In which we learn about the donors of each of the nine teeth and what effects they had on Washington.
Content warnings 8
abuseanimal-harmdeathracismsexual-violenceslaverysuicideviolence
Colonialism
211 free-to-read stories tagged “Colonialism”
Jesse uses virtual reality to give tourists a vision-quest experience. It’s demeaning, but it pays the bills. Then a tourist turns up who wants a really authentic experience.
Content warnings 3
abuseracismsubstance-use
The colonists on Dust usually hunker down for their years-long winter, especially when the companion star, Umber, blasts the surface with radiation, but a critical package from Earth needs to be retrieved now.
Content warnings 4
body-horrordeathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"Ambition!” Trevor emphasized, rapping knuckles hard on the wood table. “That is what makes the great men!” He took a satisfied swallow from his mug. Across from him, Barnaby put down the daily he’d been reading and sipped from his own beer. Pulling out a...
Content warnings 3
deathracismviolence
In a world desperate for wood for fires and paper, a man and his brother look for a tree good enough to make a world-class violin.
Content warnings 2
illness-and-pandemicviolence
Months after mysterious aliens scattered their spacecraft across North America, no one has a clue what they want. Avery knows what one of them wants, though: it wants a tour.
Content warnings 3
animal-harmdeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"I will always remember the view of Paris from his window. Snow, pure and untouched, softens the outline of the buildings and covers the grime of the streets. White, the color of beginnings. His canvas is primed and ready to be painted, and stark winter...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onewar
"The first Martian War was won not by man, but microbes. The second we fought with Martian weapons that nearly broke the world. The third invasion we stopped by our own hands, using magic.” —Wei-Yin Sun, Imperial Historian in the Court of the Empress...
Content warnings 2
deathwar
Lady Ida's visit to Venus was memorialized by the beautiful floral papercuts she made there, but this sensational story reveals the secret of the real purpose of her visit.
Content warnings 4
deathsubstance-useviolencewar
Alyssa seeks out the aliens who can give her an augment that will let her exchange thoughts and feelings with other humans. But why does she want it, and what is the cost?
Content warnings 2
body-horrordeath
A young hustler discovers that he's supposed to play a big role in transforming New York from a city to a City. If he can survive it.
Content warnings 3
deathracismviolence
In 1943 India, during the Bengal Famine, the Governor of Bengal tries to force an old woman to make a doll for his wife.
Content warnings 5
child-deathdeathracismviolencewar
"1926 Washington, D.C. Shaw District “There’s a man on the front stoop.” The words spilled from her in a much more mundane way than Judy had expected, considering how her neck was fluttering with her excited pulse. Alvin looked up from the new Langston...
Content warnings 3
abusedeathviolence
"Doc, there’s a ... hole growing in me,” the alien said through the spherical interpreting machine hovering over them. Semau barely registered the word “hole,” so taken was she by the sight of the alien. If she were just a tad less caring about propriety,...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"Bloodsoaked and grinning, the Soldier climbs to the summit of the ruins. The wind is mountain-top fast. It grabs the strands of her hair that have escaped her ponytail and sticks them to her ecstatic mouth: the slick surface of teeth, the gloss-wet of...
Content warnings 1
violence
"There’s a woman outside of a town called Sheridan, where the sky comes so near to earth it has to use the crosswalk just like everybody else. … There’s a woman outside of Sheridan and she is eating the sin of America."
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 7
abusebody-horrordeathgoreracismsexual-violenceviolence
"My parents taught me to lie as soon as I could speak. Before I knew the meaning of the words, before I understood heat or fire, and long before I felt the pain of singed flesh, I learned to tell strangers that I burned myself by grasping a hot iron pot."
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
The human terraformers didn’t realize there was native intelligence until it was too late to save them. Now it’s just a question of what to do with the time that remains.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
racism
A Chinese woman living in the Bay Area needs to raise money to get her daughter into Stanford. She tries to sell her English-language proficiency, but even after fifteen years, it’s not good enough. But her native fluency in Mandarin is worth a lot, if...
Two people from a secret, underwater House try to infiltrate a troublesome surface House that rules much of a Paris still recovering from long-ago magical wars.
Content warnings 1
violence
Fun adventure on Old Venus. Dharthi risks her life in an unexplored part of Ishtar Terra looking for evidence of a vanished civilization that would save her career.
Content warnings 1
violence
A two-person crew embark on a mind-bending deep space mission inside a living wormship capable of burrowing through space. What lies on the other end is unknown—as is what they will do once they get there.
Content warnings 2
body-horrorviolence
"Thuận Lộc stared at the cup. It was dark, and mottled with the characteristic patterning of silver-eye fungus. The tea inside was trembling—the faint vibrations from the Mausoleum, the dead ships’ atrophied motors that would never again allow them to...
Content warnings 2
child-abuseviolence
"Thuỷ stood in her cabin in The Goby in the Well, her bots arrayed on her shoulders and clinging to her wrists, and watched the heart of the nebula. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about it: the Great Mulberry Nebula was large, sparsely dotted with...
Content warnings 4
child-deathdeathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 5
body-horrorchild-abusedeathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
In 2001, just before the attacks, a girl out West has a very close encounter with space aliens.
Content warnings 5
body-horrordeathgoresexual-violenceviolence
A whaling ship conducts an experiment in generating whale song to try to make it easier to attract whales to kill.
Content warnings 5
animal-harmbody-horrordeathgoreviolence
After spending almost her whole life as a lunar soldier, Gita gives an interview to a reporter about what it was like and how she’s adapting to life in India.
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onewar
The end of the world starts when an ambitious marketing guy gets a cryptic assignment to create an ad campaign to "make ugly sexy."
Content warnings 2
deathsexual-content
A group of Englishmen sharing an evening in a pub near a canal on "Old Mars" meet a stranger who knows their secret and makes them an offer.
Content warnings 1
substance-use
A girl reckons with what she must lose–and who she has become–in order to be accepted at the empire’s most prestigious university.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Off the coast of West Africa, decades after the dangerous rise of the Atlantic Ocean, the region’s survivors live inside five partially submerged, kilometers-high towers originally created as a playground for the wealthy. Now the towers’ most affluent rule...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
In a sad, future Sri Lanka, the narrator watches his/her city die from the effects of sea-level rise and abandonment.
Content warnings 3
deathviolencewar
"Can someone get the doors? Thanks. Please remember we’re on an honor system for chairs—if you’ve eaten today, please leave them for someone who hasn’t. We don’t need another fainting incident. First of all, if you’re looking for a technical look at...
"I’d always known Calam would run. He had all the signs. A taut restlessness, body brittle as an overstretched lute string, when we stayed too long in one place. A gloom in his eyes, as we drifted through stretches of dead space. A sullen crease between...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"INTERVIEWER We’ve spoken about your use of the “weird” in your stories, but have you personally ever experienced anything akin to something that might happen to one of Lovecraft’s characters? BOEKNER Yes — despite all evidence to the contrary, I remain...
Dez is abandoning his acting career in mourning for Cherie, his one true love. But there is a technology that can temporarily bring her back—or something like her, anyway.
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeath-of-a-loved-onesubstance-use
In modern India, Binu’s a master of the trapeze and he plays “Alladdin” in the illusion show, but unbeknownst to his friends and colleagues, he has a real lamp with a real Jinni in it.
Content warnings 1
slavery
We follow this history of black people from prehistoric Ghana all the way to a lunar colony.
Content warnings 5
abuseracismslaveryviolencewar
A young sailor wants to learn what the stars really are, and if it’s true there are people living there.
After 700 years of isolation, the colony faces invasion from fellow humans. Fleeing from the destruction of her home town, Senne hooks up with four soldiers trying to find what’s left of their unit.
Content warnings 4
body-horrordeathsexual-violenceviolence
Meant to clear plastic from the sea, the artificial “squids” have put the oceans off-limits to humanity. Not everyone takes that lying down.
Content warnings 1
death
The Dunyshar are stranded on an outpost, but NuTay dreams of going home to Earth.
Around 2650 AD, the narrator interviews a wealthy recluse who lives above the sunken ruins of Boston.
"Do you remember being born? I expect that you do. After all, it happened only a very few minutes ago. Sensation comes first. Perhaps it was my voice you noticed—a ragged voice, new-carved. These are your first sounds. Sandpaper words, and the even temper...
Content warnings 1
death
"[Time Reference Unavailable]—August, 1946 The watchseed is planted in a watery hemisphere of a watery world. The place spins around a yellow star, wearing its magnetic field like a proud little hat. It’s ridiculous with life. Hence, a watchseed, with the...
Content warnings 4
misogynyracismviolencewar
"This is the eighth floor of the Al-Ahli Memorial Library, my favorite place in the building. When the elevator door opens, it’s like walking into a quiet circle of glass. So, as we walk, I’m going to whisper. People are reading, writing, drawing—it’s such...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathwar
"Alvin’s scripts arrived in yellow envelopes. They were hand delivered, placed inside his letter box as if part of the regular mail, but with no address or stamps on it. The scripts were typed on unlined paper. They were short, never longer than a page,...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"When the ship’s scanners first chirped in the dead of night, Sien figured it was another misfire: light reflecting off asteroid ice, solar radiation, space dust. But xe still slid from xir berth into the chilly, cramped cockpit, eyes bleary as xe ran the...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
"Kwayask nātohta. Listen carefully. There once was a woman who sewed clothes so powerful they made you become the person you needed to be. Children’s feet wrapped in her flower-beaded moccasins never stumbled. Otipēyimisowak orators, backs held straight by...
"By the time I hear that my brother is looking for me, and has somehow scraped together enough credit to get on a commercial flight to New Tel Aviv, and that he’s also brought his three-year-old daughter on her first interplanet trip, my insides are...
Content warnings 3
deathsubstance-useviolence
"I don’t realize how far apart I have grown from my mother until, upon meeting her again, I have to force myself to hug her. When I heard the news, I packed a few things from my personnel apartment at the Omega hospital and booked a ticket on the next...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
A generation ship arrives at its target planet only to discover a civilization has arisen in the centuries since it was launched. The captain sends the navigator out to explore the planet and see if there’s a place for them there.
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Exile’s End is a complex, sometimes uncomfortable examination of artifact repatriation and cultural appropriation. An artifact of indescribable and irreplaceable beauty created by an “extinct” culture has been the basis of another culture’s origin stories....
Awenato is the only Uma’u on the space station after terrorists kill the rest of the diplomats from his world, including his lifemate. He wants revenge, but first he has to figure out how to just get by.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
The night watchman was warned not to look at the imprisoned witch, Kalmashi, but it was hard not to, and now he’s having strange dreams.
Content warnings 2
deathwar
"The ghost ship Xanthic Promise sails the black, powered by the slumbering heart of a dying star. And its captain, Antimony Jones, stalks its decks in a swirl of crimson coat and fox fire lighting, dogged by voices. The recent dead, the long dead, and the...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
The carpenter on a Nantucket whaler hears a dreadful warning from an African god his ancestors once called upon when they were taken into slavery. But will anyone listen to him?
Content warnings 2
deathracism
Isiuwa survived the apocalypse, and its people live on in the middle of a desert. The chief says leaving means certain death, but Nata thinks he’s lying.
Content warnings 1
violence
Detective Connolly is a dog in a world where some animals are “knowledgeable” and can talk like humans. A human professor hires him to help cover up a murder . . .
When Seth’s boss breaks her leg, he’s called in at the last minute to narrate the live feed from the Titan probe.
Jeri’s ready to trade her old spaceship for a new, more efficient model, but she loved her old ship and wants to be sure she doesn’t end up scrapped for parts.
Content warnings 1
violence
After memory-loss plague strikes the world, Gouda helps clients track missing family members they can barely remember—even though she can’t even remember her own last name.
The narrator and her friends go fishing for snakehead in a stream in Singapore, but the biggest one is something more than just a fish.
Mara has made a deal with a scavenger girl to help her rescue her best friend, who left the underground habitat to try to talk to the aliens and never came back.
Content warnings 2
body-horrorviolence
Shemesh returns from his mission on planet Kadesh to face inquisition by the Exiliarch. What really happened when he met the heretic there?
Content warnings 1
violence
Nigerian astronaut Abacha Tunde has been abandoned in space since 1990 and he would appreciate some help getting home.
On the planet First Foot, the small town of Joe's Corner faces conflict over building a radio telescope close to local alien artifacts.
Unknown Compartment There is no door where there should be a door—no hall where there should be a hall. The house has reconfigured itself, again, and I find myself before […]
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
"I heard you’re returning to our world again. What do you want here exactly, Orhija? The Earth is dying slowly. It’s losing its sheen and glow. The blackness of the soil that you used to say was as beautiful as mine has changed since you left. It’s redder...
"He told me his mother was a spacecraft. We had just made love, and our bodies were spent and sweat-slicked, the scent of our seed mingling in the stables with the sweet musk of the drowsing horses. Our lids were heavy, but his muscles grew tense in my...
Content warnings 1
death
"The kids like Luzhanqi because it’s a non-perfect strategy game: a bridge as they make their way onto bigger, more serious things, like chess and Go. It’s something that even the most incompetent of them could hope to win. Sometimes you just get lucky....
"Notebooks, Conchas, y Un Café con Leche Those are the items that make up your world the day the girl with the side buzz and brown bomber jacket says to you, in the back of a crowded cafetería, “Explícame pues—¿Qué sabes acerca del concepto de la...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Barber Gio Monsargo has learned to stay quiet and keep his head down, offering shaves and haircuts, not political opinions. But when a high-ranking military official of the Empire begins visiting his shop, Gio finds himself tested in ways he could never imagine.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"The oldest members of the asamblea all agree that the idea for El Zopilote came out of the Plantation in Texas, back when it was still one more state in the old US. The Plantation is what they called the Sysco-Bush Memorial Carceral Center and it had...
Content warnings 3
deathsexual-violenceviolence
A sculptor struggles when he is commanded to perpetuate the lies of a deceitful and cruel king…
Content warnings 1
death
"My cat hops up to his favorite spot by the window to observe the nebula, the pitter-patter of his paws and the low hum-rumble of the engine the only sounds in the room. Misty tendrils amble past, glimmering and cloudlike, carrying an entire medley of warm...
Content warnings 1
death
"I did not want to write a report for this book, but Lady Koi-Koi convinced me to, even though she says it “does a disservice to our own stories.”1 I also have to pass my WAEC, and this book is on our reading list for the mock exam, so, fine. I will...
"Our storytellers sing that the Great River Gimamu brought life to the world when the gods first stepped out of it. But when I saw the ships that morning, I knew that it also brought death. As I sat at my stall, weaving the final threads of a new basket, I...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Vashti is a pathogenic diplomat—an ambassador to the world of viruses, whom she communicates with through a machine that can translate their chemical signals into images, tastes, smells, sounds, and memories. She begins a negotiation between the US...
Content warnings 2
deathillness-and-pandemic
"A small asteroid swerved in a most un-asteroid-like way and pierced the hull of the archivist’s ship, as though it was determined to drive her away. But she was just getting started. She slammed the emergency foam release button, holding her breath even...
Content warnings 1
illness-and-pandemic
"The narrators of histories and tellers of tales relate that, in the God-guarded town of Qalati Zabel, there was once a holy woman with a mind to rebel. Her name was Bibi Siti, and she had come to Zabel from her native country to the west. Some believe she...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"Nostalgia died a quiet death, wrapped in cellophane and power cords. The future had killed it. The ghosts of yesteryear’s fragrances no longer haunted, no longer hung and clung to the passersby. Instead, those ghosts lay shriveled like salted slugs in the...
"There had to be other islands capable of supporting human settlements, Alain told himself. Life should be possible beyond the shores of Heora. That was the article of faith that drove all Exploration. They simply haven't sailed far enough to find a new...
Content warnings 2
body-horrordeath
"Security AIs heard whimpering, diagnosed the source, then alerted the rest of the household. A baby moggie had fallen inside one of the nearby recycling hubs. Of course the children hurried outside to see, and being noble souls, they dragged the...
"I called it "yearning" at first, but by the time word had spread to all twenty-two of us croppers, a divide had resulted: half called it firesouling, and half called it firesailing."
Content warnings 2
sexual-violenceviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
violencewar
A century into its journey, a ship’s cameras transmit images of cannibalism back to Earth, and the authorities debate sending a destruct signal.
Content warnings 1
cannibalism
Two American men come to a town on the Tibetan plateau to see how they extract clean air from the high slopes that they can sell to the public.
In a storm, in an alternate 1890s South Pacific, their airship crashes on a Pacific Island occupied by surprisingly high-tech natives.
An alien brain transplanted into a human child’s body serves as an involuntary translator. It’s not supposed to have volition or memories, but things don’t always work as advertised.
Content warnings 2
sexual-violenceviolence
The government wants to build affordable housing for the homeless, but it wants them to agree to quit using magic first.
Xin’s orderly life on Eighth Colony changes forever when she ushers a mutilated body through the portal.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
In 1912 Cairo, the police investigate the apparent murder of an immortal Djinn.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
The AIs contract Lydia to check out an unusual planet and the secretive corporation that's supposed to be developing it.
A member of a group of powerful beings who make stories real tells us the truth about Solomon Grundy and why he had to die.
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
From childhood, Flora, painted disturbing paintings, and her nurse fears the young lady carried this obsession into adulthood.
Content warnings 2
deathillness-and-pandemic
"I was so excited to be working on the locomotives I’d loved since childhood. I’d been given an opportunity no one else in the valley had ever received. But suddenly I understood the conflicting emotions of pride and worry I’d seen in my parents. I trusted...
Content warnings 2
child-deathviolence
"A garden is a joy, but also a labor. It is no small thing to call forth life from the desert; do not imagine any but a witch could do it so well. Every day I draw flowers from sand, shrubs from sand; I turn sand to grass as rich as cream. The garden is...
Content warnings 1
slavery
"The Starsinger, the Starsinger, the Starsinger, he sings. His histories have long been recorded—in every pit stop he has visited. In every station he has stayed. It may be just a minute of the traffickers slapping the Bini out of his mouth, or them...
Content warnings 3
child-abuseslaverysuicide
"1. To kill a language, you must first rip it from living throats. Don't look so askance; you knew it already. The dead can't speak unless called and the only way to prevent our enemies calling upon their own hordes of dead ancestors is to strip their...
Content warnings 2
sexual-violenceviolence
A deluxe riverboat welcomes the galaxy's wealthiest tourists to the drought-ridden Amazon — but no one's seen her mysterious captain. "The Maiden Voyage of the Piranha Belle" is a flash exploration of colonization and survival. Content warnings:...
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
"Two hours out of deadsleep is too soon to be staring at the butchered corpse of a dead god. Neel looks down as the kalipeeli begins its descent to Chowpatty Beach and feels his stomach flip."
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathgore
"The last picture that Karu has of her father alive is on the day of her graduation. She has this big smile that by the placing of her dimples makes it obvious that she is his daughter. He stands next to her holding her waist in the space between his...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"The women of Dejima Island could never pinpoint when their dreams began to change, but they knew it had something to do with the tradesmen’s tales. The foreigners who arrived at the docks were hard men, chiseled by salt and wind and all the horrors of two...
In the small city of Mehranpur, the Nawab suspects there may be a connection between the slow wasting of a beloved tree and the fate of the city itself.
"The simulation blossomed around Nadja Gavrić like a hypercube unpacking itself into three dimensions. The plain metal floors of the Roses’ cargo bay turned the shiny white of faux marble. The walls closed in, became a circular chamber. Display cases...
"Welcome, Stranger! This is a story for you, you who wait for my words to fall into your ear, so that we can share being and become more than we are alone. The tales I have to tell today are woven into this fabric that unrolls before you as I work my Loom....
Content warnings 3
child-deathracismsexual-violence
"It’s six weeks ’til Going Time. I never really got used to that naming convention. The phrase has “Going” and “Time” in it, the latter carrying the entire weight of the definition. The former is vague. Going where? Beneath the crusty morass of our...
Content warnings 1
death
"The young rag-smasher halts on a terrace. He chases his breath, gazing down on the waterfront. Even from this distance, the bustle lends him an odd calm. Brisk trade means things are running. No one’s starving, not even beggars. Down there, people...
Content warnings 1
violence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
racism
"Every morning before work, I measure the Queen of the Andes. I’ve nicknamed her Nova because her trunk is a ball of spikes that reminds me of a supernova in slow motion, an explosion of leaves pointing in two hundred and three directions from the core of...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"My sister Sera was twelve standard years old when our parents confined her to our family habitat. They kept her there for over a year, and then they died far from home (expedition, landslide). I’ll never know if they were seeking a cure for Sera, or a way...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"The angel Azrael rode the dead horse across the empty lifeless land for what seemed like an eternity, not encountering another living soul until he crossed paths with a mutilated preacher, who erupted from the a great rent in the earth as though Hell...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
"The soldiers slit the woman’s throat every evening before bedding down so they can sleep without worry. She mocks them but never fights the knife coming to her. Two of the men still take turns watching her in case she heals before the rest of the cadre...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
"My dearest Evie— I am so terribly sorry, my darling daughter, but by the time you read this letter, I will be gone. I wish I could have delayed my departure long enough to attend your high school graduation as I always promised I would, but the timing was...
Content warnings 1
death
"By now, you've received your Portal Ticket confirmations and ForeverFete™ Mas Pack, which should include essentials such as several period correct costumes; one-dose capsules for various ailments common amongst the British West Indies population during...
Content warnings 3
deathracismviolence
"There was a small store in Manila, inside the walls of Intramuros, accessible to the wealthy and powerful, between a clothing store and a jewelry store. Children in clean crisp clothes, usually with parents or carers, stood before the store window,...
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"K’un died. It breathed for tens of thousands of years and, at long last, life came to an end. Its body was washed ashore. Pale red scales plowed through vegetation as the bulging exoskeleton grazed against dunes. Its enormous carcass formed an imposing...
Content warnings 1
death
"The Grieving House rises like a lighthouse from the artificial snowdrifts, its windows blazing honeyed gold. The clean lines of it look too much like a grave marker. The House was built to give the bereaved some sense of togetherness and let them guide...
Content warnings 2
violencewar
"I banked into a climbing clockwise turn, my wing’s fabric snapping, my jet’s exhaust hot on my backside. A beautiful panorama of Shuwash Island spread out below me, black beaches and orange jungles rising from a white fringe of surf to the gray and...
Content warnings 2
deathsuicide
"Rhea found the feral child on the edge of the garbage park on the last day of the group’s vacation. Garrison, passed out from drinking the better part of a bottle of hundred-year-old Islay Scotch, had dropped a cigar onto the edge of the canvas tent and...
"The first of Irene’s memories I eat is the night she learned I had been murdered. It was karaoke night—not the official one for the cruise ship passengers, but an illicit one Irene organized for a few of the other crew. They weren’t supposed to be in the...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Eli is—one hundred percent, without a doubt—vampiro, but he's missing all the stereotypical traits. Is there room for him to exist in a world where everyone has already decided who and what he is? Copyright khōréō magazine 2021. Story by K. Victoria...
Content warnings 3
child-abuseracismviolence
"It was 10 a.m., and Anmar clapped his hands to silence the screeching wake-up alarm he had set for himself. He didn’t actually need the alarm, since he had already been awake for twelve minutes before it went off, but Anmar enjoyed using technology...
"My brother was taken away by the bears to live with them when I was small; he existed only in the song that was sung about him. His song was sung in the summer, at Sundance, but also in the winter, on the darkest day, the day he was taken away. The trade...
Content warnings 2
body-horrorchild-death
"The day they took my mouth hadn’t been spent eating De la Rosas, or smoking, or spitting. In fact, I hadn’t used my mouth in any way that you might expect someone who was about to lose their sense of taste, their tongue, their voice, might have."
"Two men in dark sunglasses stepped through the doors of the Monte Carmelo. They stopped and scanned the gloomy inside. Geshem-Nofel-Ba’oranim clocked them and kept to his booth. He knew trouble when it walked through the door looking for him. The two men...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
A teenager struggles to relate to his mother who’s trying to help build an automatic translation system so he can speak their language more like a native.
Content warnings 2
self-harmsubstance-use
On an agricultural planet, on the night they celebrate the harvest, a young man plans a secret rendezvous with his forbidden lover.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
The village people suffer from the Duke’s construction of the big tower, and even thought the villagers disapprove of her, old Gert can’t help doing things for the little children who come to her for aid.
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
Cortez invades a Mexico that has electricity, and he gets help from an unhappy slave girl.
Content warnings 3
deathslaveryviolence
A young Wall Street investment banker tells how he lost a billion dollars in a Bitcoin for black people.
Content warnings 1
suicide
This is the story of Seonag and how she crossed the waves ahead of the hunters and how she found the wolves and what happened then.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Ardissians have a special gland that lets them survive death as “ghosts.” Lucian is dying, and Katherine thinks she can implant the gland so he can survive his own death.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
In which we learn of the lives of immigrants to a fantastic city built on the surfaces of stars—stars that are stuck together into a cluster.
The galactic government has decided to evict humanity from Earth, but we’ve got a choice of different species that are willing to accept us—provided we convert to their forms.
When the young magistrate arrives at his remote posting, he sees that some of the villagers are amazingly strong, and he decides to learn how to make the magic potion that makes them so.
Content warnings 1
violence
During a dinosaur uprising on the starship, a young worker in the meat-packing plant engages in a battle of wits with an intelligent dinosaur who wants to replace humanity entirely.
Refugees from the destruction of their own planet, the Dragonflies struggle to find a place in a world that doesn’t welcome them.
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deathviolence
In early 20th-Century India, an old woman and her son are forced out of the forest and try to make a new life in the city.
As a prostitute in Liverpool in 1763, Lolly has a hard life. She steals from a well-dressed corpse she finds in the river, with unexpected results.
Content warnings 3
child-deathsexual-contentviolence
Nell left Koohar long ago, but now she’s trying to help the people fleeing from the ruins of the planet.
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death
The destruction of the new Space Elevator puts human expansion into space at risk.
In 1949, researchers attempt to harness "oriental lovebird energy" to cure human comas.
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death-of-a-loved-oneracismsuicide
A woman losing her sight turns to small family magics to save the lives of those she loves the most.
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war
"You are no poet. The rest of your clan were. But that was before Half-Brilliant came and began eating them. Before Half-Brilliant began chewing up your people and their minds and spitting the bloody remains over snow-white canvases. Now It is the only...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorslaveryviolence
"The ferryman’d had a poor, cold day, is how it starts. There’s other ways to start this one, but this time, we’ll start with the ferryman. It was shadows-eve, the coldest, longest night of the year, when the blackbird breathes all over the world. He’d...
Content warnings 3
child-deathracismviolence
"My spirit aches. Reality is severed. I’m trapped in a glass room. Time is water, streaming by. I’m underwater in the current of time, watching time float by. My hand on the room’s thick glass, unable to shatter it, unable to get out. Even if I escape,...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorracismsexual-content
"Right,” I said. “Well, it’s a letter to the parents of the girl I love with all my heart and soul, telling them how I’ve just watched their daughter being dragged away screaming by soldiers and loaded on a ship to be taken as a sacrifice to the Black...
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violence
"You, on the day of your birth. You blink into existence, and the first thing you hear is: We are at war with the Uilai. The Uilai must be eliminated. Well, “hear” is an understatement, for the sentiment is injected through multiple channels: auditory,...
Content warnings 3
abuseviolencewar
An acclaimed musician and her apprentice travel to the newly freed country of Skinnere to play a complex and culturally fraught song that will lay bare the wounds of empire, occupation, and sacrifice of its players and listeners.
Content warnings 3
body-horrorracismwar
Don Jacinto flees when he gets a letter from his crazy brother, not wanting to get involved in his quest to wake a supposed sleeping god.
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goreviolencewar
After war destroys their homeland, the Butterfly People come to Ksmal as refugees. They’re welcome, but only if they assimilate, and not everyone is happy with that.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onewar
Long ago, some people leapt from a slave ship, and something transformed their bodies so she they could breathe water. Today, her descendants try to cope with a changing ocean.
Content warnings 3
goresexual-violenceviolence
In early 19th-Century New Orleans, a teenage boy learns he can fly, but doesn’t understand why he must keep it a secret.
Content warnings 3
sexual-contentslaveryviolence
The Scholast fell to earth in the Low Waters Kingdom and called on them to prepare to defend themselves from an invasion from another world.
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deathviolencewar
An interview with a simulation of the dead artist, Satka, who still has a big online following years after her death.
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deathsuicidewar
A woman slowly smokes herself to death to protest an atrocity. When her cigarette supply runs low, a local kid grappling with both the protest and the atrocity brings her a cigar. Content warnings: Self-harm (smoking), references to genocide, a dead body,...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathwar
A young scribe joins a voyage to hunt sea creatures in waters that once belonged to the feared Northerners, but the truth behind the Northern myths is more complex than they first believed. Content warnings: Animal cruelty and death, use of the r-word...
Content warnings 3
animal-harmgoreviolence
There once lived a boy who paid for a fortune. Nassim wore carob hair and eyes severe like cardamom. He spent his days scouring the souk for unique trinkets he liked to collect or counting the uneven stones of Jerusalem’s cobbled streets as he passed...
Content warnings 3
sexual-violenceviolencewar
This episode features "Conquerors" written by Nick Wolven. Published in the May 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/wolven_05_26 Support us on Patreon...
Author : Aimee Ogden Narrator : Isaac Harwood Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “What Any Dead Thing Wants” originally appeared in Psychopomp (February 2024) Copious helpings of harsh language descriptors found here. What Any Dead Thing...
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violence
Author : Aimee Ogden Narrator : Isaac Harwood Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Copious helpings of harsh language descriptors found here. Don’t miss Part 1: Escape Pod 1026: What Any Dead Thing Wants (Part 1 of 3) What Any Dead Thing...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathgore
Author : Aimee Ogden Narrator : Isaac Harwood Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Copious helpings of harsh language descriptors found here. Don’t miss Parts 1 and 2: Escape Pod 1026: What Any Dead Thing Wants (Part 1 of 3), Escape Pod...
Content warnings 1
death
Author : Rodrigo Culagovski Narrator : Julia Rios Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Escape Pod 1030: The Smell of the Planet I Was Born On is an Escape Pod original. The Smell of the Planet I Was Born On By Rodrigo Culagovski There are two...
Content warnings 2
deathwar
Bring your sister and I will tell you the story of how the waters returned to Apicuya. No, bring all the children. This is important. Don’t splash. If you cannot hear the thrum of the skymill, you are being too loud. Sit in the shallow pool, otherwise your...
Content warnings 2
child-deathdeath
Notes on specimen “Efren Vargas” 1022/204.27.3: >> Supposed to be married to “Joan Dimagiba,” his fiancée. >> Was in bed with some other woman* a week (in human time) before […]
This episode features "Human Studies 401" written by Abby Nicole Yee. Published in the April 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/yee_04_26 Support us...
This episode features "Person, Place, Thing" written by Marissa Lingen. Published in the March 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/lingen_03_26 Support...
Author : C. L. Clark Narrator : Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali Host : Wanini Kimemiah Audio Producer : Wilson Fowlie Previously ran as episode 519 as a PodCastle Original Rated PG-13 Burning Season By C. L. Clark It was burning season in Rashid. Again. Even in the...
Content warnings 3
deathviolencewar
This episode features "Scion" written by Thomas Ha. Published in the March 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/ha_03_26 Support us on Patreon at...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
I have done my best to transcribe the account found in the recently excavated cenotaph, but, as you’re aware, these experiential simulations don’t easily lend themselves to direct reproduction. Nonetheless, […]
Content warnings 1
death
This episode features "Scion: Afterword" written by Thomas Ha. Published in the March 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/ha2_03_26 Support us on...
New Providence sparkled like fool’s gold in the distance, all gleaming spires and whirring clockwork, nothing like the two-bit townships I usually rode through. My Halfie tensed beneath me, his wolf-hackles rising at the stink of machine oil and steam that...
Content warnings 3
child-abuseracismviolence
The sun was sinking toward the horizon like a brass penny dropped in muddy water by the time I rode back into New Providence. My Halfie’s mechanical shoes struck sparks off the metal road plates, each impact sending little jolts of pain through my spine....
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body-horrorgoreviolence
CHAPTER ONE Captain Ignatius Faber’s eyes were full of halos, and each scratch in the Philoctetes’ viewscreens caught the light, bleeding across his retina like stars. His vision had weakened […]
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deathviolencewar
1. Sky of Change Three hours ago, Dharsh had woken in his seaside colony with little more than a vague sense of himself. Now, he teetered on an obsidian ledge […]
This episode features "The Trajectory of Memory is Forward" written by Rajeev Prasad. Published in the April 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at:...
Content warnings 2
body-horrorviolence
Dear Members of the Community, As we begin yet another fall semester in the throes of the rogue timestream unleashed on our campus, I cannot help but take a moment to marvel at just how vibrant our community has become. In addition to our current...
Content warnings 2
slaveryviolence
Author : Risa Wolf Narrator : Julia Rios Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Tigers for Sale was first published in Clarkesworld Magazine in July 2023 Content warnings: colonialism, implied genocide, psychological manipulation Tigers for...
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abusedeath
Author : Albert Chu Narrator : Hugo Jackson Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “When the Oracle Speaks” was first published in Metaphororsis, July 2023 When the Oracle Speaks (Part 1) by Albert Chu One year after the war’s end, the royal...
Content warnings 1
war
Author : Albert Chu Narrator : Hugo Jackson Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “When the Oracle Speaks” was first published in Metaphororsis, July 2023 When the Oracle Speaks (Part 2) by Albert Chu Outside the warehouse, the rain fell in...
Content warnings 1
war
Author : Cooper C. Wilms Narrator : Eric Valdes Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 1010: Grifting the Zaxonite is an Escape Pod original. Grifting the Zaxonite by Cooper C. Wilms Of all the cons in his little black book, Trevor...
Author : Deborah L. Davitt Narrator : Ibba Armancas Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Reflected in Mirrored Skies” was published by Compelling Science Fiction (Special Kickstarter Companion issue Nov. 6, 2018) Reflected in Mirrored Skies...
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death
Author : Deborah L. Davitt Narrator : Ibba Armancas Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Reflected in Mirrored Skies” was published by Compelling Science Fiction (Special Kickstarter Companion issue Nov. 6, 2018) Mentions of sexual assault...
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deathsexual-violenceviolence
"We are very, very disappointed.” It was her third try, and it still came out feebly. “We thought we made it super clear that any, any change in material, maker hand, machine, or method, however small or irrelevant it may seem, must be notified...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorchild-abuseself-harm
Author : Grace Chan Narrator : Isabel J. Kim Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Nobody Ever Goes Home to Zhenzhu” originally appeared in Lightspeed Magazine (May 2022). Contains some harsh language. Nobody Ever Goes Home to Zhenzhu by...
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deathgoreviolence
Common Speech By Elise Stephens Dr. Jaiyesimi Obiaka tugged at her sweat-damp collar, wiped her eyes, and tried to focus on the copied pages of the final experiment she and Ganiru had created together. Just looking over his familiar handwriting blurred her...
Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemicviolence
Budo By Tade Thompson “Being desirous, on the other hand, to obviate the misunderstanding and disputes which might in future arise from new acts of occupation (prises de possession) on the coast of Africa; and concerned, at the same time, as to the means...
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goreviolencewar
Author : Maurice Broaddus Narrator : Cherrae L. Stuart Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Itoro fe Queen” was originally published in The Sunday Morning Transport, May 2022 Itoro fe Queen by Maurice Broaddus “It’s all gone.” The ethereal...
The Wrong Side of the Sky By Raymond Roach There’s an old woman who lives in the desert, and who has lived in the desert a very long time. So, too, have her people, but many of them have gone, while she remains. She’s old enough that she should have a...
Content warnings 1
death
Wild Meat By Shari Paul Girl, I have a story to tell you. Remember the wild meat competition I did tell you about? The one they was planning to have on the holiday weekend? Well, talk about bacchanal because Naresh and them decide that they wanted to cook...
Universal Archive of Human History: FAQ By Arturo Sierra The Gran Gliese Universal Archive of Human History contains over 5.7×1035 books and an innumerable collection of shorter works. Moreover, it is continuously growing, thanks to additions from...
Author : Andrea Kriz Narrator : Valerie Valdes Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “There Are No Hot Topics on Whukai” originally appeared in Lightspeed Magazine in May 2021. There Are No Hot Topics on Whukai by Andrea Kriz The day the...
Content warnings 2
racismwar
Tloque Nahuaque By Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas, translated by Silvia Moreno-Garcia If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. —Carl Sagan I—The Particle Accelerator They built an underground temple. A well of Babel...
Content warnings 3
cannibalismchild-deathsuicide
The Dame With the Earth at Her Back By Sarah Pauling That’s the trouble with Teegarden’s northern latitudes: the sun never sets in summer. The red glow assaults Maryellen’s stage long after midnight, pushing in through the picture window alongside the...
Author : Marika Bailey Narrator : Eden Royce Host : S.B. Divya Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums “Seed Vault” was originally published in Strange Horizons (Nov 2019) Seed Vault (Part 1) By Marika Bailey 1. FIRE I should tell you about the...
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deathviolencewar
Author : Marika Bailey Narrator : Eden Royce Host : S.B. Divya Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums “Seed Vault” was originally published in Strange Horizons (Nov 2019) Seed Vault (Part 2) By Marika Bailey The desert rain has lulled me and I...
Content warnings 3
deathviolencewar
Tiger Lawyer Gets It Right By Sarah Gailey Vladislav Argyle rested his head on the cool titanium surface of the defendant’s table. It dipped a little under the sudden weight of his skull, then hummed as the antigrav lifts adjusted their power to...
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
Give Me Cornbread or Give Me Death By N.K. Jemisin The intel is good. It had better be; three women died to get it to us. I tuck away the binoculars and crawl back from the window long enough to hand-signal my girls. Fire team moves up, drop team on my...
Content warnings 3
goreracismviolence
Author : Lina Munroe Narrator : Joniece Abbott-Pratt Host : Brent Lambert Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 808: Win Again is an Escape Pod original. Win Again by Lina Munroe “I want a do-over!” Zira crumpled her opponent’s collar...
Heard, Half-Heard, in the Stillness By Iona Datt Sharma Ekta’s Dadi could tell the future. She didn’t read the tea leaves, or make or lay bets on the cricket. But she booked the photographer the week before the news came of Purnima Didi’s engagement. She...
Consolidation By Langley Hyde Lot 1796. Adult. Human. Female bodied. Standard limbs/digits. Immune/health function: class 7, can accommodate high-risk activity. Personality type: reactive/adaptive, ideal for customer service/high-level social interaction....
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body-horrorviolencewar
Teenage friends Domei and Hano live in a refugee camp for survivors of a war fought with dragons.
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body-horrorviolencewar
Erheani wanted to be a master storyteller, and the first task her teachers set for her was to update an old classic tale. But there are tales within tales...
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slavery
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.