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SciFiwise Magazine
October 2024
A dramatic illustration of a pair of hands reaching for dark, blood red lungs against a background of abstract red and white light.
In this issue:
  • Mary Robinette Kowal
  • Adam-Troy Castro
A dramatic illustration of a pair of hands reaching for dark, blood red lungs against a background of abstract red and white light.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Mary Robinette Kowal (Horror, Science Fiction)

“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.”

A dramatic scene depicting two stone statues in a desolate, rain-soaked countryside. The standing figure, Holt, is weathered, standing over a second stone man lying supine in an unkempt patch of yellow grass. The second statue is half-buried in slush and filthy water from a recent snowfall. The background features barren trees and misty hills, with a gloomy sky overhead.

A Tableau of Things That Are by Adam-Troy Castro (Fantasy, Horror)

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.