The vampires aren’t even the worst part about being a teenage trans girl on tumblr.
Content warnings 9
abusechild-abusedeath-of-a-loved-onegoremisogynysexual-violencesubstance-usetransphobiaviolence
Reactor
44 free-to-read stories from Reactor
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.
Content warnings 2
body-horrordeath
A woman about to leave on an overseas business trip, calls home from the airport and discovers that “daddy” isn’t there and her six-year-old son is all alone in the dark…
Content warnings 1
abuse
A professional caregiver’s commute takes an unsettling detour when car trouble forces her to pull over on the highway, where she begins receiving distressing phone calls from strangers…
Content warnings 1
death
In one small town, the delicate balance between predator and prey is threatened when five girls are murdered on prom night.
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
Evan is suddenly coughing up bones, like, A LOT of bones, but that’s not even in the top ten strangest things that have happened to him since he moved into his new (possibly haunted) duplex...
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
A stoner kid and his best friend attempt to move a sofa across town during an alien invasion...
Content warnings 3
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In this prequel novelette to the critically acclaimed The Water Outlaws, nine-year-old Li Li is introduced to a web of community secrets and family intrigue when she helps her mother bury the corpse of a man that has somehow wound up in the storeroom of...
Content warnings 4
cannibalismdeathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
An older medic with scant resources fights to support her community as they survive life behind the company wall.
Content warnings 2
sexual-violenceviolence
The survivor of an apocalypse event in an alternate universe tries to rebuild and avoid being dragged back into the past when a visitor crosses the in-between and asks for help.
A woman visiting Las Vegas for a fun weekend encounters her ne’er-do-well ex-husband, who begs her for a favor that gambles with life and death…
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
Misunderstanding threatens a commune whose survival is dependent on precise communication with another species…
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
When their rental truck breaks down, two friends moving cross-country kill time by telling stories about the strange carving in front of the motel where they’re awaiting a mechanic…
Content warnings 2
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A disabled son care-taking for a disabled father tries to understand the mysterious blur haunting them.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
Perihelion and its crew embark on a dangerous new mission at a corporate-controlled station in the throes of a hostile takeover…
Content warnings 2
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To celebrate her grandmother, all the captain of the Sopinha de Feijão wanted was to build a street market on a distant moon. But now the captain is dead and…
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Hacksilver riddled with a dragon, saved his family’s farm, and won the secret to raise his dead. Nothing prepared him, though, for the long cold winter when the dead walked…and his family came back!
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
An aging robot, on a journey to visit a friend, reflects on their adventures together.
Content warnings 1
death
In a corporate-run dystopia, a trans girl plucked out of poverty to give birth to a clone meets her replacement.
Content warnings 3
body-horrorpregnancy-lossviolence
As a young scholar sets out on a research project to find the stones where the settlers of Iceland made human sacrifices, a long dormant volcano rouses…and other, long-sleeping horrors might also be stirring.
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
Even death is no match for a trio of elderly, stubborn, ever-sparring sisters, who refuse to rest in peace while their grudges live on…
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
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…
An engineer who frequently travels for her job, suddenly finds herself in airports other than the one she arrived in…
A sculptor struggles when he is commanded to perpetuate the lies of a deceitful and cruel king…
Content warnings 1
death
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…
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
An estate agent is forced to choose between a sale and his humanity when facing the inhuman eldritch forces that feed off rental tenants across the United Kingdom.
Content warnings 3
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Graff and his crew face a particularly nasty challenge – an opponent so low-tech they might just have the advantage in this fight.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
A team of pilots is trained to fly ships in a war where it’s become cheaper to send humans instead of machines.
Content warnings 2
deathwar
Two ex-military nurses, one human and one alien, share a friendship in a city following an alien invasion.
Content warnings 3
racismviolencewar
Following a mysterious world-wide event that makes ghosts visible, a young woman is invited to attend Ghost Camp.
Content warnings 3
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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.
Content warnings 3
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Mel relishes running the “Enchanted Jungle,” a roadside attraction in the Everglades filled with live parrots, concrete dinosaurs, and other unexpected wonders.
Content warnings 1
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The spirit of a recently deceased young boy helps a group of ghosts seek revenge on a corrupt and abusive town minister.
Content warnings 3
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A child who falls through the cracks in a world run by machines and politics, might be the savior of all humanity…
Content warnings 2
substance-usewar
Damon’s UBI royalties just crashed. His social capital went up in smoke. His girlfriend left him. Now he finds out he’s going to die. What to do? Solve his own murder, for starters…and maybe, just maybe, strike it rich along the way.
Content warnings 3
deathsubstance-useviolence
A woman talented in the art of spinning–creating pottery by manipulating clay in her mouth–longs to become the best, but wonders if it is worth the sacrifices she must make…
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeath-of-a-loved-oneself-harm
A fast-moving, futuristic caper about a thief who has planned a job that he hopes will set him up for life by stealing a few biosculptures from a rich couple’s mansion.
Content warnings 1
illness-and-pandemic
In celebration of the 50th World Fantasy Convention’s Toastmaster, Michael Swanwick, Reactor presents a new Mongolian Wizard story about a battle to save Paris from an unexpected new enemy.
Content warnings 3
goreviolencewar
In a post-nuclear event Silicon Valley, a man grieving the loss of his wife struggles to find comfort when he is forced to communicate with his neighbors’ AI devices, rather than the people themselves.
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
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.
A two-man team must risk a spacewalk when meteoroids threaten crucial portal-spanning telecommunications cables that hang a hundred meters beneath the ocean…and forty-five billion light years away.
A woman losing her sight turns to small family magics to save the lives of those she loves the most.
Content warnings 1
war