Data?id=7_wdEAAAQBAJ&gl=US
Hey! The books are moving well on Amazon and now have 105 reviews and ratings! If you bought the book and enjoyed it, it would really help me out if you leave a quick star rating on Amazon. A review would be great but just stars would be a huge boost *****!
QUICK NOTE: RE: everyone who asked. The book is avaliable in Amazon regions US-UK-DE-FR-ES-IT-NL-JP-BR-CA-MX-AU-IN. HOWEVER The above link only takes you to the US Amazon site. The one indicated by the .com ending. If it says "not avaliable in your country" that just means that you need to click over to your Amazon region.
Of course if you want a signed first edition you can email me at the email on my website and I can ship
... keep reading on reddit ➡It's a science fiction anthology where one of the stories (in the middle of the book) was The Long Rain. There were also short stories from H.P. Lovecraft and other science fiction writers. I remember reading it about 10-20 years ago when I borrowed the book from the library. Really loved it but for the life of me, can't find it anywhere.
Read it many (30+) years ago - as part of a Sci-Fi anthology series. The plot points I remember are:
- story is being told first person by the ship's doctor
- the ship is in some kind of mission to find new planets to colonize, I think?
- an expedition leaves the ship on a skiff to investigate a planet. the ship continues traveling
- only one person comes back from that mission - a woman, who happens to be the ship's doctor sister
- she brings some kind of life form from the planet in the cargo area of the skiff - but all doors into the cargo area have been sealed, so there's no way to access this life form
- When prompted why all entries to the cargo deck has been sealed, she gives vague answers
- when asked about the rest of the team, "they stayed behind to start colonizing the planet"
- she plays back a recording on which she asks the expedition lead (Chang ?) for permission to go back to the mother ship, and the leader agrees, "Yes, you go" but with a strange voice
- they finally decide to open the cargo deck on the skiff, but just in case, the Captain (a woman) "revives" or brings back from deep sleep the ship's complement of "Space Marines" or something, "just in case"
- they open the cargo deck on the skiff, and some kind of light comes out shinning - the "light" basically burns the mind of everyone that sees it, even through a monitor. The doctor falls behinds some stuff in the hangar, and he's not harmed by this light.
- The sister then reveals she knew this was going to happen, and did this all on purpose, because "this life form is happiness for all of us"
- Most (99.99%) of the crew either leaves the ship to go to this planet or end with their minds burned and semi-catatonic. Doctor is the only "complete" survivor and finishes the story with something like "on the positive side, I don't dream anymore"
My grandmother gave me a book when I was a kid that contained an awesome variety of creepy short stories and I'm not able to find it anywhere. I remember the stories "Drink My Red Blood", "It's a Good Life", "A Toy for Juliette", and a story by RL Stine about hypnosis (which means it's fairly recent).
I believe the title is "Scary!" or something similar. It is such a well curated collection that I really want to find it again. Frankly it may have traumatized me a bit... Thanks in advance for your help!
This story blew my mind about 8 years ago when I first read it but for some reason I've never been able to find it again and all my google searches aren't pulling it up.
The details I remember is that it focuses on the main character who is a woman that likes to hike with her husband. The husband is some sort of scientist and he would talk about what the future would be like and how far humans could evolve. Eventually technology comes out where you can transfer your consciousness to a cyborg and essentially live forever. Unfortunately the husband dies before this happens but the narrator who is an old woman at this point decides to do it and with her new body is able to hike and explore all the places she and her husband had dreamed about. Eventually the technology progresses even further and you can split your consciousness between multiple nodes. So you can stream your consciousness to a different planet and explore there as well.
Now a lot of the details are fuzzy for me but what stuck out the most was this: they developed spore like needles in the story, and you could shoot out millions of these spores into all different directions in space. If the spore/needle hit a planet with the right materials it would grow and form another node that you could stream your consciousness to. You could explore that planet or send out more spore/needles from that node as well.
Eventually the narrator returns to Earth after and reminisces about her husband and how he was right about how crazy the future was.
Hoping this sounds familiar to someone who can tell me who the author is! I'd really love to share it with others too.
Don't remember when I read this story. It is written fron the perspective of an individual from an interstellar civilization. Another, more aggressive, empire is constantly sending updated maps of their territorial claims, but there is a hole in the map. The map keeps expanding, but the hole stays the same size. One the the hole expands.
I'm looking to extend my Halloween fun a little bit into November. Do you have any suggestions for scary or creepy science fiction short stories (not outright horror and not fantasy)? A few examples I can think of would be Nightengale by Alastair Reynolds, Thick Water by Karen Heuler, True Darkness by Pamela Sargent, and In the Stillness Between the Stars by Mercurio Rivera. Thanks!
EDIT: thanks to everybody who made a recommendation. Here are the recommendations I received:
-Sandkings, novelette, George R R Martin, 1979
-Nightflyers, novella, GRR Martin, 1980/81
-Who Goes There, novella, John W Campbell (as Don A Stuart), 1938
-The Things, short story, Peter Watts, 2010 (related to Who Goes There), linked below
-The Jaunt, short story, Stephen King, 1981
-A Colder War, novelette, Charles Stross, 1997/2000, (Cthulhu universe) linked below
-I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, short story, Harlan Ellison, 1968
-Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, short story, Alice Sheldon (as James Tiptree Jr), 1974
-Punktown, collection, Jeffrey Thomas, 2000
-Last Log of the Lachrimosa, novelette, Alastair Reynolds, 2014 (Revelation Space universe)
-Diamond Dogs, novella, Alastair Reynolds, 2001 (Revelation Space universe)
-Grass, novel, Sheri S Tepper, 1989
Any help is greatly appreciated.
