119 free-to-read stories tagged “Intertextual”
"So they broke into the hole in the ground, and they killed the kid, and all the lights went out in Omelas: click, click, click. And the pipes burst and there was a sewage leak and the newscasters said there was a typhoon on the way, so they (a different...
child-abusechild-deathgoreviolence
"Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” (Roud 423, Child 313) is a traditional English folk ballad. Like many traditional songs, the lyrics are unattributed. Child transcribed twenty verses, and a twenty-first got added later (and is included here for some unknown...
deathviolence
Tabitha has been walking a long time, trying to wear out seven pairs of iron shoes; Amira has been sitting alone on a glass hill that suitors try to climb.
abuseviolence
Following a disaster in Antarctica, MacReady spends summer 1983 in New York and starts to wonder what he might have brought back with him.
body-horrordeathillness-and-pandemicsubstance-useviolence
Computron was the only intelligent robot built in the 1950s. Now all he does is answer questions from children and write fan-fiction about the robot in the Hyperdimension Warp Record TV show.
In this provocative and rich retelling of the Greek myth, Orpheus, the musician son of Apollo and Calliope, successfully rescues his wife Eurydice from Hades after her untimely death.
body-horrordeath
The vampires aren’t even the worst part about being a teenage trans girl on tumblr.
abusechild-abusedeath-of-a-loved-onegoremisogynysexual-violencesubstance-usetransphobiaviolence
An android who knows nothing besides his work in a factory, is given one final week to explore the world before he is forced to undergo mandatory reprogramming, in this bittersweet precursor to TJ Klune’s In the Lives of Puppets.
body-horrordeath
"At first I thought something had broken in my book. I didn’t notice until the afternoon light from the windows began to recede. I tried to increase the brightness settings of the page, but no matter how I thumbed the margins, they would not change. For...
death-of-a-loved-onesubstance-useviolence
"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."
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
abusebody-horrordeathgoreracismsexual-violenceviolence
In this spell-binding tale, a Pakistani storyteller captivates a group of wide-eyed tourists with a nesting doll of interlocked stories about a trickster and a hidden city ruled by the Queen of Red Midnight.
abusebody-horrorchild-deathviolence
"There’s nights in the deep end of summer so hot and thick and wet you can feel the dark wrinkling up your fingers like bathwater—and my last night breathing was one of those. 2 a.m. came to ring my bell and found me perfectly awake, swinging back and...
abusebody-horrorviolence
"There is no limit to the number of curses in the world. For each one the monks try to exorcise, ten more take its place. We are not here because we enjoy it though. Please don’t misunderstand. As you dip into steaming bath waters, entwine your bodies...
cannibalismsexual-violencesuicideviolence
As Lily dies from tuberculosis, she relives fantasies from “Through the Looking Glass,” by Lewis Carroll
child-abusedeathillness-and-pandemic
She wants to get out of Hell, but all the boys she has in mind keep letting her down.
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.
substance-use
A stoner kid and his best friend attempt to move a sofa across town during an alien invasion...
death-of-a-loved-onegoreviolence
"i am a memory. i am an METI carrying a memory. i am an METI (Message to Extraterrestrial Intelligence) carrying a memory beaming through the vacuum of space. Because i am an METI, i presume my purpose is to communicate with extraterrestrials, should i find them."
deathwar
"Once upon a time, a little girl had to die. It’s just math. Wrong place, wrong time. Bad luck; too bad, so sad. We’ve all heard such stories, told them, shared them, collected them. Not in the way that we collect trinkets; more like how a sock collects...
death
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
The soprano playing Liù keeps trying to change the opera’s gruesome plot, starting with her own death scene.
deathsexual-violenceviolence
"As always, I’m doing a buddy read with MariaReadsALot because she talked me into it, and boy, was she right! What a strange world and what powerful characters Titos Pavlou has created! I can’t stop thinking about this book even though this might be for...
death
"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...
Vera grew up in America, but she was born in Winter, a mysterious, very cold European country. She thinks she’s left it all behind, but it finds a way to come for her.
death
After eighteen years, a colony ship reaches Neptune, and the children born on board wonder what their future holds.
We follow this history of black people from prehistoric Ghana all the way to a lunar colony.
abuseracismslaveryviolencewar
In which a dim-witted prince fools a clever velociraptor into following him back to his court and what happened thereafter.
deathviolence
What if rhinoceroses behaved like human beings and talked about their upcoming extinction during book club meetings?
death-of-a-loved-one
"In July 2088, shortly after I woke up from cryosleep, I received a copy of 2181 Overture. Assuming the book was science fiction, I didn’t even bother touching it. My only concern was how I could adjust to the new world I found myself thrown into. After...
deathillness-and-pandemic
"Metal parts that survived fire and shrapnel are no match for the saltwater rushing through the gaps in my armor, spilling between gears and wires, tainting my battered shell with the inexorable creep of rust. Corrosion is a ruthless god. The waves surge...
deathwar
"Once upon a time, in that place right near to us, there lived a man and a woman, together as man and wife, though, like most peasants, no one had married them nor given them any word. It was simply that their love for each other was stronger even than...
abusechild-abuseviolence
No vampire is ever innocent… The wandering Judge Dee serves as judge, jury, and executioner for any vampire who breaks the laws designed to safeguard their kind’s survival. This new case in particular puts his mandate to the test.
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?
deathracism
At age 9, the narrator and his best friend discover a dangerous alien on an island near their homes, and they spend the summer fighting it with their friends. But is it real or just their imaginations?
Ben Clarke travels to Hollywood to settle his late brother’s affairs. He learns a variety of things about his brother, but the biggest surprise is what he finds in the bedroom.
deathsubstance-usesuicide
The world is gradually being destroyed by what seems like an alien plague that attacks people and software alike. Caitlin lives in a seaside Scottish town, nursing her dying lover.
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Shemesh returns from his mission on planet Kadesh to face inquisition by the Exiliarch. What really happened when he met the heretic there?
violence
Edgar Allan Poe’s writing has brought a creature into this world and it inhabits a young woman who wants to be rid of it. It has its own agenda.
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
An aging robot, on a journey to visit a friend, reflects on their adventures together.
death
"It was perhaps inevitable you would arrive at the Goblin Library. You begin your walk at the open window of the Goblin Reading Room where your grappling hook bit the sandstone windowsill. Cries of alarm and dismay follow you up from the streets below, yet...
death
"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...
death
"I ended up on Pluto on the night of my nineteenth birthday, after breaking my own stupid heart. It wasn’t even over anything important. All I did was jump in a pool, and then the chlorine got in my nose and I came up coughing on the side of the tiles, and...
sexual-violence
"The moon was full that night in the summer of Meiji 29 when three hundred and sixty new stars appeared in the sky. Glowing even brighter than the capital’s newly installed electric lamps, they formed a nineteen-by-nineteen grid. My wife, Tsuru, and I were...
illness-and-pandemic
Unknown forces attempt to stop Judge Dee and Jonathan from transporting a mysterious and possibly dangerous prisoner, who holds a secret about the Judge, to an executioner in France…
A comatose patient undergoes an experimental procedure that uses favorite childhood stories to pull the patient back into consciousness—but the experiment doesn’t go quite as planned…
deathviolence
"Never forget you are their monster. That’s the first rule we tell you, crammed between us in the back of Paola’s dad’s vintage ’22 Dodge Challenger, his project car he lets her borrow, with slick wheels and faux-leather seats that make our Sangrona noses...
deathgoreviolence
"Down here among the dead, our fairy tales begin at the end. So Skullbone—hero, trickster, corpse—plans to dive into the great Maw that rends the sea-ice far beyond our gravelled shores. Against the frozen waves’ mottled blue and glassy white, the Maw...
death
"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...
deathviolence
"When the sparkling golden glow fades and my skin stops feeling like mites are crawling all over it, the Room is gone, and I am shivering in a vast bright chamber and strange people clad in orange, red, and blue pajamas are asking me how I am. I don’t know...
The narrator tries to find the path to the impossible ocean at the top of the mountain to dispose of the ashes of his/her parents, but there are obstacles in the way.
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
An occult detective and a creature work and love together across multiple lifetimes.
deathsexual-contentviolence
In which grown up Gerda and Kay from “The Snow Queen” get separated, and she goes after him again, finding that much has changed and yet a lot is just the same.
misogynysexual-violenceviolence
Summer of 1955, the last summer of high school. Mike remembers his girlfriend and how wonderful it was being in love. And he remembers the awful things that happened at the end.
body-horrordeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
The government wants to build affordable housing for the homeless, but it wants them to agree to quit using magic first.
In 1912 Cairo, the police investigate the apparent murder of an immortal Djinn.
deathviolence
In alternate-history America, an uplifted chimp gets certified as a person and goes to the moon.
"Dear Francesca, First off: I know that’s not your name. I haven’t gone and mistaken you for another woman—one of my many conquests, I imagine you imagine (what must imaginary you think of imaginary me?). You’ll notice, if you glance ahead, that I’ve...
sexual-content
"They are travelling in the great dark before them nothing behind them stars just the two of them the man that captains and the ship that sails darts flies through space —whoever said space is empty did not know what they were talking about space is full...
body-horrorsexual-content
"The buffet was infinite. It existed in a pocket dimension, via some sort of technological jiggering of the sort that you have heard about before and, unless you are totally anal, don’t want to hear about now. You could probably summon an explanation that...
cannibalismgoreviolence
A woman returning to her family’s home town for a wedding discovers why people in Connorville—including her family—might be more than they seem.
body-horrorgoreviolence
"Black Quadrangle, Mesolithic era Unknown Charcoal on sandstone This work, created c. 15,000 BC (17,000 AS), precedes earliest surviving written texts. It was rediscovered alongside human remains and burnt carbon deposits, suggesting a role in a burial,...
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
"The low rumble of the train cut through the night and the living flesh of The City, carrying its passengers ever further from the gleam of parliaments and providence. The stop towards Wild Park grew ever closer, represented along the wall of the train by...
body-horrorgoreviolence
"You are an exile.” “Yes. And no.” Confined in the narrow neck of the vase, Asmidiske’s voice was tiny and metallic. “An oracle is ambiguous.” They considered and rejected terminology: galaxy, light speed, time warp, circumpolar orbit. “There are not words...
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
racism
A Russian émigré poet living in Paris is visited by a mysterious bear with an agenda…
"Latent summer stirred while spring lay dormant. April had come to the Kingdom of S’ong and brought with it spells of rain. Tadpoles in the pond recently developed hind legs; above, a stray shower had been drumming at the water pit-a-pat. The rain-rinsed...
deathwar
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
"If you’re reading this—on some godforsaken imageboard, or dog-eared book page, or in encrypted base pairs sequenced off 3D-printed oligos—you’re probably grappling with a pretty tough decision right now. Breathe. I’m not judging you. I know how it goes....
pregnancy-loss
"I have heard it on the rumors that when the tale-spinner’s guild gathers in their secret places, a full half of them are sworn to never tell the truth, and the other half to never tell a lie, even if it mean their life. Being one of that trade myself, I...
violence
"Marlowe is going to outlive him. Of this, he is sure. He has seen him on the streets of Blackfriars, of Southwark, in Bladder Lane, near Aldgate… He can pretend to be anything, young Kit. Not so young Kit. The two men are of an age: born the same year...
"The song begins like this: “Once there was a fishgirl who sacrificed her heart and life and voice for a prince, and her reward was a path to heaven.” All those stories, about fishgirls yearning for legs... Are human storytellers really so arrogant,...
suicideviolence
"Tom called Adriana Honey-Bunny, and she called him Pumpkin. A moment by a window. An orange California morning. Tom snapped his fingers, the waiter understood and came and refilled his cup with fragrant coffee. The sun shone on their table and the street...
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
"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...
deathviolence
"I have heard it on the rumors that when the tale-spinner’s guild gathers in their secret places, a full half of them are sworn to never tell the truth, and the other half to never tell a lie, even if it mean their life. Being one of that trade myself, I...
abuse
"I have heard it on the rumors that when the tale-spinner’s guild gathers in their secret places, a full half of them are sworn to never tell the truth, and the other half to never tell a lie, even if it mean their life. Being one of that trade myself, I...
violence
"In the winter of 19–, having newly arrived in England, and still recovering from the nervous indisposition which had afflicted me greatly ever since my circumstances during the war, I responded to an advertisement placed in the Yorkshire Post, for the...
"It is said that Archimedes was asked by the King of Syracuse to authenticate a manuscript. King Hiero had received what purported to be Alexander of Macedon’s own copy of the Iliad, brought out from the Library at Alexandria itself. He sent envoys to...
death-of-a-loved-onesuicide
An academic’s whimsical decision to take a DNA test leads her into uncharted territory, where she discovers some extraordinary truths about herself and new possibilities for her future.
"Through chaos and old night, the three brothers journeyed. Sometimes they rode and sometimes they strode. When they rode, their steeds snorted cold steam from their nostrils and obsidian hooves struck sparks from the rock. When they strode, their feet...
deathviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
When Lady Mary marries the mysterious Mr. Fox, a jealous suitor follows them to their castle.
deathgoreviolence
Faith’s daughter, one of the first born on the ship, doesn’t look like the other children, and Faith wonders if it’s related to the strange dreams she has.
Cortez invades a Mexico that has electricity, and he gets help from an unhappy slave girl.
deathslaveryviolence
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.
deathviolence
In a world we can only reach in our dreams, the Stranger rides a train through a dangerous mountain pass while a troupe of bandits plans to attack it.
child-deathdeath
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.
On Cat station, people tell stories of a super-competent engineer, Tatter D’MaLeon. Supposedly she can fix anything, for those who can pay her price.
body-horror
While Glen mourns the recent death of his baby sister, he gets a CD in the mail with a custom program she had someone design before she died.
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemicsubstance-use
An account of various famous artists, writers, and musicians who lived in Manhatttan in the 1930s.
A young woman discovers she has the ability to fly, just as her mother did. But her father thinks there’s something shameful about it, so she tries to suppress it.
abuseself-harm
Maria is a super model in a future that doesn't hesitate to modify the bodies of the models for maximum impact.
body-horrordeath
In 1880s London, Sir Arthur's "Illogic Engine" has gone missing, so he seeks help from Mycroft Holmes.
In Elizabethan London, an entrepreneur skilled in identifying legitimate antiquities ends up with a bottle that happens to have a demon in it.
Surreal science fantasy, in which three goddesses come to Paris, prince of a mathematical Troy, and ask him to decide to whom to award an apple.
deathwar
"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...
body-horrorslaveryviolence
Nothing tears two women apart like the men who want and take indiscriminately. In this retelling of “The Crane Wife”, a makeup artist and her actress lover struggle to stay together as the glitz and glamour of old Hollywood transforms into a cruel and...
abusemisogynyviolence
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.
goreviolencewar
Night Soil, of course, is human feces, but the salvagers to more than just collect that; they deliver other things too—if you’re willing to deal with them, that is.
An interview with a simulation of the dead artist, Satka, who still has a big online following years after her death.
deathsuicidewar
Out on Europa, Marius has vanished and Kotto has come to rescue his partner, Bolaji.
body-horrordeath
After the braiding, a low buzzing remains in Memoire’s ear. It reminds her of the low buzzing she heard while they shampooed her hair. They told her she could never submerge her head in water after the braiding. No more swimming. No more drifting on her...
body-horror
“Always just. Always magical.” When the four of us first started working as Magical Girls, we penned the slogan in a McDonalds, giggling about how corny it sounded. Annie joked about how we’d still be calling ourselves magical girls when we were eighty,...
deathgoreviolence
The creatures who shared your art with us had to explain many things to make it minimally comprehensible. This by itself made sense. You are who and what you are, and we are who and what we are, and the physical differences between us are profound. We...
suicide
This episode features "Up the Line to Death" written by Carrie Vaughn. Published in the June 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/vaughn_06_26 Support...
war
Author : E J Delaney Narrator : Eliza Chan Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 942: The Eye of Applethorpe is an Escape Pod original. The Eye of Applethorpe by E J Delaney Úna’s dad once said to her: “You never know what you’ve...
Author : Eugie Foster Narrator : Mur Lafferty Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks This story was first published in Escape Pod 388 (March 21, 2013) Contains harsh language and graphic gory violence Trixie and the Pandas of Dread by Eugie...
goreracismviolence
Rupert Weard and the Case of the Adamant Annihilist By Rob Gillham Rupert Weard leapt into the drawing room, escaping a hallway dense with impossibly angled, tentacular horrors trying to sell him insurance. "Ye gods, it's bedlam out there," he said. "Just...
Mathball By Larry Hodges You are a baseball fan, sitting in the centerfield seats eating an overpriced hot dog. You are wearing a baseball cap, but not a batting helmet, of course. (Why would that be an issue? Hmm…)You smile brightly, but all will not end...
Author : Amal Singh Narrator : Kaushik Narasimhan Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “A Series of Endings” originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (December 2021) A Series of Endings by Amal Singh This is the story of Roopchand...
death
Author : Sam Schreiber Narrator : Dave Robison Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums “Christmas at the Hilbert Astoria” first appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (November/December 2020) This story contains harsh...
goreviolence
Author : Sam Schreiber Narrator : Dave Robison Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums “Christmas at the Hilbert Astoria” first appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (November/December 2020) This story contains harsh...
goreviolence
Author : Adriana Kantcheva Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 857: Salvaged is an Escape Pod original. Salvaged by Adriana Kantcheva I have her body. If I’d also had her life, would I have lived it in the same way? I make the...
A Princess of Nigh-Space By Tim Pratt There was a business card stuck in the crack between the door and the frame when I got home from another too-long day at the office. I plucked the card out, annoyed, assuming it was some stupid advertisement, but the...
body-horrorviolence
Authors : Ash Beker, Summer Fletcher and Alasdair Stuart Narrators : Imogen Harris, Marty Perrett, Wilson Fowlie, Peter Adrian Behravesh, Kaitlyn Zivanovich, Mur Lafferty, M. M. Schill, Alex Hofelich, Shawn Garrett, Scott Campbell, Kat Day, Graeme Dunlop...
goreracismviolence
Cyd’s suicide brings his friend Kelvin to Albany for his memorial.
body-horrorsuicidetransphobia
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...
slavery
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.