"... In a final attempt to bring down my arch nemesis, weapons exhausted, I flung my watch and hit him at the back of the foot, causing him to fall.. Stunned he looked up at me and said "but my defenses were impenetrable, I was winning!", as I looked down at him, smiled slightly & said "Fool, time wounds all heels" ...."
shortstory
BCS #440 ebook is out early today at @WeightlessBooks & Kindle Store and for subscribers, featuring stories by returning BCS authors Jonathan Olfert and Julie Reeser @abetterjulie, behind cover art by returning BCS artist Jereme Peabody.
(Buying BCS ebooks or an ebook subscription at Weightless Books gets you stories a week early on your e-reader and helps us pay our authors and First Readers. Thank you!)
https://weightlessbooks.com/fiction/beneath-ceaseless-skies-issue-440/
https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Ceaseless-Skies-Issue-440-ebook/dp/B0FNH4MK1Y/
#fantasy #sff #litmag #shortstory #ebook
My latest read: "Rare Specimen and Other Stories" by S.J. Shank - Eager for a satisfyingly-swift swirl of speculative fiction? Give this one a look!
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7874245623
StoryGraph:
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/111ac15e-ba5d-4a59-ade5-a9e4e320885f
@specfic @scifi @horrorbooks @bookstodon
#specfic #scifi #horror #shortstory #collection #bookreview #bookreviews #bookrec #bookrecs #book #books #read #reads #reading #readingcommunity #booksofmastodon #readersofmastodon #bookstodon #booktodon
My fiction is in the new issue of The Kleksograph 
You can give my Gothic short story, Two Dreams, a read here (with apologies for PDF accessibility shortcomings!): https://www.kleksograph.be/ #ShortStories #ShortStory #Gothic #WritersOfMastodon
Edited 111d ago
Do you want to see me read my short story “Book of Shadows”? https://youtu.be/60na1zBCbpw?si=BL9TCr1dZFud6ynG
#bookstodon #fantasy #shortStory #authorreads @bookstodon @books@lemmy.ml @books
BCS #442, Seventeenth Anniversary Double-Issue, ebook out early @WeightlessBooks & Kindle Store and for subscribers, stories by James Morrow, Patrick Samphire, RJ Taylor, and Will McMahon.
The Morrow and McMahon stories go live on the website next week, but the Samphire and Taylor stories won't be out for a week after that. Buy the ebook, get them now, and support BCS paying our authors and First Readers.
https://weightlessbooks.com/fiction/beneath-ceaseless-skies-issue-442/ https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Ceaseless-Seventeenth-Anniversary-Double-Issue-ebook/dp/B0FS27GPXG/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory #ebook #litmag
Amplitudes is out and available! I have a story in this! The feminine aspect of the Holy One fucks a closeted trans woman! There are lots of other good stories too! Read it!
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/770919/amplitudes-by-lee-mandelo/
Edited 210d ago
New stories: the Patrick Samphire and RJ Taylor stories in BCS #442, Seventeenth Anniversary Double-Issue are live today, alongside the James Morrow and Will McMahon stories and McMahon podcast released last week, behind cover art by Bruce Brenneise.
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/issues/issue-442/
#fantasy #sff #litmag #shortstory
FREE short story! “Ondine’s Curse,” a 19th century historical fantasy with a mermaid. https://youtu.be/NmA-Ew-Drms?si=SOpSVRkkIMdpK5GL
#bookstodon #shortstory #fantasy #audio @books @Books@mstdn.social @bookstodon
FREE SHORT STORY! Saving Alan Idle, a story about a sentient computer program that previously appeared in Escape Pod. https://youtu.be/A7mEXacgd08?si=qwUY33Y2veBcgaTW
#bookstodon #scifi #shortstory @books @Books@mstdn.social @bookstodon
Scary BCS, for Halloween!
"Tithe the Bones, Sell the Blood" by @aahabershaw , BCS #368:
"The cards were crisp, almost brittle in Cédric’s hands; he ran his thumbs along the corners as he shuffled, feeling where he’d marked them during the game with the same needle in his ring he’d used to draw the blood to let him keep gambling. It all came down to this hand, this moment. The moment he was going to cheat the dead at their own table."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/tithe-the-bones-sell-the-blood/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory
*The Biggest Little Bill* - part tech satire, part civic noir - begins today!
Bill Hoppern is a Reno-area planner who just wanted to see his community grow. Everything was going fine until he finds himself up against a data-center boom, a wall of doublespeak, and his own middle age.
One for those bringing a conscience and a clipboard to the fight.
Read Part 1: "The Brushoff" now, with new scenes added every day this week. https://matthewreinbold.com/2025/10/27/BiggestLittleBill-01
Four stars:
Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr (1938) is the short story that inspired The Thing. It also feels like an influence for T. Kingfisher's third Sworn Soldier novella, What Stalks the Deep (2025), although it isn't mentioned in her afterword (while At the Mountains of Madness is).
https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_11/who_goes_there.html
NOW WITH NEW THUMBNAILS! Free short stories! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhQiWBjDWW3YFpjxqYO8F_WKtlRBCCvee
#bookstodon #sciencefiction #fantasy #shortstory #audio @books @Books@mstdn.social @bookstodon
FREE SHORT STORY: “Underworld,” a Greek-mythology-inspired Urban Fantasy
https://youtu.be/WZlqJYddebA?si=XGJhTruQuXlc_nTA
#bookstodon #shortstory #audio @books @Books@mstdn.social @bookstodon
Who's up for some corporate-gothic tech tragedy? Part 1 of 5 of my short story, Hurricane David, was posted today: https://matthewreinbold.com/2025/11/17/HurricaneDavid-01
The corresponding music playlist is also available from the Stories page: https://matthewreinbold.com/stories/
A look back at BCS stories of 2025! "Last Stop: Tomb City" by Justin Howe, BCS #433.
"Now, breaking and entering may be a sport in some scapes, but in most it’s an act much frowned upon. When the act is also accompanied by the removal of objects or persons, that frown brings with it severe repercussions. Simpler scapes than Usquayba might call what we planned to do larceny or abduction or, at the very least, breach of contract."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/last-stop-tomb-city/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory
The other day, I put "Sequoia" up into my PayHip store.
It's the first book I ever self-published, a cute short story that's difficult to define. There is time-travel, but also a shamanic quest, a tree-hugger and an old, grumpy guy. Also, my first queer character.
If that's your kind of thing, take a look!
“He looks much older than he is, for it is not quite twenty years ago that Johnnie founded the Society for the Abolition of Christmas”
—Muriel Spark, “The Leaf-Sweeper”
in THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES, published by @canongatebooks
1/2
https://canongate.co.uk/books/1371-the-complete-short-stories/
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #Christmas #shortstory #shortstory #womenwriters #20thcentury
![THE LEAF-SWEEPER
Behind the town hall there is a wooded parkland which, towards the end of November, begins to draw a thin blue cloud right into itself; and as a rule the park floats in this haze until mid-February. I pass every day, and see Johnnie Geddes in the heart of this mist, sweeping up the leaves. Now and again he stops, and jerking his long head erect, looks indignantly at the pile of leaves, as if it ought not to be there; then he sweeps on. This business of leaf-sweeping he learnt during the years he spent in the asylum; it was the job they always gave him to do; and when he was discharged the town council gave him the leaves to sweep. But the indignant movement of the head comes naturally to him, for this has been one of his habits since he was the most promising and buoyant and vociferous graduate of his year. He looks much older than he is, for it is not quite twenty years ago that Johnnie founded the Society for the Abolition of Christmas.
Johnnie was living with his aunt then. I was at school, and in the Christmas holidays Miss Geddes gave me her nephew's pamphlet, How to Grow Rich at Christmas. It sounded very likely, but it turned out that you grow rich at Christmas by doing away […]](/proxy/post_attachment/937899/f58f178ad6.jpg "THE LEAF-SWEEPER
Behind the town hall there is a wooded parkland which, towards the end of November, begins to draw a thin blue cloud right into itself; and as a rule the park floats in this haze until mid-February. I pass every day, and see Johnnie Geddes in the heart of this mist, sweeping up the leaves. Now and again he stops, and jerking his long head erect, looks indignantly at the pile of leaves, as if it ought not to be there; then he sweeps on. This business of leaf-sweeping he learnt during the years he spent in the asylum; it was the job they always gave him to do; and when he was discharged the town council gave him the leaves to sweep. But the indignant movement of the head comes naturally to him, for this has been one of his habits since he was the most promising and buoyant and vociferous graduate of his year. He looks much older than he is, for it is not quite twenty years ago that Johnnie founded the Society for the Abolition of Christmas.
Johnnie was living with his aunt then. I was at school, and in the Christmas holidays Miss Geddes gave me her nephew's pamphlet, How to Grow Rich at Christmas. It sounded very likely, but it turned out that you grow rich at Christmas by doing away […]")
“It was the time of year when things could change their nature. […] And already, my true love said taking my arm, we're past the shortest. Light is shaving the darkness off already, a couple of minutes a day. Have you noticed?”
—from 2008: “Do you call that a Christmas present?” – a short story by Ali Smith
A FREE BookFunnel Love Tale short read. No opt-in required!
https://BookHip.com/LVJVRAF
#shortstory #erotica #BDSM #restraints #butchfemme #readingcommunity #lgbtq #lgbtqia
@lgbtqbookstodon @bookstodon @sapphicbooks
Here's a story I wrote about a game my daughter invented when she was just about to turn 14. The game is called Old/Young and is about common experiences that happen over different generations. #oldyoung #shortstory #fatherdaughterlove❤️
“Of aal the fish there iss in the sea,” said Para Handy, “nothing bates the herrin’; it’s a providence they’re plentiful and them so cheap!”
Neil Munro (1863–1930) – journalist, novelist, short-story writer, & poet – was born #OTD, 3 June. Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of Herring discusses Munro’s PARA HANDY stories, as well as giving the full text of the tale “The Herring – A Gossip”
1/4
https://www.herripedia.com/para-handy/
#Scottish #literature #humour #shortstory #herring #19thcentury #20thcentury
Each of our lives has many facets/personas, and rarely does anyone get to see them all. In this story, Phil Petree shares his.
(I'm sure there are other names I didn't cover.)
Knock Knock by Kirsty Logan
Short Works – currently available on BBC Sounds
In Kirsty Logan’s new short work for Father's Day, Wilbur prepares to meet his dad for the very first time. But can he find the strength to face his fears?
Read by Jessica Hardwick
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002dc9d
#Scottish #literature #shortstory #shortfiction #audio #FathersDay