As we open the back half of 2025, I’m continuing my monthly reviews of a couple short fiction publications I enjoy immensely: Clarkesworld and GigaNotoSaurus.
Clarkesworld
The July issue of Clarkesworld features five short stories and two novelettes, one of which is a translated piece weighing in at nearly 15,000 words. The issue opens with Missing Helen by Tia Tashiro, a story that I expected to catch my eye based on past experience with the author, and one that indeed did with its second-person narration and intriguing premise. It opens with the second-person protagonist being told her ex-husband is planning to marry her clone, setting off a tour of memories, from the highs and lows of their relationship to the difficult family situation that shaped the lead in ways it surely had not shaped her clone. It’s an exploration of nature and nurture that heavily features a romantic relationship but isn’t really about the relationship, intriguing the whole way through but perhaps missing a bit of power in the climax.
Next up is The Walled Garden by Fiona Moore, continuing the now six-entry series of linked stories that began with “The Spoil Heap.” Those who have read any of the other five can expect more of the same: a low-tech, post-apocalyptic world where the lead tries to foster a supportive, small-town collective of people who take care of each other and protect those around them from natural and unnatural ills. Like the other five, it’s an engaging and heart-warming story, and “The Walled Garden” adds another treat for returning fans in the form of glimpses into the lead’s time in the wilderness immediately following the apocalypse.
The first novelette, Welcome to Kearney by Gary Kloster, sees a childcare bot flee her owners and take refuge in a town-sized museum kept running by an antisocial steward with a penchant for fixing things. But the bot brings trouble on her heels, forcing the lead to confront things about himself that he’d have rather ignored. “Visitor compels recluse to open up” is not a new plot, but it’s an engaging tale with something to say about seeing the humanity in others.
The second novelette, by far the longest in the issue, is Serpent Carriers by K.A. Teryna, translated by Alex Shvartsman. Its length gives it the opportunity to build slowly, which it does via a series of stories told around a campfire that don’t have an immediately obvious connection. Despite a clear sci-fi setting, the story-within-a-story structure, metaphorical language, and lack of anchoring context gives it the feeling of a folktale, and it’s one of most compelling in the issue for the storytelling alone. It does ultimately come together for a recognizable conclusion, but there remains an abstract haziness that will likely divide readers.
Moving back to short stories, Bits and Pieces on the Floor by Eric Del Carlo features a company man trying to clear a planet of human habitation—by reasoning if possible and by force if necessary—before his organization ceases the terraforming efforts that made it livable during their resource-extraction. But it slowly becomes clear that this particular planet is significant to the lead not just for the job, but for its connection to his estranged, famous father. In a small space, it builds a compellingly complicated family story, and it’s comfortable with an ending that leaves things messy, leaving part of me wanting more and another part satisfied with the groundedness of a tale that refuses to tie everything up with an unrealistically neat bow.
A Land Called Folly by Amal Singh immediately draws the reader in to a beautifully compelling second-person narrative (though I admit I do have a weakness for second person) focused on difficult familial relationships. But while it kept me engaged the whole way, the story skips so quickly through pivotal moments in the life of the lead that there’s not enough time to really build to the emotional resolution. It’s a great start that probably needed a bit more runway to hit its full potential.
The fiction section closes with Hunter Harvester by Bam Bruin, which is both a story about trying to understand the strange fauna on an alien world and a story about the lead’s complicated feelings about the development of colony-mandated pregnancies. I often love first contact, and this one hits some of the high notes, but it closes in a pretty familiar way, and some of the debates about the colonial charter feel out of place for a lead who had signed up so long ago. Still an entertaining story, even if it doesn’t tread much new ground.
The nonfiction section starts with a science article that takes Jurassic Park as a jumping off point and digs into the conservation questions that would need to be answered before resurrecting extinct species. There’s also some sobering history about the causes of real-world extinction.
The issue includes two author interviews, with Annalee Newitz and Allison King, the latter of whose novel The Phoenix Pencil Company went shooting up my TBR. The editorial takes a momentary break from the chaotic landscape in short fiction publishing to celebrate some of the awards that Clarkesworld stories—or the magazine itself—have won or been shortlisted for this year.
GigaNotoSaurus
The long short story in this month’s GigaNotoSaurus is Water to a Goose by Sonia Focke, starring the survivor of what should have been a fatal accident in space. After waking up in an unfamiliar environment with a deeply strange, alien creature, she cycles through fear for her immediate future, grief for her fellows aboard the ship, and curiosity about her new companion. It’s a compelling tale focused mostly on the emotional development, but with the interpersonal progression prompting a dash of problem-solving in the end.
July Favorites
- Bits and Pieces on the Floor by Eric Del Carlo (short story, Clarkesworld)