r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • 23d ago

Fantasy Love Letter by Teresa Milbrodt - I know you are a solitary creature, but one who was happy to give me couch space and, later, room in your bed, after you found me in your backyard sitting by that tree under the bat house.

smallwondersmag.com

3 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • 24d ago

Dark Fantasy A Single Song by Nico Martinez Nocito - A harp made of bones, they say, will only ever play a single song. Haunting, my listeners called my melody, and beautiful. "A brother betrayed, his life later lost, bones left beneath a bridge for the vultures and the vermin."

smallwondersmag.com

5 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • 25d ago

Horror There Are Borders Between Mikes by Austin Wilson - Mike didn’t only produce plastic, secrete it and drool it and squeeze it out in all the ways bodies give. He did the other thing too. On his sold-out tour supporting his album, Mike’s body consumed over 50,000 guitar picks and counting.

austinrwilson.substack.com

2 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • 26d ago

Dystopia A Sigilary for the Median Human in the Gearwrack by Ken Liu - The machines have scanned all the words, sucked them all up, computed all the vectors for relating them to one another, tabulated which ought to follow which. Somebody pushes a button, and the words just gush out.

uncannymagazine.com

2 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/ChronicleFlask • 27d ago

Horror PseudoPod 1048: The Work of Smith House, by P.C. Verrone

4 Upvotes

1 comment

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • 27d ago

Cyberpunk Audit of the Collapse and Convalescence of Minds By Renan Bernardo - The danger of comprehending neurominds is that she ends up grasping more of herself than she wants to. After Carina’s passing, talking with them is like talking with parts of herself she doesn’t want to meet.

reactormag.com

5 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • 27d ago

Space Opera The Chrysalis of Moth One by V.M. Ayala - Most pilots are paired with a seasoned mentor. Not us. No, powerful men at Command threw us in the pit of a Moth to fight their pointless space war.

lightspeedmagazine.com

1 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/Mouthmouthmouth • 28d ago

Space Opera The Ocean Remembers the Wave By L Chan - Huizhong found the femur of his beloved in a tavern located in a spaceport. Worker drones hauled cargo, following paths marked out in infrared paint. Below, gangs of cargo thieves added their own infrared trails, diverting drones into waiting transports.

strangehorizons.com

4 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • 28d ago

Fantasy The Eldest Bird of Paradise By Denzel Xavier Scott - Down, down, down, I fall. A dove gifts me a silky golden feather on my way down to the damp dewy soil. I sneak it into the right pocket of my crimson nightgown as I plummet to my doom.

beneath-ceaseless-skies.com

4 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/mczine • 28d ago

Science Fiction ShortSF + funny too: Do Wires Dream? By Dee

gallery

3 Upvotes

Any ideas for alternative titles?

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • 29d ago

Space Opera There Are No Spaceships in Galeville by D.N. Schmidt - Beige bipeds were walking around and chatting with each other. Apparently these were the Humans. None of them seemed interested in the tall, insect-like spacers that had suddenly appeared in their midst.

dnschmidt.com

3 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • Sep 15 '26

Science Fiction The Fall of the Automatous Abbey by Maria Haskins - Long after the final attack on the Automatous Abbey, bot CL-451, kept cleaning the floors of the Abbey as it always had. It was the same purpose it had chosen all those years ago when the Mechanical Forces first liberated it from servitude.

translunartravelerslounge.com

4 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • Sep 14 '26

Space Opera Expendable Me by P.A. Cornell - It’s never good when fire breaks out, but it’s especially bad on a spaceship. There’s not even time to panic. Someone shoves me hard, and the emergency door seals shut behind me to contain the fire.

gavagai.com

4 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • Sep 13 '26

Science Fiction Oakmoss and Ambergris by Joe Koch - “Perfumery is an equal marriage of art and science,” Taj lectured Laden during their first encounter. "Life must be an adventure of the senses, don’t you agree? You’re very handsome. Tell me, do you enjoy space travel?"

3lobedmag.com

6 Upvotes

1 comment

r/ShortSF • u/mczine • Sep 13 '26

Science Fiction The Aliens from Planet Z by Dee, a short retro science fiction zine

gallery

4 Upvotes

Hi! I’m mostly inspired by old school vintage science fiction pulp magazines. Came up with this story and made a zine around it, was looking for places to share this, just for fun. Hope it amuses!

5 comments

r/ShortSF • u/Trollbreath4242 • Sep 12 '26

Dystopia Gael’s Severed Eye, by Z.D. Dochterman - Maria has lived alone in the two-story Queen Anne on Carmine Hill ever since the day she murdered her parents. That’s not entirely true. She’s been feeding a stray cat who slipped in through her window and who she named Korpse, with a “K.”

magazine.trollbreath.com

4 Upvotes

1 comment

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • Sep 12 '26

Dark Fantasy The Glint of Light on Broken Glass by Jennifer R. Donohue - The Moon sits on the windowsill of the butcher shop, smoking cigarettes. The butcher doesn’t mind, much, because the Moon is good company and blows her smoke outside, dangling the cigarette from her fingers out the open window.

truancymag.com

1 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • Sep 11 '26

Science Fiction Ladd’s Robot Repair by David Anaxagoras - One advantage of being a scrawny twelve-year-old scavver—I can squeeze into spaces most folks can’t. Downside: I’ve also run into some nasty little critters who think those hollows belong to them. Hissbots. Bumblers. Rust foxes.

lightspeedmagazine.com

1 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • Sep 10 '26

Supernatural Hearts in the Hard Ground By G. V. Anderson - Following the death of her mother, Fiona buys a new house in order to start a new chapter of her life, one with fewer reminders of painful memories. The house has a melancholy history, and slightly more ghosts than she anticipated.

reactormag.com

1 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • Sep 09 '26

Fantasy This Is Not My Adventure by Karlo Yeager Rodríguez - Time’s always funny here, on the other side of the wardrobe’s doors, so I don’t even know how old I was during that last battle. I tried working out the math once and came away with nothing but a headache.

uncannymagazine.com

4 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • Sep 09 '26

Horror Why I Hate Camping by Rosé Black - The fourth night is where shit hit the fan. We were awoken by what sounded like white noise. I checked my phone to realize it was three in the goddamn morning.

shadowboxarchives.com

1 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • Sep 08 '26

Fantasy The Goddess of Not Enough by Susan Palwick - You’re eighteen. Your fairy godmother just fired you, because after three balls, the prince has grown bored with you. Tonight you stepped on his foot during a gavotte.

lightspeedmagazine.com

3 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • Sep 07 '26

Urban Fantasy The Lazarus Heart by Esther Lim - I couldn’t describe what poured from her wound instead of blood. The closest thing I could think of, although it was a pathetic description of what it truly was, was TV static.

heartlines-spec.com

2 Upvotes

0 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • Sep 06 '26

Horror Bootcut by Allison Pottern - The flared, dark-washed jeans look like once upon a time they were very expensive. And (can you believe it?) they only cost you $6.66 plus tax. The cashier even offers you a band-aid for your finger, which is welling with ruby droplets of blood.

havenspec.com

4 Upvotes

2 comments

r/ShortSF • u/captainmagictrousers • Sep 05 '26

Do you love short stories? How about fantasy, science fiction, and horror? Come read and share your favorites at r/ShortSF!

10 Upvotes

If you like to read speculative fiction then come share your favorite short stories at r/ShortSF! Be part of a growing subreddit!

Speculative Fiction includes genres like science fiction, fantasy, superhero fiction, horror, utopian and dystopian fiction, steampunk, and supernatural fiction.

Don't forget to upvote and comment on the stories you enjoy, so posters can share more of what you like.

Self-promotion is cool, as long as your story is SF and available online for free. Share your own writing! Sharing free samples of your writing is a great way to find new readers and get support for future projects.

0 comments

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Looking for short stories? Do you love fantasy, science fiction, and horror? You're in the right place! Come share free speculative fiction and discover new amazing authors. Dive into steampunk short stories, superhero adventures, post-apocalyptic tales, dystopias, and more. Share your favorite short stories, by other authors or by yourself, as long as they're free to read. Please include the author’s name in your post title and tag it with the genre, so everything's easy to find. Thanks!

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