Dragons and masquerades, baking witches and stick dancers, futuristic soldiers and stranded archivists, and so much death. The stories in this July 2022 short speculative spotlight blend genres and concepts with clever results.
Read the rest of this spotlight at Tor.com.
My ten favorite speculative fiction stories I read in June are full of magical cooks, floating cities, futuristic technology, and strange monsters. I’ve got all the adventure, drama, and queerness you could want.
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Themes? Who needs themes? The only connective tissue in my ten favorite short science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories that I read in May is that they’re all freaking great. Race into the future, sink into the past, and hope you don’t encounter a magical force that could squash you like a bug.
April had me in a contemplative mood, it seems. My ten favorite short speculative stories dealt with depression, death, moral gray areas, trauma, and grief, as well as a couple of gruesome murder stories for good measure. Make yourself a nice cup of herbal tea, wrap yourself in a blankie, and get ready to feel some feels.
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My spotlight on my ten favorite short speculative fiction stories from March 2022 is no theme, all vibes. A missing town, a possessive lake, a dying demigod, a reanimated dragon, a vanishing house, a dead brother, and a bit of gold alchemy, cultural appropriation, and HR-mandated self-care breaks for spice.
Read the rest of this spotlight at Tor.com.
While last month my short speculative fiction reading veered toward dark, emotionally heavy tales, for February I opted for light and warmth. This month my ten favorites showed love in all its myriad forms, from friendship to romance to familial and beyond, as well as a splash of something unsettling and chilling for good measure.
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Lotta death this month. Lotta death! My December was pretty grim, and that seems to have skewed my favorite January short science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories toward the dark and deadly. Come for the monsters eating nazis, stay for the mangled corpses being turned into pig food.
Read the rest of this spotlight at Tor.com.
December 2021 brought a plethora of great short science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories to my inbox. Judging by the stories that ended up on my spotlight this month, I went on an environmental disasters kick. From fussy lake gods to exploitative space station dwellers, from technology-infused religious beliefs to robots repopulating the planet, with a few creepy houses to spice things up.
Plus! Four extra stories from a few publications whose summer and fall issues I missed when they were initially released.
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With more than 300 young adult speculative fiction novels and graphic novels traditionally published in 2021, putting together a Best Of list is a massive undertaking. After weeks of hemming and hawing, adding and subtracting, making decisions and changing my mind, here is a big batch of 35 titles. “Best” is, of course, a totally subjective concept, but these are the science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels that I think absolutely nailed how much young adult fiction can change, inspire, teach, and reflect its readers…
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November is a weird month. The beautiful fall colors of October are gone, but the crisp bite of December has yet to arrive. Things are coming due and end of year lists are being made, as if there isn’t a whole other month left. November is an inhale, a hesitation, a glitch in the timestream. So here are my ten favorite speculative fiction stories from that strange eleventh hour pause…
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Punk-Ass Book Jockey 