Short Fiction Monday: Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few stories we've read that we wanted you to know about.


The Waiting Stars by Aliette de Bodard (2013, free to read online or download on author’s website). 2013 Nebula award winner and 2014 Hugo award nominee (novelette)

In this 2013 Nebula award-winning story, set in the 22nd century, Aliette de Bodard weaves together two narratives that at first seem unconnected but in the end, of course, are. The first concerns a woman’s exploration of a derelict spaceship in a graveyard of spaceships in an isolated corner of space controlled by the Outsiders. Lan Nhen’s Vietnamese-descended people build Mind... Read More

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Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner

Note: This review contains some spoilers for the second book in the QUEEN'S THIEF series, The Queen of Attolia.

In Thick as Thieves (2017), the long-awaited fifth book in Megan Whalen Turner’s QUEEN’S THIEF series, the setting shifts away from the peninsula where Eddis, Attolia and Sounis are, to another country in this world, the Mede Empire, which has long been nursing not-so-secret plans to conquer and annex the peninsula. Kamet is a valuable secretary and slave to Nahuseresh, former Mede ambassador to Attolia and nephew to the Mede emperor. After an escape from Attolia when Nahusere... Read More

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Reposting to include Stuart's new review.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

(Foreword: actual rating: 5.5/5 stars. Do not read Dickinson’s short story of the same title; it’s a spoiler for the novel’s ending. Consider yourself forewarned. Also, please see my interview with Seth Dickinson.)

Breathtakingly original and carefully crafted, The Traitor Baru Cormorant by debut novelist Seth Dickinson is one of those very few works that straddle the line between “genre” and “literary” fiction. It’s the story of a girl: a lover, a traitor, a savant, an accountant, and above all, a daughter of a huntress, a smith, and a shield-bearer, but it’s also a story of oppression, of resistance, of identity, and of politics.... Read More

This week, Celeborn tries to find his inner masculinity.

Galadriel: This week, I discovered that Celeborn has ordered construction on a very fast personal boat for himself. I am told that it will be blood-red, dangerous, and covered in the latest apparatuses for hunting. I must admit to being a bit bemused by this turn of events, as Celeborn has never before had the slightest interest in boating or hunting. He's more of a needlepoint person, in fact. We elves do not age as do the other races, and so the concept of a mid-life crisis (at least as applied to an elf) has never really become a matter of great importance for me until now. I thought perhaps I should talk with Celeborn about it, but after an hour's conversation, all I got out of him was that he would no longer be wearing the traditional robes of Lorien, as they were effeminate and stifled his masculinity. When I pointed out that they... Read More

In this column, I feature comic book reviews written by my students at Oxford College of Emory University. Oxford College is a small liberal arts school just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. I challenge students to read and interpret comics because I believe sequential art and visual literacy are essential parts of education at any level (see my Manifesto!). I post the best of my students’ reviews in this column. Today, I am proud to present a review by Caroline Knox.

Caroline Knox is a freshman at Oxford College of Emory University and is pursuing a degree in Political Science with a concentration in International Politics. She is from Duluth, Georgia and works as a volunteer Young Life leader at Druid Hills High School in East Atlanta. In the future, Caroline hopes to live abroad, while working for a Non-Profit Organiza... Read More

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Anne Bonnie Vol. 1: The Journey Begins by Tim Yates

Inspired by real historical pirates like Anne Bonnie, Mary Reed, and Calico Jack, Tim Yates has come up with a fantastical setting and story that will set your heart pounding with non-stop adventure. Anne Bonnie, Vol. 1: The Journey Begins is set in a fictional fantasy setting, complete with carousing pirates, rune-based magic, and a kingdom of elves, but the primary focus is on a high-spirited girl named Ariana and her quest to become as great a pirate as her heroine, the notorious pirate queen Anne Bonnie.

The story begins as a young Ariana watches a ship-to-ship battle from the safety ... Read More

Today we welcome Kathryn Troy, an historian turned novelist. She has taught college courses on Horror Cinema and presented her research on the weird, unnatural, and horrific to academic conferences across the country Her nonfiction book, The Specter of the Indian: Race, Gender and Ghosts in American Séances, 1848-1890, is forthcoming from SUNY Press. Her historical expertise in the supernatural and the Gothic informs her fiction at every turn. Her genres of choice include dark fantasy, romance, horror, and historical fiction. She lives in New York with her husband and two darling children. Connect with Kathryn Troy at Bathory’s Closet, Facebook,  Read More

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The Vacation Guide to the Solar System by Olivia Koski & Jana Grcevich

The Vacation Guide to the Solar System is an engagingly informative non-fiction tour of our nearest planets in a unique format by Olivia Koski and Jana Grcevich, though one better suited (or perhaps, space-suited) for younger readers or those with only a cursory knowledge of the planets and moons.

Koski and Grcevich present their information just as the title implies, as a Fodors/AAA-guide to each of the planets as well as several of their respective moons. Each planet/moon system gets its own chapter, which opens with a single page of quick facts, such as diameter, mass, gravity, average temperature, distance from Earth, etc. The text part is divided up into several segments: Weather and Climate, When to Go, Getting There, When You Arrive, Getti... Read More

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The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues directed by Dan Milner

Although I really do try to keep an objective mind when it comes to my cinematic adventures, I must confess that The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues (1955) already had one strike against it, personally speaking, as I sat down to peruse it recently. I mean, how dare this picture rip off the title of one of my favorite films of all time, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)? The fact that the esteemed Maltin's Movie Guide gives Phantom its lowest BOMB rating did not bother me overmuch (the editors there are a notoriously grumpy bunch as regards genre fare), but an attempt to overtly copy one of the greatest monster movies ever made ... not forgivable! Anyway, as it turns out, despite the negative word of mouth and blatant title riffing of a beloved classic (actually, that title is almo... Read More

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Reposting to include Marion's new review.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

I was a big fan of V.E. Schwab’s 2013 novel Vicious, noting in my review how she had overcome the possible burden of overfamiliar concepts (it’s a folks-with-powers-who-have-some-gray-to-them kind of novel) with supremely polished execution. Well, she’s pretty much done the same with her newest novel, A Darker Shade of Magic, which takes many of the usual fantasy tropes and, again, just handles them all so smoothly that you simply don’t care much that you’ve seen them all before.

The basic concept is a nicely focused tweak of the multi-verse model, with a series of par... Read More