June 2026 Round-up and Short Fiction Miscellany

It’s been a bit of a slow novel-reading month, but I’ve still been hitting the short fiction plenty hard. I’ve already shared some recommendations in my magazine reviews, but guess what? I’ve got more. Let’s get to it:

Short Fiction

June Favorites

Don’t miss my Clarkesworld and GigaNotoSaurus review or my Magazine Minis. There are several recommendations between them, led by Rebecca Campbell’s short novella “The Floating Republic” and Sydney Paige Guerrero’s short story “Remade, Reshaped, Remembered.” But I have other favorites to share:

“Trail Cam” (2026 novelette) by Benjamin Percy. I can occasionally get into themey horror, but just plain scary stuff? I can often appreciate it, but rarely am I blown away. This is one of the rare exceptions. The epistolary structure and camera conceit were sufficiently eye-catching to induce me to give it a try, but once this grabbed my attention, it never let go. It’s thrilling, it’s terrifying. It has the horror story structure that I so often don’t enjoy, but sometimes a story is just that good.
“Ghost in the Tank” (2026 short story) by M.R. Robinson. A visceral reminiscence by a virtual reality entertainer pining after a former opponent and lover who’d had the money to leave the job–and the relationship–behind. Fans of sapphic pining and toxic relationships will especially love this one, but the rawness of the characterization and an achingly fitting ending make this a great read for anyone who loves character-driven sci-fi.

Strong Contenders

“A Funny Thing Happened on the Limbhackers Forum” (2026 short story) by Katharine Tyndall. Told in a series of threads on the titular limbhackers forum, this is a story that wows with its verisimilitude, navigating a variety of discussions about high-tech artificial limbs, from affordability to theft to voluntary amputation. Readers who demand a central plot will be disappointed here, and I’d have liked a pinch more of a through line, but it’s thematically fascinating and just does a wonderful job capturing the feel of a small online subculture.
“Let’s Go to the Zoo” (2026 short story) by Louis Evans. Another story without much driving plot, this is a surreal and atmospheric reflection on sanity brought about by an excursion to the zoo to see the only sane human. It’s one that’s less interested in what happens and more interested in how you feel about it.

Others I Enjoyed in June

To be honest, my Hugo reading was a mix of misses and rereads, neither of which I include here. So it’s a short category this month, with one entry:

“Kaiju Agonistes” (2025 novelette) by Scott Lynch. A Cold War era satire in which an alien kaiju seeks to stave off nuclear conflict by being bigger and scarier than political rivals (and mostly fails), this one has some pretty silly plot points but is also a lot of fun to read. Which I believe was the point. Or at least one of the points.

Novels and Novellas

Reviews Posted

The Republic of Memory (2026 novel) by Mahmud El Sayed. The first half of a revolutionary duology set on a generation ship, this feels incomplete but is noteworthy for its tremendous building of cultures.
Palaces of the Crow (2026 novel) by Ray Nayler. There’s a bit of a corvid first contact plot, but this is primary a World War Two novel, one that eschews the typical military or prison settings in favor of the forests of Lithuania, where four youths spend the war trying to keep each other intact, both physically and mentally. It’s meditative in a way that Nayler’s stories also are, but the historical setting makes for a more focused narrative than his typical tech-suffused futures. It’s a lovely, bittersweet ode to mutual aid and will likely be my favorite book of the year.
Ode to the Half-Broken (2026 novel) by Suzanne Palmer. A post-apocalyptic tale in which a combat bot wrestles with its violent past and seeks to build a better future. A bit more plot-heavy than I expected, but there’s found family and strong characterization.
The Last Cuentista (2021 novel) by Donna Barba Higuera. A middle-grade dystopia on a generation ship, in which an aspiring storyteller who alone remembers old Earth seeks to free her fellows with kindness and myth.
Everybody’s Perfect (2026 novel) by Jo Walton. A short novel with nine distinct point-of-view sections featuring nine different first-person narratives from nine different worlds that intersect in a magical shadow of Venice. There’s a bit of overarching plot, but this is about the characters and the cultural and circumstantial differences that shape their choices.

Tar Vol on

Science Fiction and Fantasy