To become a Wayfarer, Sedef needs to master the dangers of the forest on her planet, which kills anything that doesn’t glow. And she has to survive an emergency run, seven hours each way, alone.
Adventurous
48 free-to-read stories tagged “Adventurous”
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
A Russian fighter pilot in the battle of Stalingrad comes back from a mission to find a wounded alien stuck under the wing of her airplane.
Content warnings 2
deathwar
Lydia’s visit to Innovation City on planet Grit is interrupted by an engineered virus that compels her to hide in the tunnels under the city.
In 1933, Doug quits his job to go on an expedition to Antarctica to kill the Great Shoggoth and retrieve the priceless treasures of the lost city of Leng.
Content warnings 2
animal-harmviolence
"Outside is the palace of slaughter. Under its gambrels of boiling sky, there is the cold unforgiving sea; there are mountains ready to cradle your bones. Along its corridors of singing grass, there are horseback warriors who will cut you to pieces. There...
Content warnings 3
animal-harmgoreviolence
"Bek scuttled over the needle field on the Waste of Mosses, far from Roktown and the monastery in Hom Valley. Turbulent winds scattered the neat rows of falling iron carbonyl snows. The steely needles here grew jagged, making the magnetic fields on the...
"I know a nanomask when I see one, especially when the wearer’s making eye contact. There’s something about how the mask melds around the lids — it’s just a little bit stiff, but you have to really know what you’re looking for to tell. But people in...
Content warnings 3
abusedeathviolence
When the Demon of the North takes her father, young Claudette teams up with a university professor to hunt it down and kill it.
Sharon and Kango have to go back to their home worlds to capture an ultimate weapon that threatens the galaxy, or else they’ll never achieve their dream of opening a restaurant.
Content warnings 1
abuse
"The command center was silent but for the singing of the computers. No human voice dared speak as we passed into Saturn’s shadow. It was ridiculous and illogical, but superstition is a hard thing to train out of people who exist upon the knife’s edge of...
"The toy robot danced wildly to the music being played. It flailed its limbs and spun around as sound poured from the ceiling, motions programmed by the laughing boy watching the dancing toy. His older brother, Carlos, flung the door open to the small room...
"The mood in the control room was tense. When everything depends on the next hour or so, people grow quiet and focused. In a little less than an hour, the DART spacecraft would arrive at the asteroid Didymos, and all their effort would go out in a final...
"Watch it, trash!” a young chemical engineer snapped as he bumped another student. “I’m sorry.” Awi Trashpusher Nonumber had a blind spot behind him. Though an adult, only four of the six eyes on his pale, skinny, cylindrical body had developed. The...
On a struggling colony in the Trojan Asteroids, young Alaya’s family needs more water than their ration allows, and her grandmother has a plan to get more.
Content warnings 1
gore
Hortensia works in the Venerean atmosphere, building a floating city, when a puncture in the aerostat threatens the whole project unless someone can patch it before a sulfuric acid rainstorm begins.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
A human astronomer decides to investigate why some stars seem to be disappearing.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
"Sirius kho Delsi swam in the muddy water filling the abandoned conduit leading to Wisdom Lake, a tear-shaped pond enclosed inside the Imperial Preserve. Fingering the cracked walls in total darkness and bumping against gooey obstacles had taken longer...
"Instead of indulging in the festivities, I spent the evening evading Lamprecht, while Herschel evaded me. I had come to Bath not just to soak my body in healing waters, but to bathe my mind in new thoughts, to browse with the great William Herschel at the...
"The planet was dead and alive. It was the strangest thing to look down on. Ed Linklater squeezed his way into the narrow forward observation nacelle. The nacelle was shaped like a coffin, which wasn’t a nice thought. Anyone claustrophobic would never...
"Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand sat astride his horse at the head of his regiment and studied the situation before him. His regiment, the Roy’s Own Savage Archers, was arrayed on the extreme left of the Royal and Imperial Army of Cuffland,...
Content warnings 1
war
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
body-horrorviolence
"Operation Cherry Blossoms will not change the final outcome, though there will be carnage, to be sure, when his three planes attack. Three planes, that is all. Two will defend the third, the one that carries the new superbomb the Germans call Das Biest....
"Clouds rolled across the evening sky, dark and low, dragging rain behind them. Desert washes ran dirt-red, and rocky mesas shone wet when lightning flashed. Rainwater frothed down the narrow slot of Sheep Drop Ravine, a chasm with overgrown edges that had...
Content warnings 2
substance-usesuicide
"That was true. The Field supported many Stones like us but also carried considerably more unthinking rocks that obscured our far view. Stones occupied a narrow band within the Field; the ones too close to or too far from the Sun could not maintain the...
"Above the ship’s clearalloy cupola loomed Io, a pimpled canvas of desert camo so close Katy imagined she could smell its sulfurous plumes. Ahead, ocher bands slashed the sunlit limb of Jupiter like mud on a bloody scythe. Against this backdrop, gleaming...
"On this fine November day in 1967, Natalya Orlova took the oath to become a citizen of the United States, thereby clearing her last hurdle for acceptance into the astronaut training program. After nearly three years of giving her all to NASA, today should...
"Dabir and I shrouded the Syrian in his saddle blanket and spent a few hours digging a hole for him in that lonely land. He had been the last of our companions. Bandits and desertion and, finally, illness, had whittled our numbers down from the score of...
Content warnings 1
death
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
animal-harmviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
A couple of children are lost on the dangerous Barren Isle, which still has the original flora and fauna of Coyote. The search and rescue team will have their hands full.
Content warnings 2
child-abuseviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
deathsuicideviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
violence
Author : Marie Vibbert Narrator : Torin Andrus Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 1065: Sister Cities is an Escape Pod original. This episode is sponsored by Sleepphones! Use code ESCAPEPOD and get 10% off your purchase. Sister...
(Editorial Note: Starting with this month’s story, we will only post ebooks in the EPUB format as Amazon phased out the MOBI format a few years ago. Also, moving forward, we will be tagging our stories. We plan to tag our backlog of stories over the next...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
I wasn’t even two blocks into the Tumbledown when the walker’s nav crystal started fuzzing out. She veered left like a scavver drunk on coolant, and I knew I was in trouble. I tried sweet-talking her back on route, but she wasn’t listening. I was used to...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
“All clear, go!” yelled Klara from beyond the plastic confines of the ball, and I came tumbling. Water sloshed against my feet, and adrenaline rushed from my stomach up my […]
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
This episode features "Piece de Resistance" written by D.A. Xiaolin Spires. Published in the August 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/spires_08_26...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
I drifted over the top of Diver’s Cliff in my spacesuit and considered going for a swim. That’s what we called giving up on Sapphire Alpha: going for a swim.
Content warnings 2
suicideviolence
Aunt Jackie had warned me to be careful with Trey, the highest ranked male alpaca in her flock. His magical wool is so soft, we tolerate his posturing bullshit. I took the necessary precautions, sending a well worn shirt a week before I would arrive to...
Content warnings 1
violence
The defiant notes of a bass guitar ignite a city's fight against tyrants through the raw magic of music. Copyright khōréō magazine 2024. Story by Rodrigo Culagovski, edited by Zhui Ning Chang. Audio edition read by Sam Cavalcanti and produced by Lian Xia...
Content warnings 2
slaveryviolence
Join us on a vessel taking its passengers far beyond Earth, using an unconventional source to help power its journey. "Mothership Connection" by Melissa A. Watkins is a glorious story about Black joy and kinship. Copyright khōréō magazine 2022. Story by...
“Nymph of Darkness” was originally published in Fantasy Magazine, April 1935 Afflicted Season Two Fundraiser The thick Venusian dark of the Ednes waterfront in the hours before dawn is breathless and tense with a nameless awareness, a crouching danger. The...
Content warnings 2
body-horrorviolence
PseudoPod 782: The Halloween Parade is a PseudoPod original. That’s what the parade is for. The cowboys with no faces are first this year. Men with bone white paint and matte black hats. Men whose eyes are filled with the combination of terror and rage...
On a dangerous mission outside, Henriette finds a duplicate of herself who fell from another universe. There’s something suspicious about her doppleganger, who insists they need to mount a mission to save the world.
In France in 1699, a magical fighter comes to Caen to duel with creatures from faery.
Content warnings 1
violence