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Sep 13, 2024 | 
strangehorizons.com | David Arnold |Nileena Sunil |Mary Lee |Jan Cronos
]When I first picked up Luminous Beings, I was not sure what I was getting into. All I knew was that it was a young adult graphic novel, and that it had a vaguely postapocalyptic setting. There is something I’ve always found fascinating about the YA category, even after aging out of being in its target demographic. Perhaps it is the character dynamics, which somehow don’t feel the same as those between adults.
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Sep 11, 2024 | 
magazine.interstellarflightpress.com | Conyer Clayton |T.D. Walker |Mary Lee |Brandon Shimoda |Holly Walrath
Reading from the 2024 SFPA Elgin Award NomineesThis is my sixth year reviewing books from the SFPA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association) Elgin Award for best speculative poetry book. A full list of nominated books is available on the SFPA website. This year’s award chair is Felicia Martínez, who I would like to thank for diligently tracking nominations.
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Sep 9, 2024 | 
strangehorizons.com | David Lewis |Ali Householder |Mary Lee |Jan Cronos
Hold fast to dreamsFor when dreams goLife is a barren fieldFrozen with snow—Dreams, Langston HughesA voyager from another planet arrives on a desolate Earth which has seemingly gone grey and lifeless; the alien goes on a quest to remind humanity of its better nature, which ends with the rediscovery and glorious revival of the Olympics and the spirit of human solidarity. That’s the simple analysis of Thomas Jolly’s dystopian SF show at the Closing Ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
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Sep 9, 2024 | 
strangehorizons.com | Mary Lee |Jan Cronos |Octavia Cade |Ali Householder
The fields unplowed, the cars at rest,no rush to school, no changing shifts,but as the Earth turns round to faceeach post-apocalyptic dawna chorus breaks from shore to shore. No spoken word, nor beat of drum,nor flute, nor grand orchestral score,but as the Earth spins into daythe birds all pause to sing in praiseof rain and sky, of egg and nest.
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Aug 19, 2024 | 
strangehorizons.com | Jonathan Olfert |Mary Lee |Jan Cronos |Ali Householder
The first month was a laugh about excusesEat your greens and dieOnce the death toll mounted (same old story)You knew bad times were back in some new wayThe rule this round: cook fruitCook plantsIt’s in their waterSo pie is fine,And cider, jam, pea soup (but cook it hot)A baked potato’s unsafe; chips are betterJenn T.
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Aug 19, 2024 | 
strangehorizons.com | Lowry Poletti |Ali Householder |Mary Lee |Max Banshees
A woman drags a white doe out of the ice room; it hangs from the ceiling rails by two brass hooks, one caught beneath its pelvis and the other behind the scapulae. As she pulls, the metal wheels whine. When she works in her lab, she is a butcher. She lays the doe on her bench and makes an incision from sternum to pelvis. Beneath translucent skin and shimmering hair coat, she expects to find the pink, glassy meat, which should flake against her scalpel blade like white-fleshed fish.
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Jul 19, 2024 | 
strangehorizons.com | Tristan Beiter |Steven Archer |Leyla Guirand |Mary Lee
“What is a witch?” asks prolific and award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan in the introduction to The Book of Witches. Ultimately, he declares “a witch could be anyone” (p. xix) and thus be written by anyone, closing the introduction with his interest in representing a wide variety of different voices in the collection. The star-studded contributors list includes writers from several countries and a wide variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds.
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Jul 17, 2024 | 
strangehorizons.com | Sneha Pathak |Steven Archer |Leyla Guirand |Mary Lee
Manjula Padmanabhan is a well-known figure in the field of Indian science fiction. Besides novels and stories, she has also written many plays, books for young readers, and created a long-running comic strip, Suki. Stolen Hours and Other Curiosities, published by Hachette India in 2023, is a collection featuring twenty-six of her stories, all published between 1984 and 2021. It also includes four stories that find space in this collection for the first time.
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Jul 16, 2024 | 
strangehorizons.com | Leyla Guirand |Steven Archer |Mary Lee |Octavia Cade
The potion queen is vapor, unquenchable, emergent in absence against the roseate dawn, resurrecting from the paucity, torrentially abounding. She burnishes her prized vocations, fashions the ice crystals into semblances, talismans, crescents, amidst the idols of speaking tides, the obsessive beasts eulogize, pearls command the sky in hushes, the blush unceasing, she, numb in her construct, frosted, replete, inhabiting dreams.
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Jul 16, 2024 | 
strangehorizons.com | Steven Archer |Leyla Guirand |Mary Lee |Octavia Cade
Half-painted in the angled mirror, I ignore my mother’s calls and sweep blush onto my temples. The face of Luz Divinity takes shape beneath my brush. My mother tries again as I tug a wig onto my shaved head, the unit sleek and long, and again as I zip a vinyl bodice over my chest, false cleavage contoured on. I almost let the call expire, answer on the last ring, then shrug the phone against my cheek to wash lipstick swatches from the back of my hand. “Allô, Ma.” The water runs sunset colors.
