Rati Mehrotra

We are at an airport restaurant. A robot just drove up to us with our food, said, "Hi! Here I am!" and then drove away with our food.

2025 Recommended Reading List Welcome to the Locus Recommended Reading List… We saw some fabulous books come out last year and are so pleased to let you know about them! Our recommendations are compiled annually by the Locus re…

The Locus Recommended Reading List is out! So many great reads here. Congratulations to all with work on the list, including Story Hour guests @kashinggiwa.bsky.social, @franwilde.bsky.social, @tanaudel.bsky.social, @pat-murphy.bsky.social, and... (1/4) locusmag.com/2026/02/2025...

Me at 20: I’ll have it all figured out by the time I’m 40.

Me at 40: wtf do you mean they rearranged the grocery store

Screengrab of an episode from the podcast It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton, episode titled Magnificent Maurice, or the Flowers of Immortality

‪So delighted that my story "Magnificent Maurice, or the Flowers of Immortality" about a universe protecting cat
has been narrated by @wilwheaton.net for It's Storytime with Wil Wheaton. 😸
Available wherever you get your podcasts!

This is because a statistical model of word frequency is not a useful tool for modeling the complex interactions of the human body

How do we accept the inexplicable? How do we make peace with death, cruelty and our own fragility?

@rati.bsky.social’s not-so-whimsical character study in @uncannymagazine.bsky.social foists us out of every comfort zone, displacing us again and again, until love is all we have left.

#sff #fiction

Thank you Prashanth! I am so glad you enjoyed it.

This is coming up in just over one week! I hope to see you there.

Thank you so much for including Teleporting Diaster Fairy, Vanessa! ❤️

Very late, but here are my short fiction recs from Nov-Dec 2025! A mix of old and new, with stories by @acwise.bsky.social @peterdarbyshire.bsky.social @authorizedmusings.bsky.social @teajaysee.bsky.social @awprihandita.bsky.social @nassos.bsky.social 1/2

Oh that's a gorgeous cover! 😻 I am so looking forward to reading this!

The cover for Uncanny Magazine Issue 62, “Mermay - Golden Hour" by Maxine Vee: In a forest of brown, orange, and golden leaves, a mermaid with orange/gold hair sits on a rock in a small light blue pond. She stares at her open palms, illuminated by a beam of sunlight. Purple flowers in shade lie scattered on the ground in the foreground. The quote reads: "In between bites of samosa, she said, 'I did away with Harry, you know. My first husband.' Spoken in a casual tone, as if talking about the restaurant menu. She sipped her chai, leaving red lipstick marks on the rim of her cup, and gave me a wink out of one heavily mascaraed eye."

Reading for the Uncanny Magazine Poll?

Try the short story "Men with Tails" by Rati Mehrotra @rati.bsky.social!

You can read it here!

buff.ly/k9XTbN2

The line between satire and reality is vanishingly thin these days...

Cover for Issue 62 of Uncanny Magazine, art by Maxine Vee titled "Mermay - Golden Hour." In a forest of brown, orange, and golden leaves, a mermaid with orange/gold hair sits on a rock in a small light blue pond. She stares at her open palms, illuminated by a beam of sunlight. Purple flowers in shade lie scattered on the ground in the foreground. The words "January/February 2025" and "Issue Sixty-Two" are at top. The list of credits is on the bottom

Space Unicorns, do you love Uncanny Magazine stories and ticky boxes?!? The Uncanny Magazine 2025 Favorite Fiction Reader Poll is OPEN! Choose your favorite 3 Uncanny stories from last year! It's FREE!!! buff.ly/UMRHq44

The Teleporting Disaster Fairy - Uncanny Magazine Content note: attempted suicide   The first time Kittu teleported was into the lavatory of a plane bound for London, fifteen seconds before it crashed in a field south of Gatwick. One moment she was b...

"Once was a mistake, twice was cosmic coincidence, three times made it a rule. Teleporting Disaster Fairy Strikes Again, screamed the headlines the next day, which Kittu thought misleading. She hadn’t struck anyone; she’d saved them."

✍🏻 @rati.bsky.social
@uncannymagazine.bsky.social

Matthew WK's review of Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 224, May 2025 3/5: 3.5 stars. Angela Liu 4 stars Rati Mehrotra 5 stars Alex T. Singer 4 stars Wole Talabi 4 stars Ann LeBlanc 2.5 stars Caryanna Reuven 2.5 stars Marie Vibbert 3 stars

Book 88 of 2025 Clarkesworld Issue 224, May 2025 by Neil Clarke

Fav from this issue (& one of the best of the year) "The Library of the Apocalypse" by Rati Mehrotra

Other favs by Angela Liu, Alex T. Singer & Wole Talabi

#BookSky 💙📚🪐 #booksreadin2025 #SciFisky

www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

The survey is open to non-members (I am not one) and to readers (who here is not &c.) so I encourage you to share your feelings on the matter. Don't assume that everyone already understands that AI is bad or why! I mean, people *should*, but you could say that about a lot of things.

And please also, AGAIN, never forget that they are inherently unethical to use because no one gave permission for their research or writing to be used in it. It is all stolen, and if you're using the plagiarism machine, please keep that in mind.

our wishlist for the submission period. MORE: unabashedly fantasy or scifi settings; queerplatonic relationships, rural/pastoral settings; symbiotic relationships (toxic or beneficial). LESS: dead spouses; retellings; stories that don't show the monster; meet cutes (we're here for established relationships)

We're open for early subs from Dec 24-31! If you're an equity-deserving writer, send us SFF short fiction (500-3,500 words) & poetry.

Not sure what we want? Less fabulism and more entrenched fantasy/scifi. We'd love pieces that deliver on the promise of their title (show us the monster!!)

Thoughts on the Nebula Awards, LLM usage, and where we draw the line | Jason Sanford's Genre Grapevine Get more from Jason Sanford's Genre Grapevine on Patreon

Thanks to @sfwa.org for being so responsive to concerns around the Nebula Awards and LLM use. The Nebula should honor human creativity, as the revised rules now state. However, we also don't want to see writers tripped up on eligibility or hit by witch hunts over minor LLM usage like spell check. 1/

I've seen some people saying that the new SFWA rule on "AI" in the Nebulas will prevent people from being transparent about their LLM use. Newsflash: They wouldn't have been anyway. It would cost them readers. It would cost them votes. It would potentially cost them opportunities with publishers.

Behold: the first-ever list of news outlets that have banned generative AI in their reporting. As of today, this is literally information that you cannot find on Google.

My goal is to fill the starter pack, so please send over suggestions with supporting evidence!

go.bsky.app/8cn1XfT

The cover for Uncanny Magazine Issue 67, "Mushroom Mother of Us All" by Paul Lewin. In the center, an elderly Black woman has her eyes closed, a brown-orange nose piercing on her right nostril and an orange line/mark on her chin. Her hair are the green leaves of trees, trunks growing out of the side of her face, and mushrooms growing through the leaves. She wears earrings of orange, sienna, with aqua and white lines and dots. Her hands hold a bowl lined with Black faces and mushrooms. In the center of the bowl and is an orange sun surrounded by a dark pink halo like a globe. The quote reads: "The first time Kittu teleported was into the lavatory of a plane bound for London, fifteen seconds before it crashed in a field south of Gatwick. One moment she was brushing her teeth in front of the bathroom mirror in her apartment in Toronto, wishing she had the money to go on vacation, and the next moment she was thrown upward, hitting the ceiling of a tiny, smelly, enclosed space."

Reading 2025 fiction? Try the short story "The Teleporting Disaster Fairy" by Rati Mehrotra @rati.bsky.social!

You can read it here!

buff.ly/Vx4qdNX

Rati Mehrotra

Angel Leal

Uncanny Magazine Podcast 67B features "The Teleporting Disaster Fairy” by Rati Mehrotra, as read by Matt Peters; “My Duende: in the Wall and in the Mirror” by Angel Leal, as read by Erika Ensign; and Michael Damian Thomas interviewing Rati Mehrotra! buff.ly/hqW9OMC

The cover for Uncanny Magazine Issue 62, “Mermay - Golden Hour" by Maxine Vee: In a forest of brown, orange, and golden leaves, a mermaid with orange/gold hair sits on a rock in a small light blue pond. She stares at her open palms, illuminated by a beam of sunlight. Purple flowers in shade lie scattered on the ground in the foreground. The quote reads: "In between bites of samosa, she said, “I did away with Harry, you know. My first husband.” Spoken in a casual tone, as if talking about the restaurant menu. She sipped her chai, leaving red lipstick marks on the rim of her cup, and gave me a wink out of one heavily mascaraed eye."

ICYMI! Reading 2025 fiction?

Try the short story "Men with Tails" by Rati Mehrotra @rati.bsky.social!

You can read it here!

buff.ly/kEsvCSO

The cover for Uncanny Magazine Issue 62, “Mermay - Golden Hour" by Maxine Vee: In a forest of brown, orange, and golden leaves, a mermaid with orange/gold hair sits on a rock in a small light blue pond. She stares at her open palms, illuminated by a beam of sunlight. Purple flowers in shade lie scattered on the ground in the foreground. The quote reads: "In between bites of samosa, she said, “I did away with Harry, you know. My first husband.” Spoken in a casual tone, as if talking about the restaurant menu. She sipped her chai, leaving red lipstick marks on the rim of her cup, and gave me a wink out of one heavily mascaraed eye."

Reading 2025 fiction? Try the short story "Men with Tails" by Rati Mehrotra @rati.bsky.social!

You can read it here!

buff.ly/kEsvCSO

It's an actual game plan on the right. They use it for book bans as well. They start with something easy: no porn in libraries. That hooks in the low information folks. Then you slowly broaden the scope until you're yanking any YA that violates Christian nationalism.

The Teleporting Disaster Fairy - Uncanny Magazine Content note: attempted suicide   The first time Kittu teleported was into the lavatory of a plane bound for London, fifteen seconds before it crashed in a field south of Gatwick. One moment she was b...

Just listened to/read "The Teleporting Disaster Fairy" by @rati.bsky.social from @uncannymagazine.bsky.social 67. Just an amazing almost "perfect" short story. Disasters, unexplained phenomena, perseverance, hope. It could be a beautiful Twilight Zone ep.
www.uncannymagazine.com/article/the-...

Ah, that means a lot to me, coming from you. ❤️

Thank you, Vanessa! ❤️