Nov. 2024 (Issue 174)

We have an original science fiction novella by Ashok K. Banker (“Antyesti for a Dead Ganesa,” which we’ll be serializing over the course of two weeks. We also have two terrific flash pieces: “The Oracular Manifestation of Human Consciousness Offers Three Provocative Verbs, Separated by Commas” from Aimee Ogden and “Ancestor Code Error” by Ai Jiang. Plus, we have original fantasy by Hammond Diehl (“We Will Bring Siege to the Bastion of Sin That Cries Out in Your Prayer”) and P H Lee (“The Ones Who Come at Last”). We also have a flash story (“Babywings”) from Isabel Cañas, and another (“The Last Word”) from Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe. All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team.

Cover art by Tithi Luadthong (aka Grandfailure)

Nov. 2024 (Issue 174)

Editorial

Editorial: November 2024

by John Joseph Adams

Be sure to read the editorial for a rundown of all this month’s terrific content!

Fantasy

Babywings

by Isabel Cañas

Author spotlight

As children, we circled the crow chick that fell from its nest. Its wings were splayed heavenward like a saint’s, its brains streaked like veins of quartz across asphalt. Its neck arched back at a fossil-like, impossible angle. That was when I learned how fragile birds’ bones are.

Science Fiction

Antyesti For a Dead Ganesa, Part 1

by Ashok K. Banker

Author spotlight

Two hours out of deadsleep is too soon to be staring at the butchered corpse of a dead god. Neel looks down as the kalipeeli begins its descent to Chowpatty Beach and feels his stomach flip. Even from a mile up, he can see it. His retinacam zooms, focus and enlarge a portion of the beach.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Ashok K. Banker

by Alex Puncekar

To me, caste, race, class, privilege, identity, are all forms of societal structure designed to divide people into “us” and “not us.” Education, culture, and language have become part of these structures now, along with the weaponization of language.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Isabel Cañas

by Alex Puncekar

I wrote the first draft of “Babywings” after rereading Gabriel García Márquez’s “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings.” The older I get, the more magical realism hooks its claws deep into me. Coming at the story through this genre, at a sideways angle, has allowed me to grapple with themes that are, for me, more emotionally challenging.

Fantasy

We Will Bring Siege to the Bastion of Sin That Cries Out in Your Prayer

by Hammond Diehl

Author spotlight

You revere your patron saints. Your Marys. Your Joans. Your Catherines. You should fear them. If one ever heeds your prayer, and she arrives stripped of skin, of fingernails, of every organ and every last fuck to give, her halo a boiling crown of furious yellow flames.

Fantasy

The Oracular Manifestation of Human Consciousness Offers Three Provocative Verbs Separated by Commas

by Aimee Ogden

Reduce, We’ll start with the easy one. We’re good at reducing! We’ve cut back so much already. Air quality. Polar ice caps. The winters where no one’s grandma freezes to death. What if we try reducing working hours? Preventable illness?

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Hammond Diehl

by Phoebe Barton

The crimes that the world heaps upon women, the cycle of violence and beatification—there’s nothing gorgeous or rich or poetic about that. And at first, I thought that was something the title needed to convey. The evil we’re fighting is banal as fuck and let’s not forget it.

Nonfiction

Book Review: Countess by Suzan Palumbo

by Melissa A Watkins

Are you looking for a Caribbean futurist queer feminine space opera retelling of the Alexandre Dumas adventure classic The Count of Monte Cristo? Well, that’s just what Suzan Palumbo’s new book Countess is–and Melissa A Watkins recommends it.

Science Fiction

Antyesti For a Dead Ganesa, Part 2

by Ashok K. Banker

Author spotlight

The pratikriti squats beside him on the terrace. Now that he is able to see again through his borrowed eyes, Neel is surprised at how obviously inhuman it looks. Then he remembers a briefing from a long time ago: the AI implants filter the appearance of artificials.

Fantasy

The Last Word

by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe

I am running out of Words. I stumble down the temple steps, clutching my wounded side. I had been too slow to use my fourth Word and the prison guard’s spear had drawn blood before he choked to death under the weight of my suffocation spell.

Nonfiction

Book Review: Faeries Never Lie, edited by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker

by Arley Sorg

Looking for your next fantasy anthology read? Arley Sorg recommends Faeries Never Lie, edited by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker

Science Fiction

Ancestor Code Error

by Ai Jiang

Author spotlight

It is 3024, and there are no longer shrines. They long since washed away by nature’s fury in the form of quakes that split across continents, countries, cities, down schools, fields, homes neatly in two. You are to receive the memories of a late mother, a late father.

Fantasy

The Ones Who Come At Last

by P H Lee

They come on trains; they come on buses; they come on planes to our municipal airport. A handful even arrive on foot, having walked the whole distance to our City with what scant possessions they could carry on their backs—only a few, to be sure. But more than have ever walked away.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Ai Jiang

by Alex Puncekar

Something I have been thinking much about is human evolution and the way technology has essentially become what defines it, but with it comes climate change, comes war and disasters, comes progress—yet even with that progress, it seems we are always taking two steps forward and two steps back.