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Faith

54 free-to-read stories tagged “Faith”

Notes From a Pyre

Amal Singh The Deadlands 2023 ShortStory Horror 4,300 words

Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.

First ContactFaithSouth Asia

Content warnings 2

deathdeath-of-a-loved-one

Theories of Flight

Linda Nagata Asimov's 2018 ShortStory Fantasy Adventure 7,247 words

A gifted young man is obsessed with flying machines, not least because they’re outlawed.

Secondary WorldFaithSlow Burn

All the Things I Know About Ghosts, By Ofelia, Age 10

Isabel Cañas The Deadlands 2023 ShortStory Horror 2,900 words

Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.

Magical RealismFaithLyrical

Content warnings 2

child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-one

The Slipway

Greg Egan Analog 2019 Novelette Hard SF 12,308 words

Astronomers spot what appears to be a new cluster of stars, except that it’s growing hour by hour.

Near FutureSurveillance StateRestrained

Concessions

Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali Strange Horizons 2017 Novelette Near-Future SFF 8,315 words

Bilqis, the only real doctor in a dying community of religious exiles, finds something strange when she examines a pregnant woman.

DystopiaFaithPost Apocalyptic

Content warnings 1

pregnancy-loss

The Handmaiden-Alchemist

Marie Vibbert Analog 2024 ShortStory Science Fiction 4,954 words

"Loire Valley, 1520 Estienne’s shadow fell over me, and I could not, of a sudden, recall the stitch I was making. He had invited himself onto the ladies’ porch without announcement. Odette’s voice faltered. “Take—” She was reading from the Queen of...

Historical FantasySisterhoodHistorical Europe

Content warnings 2

misogynysexual-violence

This Good Lesson Keep

James Van Pelt Asimov's 2024 Novelette Science Fiction 9,625 words

"Later, when she thought about how the semester ended, Ms. Milspaugh couldn’t decide whether the student teacher’s question about why the class would spend two weeks on one piece of literature started the story, or Andrew and his EyeCaps. It could have...

Literary SFFaithIntertextual

Among the Marithei

Mary Anne Mohanraj Asimov's 2021 ShortStory Science Fiction 3,108 words

"Sergey hummed under his breath as he walked to the Marith temple. His steps retraced a path he knew so well, he could have walked it at night, in the dark, even under assault. Yet the Marith enclave was the most peaceful place he’d ever been—so calm that...

First ContactFaithTender

Content warnings 3

child-deathviolencewar

A Tide of Paper

Leah Cypess Asimov's 2025 Novelette Fantasy 15,947 words

"I had never been in a printing shop before, so it was a shame that my first sight of one was ruined by all the blood. When I went down to the main room of the palazzo that morning, I was not anticipating murder, and I was certainly not thinking about...

Historical FantasyFaithHistorical Europe

Negative Theology of the Child from 'The King of Tars'

Sonia Sulaiman Fantasy 2023 ShortStory Fantasy 1,560 words

"The muse calls me ‘Digenia.’ It is not my real name; that is suspended while I am traveling through these verses, now some 690 years old. To pass through this realm of allegory and myth, of device and symbiotics, one needs to carry a standard. Mine is of...

Mythic FictionFaithIntertextual

Just Enough Rain

P.H. Lee Giganotosaurus 2021 Novelette 9,628 words

Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.

Magical RealismFaithWhimsical

Tiger's Feast

K.T. Bryski Nightmare 2020 ShortStory 3,586 words

Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.

Psychological HorrorFaithVisceral

Content warnings 3

body-horrorhomophobiaself-harm

Bonehunters

Harry Turtledove Analog 2019 Novelette Alternate History 13,806 words

In a world where the dinosaurs never died out, Rekek and his adopted son accept a commission to lead a paleontologist to fossil-rich sites in the black hills of what’s South Dakota in our world.

Alternate HistoryFaithDarkly Comic

Said of Angels

Eric Del Carlo Clarkesworld 2019 Novelette Space Opera 13,394 words

The Arch Hierophant of the Cooperation needs to handle the question of a dead prophet’s divinity, so he doesn’t need the distraction of dealing with an illegal civilization in a distant star system.

Space OperaFaithPhilosophical

Shape-ups at Delilah's

Rion Amilcar Scott The New Yorker 2019 Novelette 7,510 words

Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.

Social SatireFaithSatirical

Last Gods

Sam J. Miller Drowned Worlds 2016 ShortStory Climate Change 6,200 words

On the edge of the ruined land, village people worship Orcas as gods. Unbeliever Kelb is up to something, and Adze tries to help him because she loves him.

Climate FictionDisabilityPost Apocalyptic

Content warnings 3

animal-harmdeathviolence

Sleep and the Soul

Greg Egan Asimov's 2021 Novella Alternate History 19,952 words

"Jesse mopped up the gravy with the last of his bread, gulped down a final mouthful of tea, then took his mug, plate, and utensils into the cooks’ tent. Henry looked up from the dishwashing tub and nodded to him amiably. “What have they got you on now?”...

Alternate HistorySlaveryNew York City

Content warnings 1

slavery

Therein Lies a Soul

Osahon Ize-Iyamu The Dark 2019 ShortStory 5,563 words

Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.

GothicFaithVisceral

Content warnings 3

abusebody-horrorchild-abuse

Barren Isle

Allen M. Steele Asimov's 2018 Novelette Colony SF 10,806 words

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.

Space OperaAbuseAdventurous

Content warnings 2

child-abuseviolence

She Searches for God in the Storm Within

Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali Sword and Sonnet 2018 ShortStory

Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.

Magical RealismFaithAmerican South

Content warnings 3

abusechild-abusesexual-violence

Three Things That Happen the Night My Dad Dies

Isabel Cañas The Deadlands 2024 ShortStory Horror 800 words

Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.

Mythic FictionFaithWhimsical

The Shadow We Cast Through Time

Indrapramit Das New Suns 2019 ShortStory Lost Colony 7,322 words

When the portal collapse isolated the colony, the colonists struggled to survive on a world where the dark forests lured people to their deaths, turning them into “demons.”

Diaspora SFFaithGeneration Ship

Content warnings 3

body-horrordeath-of-a-loved-onesexual-violence

Soteriology and Stephen Greenwood

Julia August Unlikely Stories 2015 ShortStory 3,537 words

Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.

Social SatireFaithSatirical

Burning Hope on Auntie Regina’s Breast

Chris Kuriata Strange Horizons 2026 ShortStory 2,523 words

Given Rebecca’s hunger for blood, our hopes being complimentary seemed unlikely, yet Auntie Regina’s blessing poured over us both from head to toe. Never before had I felt closer to my sister. The warmth penetrated deeper into our skin, past the second...

Magical RealismSisterhoodWarm

Content warnings 2

animal-harmbody-horror

DP FICTION #131B: “The Book of Fading Gods” by E.M. Linden

David Steffen Diabolical Plots 2026

edited by Amanda Helms The first god on our list wears the skull of a polar bear. The god is shrunk to the width of my little finger and almost transparent. Darkness seeps like squid ink from their eyes. “Sir,” I address the tiny god. “Can you give me an...

Mythic FictionFaithWhimsical

DP FICTION #136B: “The Monster’s Wife” by Stewart Moore

Diabolical Plots Diabolical Plots 2026

Content note (click for details) Threatened harm to women and children; non-graphic mentions of death by drowning; poverty edited by Ziv Wities The monster came out perfectly. The head of an ass. A human left arm, delicate in comparison to the elephant’s...

Mythic FictionFaithHistorical Europe

Content warnings 1

death-of-a-loved-one

Escape Pod 1054: Takahata-fudo

Escape Pod 2026 ♪ audio

Author : Meridel Newton Narrator : Alexandra Rose Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 1054: Takahata-fudo is an Escape Pod original. This episode is sponsored by Sleepphones! Use code ESCAPEPOD and get 10% off your purchase....

BiopunkFaithPost Apocalyptic

Master/Slave Couple Seeking Physicist to Feed to a Black Hole

Arden Powell Lightspeed 2026

You are: A disillusioned mathematical physicist with a wet open mind. Desperate for knowledge. A neo-masochist. A willing sacrifice.

Cosmic HorrorFaithEpistolary Adjacent

Of All Who Dream

Adelehin Ijasan Lightspeed 2026

“God” is not the word I’d use. But it is the only one that suffices. There are all kinds of gods: the old and the new; the useful, the useless; the capricious and the dependable; the wrathful and the meek. They all had one thing in common—whether they were...

AfrofuturismFaithWest Africa

Content warnings 1

sexual-content

PodCastle 953: The Will of the God of Music

PodCastle 2026 ♪ audio

Author : P. H. Low Narrator : Jo Moran Host : Eleanor R. Wood Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Previously published in Fantasy Magazine, March 2023 Rated PG-13 The Will of the God of Music by P. H. Low You hear the door open as if in dreaming. Back when you...

Contemporary FantasyDisabilitySecond Person

Content warnings 1

body-horror

PseudoPod 1033: Devil is Fine

Pseudopod 2026 ♪ audio

“Devil Is Fine” was first published in Cosmic Horror Monthly, in January 2025 C/W: strong body horror, gun violence, animal harm Author notes: “I was still pretty drunk on the experience of playing Red Dead Redemption 2 when I wrote this story and wanted...

Weird WesternFaithAmerican Southwest

Content warnings 3

animal-harmbody-horrorviolence

The Assumption of Maria

Max Gladstone Lightspeed 2026

Maria Haddid looked like she was screaming. I’ve heard singers say that’s all singing is deep down, but if you’ve seen enough screams you won’t often get them mixed up. The faithful gathered around her in the picture—the soccer mom, the children, the...

Detective NoirSurveillance StateSardonic

Content warnings 2

substance-useviolence

The Fall of the Automatous Abbey by Maria Haskins

translunartravelerslounge Translunar Travelers Lounge 2026 ShortStory 1,593 words

Long after the final attack on the Automatous Abbey, long after the enemy, repugnant and resplendent in their flesh and blood, had fired their array of weapons at the undefended structure, long after the Abbess had sounded the klaxons and evacuation...

Space OperaFaithPhilosophical

Content warnings 2

deathwar

The Goddess of Not Enough

Susan Palwick Lightspeed 2026

You’re eighteen. Your fairy godmother just fired you, because after three balls, the prince has grown bored with you. Tonight you stepped on his foot during a gavotte. “If you’d been cleverer,” the fairy godmother says—her words silver chimes girded with...

Climate FictionFaithHistorical Europe

When the Land Speaks by Ikechukwu Henry

translunartravelerslounge Translunar Travelers Lounge 2026 ShortStory 4,199 words

Elara moved through the settlement with a careful quiet that was almost second nature, the worn soles of her boots tracing familiar paths across the rippling surface of the Great Wanderer’s back. Evening light pooled in low hollows, settling into a dusk...

Generation ShipFaithEarnest

PseudoPod 970: At the God Show

Pseudopod 2025 ♪ audio

PseudoPod 970: At the God Show is a PseudoPod original. 6:15 A.M. “It’ll be Pternoch the Fisher,” Sheila overheard one pilgrim say to another. “Why did we bother coming?” “May the Green Damsel stitch your mouth shut until your blasphemies cease,” said the...

Mythic FictionFaithSatirical

Content warnings 3

cannibalismdeathviolence

3.4 Pink Bird, War Sun by Tania Chen

khōréō 2024 ♪ audio

The unsettling arrival of war and how hope in tales pass from generation to generation. Content warnings: War, orphans, implied trauma due to armed conflict, death Copyright khōréō magazine 2024. Story by Tania Chen, edited by Aleksandra Hill. Audio...

Mythic FictionFaithPost Apocalyptic

Content warnings 2

deathwar

PseudoPod 849: Two Black Bottles

Pseudopod 2023 ♪ audio

“Two Black Bottles” originally appeared in Weird Tales, August 1927 Not all of the few remaining inhabitants of Daalbergen, that dismal little village in the Ramapo Mountains, believe that my uncle, old Dominie Vanderhoof, is really dead. Some of them...

Cosmic HorrorFaithHistorical USA

Content warnings 2

body-horrordeath

PseudoPod 875: The Lodger – Part 1

Pseudopod 2023 ♪ audio

This text was extracted from McClure’s Jan 1911, illustrated by Henry Raleigh. The short story was adapted by herself into a novel in 1913; and again adapted into an opera and numerous films (including one by Alfred Hitchcock) and radio plays. “THERE he is...

GothicFaithHistorical Europe

Content warnings 2

deathviolence

PseudoPod 876: The Lodger – Part 2

Pseudopod 2023 ♪ audio

This text was extracted from McClure’s Jan 1911, illustrated by Henry Raleigh. The short story was adapted by herself into a novel in 1913; and again adapted into an opera and numerous films (including one by Alfred Hitchcock) and radio plays. “THERE he is...

GothicFaithHistorical Europe

Content warnings 3

deathsuicideviolence

PseudoPod 883: Ba’alat Ov

Pseudopod 2023 ♪ audio

“Ba’alat Ov” originally appeared in The Jewish Book of Horror In the night, the spirits spoke with hisses and gurgles like serpents wrapped around my head. I awoke covered in sweat, barely able to breathe, so afraid of what they would ask me to do. They...

Mythic FictionFaithVisceral

Content warnings 3

body-horrorgoresuicide

PseudoPod 800: The Parricide’s Tale

Pseudopod 2022 ♪ audio

“The Parricide’s Tale” is an excerpt from a larger work, the notorious Gothic Novel Melmoth The Wanderer (1820) Wikipedia article on Melmoth The Wanderer This week’s quote It was in the midst of one of his most licentious songs, that my companion suddenly...

GothicFaithUnreliable Narrator

Content warnings 3

cannibalismdeathviolence

PseudoPod 810: Her Face All Teeth

Pseudopod 2022 ♪ audio

PseudoPod 810: Her Face All Teeth is a PseudoPod original. Denny did not want to spy on the confessional, but at the same time, he did. He wanted what he did not want, or he did not want to want what he wanted. As a Catholic, he should have been...

Cosmic HorrorFaithAmbiguous Ending

Content warnings 3

child-abusedeathviolence

PseudoPod 814: The Green Scarf

Pseudopod 2022 ♪ audio

“The Green Scarf” originally appeared in The London Magazine, August 1926 When the Wellingford family became extinct the days of Wellingford Hall as one of the great country homes of England were already numbered. The estate passed into the hands of...

Folk HorrorFaithHistorical Europe

PseudoPod 835: Trickin’

Pseudopod 2022 ♪ audio

PseudoPod 835: Trickin’ is a PseudoPod original. It’s time. Nestled beneath the rolling peaks from the mountain ranges, honeycombs of caves spread out in their like swollen slugs providing shelter from the weeping clouds. Raoul emerged from one of those...

DystopiaFaithPost Apocalyptic

Content warnings 3

deathgoreviolence

PseudoPod 845: 15 Eulogies Scribbled Inside a Hello Kitty Notebook

Pseudopod 2022 ♪ audio

“15 Eulogies Scribbled Inside a Hello Kitty Notebook” originally appeared in Carlie’s debut collection, You Fed Us to the Roses, published by Robot Dinosaur Press in October 2022. February—Liam I didn’t know him well. Nobody did, really: he was the new...

Psychological HorrorFaithUnreliable Narrator

Content warnings 3

child-deathsuicideviolence

Illusions of Freedom

Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe Baffling 2021 ShortStory 809 words

Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.

Mythic FictionFaithWest Africa

Content warnings 2

homophobiaviolence

PseudoPod 743: Flash on the Borderlands LIV: Stage Three: The Bargain

Pseudopod 2021 ♪ audio

PseudoPod 743: Flash on the Borderlands LIV: Stage Three: The Bargain is a PseudoPod original. Content warning: Spoiler Racial slurs, systemic racism [collapse] “The Kid Learns” was first published in the New Orleans Times Picayune on May 31, 1925 “The...

Cosmic HorrorFaithAmerican South

Content warnings 3

deathracismviolence

PseudoPod 746: Rattlesnake Song

Pseudopod 2021 ♪ audio

“Rattlesnake Song” originally appeared in July 2019 in the the anthology Triangulation: Dark Skies. The Last Picture Show came to the movie house on the square in the fall of nineteen seventy-one. We snuck in with warm cans of Pearl and sat on the back row...

Southern GothicFaithAmerican Southwest

Content warnings 3

body-horrordeathsuicide

PseudoPod 749: Notes on a Resurrection

Pseudopod 2021 ♪ audio

“Notes on a Resurrection” was originally published in Strange Horizons (July 2019). The Feast Day of Lazarus is March 17 for the Eastern Orthodox Church. the reporter I heard about the story from the friend of a friend of an acquaintance, and didn’t put...

Folk HorrorFaithHistorical Europe

Content warnings 3

child-deathdeathviolence

PseudoPod 774: Vanity, Vanity

Pseudopod 2021 ♪ audio

PseudoPod 774: Vanity, Vanity is a PseudoPod original. The author had this to share about this piece: “Gothic rural horror and the amorphous disposition of evil have long preoccupied me. Moral and spiritual diffidence have weighed on my mind more recently....

Southern GothicFaithAmerican South

Content warnings 3

animal-harmchild-abuseviolence

PseudoPod 787: On Seas of Blood and Salt

Pseudopod 2021 ♪ audio

“On Seas of Blood and Salt” originally appeared in The Jewish Book of Horror This is what Reb Palache does when he finds a ship crewed by the dead. He does not know it is crewed by the dead, not at first. He is in his cabin, discoursing with the nameless...

Historical FantasyFaithHistorical Europe

Content warnings 3

body-horrorgoreviolence

PseudoPod 789: NIGHTLIGHT Podcast Takeover: I Will Not Walk in Darkness + High Water Slack

Pseudopod 2021 ♪ audio

“I Will Not Walk in Darkness” originally appeared in the anthology Georgia Gothic and “High Water Slack” was first published by the IGNYTE Award Winning publication NightLight The song in “I Will Not Walk in Darkness” is Empty Bottle, Empty Bed by the Mini...

Southern GothicFaithAmerican South

Content warnings 3

deathgoreviolence

Heard, Half-Heard, in the Stillness

Iona Datt Sharma Anathema 2020 ShortStory 3,000 words

Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.

SlipstreamFaithSouth Asia