(8224 words, 42 minutes)
Carmichael flew in from New Mexico that morning, and the first thing they told him when he put his little plane down at Burbank was that fires were burning out of control all around the Los Angeles basin. He was needed bad, they told him. It was late October, the height of the brushfire season in Southern California, and a hot, hard, dry wind was blowing out of the desert, and the last time it had rained was the fifth of April. He phoned the district supervisor right away, and the district supervisor told him, “Get your ass out here on the line double fast, Mike.”

(3256 words, 17 minutes)
Something small and metal smacks against flesh. I swallow and turn. A woman with wings of iridescent blue stands on the road. Her wings stir the dust, sending a different wind skidding across the road.

(3844 words, 20 minutes)
“Is that your son?” Another mother sat down on the bench next to Tuyet. Tuyet nodded, barely taking her eyes from Vien. She ran the handiwipe over the ends of her fingers, trying to avoid the spots where she had rubbed the skin raw. “Where did he get his new lungs?” For a moment longer, Tuyet watched her son before turning to the woman. She held out a badge, her id and rank rotating ad infinitum in the holo over it. “I’d like to ask you to come to the station with me, Dr. Phan.”

(9065 words, 46 minutes)
Life as a statue is easy. They make you ascend the pedestal, turn you to stone, remove your ability to move, and leave you to watch the turn of the seasons in a world you cannot touch or care about, anymore. You can only stand in the public garden where all the convicted are placed, and you watch with dull and distant interest at the visitors who stroll past, living the lives of the quick, sometimes interested in all the immobile condemned, and sometimes not.

(9672 words, 49 minutes)
It’s been over twenty years since the last episode of Rotten Little Town, the smash hit occult western that ran for six seasons between 1993 and 1999, plus one two-hour reunion movie released in 2000 that wrapped up most of the dangling storylines in such dramatic fashion that it remains highly debated today.

(18038 words, 91 minutes)
Awards: Nominated for Nebula Best Novella...

(7187 words, 36 minutes)
Awards: Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winner; Locus Poll winner 1992.

(9226 words, 47 minutes)
Awards: Featured in Gardner Dozois’s ‘Year’s Best SF’, Twentieth Edition.

(111 words, 1 minute)
Mind-bending science fiction, steampunk, humor, and so much more can be found in our July, 2023 SciFiwise Magazine! Check it out!

(111 words, 1 minute)
Mind-bending science fiction, steampunk, humor, and so much more can be found in our June, 2023 SciFiwise Magazine! Check it out!