I need to become a wrinkly, bitter old person immediately. Adolescence is such a bore. My friends obsess over boys, gossip, and grades. I’m shorter than my peers (which would be a perfect height fo...

I need to become a wrinkly, bitter old person immediately. Adolescence is such a bore. My friends obsess over boys, gossip, and grades. I’m shorter than my peers (which would be a perfect height fo...

I love corporations. When I play video games, I imagine my character as a badass CEO. He’s wearing a suit, mowing down enemies without remorse, sweating from his hard-earned victory. Most people are t...

Locus Magazine: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror. The Guide to the World's Imagination. https://locusmag.com linktr.ee/locusmagazine

Hi, hello and welcome! I have two very different stories for you this week, but I think that's part of the fun of getting to share stuff with all of you each week. These both stirred feelings in me, though they were also very different. Still, each time I was

The Year in Review 2025 2025 has been another tumultuous, terrible year for a lot of people in this country. Hate and prejudice seem to drive the decisions and actions of individuals in power, refl…

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has released the finalists for the 2025 Nebula Awards. Novel When We Were Real, Daryl Gregory (Saga) The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Gr…

Guidelines hex publishes flash literary fiction and prose poetry with speculative elements. We welcome the surreal, the weird, and the uncanny. Scare us, surprise us, take us to space. Show us how ...

There’s been a seismic shift in the world. I’m not ripping many movie theater tickets anymore. Working at AMC was a dream. My manager called me a rip-roaring guy because I ripped customers’ tickets pr...

After the last one (eight years, no children) you say: enough. There are too many rules to human love and every new partner changes them, anyway. Time for something else. Apartment like a perch: glass...

No modeling agency praised my biceps enough, so my father bought me an oasis. It became my personal modeling venue. Travelers often discovered it. Their passion for deserts was as fiery as the temp...

“Oh, you write fan fiction,” she said. “We all write fan fiction,” I told her. “Some of us are just more honest about it.”

I love corporations. When I play video games, I imagine my character as a badass CEO. He’s wearing a suit, mowing down enemies without remorse, sweating from his hard-earned victory. Most people are t...

Reactor’s regular book reviewers talk about notable titles they read in 2025

So this twink in green tights swoops through your window, drugs you, then whisks you away to an island with gnashing crocodiles and famished cannibals and some madman with a rusty hook for a hand—that...

No modeling agency praised my biceps enough, so my father bought me an oasis. It became my personal modeling venue. Travelers often discovered it. Their passion for deserts was as fiery as the temp...

No modeling agency praised my biceps enough, so my father bought me an oasis. It became my personal modeling venue. Travelers often discovered it. Their passion for deserts was as fiery as the temp...

There is an aperture in my hand, a thumb-print whirl where tissue once flowed uninterrupted—like a channel grown curious and turning back on itself. Last week it was a mosquito bite: a temporary river...

Guidelines hex publishes flash literary fiction and prose poetry with speculative elements. We welcome the surreal, the weird, and the uncanny. Scare us, surprise us, take us to space. Show us how ...

Allowed only those senses which enabled its labor, the malus drone’s world was one of touch and smell. The scent of spring-warm tree bark, the movement of air through branches, spoke of obstacles. The...

Fisherman Peter caught the gay merman with queerbait. Explicit gay content was illegal on land, even in pursuit of mermen flesh. Luckily, fishermen learned how to produce eye-catching bait without get...

Some kind of a noise. Or a nudge, a push. Probably both. A “Babe, babe,” together with or followed by, enough of a jostle to wake me up while trying not to startle me. “Sorry,” Michelle said. “I...

At some point everyone makes the same joke: it must be nice caring for babies who never cry. But the babies who have no eyes do cry; they’re born crying just like everyone else. You can see their tear...

A vampire bit me while I was listening to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso”. I was so wrapped up in the song that I didn’t notice until a few seconds later. “Ow,” I said. The vampire had messy curly hair...

Ever since her husband was hit by a municipal bus, Mrs. Atwal would spend her afternoons watching the hippos at the aquarium. Their fleetness of hoof belying their primordial size. At two o’clock, on ...

My dead friend isn’t supposed to be on the whale watching tour. It’s a pale summer morning, the harbor glazed with fog. I’m standing on the boat’s upper deck directing tourists aboard, gesturing to em...

Daniel Miller The man born with a Rubik’s Cube for a head has a headache. I know this because he tells me. We are sitting on my couch and the basketball game is on, but not so loud as to further ca…