Strange Horizons

Writing the Diaspora Experience with R.B. Lemberg (SH@25 Episode 17) In this episode of Strange Horizons at 25, Podcast Editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with long-time Strange Horizons contributor RB Lemberg to talk about everything from using poetry as a tool to refin…

NEW PODCAST ALERT!

Episode 17 of the Strange Horizons @ 25 podcast is live now featuring R.B. Lemberg @rblemberg.bsky.social interviewed by Kat Kourbeti @darthj.uno.

Listen and read at the link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

Left cover of The Curators by Maggie Nye featuring a person from the neck down floating wearing a dress with a short strange shadowy figure with a human face reaching for the floating trailing hand. Right REVIEWS Quote "It’s impossible to try to resolve this story into a single thread. But that’s part of what the book is about: trying to pull an enormous jumble of stuff together into meaning. Even if unification isn’t possible, and even if the most important answers can’t be found, the novel holds out the possibility that maybe some sort of meaning is still possible." reviewer: Roy Salzman-Cohen 17 November 2025 Strange Horizons

Left cover of Dementia 21 volumes 1 and 2 by Shintaro Kago featuring a woman with gacha capsules falling from her mouth as a hand turns a knob in her forehead. Right REVIEWS Quote "Dementia 21 points out the absurdity of capitalism and social norms and bureaucracy, but also the hypocrisy of ageism: The lucky among us will get to grow old; to resent those who already are highlights humanity’s shortsightedness." reviewer: Shannon Fay 17 November 2025 Strange Horizons

Left cover of We Like It Cherry by Jacy Morris featuring a person standing next to a glacier. Right REVIEWS Quote "this is an enjoyable and suitably tense and gory exploration of how “Western” civilisation is negatively impacting the traditions of native peoples and their ancestral memories. The horror is real for these people—and so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised if (and maybe when) they unleash some horror in return." reviewer: Ian J. Simpson 17 November 2025 Strange Horizons

The reviews are in!

The Curators by Maggie Nye
reviewed by Roy Salzman-Cohen

Dementia 21 volumes 1 and 2 by Shintaro Kago
reviewed by Shannon Fay

We Like It Cherry by Jacy Morris
reviewed by Ian J. Simpson

Find your next favourite book at the link to the latest issue in our bio!

#bookreviews

Left cover of The Curators by Maggie Nye featuring a person from the neck down floating wearing a dress with a short strange shadowy figure with a human face reaching for the floating trailing hand. Right REVIEWS Quote "It’s impossible to try to resolve this story into a single thread. But that’s part of what the book is about: trying to pull an enormous jumble of stuff together into meaning. Even if unification isn’t possible, and even if the most important answers can’t be found, the novel holds out the possibility that maybe some sort of meaning is still possible." reviewer: Roy Salzman-Cohen 17 November 2025 Strange Horizons

Left cover of Dementia 21 volumes 1 and 2 by Shintaro Kago featuring a woman with gacha capsules falling from her mouth as a hand turns a knob in her forehead. Right REVIEWS Quote "Dementia 21 points out the absurdity of capitalism and social norms and bureaucracy, but also the hypocrisy of ageism: The lucky among us will get to grow old; to resent those who already are highlights humanity’s shortsightedness." reviewer: Shannon Fay 17 November 2025 Strange Horizons

Left cover of We Like It Cherry by Jacy Morris featuring a person standing next to a glacier. Right REVIEWS Quote "this is an enjoyable and suitably tense and gory exploration of how “Western” civilisation is negatively impacting the traditions of native peoples and their ancestral memories. The horror is real for these people—and so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised if (and maybe when) they unleash some horror in return." reviewer: Ian J. Simpson 17 November 2025 Strange Horizons

The reviews are in!

The Curators by Maggie Nye
reviewed by Roy Salzman-Cohen

Dementia 21 volumes 1 and 2 by Shintaro Kago
reviewed by Shannon Fay

We Like It Cherry by Jacy Morris
reviewed by Ian J. Simpson

Find your next favourite book at the link to the latest issue in our bio!

#bookreviews

POETRY by Sean Glatch The Face Stealer Tells Me What Emptiness Feels Like Quote "Emptiness," says the monster, "feels like a monster is wearing your face," 17 November 2025 Strange Horizons

The Face Stealer Tells Me What Emptiness Feels Like
by Sean Glatch

“Emptiness,” says the monster, “feels like a monster

is wearing

your face"

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

POETRY by Jessy Randall Mrs. Magalina Hoopensteimer Wallenheimer Hogan Bogan’s Wedding Toast Quote "and orthodontists came calling and then ran away when they saw the extent of the situation, the power of her mouth-bones." 17 November 2025 Strange Horizons

Mrs. Magalina Hoopensteimer Wallenheimer Hogan Bogan’s Wedding Toast
by Jessy Randall

"and orthodontists
came calling and then ran away when
they saw the extent of the situation,
the power of her mouth-bones."

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

Left cover of Colourfields by Paul Kincaid featuring a grid of a rainbow of colours. Right REVIEWS Quote "By the end of this collection, we have a closely related, intricately debated network of science fiction scholars, writers, and practitioners, a textual and intertextual circulation amidst a consistently morphing public sphere." reviewer: Shinjini Dey 10 November 2025 Strange Horizons

Left cover of Making History by K. J. Parker featuring a stone complex of buildings on fire. Right REVIEWS Quote "This is one of the best, if not the best, novellas of the year. Its themes of historical fluidity, its keep-you-guessing mystery, and its academic voice make it one of the most depressingly prescient things I have read this year, given current circumstances." reviewer: Cameron Miguel 10 November 2025 Strange Horizons

Left cover of Esperance by Adam Oyebanji featuring a black mosquitoon a red background. Right REVIEWS Quote "All of this does work—because Oyebanji builds tension not from the question of who committed his book’s crime, but instead from the many conflicting interpretations of its story. " reviewer: Eric Hendel 10 November 2025 Strange Horizons

The reviews are in!

Colourfields by Paul Kincaid
reviewed by Shinjini Dey

Making History by K. J. Parker
reviewed by Cameron Miguel

Esperance by Adam Oyebanji
reviewed by Eric Hendel

Link to the latest issue in our bio!

#speculativefiction #specfic #horror #sff #bookreviews

Fiction Submission Guidelines How to submit a story to Strange Horizons.

Strange Horizons is open to fiction submissions from Indigenous authors!

The window will close after 500 stories are received.

More information: strangehorizons.com/submit/ficti...

If you submitted in April or June, you CANNOT submit.

#fiction #shortstories #fantasy #sciencefiction #scifi

POETRY by Mahaila Smith 618 Days in Longsleep  Quote "The view is terrifying." 10 November 2025 Strange Horizons

618 Days in Longsleep 
by Mahaila Smith @mahailasmith.ca

"The view is terrifying."

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

FICTION Quote "Her hip is sensitive—“You have a very thought-reactive skeleton,” the doctor told her—and imagining gymnastics meant the hip wanted to twirl and snap and stretch, and it did. All over the kitchen floor." HEART FALLOUT  by Jess Peng 10 November 2025 Strange Horizons

HEART FALLOUT
by Jess Peng

"Her hip is sensitive—“You have a very thought-reactive skeleton,” the doctor told her—and imagining gymnastics meant the hip wanted to twirl and snap and stretch, and it did. All over the kitchen floor."

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...

POETRY by Brishbhanu Baruah The Patience of the Equator  Quote "A cat prancing across the solar system re-arranging the planets" 10 November 2025 Strange Horizons

The Patience of the Equator 
by Brishbhanu Baruah

"A cat prancing across the solar system

re-arranging

the planets"

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

#poetry #speculativepoetry #specpo #sff

Fiction Submissions Open Indigenous Authors

Our portal is still open to submissions by Indigenous Authors!

Here is more information about our submission process including the link to our amoksha submission portal:
strangehorizons.com/submit/ficti...

POETRY by Brishbhanu Baruah The Patience of the Equator  Quote "A cat prancing across the solar system re-arranging the planets" 10 November 2025 Strange Horizons

The Patience of the Equator 
by Brishbhanu Baruah

"A cat prancing across the solar system

re-arranging

the planets"

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

#poetry #speculativepoetry #specpo #sff

Critical Friends Episode 17: On Imagining Hopefully Dan Hartland is joined by Paul March-Russell and Jacqueline Nyathi to discuss speculative fiction’s approach to hope and optimism. Where has it gone? How do writers express it? And what are its pit…

NEW PODCAST ALERT!

The latest Critical Friends episode it out now!

In Episode 17: On Imagining Hopefully, Dan Hartland, Paul March-Russell, and Jacqueline Nyathi discuss speculative fiction’s approach to hope and optimism.

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

Left cover of Eat the Ones you Love by Sarah Maria Griffin featuring plants including an orchid and Venus fly trap with eyes in them. Right REVIEWS Quote "I found the first-person narration from the point of view of the plant to be convincingly menacing. In fact, these aspects—which stress the malevolent, stalkery characteristics of the plant—provide an interesting contrast to the much softer tale of Shell finding love, community, and newfound purpose." reviewer: Nileena Sunil 3 November 2025 Strange Horizons

Left cover of The Demon by Victory Witherkeigh featuring a string of miniature skulls curing through fire. Right REVIEWS Quote "Witherkeigh doesn’t offer easy answers; her protagonist doesn’t escape her punishment but learns to carry it. This refusal of closure is what makes The Demon linger. It’s a story for anyone who’s felt like a stranger in their own skin—a reminder that identity, like a demon, is both a burden and a strange, stubborn gift." reviewer: Subham Rai 3 November 2025 Strange Horizons

Left cover of Field Of Frights by Christina Hagmann featuring a figure in a black suit and white shirt with a white mask over their head sitting on a yellow arm chair in a field of yellow wheat. Right REVIEWS Quote "It speaks deeply to the field of hurts we have inside us, the unresolved traumas that linger and control us. Unaddressed, they become a barrier preventing us from moving forward in life. These barriers force us to face the monsters within us, kill them, and be victorious, but that can only be done if we know what they are." reviewer: Racheal Chie 3 November 2025 Strange Horizons

The reviews are in!

Eat the Ones you Love by Sarah Maria Griffin
reviewed by Nileena Sunil

The Demon by Victory Witherkeigh
reviewed by Subham Rai

Field Of Frights by Christina Hagmann
reviewed by Racheal Chie

Link to latest issue in bio!

#speculativefiction #specfic #horror #sff #bookreviews

FICTION Quote "After my mother died, Dr. Rostrow called to ask me if I wanted anything out of her brain. I almost hung up, but her green eyes were so intense, even on camera, that I let her talk. There were studies, she said. Ways that my mother could give something to a future she wouldn’t see. " Palimpsest  by Melissa A Watkins 3 November 2025 Strange Horizons

Palimpsest
by Melissa A Watkins

"After my mother died, Dr. Rostrow called to ask me if I wanted anything out of her brain."

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...

POETRY by Annie Bolger sijo from a spaceship escaping a dying planet  Quote "what season is space?" 3 November 2025 Strange Horizons

sijo from a spaceship escaping a dying planet 
by Annie Bolger

"what season is space?"

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

POETRY by Zaynab Iliyasu Bobi wani gari  Quote "the town has its own vision. its eyesight is perfect for destruction. anything beautiful is misleading." 3 November 2025 Strange Horizons

wani gari 
by Zaynab Iliyasu Bobi

"the town has its own vision.
its eyesight is perfect

for destruction. anything
beautiful is mislea
ding."

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

Fiction Submissions Open Indigenous Authors

Our portal is still open to submissions by Indigenous Authors!

Here is more information about our submission process including the link to our amoksha submission portal:
strangehorizons.com/submit/ficti...

Hi! Sorry for the delay. It's our usual portal. Here is more information about our submission process that includes the Moksha link: strangehorizons.com/submit/ficti...

Attention all @worldfantasy2025.bsky.social attendees!

Join the Strange Horizons Editorial Collective for a 25th Anniversary Tea Party this Sunday, November 2nd, at 11 am!

Come meet @jolantru.bsky.social, @darthj.uno, @mickallister.bsky.social, @vanessajae.bsky.social and enjoy delicious tea!

And you can read it in Hungarian here! samovar.strangehorizons.com/2025/10/27/a...

"It's always difficult to pass through a forest that has been hurt and is endlessly calling for help." Read 'The Heart of the Forest' by Ágnes Gaura, translated from the Hungarian by Vivian Urban, in our latest issue: samovar.strangehorizons.com/2025/10/27/t...

My #WorldFantasyConvention2025 schedule:

Thursday 30th October:
5pm - Multimedia Writing - Edinburgh Panel Room 3

Sunday 2nd November:
11am - Strange Horizons Tea Party -
Osborne Reading Room 1

See you there!

Attention all @worldfantasy2025.bsky.social attendees!

Join the Strange Horizons Editorial Collective for a 25th Anniversary Tea Party this Sunday, November 2nd, at 11 am!

Come meet @jolantru.bsky.social, @darthj.uno, @mickallister.bsky.social, @vanessajae.bsky.social and enjoy delicious tea!

Fiction Submissions Opening Indigenous Authors November 3rd at 9 am UTC

Strange Horizons will be open to fiction submissions from Indigenous authors only on November 3rd at 9am UTC!

The window will close after 500 submissions are received.

More information:
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

If you sent us a story in April or June, you CANNOT submit in this window.

Left cover of The Man of Middling Height by Fadi Zaghmout, translated by Wasan Abdelhaq featuring a blue and dark green vaguely human shaped blobs. Right REVIEWS Quote "Overall, this novel richly exploits science fiction’s great capacity to imagine the otherwise and denaturalize what seems inevitable and natural. The adventurous analogy between height and gender will surely provoke much discussion, and—hopefully!—controversy." reviewer: Kyle R. Garton 20 October 2025 Strange Horizons

Left cover of Seed Beetle: Poems by Mahaila Smith featuring a diagram of a mechanical beetle with wing open. Right REVIEWS Quote "The collection also reimagines what a new “natural” world might look like in the wake of an Anthropocene apocalypse. The newly fashioned environment is certainly not the same as the one that originally existed, since it’s based almost entirely on human and mechanical intervention." reviewer: Vivian Wagner 20 October 2025 Strange Horizons

Left cover of Psychopomp & Circumstance by Eden Royce featuring the side view of a person in a shirt with a lace neck and chest and a skeleton hand across the chest and a a long skeleton cameo necklace hanging from the ear. Right REVIEWS Quote "a richly alive narrative that is able to think through its ideas because of its grounding. It draws the reader in by insisting on its details—and in so doing serves as a reminder of the power of the granular in choices, communities, and storytelling." reviewer: Tristan Beiter 20 October 2025 Strange Horizons

The reviews are in!

The Man of Middling Height by Fadi Zaghmout, translated by Wasan Abdelhaq
reviewed by Kyle R. Garton

Seed Beetle: Poems by Mahaila Smith
reviewed by Vivian Wagner

Psychopomp & Circumstance by Eden Royce
reviewed by Tristan Beiter

Link to the latest issue in our bio!

POETRY by Eleanor Ball Holy Days  Quote "On the awnings, leaves and girls fall, pile, and rot. All this, the natural order." 20 October 2025 Strange Horizons

Holy Days
by Eleanor Ball @eleanorball.bsky.social

"On the awnings,
leaves and girls fall, pile, and rot. All this, the natural order."

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

FICTION Quote "Leah is queer community. Leah is expanding and expansive. Leah wants to fall in love with everyone still alive in this room and beyond and be their bottom for a night, just one night, though she wouldn’t say no to more than one." Bullet Time at the Kink Party  by miriam 20 October 2025 Strange Horizons

Bullet Time at the Kink Party 
by miriam

"Leah is queer community. Leah is expanding and expansive. Leah wants to fall in love with everyone still alive in this room and beyond and be their bottom for a night, just one night..."

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...

FICTION Quote "Leah is queer community. Leah is expanding and expansive. Leah wants to fall in love with everyone still alive in this room and beyond and be their bottom for a night, just one night, though she wouldn’t say no to more than one." Bullet Time at the Kink Party  by miriam 20 October 2025 Strange Horizons

Bullet Time at the Kink Party 
by miriam

"Leah is queer community. Leah is expanding and expansive. Leah wants to fall in love with everyone still alive in this room and beyond and be their bottom for a night, just one night..."

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...

POETRY by CP Nwankwo ERROR 404: Expiation Not Found Quote "the gate gapes, always hungry— its teeth are CCTV lenses, rusted wide." 20 October 2025 Strange Horizons

ERROR 404: Expiation Not Found
by CP Nwankwo

"the gate gapes, always hungry—

its teeth are CCTV lenses, rusted wide."

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

#poetry #speculativepoetry #specpo #sff