Looking for the perfect little stocking-stuffer to go with that new Kindle or tablet you just bought as a gift for someone special? You can’t go wrong with The Book of Judith, by Judith Field. But don’t take my word for it. Read the reviews...
Her body was a temple—pristine, polished, worshipped by all. They came from far and wide to pay their respects. She was beautiful. She was at the heart of it all...
When he first returned, we flocked to him like gulls to a fishing trawler. Even after those of us nearest had grown used to his celebrity in our midst, people traveled planet-wide in a never-ending pilgrimage to view the great explorer, and even more, to smell him...
1. Sol Goodbye “Who will have my Silver Tongue?” I was young again, a teenager in a bathrobe surrounded by twenty adults in formal clothing, individuals I could no longer remember...
“More salt, would ya,” Colin instructed the restaurant 3-D food fabber, chucked his French fries in its tableside hopper. It whirred, then lit up with a thank you...
Stupefying Stories contributor TYLER TORK recently did a reading at the Minnesota Speculative Fiction Writer’s Showcase, along with several other Minneapolis-area authors. After a short-short about the encroachment of plastic flamingos, there’s a tale of the businesslike, civilized way to conduct an invasion...
The sun had just risen over the mountains as Maghnus trudged behind the group of nine people winding their way through the Tetons to the earth’s last living tree...
Jimmy Sledge pulled his ‘85 Ford pickup into the parking lot of the Double-T Diner and, exercising a modicum of decency to the patrons inside, paused at the entrance to fart loudly...
No one notices the invasion. A few instruments on orbiting satellites flicker at the unusual gravity-wave fluctuation. But the anomaly passes so quickly that monitoring systems simply log it for later analysis. No alarms are raised, either in orbit or down on the surface...
Yes, it’s our original print edition, done as a prototype to see just how closely we could emulate the look and feel of a vintage digest-sized pulp in what was initially planned to be a quarterly magazine. We spent a small fortune on this one, and aside from my never being really happy with...
One of my pet peeves is the traditional publishing industry “All Rights for the Remaining Balance of Eternity” contract, so when we launched the e-book version of Stupefying Stories, I included...
After taking a week to think about it: okay, STORYBLITZ was, for the most part, a success. Publishing twenty stories in seven days took a prodigious effort, but we pulled it off. Publishing twelve stories in twelve hours was a stretch goal that bordered on ludicrous...
Jackson always calls hyperspace the “waters of oblivion.” It seems an odd affectation, out of character with the rest of his carefree personality. His parents are both dead and he has no close relatives; he’s told me he plans to work the hyperspace runs until he’s thirty and then retire young and wealthy...
Unlike most of his brethren, the dragon Slagadune slept with both eyes closed, for he could smell any intruder foolhardy enough to stumble into his cave. A single blast of his blazing breath would turn the hardest steel to ash and melt skin and bones to butter. What’s more...
“Listen, Exorcist, I’ve cracked it. I’m in. I’m in right now. You have got to see this.” On the other side of the world, the hacker Firestarter knew only as Exorcist laughed. They’d routed the VoIP connection through two anonymising proxies, which made the conversation annoyingly laggy...
Loki crashed back into reality, gasping and reeling. He flailed with his arms until he realized that he was no longer falling. The bitterness of his last host’s fear lingered on his tongue. Her mortal flesh had been burned and torn apart, with him trapped and powerless within. Loki swallowed hard...
[Part 1 | Part 2] A great flapping of leathery wings overhead jerked Gris out of a sound sleep. Thomas was curled against his stomach, and they both looked up at the same time, catching a glimpse of green dragonhide through the branches. “Bloody hell,” Mac breathed next to him...
The little cybernetic gadfly popped up as soon as I logged in. “Dave Miller,” it dutifully nagged, “you are now 15 minutes overdue for your appointment with the company fitness consultant.” Right. I clicked the ‘ignore’ button to kill the message and then continued with my morning routine...
Toby stared at his ticket: Bus 666 to Hell. After a lifetime in politics, always with the best intentions, this was his reward? The last thing he remembered were chest pains and falling to the ground...
[Part 1] Dani woke with an unfamiliar weight on her hip, and she was reaching for her knife before she quite knew what was happening. “Of course,” a familiar voice said. “Kill first, ask questions once it’s too late.”...
Late one evening, the sound of fluttering wings disturbed a suburbanite who was sitting in his easy chair, reading a book. The man got up to investigate, quickly assessed the situation, and then yelled at the top of his lungs...
“You see? By carefully tracking the field, we’ll be able to find mass, even types otherwise undetectable.” “Hmm… might just work. Let’s do it.”...
The local dragon had made its annual demand for a new cat for its collection. Arms crossed, Daniella stared the village mayor down. She knew what he was thinking—that she was a silly little girl with no business undertaking such a vital enterprise. He’d turned it into a competition...
Sebastian Kane flew across the second floor of the mansion like his ass was on fire and his head was catchin’. His blue shirt was torn and bloody, his jeans were rags and equally as red, his chest would need an entire spool of thread to put back together, and he would be eating soup [&hellip...
