Magazine
Issue #7
The day the horses came to her town, Bola could think of nothing else. She stood in the shade of the acacia tree while her little brothers clutched at her legs and pointed. Lord Kami rode at the head of the procession of nobles, standing high in the stirrups of his own horse. Three thousand…
Originally published in Aurealis. You haven’t seen your parents since the beginning of COVID, so you’re driving to their house for Christmas. Your one-year-old daughter is secure in the child’s seat in the back. This will be the first time she meets her grandparents. She has been crying for the first hour of the two-hour…
“It is an irony, and not entirely a pleasant one, that what should be, by definition, the most imaginative of all types of literature has become so staid, and, too often, downright unimaginative.” These words from Neil Gaiman, in his Foreword to the 1998 reprint of Lord Dunsany’s novel The King of Elfland’s Daughter,…
The Six Most Genre-Breaking Fantasy Novels of All Time
Originally published in Dark Moon Digest. 1. Doctor Carl Howell rushed down the sedate hallways of Green Building 1 with a freshly severed pig head in his arms. Students gawped and laughed in his wake; a few must have assumed he was preparing for the university’s annual Prank Week, scheduled to begin the next day.…
The Colour of the Ninth Wave
Katie McIvorAuthor’s Note: The practice of ‘setting adrift’ was a legal form of execution in Early Medieval Ireland, thought to have been introduced with Christianity, and often used as a penalty for convicted women. The mythological elements of the story are drawn from the medieval texts Togail Bruidne Dá Derga and Tochmarc Étaíne. The language is…
The Clones That Make You
Avra MargaritiThere is a clone of you when you are born. It grows alongside you, breath by breath. Embryonic stem cells conceived in vitro, ready for the harvesting: bone marrow, organ transplant, and skin graft whenever, however, you are hurt. You all learn this as children. It’s why no twin births are allowed anymore. It would…
Mycelium
Beth GoderFirst published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I only travel to the golden head when the dragonflies are in season. It's Piack and me this year, rafting up the river past the lilies and arched trees. While I steer us through the river's gentle snarls, he sings about lost keys to pass…Dog’s Way
Lindsey GoddardDog struggled at the portal. It wasn’t a matter of physicality. The portal was flexible enough. Every time Dog went through, the rim stretched easily over his snout, opening wider to accommodate his fat belly. No, the problem wasn’t that Dog didn’t fit. It was that he didn’t want to go through. Returning to The…
Between the Flickers
M. S. DeanI’m careful not to be seen as I leave the cable tower. The lights in the station’s atria flicker in and out. The blackouts are a constant headache for the people who live on Vestra Station, but they’re useful for avoiding Mirror’s eyes. Thelonius keeps an apartment across from the clocktower. He likes that his…
The Techwork Horse
The day the horses came to her town, Bola could think of nothing else. She stood in the shade of the acacia tree while her little brothers clutched at her legs and pointed. Lord Kami rode at the head of the procession of nobles, standing high in the stirrups of his own horse. Three thousand…
The Six Most Genre-Breaking Fantasy Novels of All Time
“It is an irony, and not entirely a pleasant one, that what should be, by definition, the most imaginative of all types of literature has become so staid, and, too often, downright unimaginative.” These words from Neil Gaiman, in his Foreword to the 1998 reprint of Lord Dunsany’s novel The King of Elfland’s Daughter,…
The Practicalities of An Alien Invasion
Originally published in Aurealis. You haven't seen your parents since the beginning of COVID, so you're driving to their house for Christmas. Your one-year-old daughter is secure in the child's seat in the back. This will be the first time she meets her grandparents. She has been crying for the first hour of the two-hour…
The Mind of the Unbound Prometheus
Originally published in Dark Moon Digest. 1. Doctor Carl Howell rushed down the sedate hallways of Green Building 1 with a freshly severed pig head in his arms. Students gawped and laughed in his wake; a few must have assumed he was preparing for the university’s annual Prank Week, scheduled to begin the next day.…
