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Often times with short fiction, I feel even more like I’m just scratching the surface when it comes to a given year. That may just be my imagination, but each issue, collection, and anthology I miss contains multiple stories, and new venues for short fiction are popping up all the time. No matter how valiantly I try, I just can’t read it all. That said, here are some of the short stories and novelettes that stood out to me the most from what I did read this year.

Early Adopter by Zack Be published in the January/February issue of Asimov’s is a bittersweet exploration of how technology isn’t a magic solution and sometimes may only make existing problems worse.

Shadow Films by Ben Peek published in the January issue of Lightspeed is a subtly eerie novelette about a man who receives mysterious scripts in the mail, leading him to believe he may be part of a dangerous conspiracy.

Nothing of Value by Aimee Ogden published in the January issue of Clarkesworld is a heartbreaking story that looks at the Ship of Theseus thought experiment as the main character travels back home to visit an old lover after a years using skip technology, which creates a copy and destroys the original, and while memories can be reintegrated, it’s also possible to leave memories behind.

The Handmaiden Alchemist by Marie Vibbert published in the January/February issue of Analog is an excellent story seething with quiet rage as Margot pursues her interest in alchemy, while fending off a creepy would-be suitor, despite it not being a suitable interest for a young lady in the 16th century.

The Blue Glow by Lisa Hosokawa published in khōréō is a gorgeous and painful story of a young suicide bomber returning to his deeply haunted village after his bomb fails to detonate.

Do Houses Dream of Scraping the Sky by Jana Bianchi published in the January/February issue of Uncanny is a beautifully written story of grief and healing as a grandchild packs up their grandmother’s house after her death and finds the house in mourning too.

Buddy Raymond’s No-Bullshit Guide to Drone Hunting by Gillian Secord published in Diabolical Plots is set in a near-future where the US is at war with Canada and drones regularly hunt folks down, unless you follow Buddy’s handy pamphlet for staying alive. The story adopts a light, folksy tone and packs an emotional gut punch, all in just a few thousand words.

Turtles to the Sea by Sandra McDonald published in the March/April issue of Asimov’s is a novelette that tells the intertwined stories of several members of a single family over multiple years, whose lives are inextricably linked with time travel and the sea.

Just You and Me Now by KT Bryski published in the February issue of Apex is a tense and unsettling story about a boy forced to go on a camping trip whose family members begin disappearing one by one after a stranger shows up at their campsite.

The Man in the Moon is a Lady by Ian Baaske published in the March/April issue of Asimov’s is a novelette with a strong voice that interweaves multiple story threads to create a dream-like tale of a lone female astronomer surrounded by male colleagues who invents a device that allows her to observe intelligent life on the moon.

There’s Nothing in the Attic by Faith Merino published in the March/April issue of Asimov’s is a satisfying time-loop story that draws on elements of the Gothic as the women in a family become convinced their house is haunted and use quantum science to prove their theory right, while the man of the house grows increasingly paranoid and controlling as a result.

A Brief Oral History of El Zopilote Dock by Alaya Dawn Johnson published in the March issue of Clarkesworld is a novelette set in a frighteningly plausible near-future Texas where the prison system has essentially brought back slavery, centering on two women helping folks to escape along the Underground River.

Swarm C1048 – Ethological Field Report: Canus Lupus Familiaris “6” by F.E. Choe published in he March issue of Clarkesworld is a brief gut-punch of a story, told from the perspective of collective alien swarm observing a post-collapse Earth, and coming upon a litter of puppies, one of which they become particularly attached to and follow throughout her life.

Median by Kelly Robson published at Reactor is a tense story of a woman stranded on a highway median, who begins receiving strange phone calls begging her for help even as she fails to find anyone willing to help her out of her own terrifying situation.

First Girls by Jessica Luke García published in the March issue of Nightmare is an effective flash piece that interrogates the function and stereotypes filled by the first girls to die in a slasher tale.

Our Very Best Selves! by Fatima Taqvi published in the March issue of Nightmare is a dark and unsettling story that does a wonderful job of hinting at horrible things happening just off the page, as a gaslighting and controlling husband brings his wife back to some semblance of life following a car crash.

The Lark Ascending by Eleanna Castroianni published in the April issue of Clarkesworld is a lovely and painful story of a bot left behind when its owner is taken away as a traitor, trying to communicate with its former owner’s daughter.

There are three children jumping over a can outside a bodega by Mark Galarrita published in the April issue of Nightmare is a brief but effective story about an influencer who treats people as commodities for consumption and fodder for his social media feed, with a satisfying dash of cosmic horror at the end.

Blackjack by Veronica Schanoes published at Reactor is a story about complicated family relationships and different flavors of love as Josie finds herself haunted by the ghost of her no-good ex-husband who comes to her asking for help escaping from a demon.

Those Who Smuggle Themselves into Slivermoon by Varsha Dinesh published at Strange Horizons is a gorgeously written novelette about class, access to opportunity, and an economic system designed to uphold the status quo where even the basic human right of having a body is reserved for those who can pay.

Twenty-Four Hours by H.H. Pak published in the June issue of Clarkesworld is the heartbreaking story of a mother who codes a virtual version of her deceased daughter so she can spend a last twenty-four hours with her.

Between Home and a House on Fire by A.T. Greenblatt published at Reactor is a novelette that explores the aftermath of a chosen one saving a portal fantasy world, exploring sacrifice and how much is “enough” when the portal fantasy world in question is always in need of saving.

The Maiden Voyage of the Piranha Belle by L.M. Guay published in khōréō is a lushly written story that explores colonizer mentality and the kind of rich asshole tourists who view the entire world as existing only to entertain them.

doorbell dot mov by Jennifer R. Donohue published in The Deadlands effectively explores survivor’s guilt in an eerie story of a protagonist plagued the ghost of their friends, who died in a car crash on the way back from a concert they were also supposed to attend.

Flipped by Leah Cypess published in the July/August issue of Asimov’s is an effective parallel world story, centering on Becka who finds herself dating the hottest boy in her class who has slipped over from an alternate universe where they’re together, but soon finds herself worrying that Jake is trying to turn her into that other version of herself.

Joanna’s Bodies by Eugenia Triantafyllou published by Psychopomp is a novelette exploring guilt and toxic relationships as Eleni finds herself forced to constantly find new bodies for her best friend Joanna to inhabit (and use up) after accidentally summoning her back from the dead.

The Fisherman’s Wife’s Son by Matthew Finn published in the March issue of Bourbon Penn is a surreal and twisty story about a man with prehensile, squid-like genitals, who is pursued by sinister doctors who claim to want to help him, while his reclusive neighbor writes manga about him that imagines him as a superhero, with art and life imitating and informing each other.

The Best Version of Yourself by Grant Collier published in the July issue of Clarkesworld is a lovely and bittersweet novelette that explores the concept of happiness and what it means to be human as a woman who refuses to augment her brain with nanites that can alter a person’s mood and make it so they never have to feel pain grapples with her mother’s decision to do so.

All Her Rows of Teeth by Jordan Kurella published in 3-Lobed Burning Eye is a story with a strong voice, following Caleb through his toxic relationship with his friend Allyssandra, who once again puts him in the path of danger when she decides to go hunting for the Vice Shark, a mythical creature that feeds on hedonism, but grants any wish if you can catch it.

Painted Surfaces by Guan Un published in the August issue of Nightmare is a flash piece about a man who discovers his wife is a monster, and decides he’s perfectly willing to stay silent regarding her appetites, therefore making himself complicit in her crimes.

Cicadas, and Their Skins by Avra Margariti published at Strange Horizons is a gorgeous and bloody story of transformation as a young woman who everyone in the village believes to be a witch teaches the other teenagers in the village how to slip out of their skins and become animals for a while.

The Five Rules of Spirit Binding by Sunil the Undying (Edited by Farah, Age 13) by M. Banerjee-Sholars published in Augur 7.1 is a lovely story about loss and healing, as Farah discovers a treatise on summoning spirits, but takes a compassionate approach both to the Yaksha she accidentally summons and the original author of the text.

Broken by Laura Williams McCaffery published in the September issue of Clarkesworld effectively uses reverse chronology to unfold the story of a woman whose life is not at all what she believes it to be.

Wiremother by Laura Mauro published in the September issue of The Dark evokes the story of Rapunzel in moody piece about Helena, who lives alone in a crumbling house with a nightmarish creature of wires and sharp angles and glass that has taken on the role of her mother and insists on isolating her and controlling her every move all in the supposed name of love.

High Performer by Jason Pangalinan published in khōréō is a fun story with a light voice and a serious, underlying exploration of identity, free will, and how we perceive ourselves versus how others perceive us, as Peace encounters Leon, who transforms into whatever someone wishes for in his presence, while kicking a rock and wishing she could kick her laptop instead.

The Circumambulation by James Van Pelt published in the September/October issue of Analog is an effective alien invasion story, which keeps the alien invasion in the background and centers on a couple caught in a crumbling marriage as the world falls apart around them.

The V*mpire by P.H. Lee published at Reactor is a brutal look at toxic online culture. Alex is coming to terms with being a trans girl, trying to explore her identity in the safe space of a tumblr fan group, but she falls under the sway of a vampire who accuses her of vampophobia, growing increasingly abusive and manipulative as he isolates her from her friends and eventually murders her mother, all while convincing her she is the horrible and hateful one and that everything happening to and around her is her fault.

Because Flora Had Existed. And Because I Had Loved Her by Anna Martino published at Samovar is a lovely and twisty story about a man unmoored in time, who must constantly redefine his relationship to the woman he loves as he encounters her at different points along her timeline.

The Slide by Oliver Stifel published in the November issue of Clarkesworld is a visceral story of a rally racer who is being pressured to win the World Cup, which examines government propaganda and the cost of war.

The House That Stands Over Your Grave by Kyle Piper published by Pseudopod manages to be simultaneously tense, creepy, and melancholy, examining guilt, loss, and loneliness as Lew lets the new kid in town convince him to accompany her to the local haunted house.

A Stranger Knocks by Tananarive Due published at Strange Horizons is a novelette that explores the age of silent film, specifically “race pictures” made for Black audiences and starring Black actors. A young couple house-sitting for a friend receive a visit from a compelling stranger who offers them a job driving him to different theaters, realizing only too late that he’s using his films to hypnotize and prey on his audiences.

One Becomes Two by A.D. Sui published in Augur 7.3 is a subtly creepy and atmospheric story about a couple researching a mysterious substance at a remote station in Greenland, which is causing strange behavior in the local wildlife. When one half of the couple shares that they are no longer invested in the marriage, the other proposes an unsettling solution to bring their relationship back in synch.

Climbing the Mountains of Me by Phoebe Barton published in Kaleidotrope is a sweet story about a woman who grows to vast sizes when she allows herself, but who usually tries to keep herself small despite the pain it causes her for fear of being judged by others.

Logoptera by Diana Dima published in Augur 7.3 is a gorgeous and heartbreaking story of a young woman who attends a college where everyone else speaks in wingless words, while her speech manifests as insects. The story is a painful examination of the idea of assimilation and giving up pieces of oneself in order to “fit in” and be accepted.

Spread the Word by Delilah Dawson published at Apex is a chilling and effective story that follows Will as he moves to a new town with his mother, but quickly discovers that the violence that plagued his old life appears to have followed him and is now spreading like an infection.

Pelt by Steven Archer published at Strange Horizons is a gorgeous and heartbreaking story about complicated family relationships and learning to see each other truly, as Louis, who dances under the name Luz, and whose skin occasionally molts – a physical manifestation of his emotional pain, a trait shared by the women in his family – agrees to return home for a visit, despite being estranged from his father and his mother never accepting him.

Sangronas! Un Lista de Terror by M.M. Olivas published in Uncanny is a beautifully written and occasionally brutal story of four girls who are harpy-like creatures, forced to hide their identities and live by certain rules in order to keep themselves safe.

The Painted Skin and the Final Stroke by Zhu Yixuan is a story full of gorgeous and lyrical prose, following two mechanical demons, one of whom asks the other to paint a soul for her so she can live on as a ghost as humans do, the two forming a beautiful relationship and learning to see each other more truly along the way.

A Lullaby of Anguish by Marie Croke published at Apex is a brutal and effective story of two sisters who took photographs of mer-creatures as children, each coping with their guilt in their own way as they are forced to reconcile with the pain they caused now that they are adults.

If This Flesh Were Thought by Matt McHugh published in the November/December issue of Analog is a procedural elevated by charming characters, where Officer Marie Dombroski investigates a murder seemingly carried out by a proxy body alongside a lawyer who uses a robotic proxy body of his own.

Derail by E. Catherine Tobler published in Bourbon Penn is an absolutely gorgeous story set in the author’s circus universe about loving someone you know you’ll have to say goodbye to, learning to let go, and learning to believe in the impossible.

Season of Weddings by Sharang Biswas published in Lightspeed is a charming story about Nate (aka Thanatos, god of death) trying to get over his ex, Thor, as he attends a series of weddings and carries out his work of ushering souls to the afterlife.

The Last Life of a Time-Traveling Cat by A.P. Golub published in Zooscape is a brief but heartbreaking story about a cat traveling through time to reunite with the revolutionary who rescued him as a kitten.

Once again, it feels like I’m only scratching the surface with this list, but I hope it helps you find something new-to-you to read and love!

It’s hard to believe there are only ten days left in the year. Right now I’m reading ahead to 2025, frantically trying to fulfill various blurb requests, even as I try to catch up on all the wonderful things that came out in 2024. As always, I know I’m only scratching the surface, but out of the novels I did manage to read this year, here are some that I loved.

A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock has a wonderful voice, capturing the feel of classic horror-science fiction like Frankenstein and The Island of Doctor Moreau. Set against the backdrop of science gone too far, there are charming relationships, especially the odd couple pairing of Gregor and Simon, embodying the stuffy, reserved, grumpy one who loves the slightly cheeky and playful one trope. But there’s also tension between them, rooted in Gregor’s all consuming passions and obsessions; like the best “mad scientists” he’s far more interested in whether a thing can be done than whether it should. Medlock offers up the perfect balance and blend of genres – Gothic, classic science fiction, and horror, while also telling a story about found family. The descriptions are lush, the world sumptuous, and there are some pleasantly creepy moments as well. Overall, it’s a book I would highly recommend.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell has received a great deal of praise, popping up on various best of the year lists with good cause. It embodies what Wiswell does so well – write horror that is also kind. Wiswell captures a great voice, and blends gore with humor and sweet characters who listen to each other, care for each other, and try to see the world through each other’s eyes. Shesheshen may be a semi-gelatinous being who uses the bones of the humans she eats to construct a human-like appearance to move through the world, but that doesn’t mean she’s solely monstrous, or stop a beautiful relationship from growing between her and Homily. There are several twists and turns along the way that complicate the characters’ lives, occasionally forcing them to face heartbreaking decisions, but at the end of the day, the novel centers compassion and choosing the person or monster you want to be in the world rather than letting your nature, family, or circumstances define you.

The Book of Love by Kelly Link is the author’s debut novel, and she absolutely goes all out in her move from short stories, with over 600 pages. There’s a subtle eeriness throughout, a sense of the uncanny, and a sense that there’s even more left off the page – a whole world beneath the surface of the one readers get to see. Laura, Daniel, and Mo return from the dead a year after their disappearance. They don’t remember the circumstances of their deaths, or understand why they’ve returned, and no one in their lives seems to recall them being dead at all. They’re tasked with learning magic by a man they believed to be one of their teachers, who in reality appears to be an ancient being, caught up in his own very complicated relationship with another ancient being who has plans of his own for Mo, Laura, and Daniel. The novel is gorgeously written, exploring complicated relationships, magic, the balance of power, and cyclical stories that come back again and again in different forms.

The Garden of Delights by Amal Singh has a similarly epic feel to the Book of Love, with a sense of a world that extends beyond what appears on the page. The writing is gorgeous, again delving into cyclical stories and struggles for power that recur across the ages. Singh uses a fantastical lens to look at colonization and the erasure of cultures and ways of life through the stories and histories that are taught, repeated, and officially sanctioned. The novel touches on the politics of cities, and again like Link’s book, the balance of power, both among humans and immortal beings. The novel is soaked in magic, but the world also feels real and lived in and the characters grounded. Overall, it’s a wonderful read.

Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay contains so many of the things I crave in horror fiction that it feels like it could have been written just for me: a character revisiting past horrors, a cult classic film that exists only in fragments, a story that blurs the line between reality and fiction with doubt threaded expertly throughout. It’s the kind of thing that Tremblay is supremely good at – is anything supernatural happening or is reality simply horrifying? Or can both be true? The novel is perfectly paced, revealing bits of potential truths over time, dealing with a possibly unreliable narrator, while also playing with the question of how we frame stories in order to cement truths and create legends. The story explores monstrousness and human cruelty, and again blurs the line between what is inherent and what is external. Do we create monsters, or merely react to them by becoming monstrous ourselves? It’s beautifully done and a very satisfying read.

The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister is another novel that has received a good deal of well-deserved praise. Like Tremblay’s novel, it plays with doubt, potentially unreliable narrators, and the stories we tell ourselves and others. A group of siblings grapple with their understanding of the world and their place within it after the death of their father dictates that the eldest son must dig a wife up from the bog, marrying this supernatural creature according to tradition and carrying on the family line. The novel is soaked in atmosphere, the setting of the crumbling house isolated in the bog being a character in its own right. Chronister plays with Gothic tropes, both leaning into them and upending them in interesting ways. There’s a distinct Shirley Jackson vibe at play, and yet the voice and the story are unique.

I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones delves back into slasher mythology – a subject the author has explored over multiple works – this time, centering on the killer. It’s not an easy feat to pull off, writing a book from the point of view of a killer and having that killer be sympathetic without making apologies or excuses for their killings or letting them off the hook. Especially in a world where the media routinely excuses actual killers – painting them as misunderstood lone wolves, quiet, polite boys who wouldn’t have killed anyone at all if only a girl had been nice to them that one time – instead of having conversations about systemic racism, sensible gun control, and mental health. But I digress. That isn’t what Stephen Graham Jones is doing here. Instead, he’s once again interrogating the rules of the slasher genre and looking at the human impact of that particular brand of horror. If we accept slashers as inevitable, a force of nature, the universe creating its own kind of balance, what does that mean for someone who finds himself infected and becoming a slasher against his will? Can he bend the rules to stop himself from killing? Is there any recourse, or is he doomed to repeat the familiar narrative? Amidst the horror, there’s a beautiful story of friendship, and the novel doesn’t forgive its slasher, but it still manages to keep his humanity at its core.

The City in Glass by Nghi Vo is absolutely gorgeously written, full of evocative imagery and lush prose. Like the Book of Love and the Garden of Delights, it suggests a larger world. It’s a relatively slim novel, but one that unfolds a deep and rich history, tracing through the various ages of the city of Azril as seen through the eyes of the demon that knows and loves it best. The vignettes and glimpses of the city’s history and its people weave together to give the sense of a place that feels lived-in and alive, and the slow-burning relationship between the angel and the demon, the city’s destroyer and it’s savior, is beautifully done. Taking the long view of history and the long view of the angel and demon’s relationship, and letting both play out over centuries works extremely well and each adds depth to the other.

Model Home by Rivers Solomon uses the tropes of the haunted house genre to tell a brutal story about broken family relationships, racism, and abuse. Like Tremblay and Chronister, Solomon plays with doubt and the way we frame stories in order to make sense of our worlds. Following the apparent suicide of their parents, Ezri returns to the haunted house where they grew up. Their family was the only Black family living in a gated white community, and as a result, their mother was almost fanatical about their right to belong and that nothing would drive them out of their home, no matter how bad things got. Now Ezri and their sisters are forced to unravel their shared past, trying to understand what happened to them as children – were they really being haunted, or do the fragments they remember of a Faceless Woman tormenting them point to something far worse? At the same time, Ezri’s daughter is facing horrors of her own. The novel is painful, and like much of Solomon’s work, it isn’t an easy read, but it’s well worth it all the same.

The September House by Carissa Orlando also takes on the haunted house genre, but from a completely different angle. Margaret is an older protagonist, and more or less the opposite of the typical resident in a haunted house. Haunted houses often seem to prey on newly-weds and young families who have poured their life savings into buying their dream home and can’t easily afford to move. Margaret and her husband, however, bought their perfect house after their daughter was grown; they could have left if they chose, but Margaret is determined to stay and find a way to make peace with the haunting. As long as she follows the rules, everything will be fine. And it seems like it will be, until her daughter shows up, looking into the mysterious disappearance of her father, Margaret’s husband, despite them being largely estranged. The ghosts are creepy and effective, the complicated family relationships well done, and the doubt woven throughout the novel adds an extra dimension. All in all, a very satisfying horror novel.

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher is for the most part more subtle in its horrors. Cordelia lives alone with her mother, a sorceress who has managed to keep her true nature hidden from the rest of the world. Evangeline isolates Cordelia and wields her power to control her body, making her Obedient whenever it suits her. Evangeline’s overriding desire is to move up in the world, marrying a rich man so that Cordelia can marry a rich man of her own in turn, and she will stop at nothing to achieve her goal. She sets her sights on the Squire, a lifelong bachelor, moving herself and Cordelia into his life, while poor Cordelia tries to keep her head down and avoid her mother’s wrath. Luckily, the Squire’s sister, Hester, sees through Evangeline’s facade, becoming an ally as Cordelia sets out to stop her mother from hurting anyone else despite her own fear. The book is full of wonderful descriptions, characters, friendships, and relationships. And of course, since it’s T. Kingfisher, there’s also a deeply unsettling and unnatural horse thrown into the mix too.

It’s wonderful seeing the increased appreciation for novella-length fiction over the past several years, with more and more publishers taking on works that sit perfectly between short short stories and novels. This year was another fantastic year for novellas, and even as I continue frantically trying to catch up on my reading, I want to shout out a few 2024 titles that particularly stuck with me.

Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine is full of lovely, dark writing and striking imagery, exploring what it means to see and be seen. It also offers up a very effective exploration of isolation and the need for connection in a world where meeting another person’s eyes can have deadly consequences. Moraine offers a fresh take on a post-apocalyptic/mysterious plague trope as a sudden rash of inexplicable violence sparked by eye-contact sweeps the world. The novella does a wonderful job of threading tension throughout, looking at what happens when the social contract breaks down and you can’t rely on anyone, or even trust yourself.

Haunt Sweet Home by Sarah Pinsker posits a mash-up between home renovation and ghost hunting, as Mara takes a job working on her cousin’s reality TV show that fakes hauntings for the camera while fixing up people’s homes. One could make a case for the novella as cozy horror. There are some genuinely eerie moments, but at the end of the day, Pinsker offers up a kinder sort of haunting, and the heart of the story is about a character finding her place in the world. The grounding details throughout, one of Pinsker’s specialties as an author, make the world feel lived in and the characters real, and the way the story plays with doubt and how we define “reality” is highly effective.

A Voice Calling by Christopher Barzak is the first novella published by Psychopomp, the same fine folks who publish The Deadlands, and they did an incredible job with it and all the other novellas they published this year. Button House has always been haunted, with layers of ghost stories interwoven with and informing each other. Barzak explores recurring trauma and tragedy that creates a cycle of hauntings, telling the story of a house that is a character in its own right, developing unhealthy relationships with a series of inhabitants across the years.

The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo is an excellent work of historical horror. Leslie is a frontier nurse, carrying trauma from the war, and dealing with a world that largely refuses to see and accept him as a man. His latest assignment sends him to a small backwoods town where the people are intensely suspicious of outsiders. There’s clearly something wrong, but no one is willing to talk to him. One of the few people who seems like he could be a kindred spirit is Stevie, an angry young man determined to court danger and push Leslie away at every turn. The novella is full of the slow-burning tension that Mandelo excels at and does a wonderful job exploring the concept of monstrousness.

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed is rife with gorgeous worldbuilding that feels like it extends beyond the page. Veris is recruited to retrieve two children who strayed into the woods, being the only person to have previously entered and survived. She’s threatened with death if she doesn’t succeed, left with no choice but to return to Elmever with all its terrible wrongness and face the ghosts of her past. Mohamed, as always, does a wonderful job of drawing readers into a world that feels lived in and familiar while also being beautifully dark and strange.

The Dragonfly Gambit by A.D. Sui is a sweeping space opera that feels epic even at novella length. Nez is a former pilot, forcibly recruited by the Third Daughter to help her win the war, bringing Nez face-to-face with her former lover and former best friend, both of whom abandoned and betrayed her. Sui perfectly captures the complicated and messy relationships between the characters, showing how passionate hate can slip over the line into desire. The novella also does a wonderful job looking at obsession, the cost of war, and how far the characters are willing to go to achieve their goals.

Lovely Creatures by KT Bryski unfolds its story gradually over the course of the novella, told from multiple viewpoints woven together to make a whole. Byrony is on a mission to get her sister back, finally tracking her down as the star attraction of a traveling carnival housed in the belly of a wooden whale. Doomsday Dot, as her sister is now known, sleeps in a glass coffin, and the stories say that when she wakes, the world will end. Bryski’s prose is, as always, lyrical and immersive. The story evokes fairy tales and the works of Ray Bradbury, but with a wholly distinct voice and feel of its own.

Countess by Suzan Palumbo is a queer, anti-colonial reimagining of The Count of Monte Cristo, touching on many of the same themes as the Dragonfly Gambit. Virika Sameroo is betrayed by the Empire she’s served loyally her entire life, accused of murder and exiled. After years in prison, she sets out to clear her name and exact her revenge. Like Sui’s novella, there’s a sweeping, space opera feel to this one as well. The worldbuilding is meticulous, and Palumbo does a wonderful job looking at the ongoing violence of colonialism, showing both the large-scale impact and the personal impact on one particular character.

The Transitive Properties of Cheese by Ann LeBlanc sends Millions Wayland, a cheesemaker, on a desperate quest to save her life’s work as she discovers her asteroid cheese cave is about to be hurtled into the sun. She transfers a version of herself into another body to confront Miller, another instance of her who thinks of himself as the original, who appears to have deliberately sabotaged her for profit. Wayland reluctantly teams up with another instance, Hattie, and together they plan a heist to save her cheese. While the concept seems to lend itself to a light and maybe even comedic buddy romp, LeBlanc adopts a more serious tone, exploring anxiety, dysphoria, guilt, and the sense of self. It’s all excellently done, offering a fresh take on a multi-body story that balances wonderful characters with weighty themes.

The Indomitable Captain Holli by Rich Larson, published in Clarkesworld Magazine, is a fast-paced novella with an excellent voice. Holli is given a mission by Puck, the goretoon puppet who has been communicating with her through her VR goggles, unbeknownst to her family. She needs to get to the very top of the very tippy-top of tower block she lives in, where she’ll be celebrated with a pirate party. When Holli’s older sister returns to find her missing from their apartment, she and her boyfriend Lemar set off on a mission of their own – rescue Holli. Larson captures the perfect voice, and does an excellent job with Puck’s manipulation of Holli, giving it a nicely creepy undertone and keeping his true motives hidden for much of the story. The element of doubt works well, and along with the worldbuilding and characters, the novella provides a nice look at the power of storytelling itself.

Une Time Machine, S’il Vous Plait by Peter Wood appears in the March/April issue of Asimov’s. Coffee mogul/billionaire Adeline Deveraux builds an experimental space craft, inviting two actors – Ruth Mulu and Matt Wallace – who appeared on a Star Trek-like Canadian sci-fi show in the 70s, and her brother Pascal, along for its maiden flight. During the trip, Ruth and Pascal are accidentally thrown back in time. Realizing when they are, they set out to change the course of their own histories – Pascal trying to shake his mother’s confidence in Adeline so he will inherit the company, and Ruth using her knowledge of the future to become a millionaire on a sports bet, buy out the production company for FTL, and make it a better, less sexist show. Eventually, Matt and Adeline end up in the past as well, launching their own quests to undo what Pascal and Ruth have done. Overall, it’s a very satisfying time travel story with a great voice that nicely balances touches of humor with more serious subject matter.

The year is winding down, I’m still catching up on all the wonderful work published in 2024, and I fully recognize that catching up is impossible. That said, every year, I try to shout out the the works that most stuck with me from what I did manage to read. Posts focused on novels, novellas, and short fiction, are forthcoming, but to kick things off, here are the collections and anthologies that I enjoyed the most this year.

Slow Burn by Mike Allen features gorgeous illustrations by Paula Arwen Owen, with stories that provide a nice sampling of horror and dark fantasy. I always enjoy revisiting stories I’ve read previously and discovering new ones. My favorite stories in the collection included “Strange Wisdoms of the Dead” co-written with Charles M. Saplak, “Falling is What it Loves”, the titular “Slow Burn”, “Abhor”, “The Butcher, the Baker”, and “Comforter”. I reviewed the collection in more detail earlier this year, and that review can be found here.

Limelight by Lyndsey Croal is another excellent collection published this year. The opening story, “Patchwork Girls” was one of my favorites, exploring the fetishization and sexualization of violence against women on film, as a woman made from lab-grown parts dies over and over again on camera until she finally finds a ways break the cycle. Another stand-out was “Hush, Little Sister”, a lovely, heartbreaking, and complex exploration of loss and grief, as Isabelle is forced to deal with the copy of her sister that her parents made after her death, once they die as well. Overall, the collection does an excellent job of using speculative fiction to explore the human condition, from science fiction, to fantasy, to horror, and everything in-between.

Death Aesthetic by Josh Rountree is a slim collection that packs a punch. I always enjoy Josh’s work, and as with Mike Allen’s collection, it was a pleasure to revisit stories I’d read before and discover ones that were new to me. One of my favorites in the collection happened to piece an original piece, “The Green Realm”, which has a nice subtle eeriness to it as the main character revisits childhood memories, returning to the site of a camping trip where something inexplicable happened. Another favorite was “We Share Our Rage with the River”, a dark animal bride story of women fished up from the river and forced into marriages.

The Crawling Moon: Queer Tales of Inescapable Dread edited by dave ring, is a wonderful anthology of gorgeous, decadent, and atmospheric stories. Everything Neon Hemlock publishes is pretty much a must buy for me, and this anthology did not disappoint. There’s an overall Gothic vibe, where crumbling houses, beautiful decay, and unhealthy and obsessive relationships abound. There really weren’t any stories that didn’t work for me, which is rare. In an overall strong anthology, my favorite contributions were by Hailey Piper, Lyndall Clipstone, M.L.Krishnan, Suzan Palumbo, E. Saxey, Marianne Kirby, E. Catherine Tobler, Natalia Theodoridou, Shaoni C. White, Bendi Barrett, and Caitlin Starling.

Northern Nights edited by Michael Kelly is a truly excellent anthology of Canadian horror and dark fiction. (Full disclosure, I do have a story in the anthology, but it would be one of my favorite reads of the year regardless.) Like Neon Hemlock, pretty much everything Undertow Books publishes is a must buy for me. The anthology captures what, for me, is one of the hallmarks of a lot of Canadian horror – a deep sense of place. Whether or not the environment is actively adversarial in a story, it frequently plays a central role. The stories in Northern Nights lean into that, full of rich, immersive sensory detail that immediately transports the reader to whatever locale is being described. My favorite contributions were by Simon Stranzas, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Siobhan Carroll, David Nickel, Rory Say, Premee Mohamed, and Camilla Gurdova.

Death in the Mouth Volume 2 edited by Cassie Hart and Sloane Leong is a worthy follow-up to the first volume. The anthology as a physical object deserves mention; each story is accompanied by an original illustration, and the design and cover art are compelling – bright colors and dark creatures, a combination that was true of the art gracing the cover of the first volume as well. My favorite stories were by Ana Hurtado, Nadia Bulkin, Xavier Garcia, J.A.W. McCarthy, Radha Kai Zan, and Alexandra Stochach.

Honorable Mentions (work published before 2024)

No One Will Come Back for Us by Premee Mohamed has picked up a whole host of award wins and finalist spots, and with good cause. It’s a gorgeous collection of dark fiction and horror. Pretty much every story in the collection sings, full of evocative prose suggesting lived-in worlds that extend beyond the page.

Out There Screaming edited by Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams has also received a good deal of well-deserved attention. It won’t come as a surprise that Jordan Peele has a good eye for compelling stories and in particular, compelling horror. I thoroughly enjoyed this anthology overall, but my favorite contributions were “Eye & Tooth” by Rebecca Roanhorse, “Invasion of the Baby Snatchers” by Lesley Nneka Arimah, “The Rider” by Tananarive Due, “Dark Home” by Nnedi Okorafor, “Flicker” by LD Lewis, “A Grief of the Dead” by Rion Amilcar Scott, “A Bird Sings by the Etching Tree” by Nicole D, Sconiers, and “Hide & Seek” by P. Djeli Clarke.

Out of the Window, Into the Dark is the latest fiction collection from Marian Womack, who was kind enough to send me a copy for review. The collection comes out November 16 from Calque Press, and is available for pre-order now.

The stories are divided into two sections, the first grouping primarily set in the future, looking at how the world and technology may change, but also reflecting on the past and what might be lost. “Pink-Footed” depicts a future where birds and many other animals have largely gone extinct, and as a result, food is scarce. While set in the future, the manners and speech of the characters harken back to another age. “The Museum” explores how memories are captured, and how technology impacts the way we remember and re-experience moments in the past. There’s an underlying thread of melancholy, nostalgia, and anxiety running through the stories – again, expressing fear and concern for the future while also looking back to the past.

The second section’s stories are set in the present day, but still resonate with unease and anxiety. Two of the standouts for me in the collection as a whole were “Ready or Not”, which effectively draws on horror imagery as the protagonist imagines then catches sight of her elderly neighbor silently standing just on the other side of the fence as if staring toward her property, her appearance subtly wrong and uncanny. Alongside the suggestion of supernatural horror, the story also deals with real world horror, with the protagonist stuck in an oppressive marriage full of microaggressions where her husband controls the finances and uses her status as an immigrant to further exert control. Unease hangs over the story with the edges of reality blurring and questions regarding the objective truth of the situation left unanswered.

The other stand out was the titular “Out of the Window, Into the Dark”, in which the protagonist recalls an obscure comic book series she and her friends were obsessed with as children, in which a stranger would appear at children’s windows in the middle of the night and take them flying out into the dark to witness things they shouldn’t – in particular the town’s secrets. She also recalls an incident as a child where she came down with a fever and hallucinated, or experienced, a journey right out of the comics, flying to the home of a man known as Odd Paul, and discovering a missing boy held captive in his shed. She and her friends go on to stage an improbable rescue, but afterwards, the boy swears up and down that Odd Paul died by spontaneous combustion allowing him to escape and that equally improbable story becomes the official one. Like other stories in the collection, it effectively explores the unreliability of memory, the way narratives shape our experience of the world, and blurring between reality, dreams, and imagination.

The publishers of Queer Mythology (Running Press) were kind enough to send me a copy of this lovely book to review. As the title suggests, it contains stories from around the world, retold by Guido A. Sanchez, with each story getting its own, lovely full-color illustration by James Fenner. Incidentally, Fenner also did the cover art for We Mostly Come Out at Night: 15 Queer Tales of Monsters, Angels & Other Creatures, and John Wiswell’s debut novel, Someone You Can Build a Nest In. His work is really stunning, and I highly recommend checking it out.

As Sanchez writes in his introduction, queer people and queer stories have always been part of history, all across the world. This collection is about reclaiming those stories, which have either been lost or erased, drawing on multiple sources and retellings to bring them back to light. While many of the myths do include death, violence, and cruelty – as myths often do – overwhelming, these retellings focus on the positive. These are stories of hope, affirmation, and love, and even when the characters suffer, the stories don’t linger on that suffering, but highlight the positive – as characters learn, grow, and come out stronger on the other side of loss and adversity.

It’s a slim volume, and each story is brief, perfect bite-sized myth that take readers all around the world. Sanchez writes a mini-intro for each story, putting it in context, and sharing a bit of history about the story itself – approximately when it first started to be told, or when it was written down, or the impact the story may have had.

This is the perfect book for anyone who enjoys mythology and/or queer stories. It absolutely brought me back to the books of mythology I read and re-read as a kid. I remember one book in particular – a hefty volume of Greek mythology whose stories and illustrations I returned to over and over again, inspiring a love of mythology in general. I can very much see Queer Mythology by Guido A. Sanchez, with its lovely illustrations by James Fenner, being exactly that kind of book for a young reader today, (or a reader of any age, really) sparking a love for story, and a desire to learn and read more.