This month, I’m pivoting a bit away from my usual Magazine Minis habit, which typically involves sampling some sci-fi/fantasy new releases and dedicating small review sections to publications with multiple stories that catch my eye. The process this month is the same, the difference is that the focus has not been on new releases. Instead, I took a look through the last year of publications for a pair of Hugo-nominated semiprozines that aren’t on my regular rotation—On Spec and The Deadlands—and found a few tales that cried out for more attention. I’ll doubtless return to 2026 next month, but for now, let’s look back at some stories I missed in 2025.
The Deadlands
While The Deadlands isn’t on my usual rotation, it’s recommended often enough that I’d already read a couple stories from their early-year releases. But the back half of the year was completely new to me, and a pair of tales from the Summer 2025 issue cried out for a closer look.
I started with Miles to Go Before I Sleep by Beth Goder, which opens with the lead encountering Death—not for the first time—armed only with a bag of kazoos. Of course I had to know the story behind that (particularly having quite enjoyed Goder’s work in the past), but I was surprised to find a story less about dying per se and more about living with OCD. Death makes many appearances, as do the kazoos, in a tale that can be disorienting in its magic and metaphor but remains oddly compelling the whole way. The exploration of OCD benefits from the oblique treatment, and while it’s not always easy to see exactly how each piece fits into the tapestry, it’s a story that generally lives up to its eye-catching opening.
One More Episode by Ashok Banker is a surreal tale in which the ghost of the lead’s mother and the avatar of the sun have a standing date to watch Seinfeld episodes. As the world comes increasingly unglued, so does Seinfeld, which slowly starts breaking continuity and then logic and causality. And yet, it remains a moment of togetherness that’s a comforting anchor even when the end seems nigh. There are a lot of TV references here, but if you’re invested in the cozy-in-the-midst-of-apocalypse direction of the story, it’s enjoyable even with fairly minimal Seinfeld knowledge.
On Spec
On Spec was a Canadian SFF magazine that I don’t think I’d ever read when it was still publishing. But glances through tables of contents revealed a few authors I recognized, and brief story samples put a handful on my TBR.
The first was Little Bag of Wind by Danica Klewchuk, featuring a lead who spends a few hours each day socializing with and running errands for an elderly woman who shares her Ukrainian heritage. The woman’s stories don’t all seem to make sense, and this story’s presence in a speculative magazine pretty clearly signals to the reader that there will be a fantastical reason. But while that fantastical reason drives the plot, the true heart of this tale is just listening—especially to those who are often ignored or dismissed by society.
The Challenge Unit by Hugh A.D. Spencer also features an elderly character, but in a much more horrifying setting. Here it’s the lead, who has volunteered to undergo a series of experiments to try to help humanity understand an alien race. There are a lot of hallucinations here and a bit of body horror in a story that somehow manages to feel understated in the way it addresses ghastly experimentation and ineffable psychological changes.
Is House, Quartz, Home the third consecutive story I read from one issue? Yes. But I’ve enjoyed Kelsey Hutton’s work in the past, and premises of settling on an abandoned alien world tend to pique my interest. The main thrust of this story addresses that mystery directly, albeit in a pretty disorienting way, but there’s a significant subplot featuring the lead’s worries about colonizing and the ways in which the leaders of the small human outpost have chosen her and her partner as something of a mascot. I can see threads of connection between the two, but they didn’t fully mesh on my initial read—though the story kept my attention quite well even so.
Moving to another issue of the same magazine, The Bag of Holding by Liz Westbrook-Trentholm sees an old man with a bad knee and a missing hand become magically ensnared by the titular bag, soon to be joined by a wealthy woman who shares a connection to the war that took his hand. The thematic thrust of the story–about distribution of resources and the way the powerless are so often overlooked–comes through clearly enough, but it’s so saturated with magic and various interpersonal connections that it can feel like a whirlwind. I don’t believe this is an entry in an existing fantasy universe, but it often feels like one.
Finally, When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears by John Park is another story featuring humans trying to respond to the existence of a mysterious alien presence in the world. This one starts with the lead trying to manage the prickly elder stateswoman of their small mini-sub crew. But it soon becomes clear that he has his own secret mission, which prompts a lot of theorizing about the alien psychology and interrogating the ways in which they terrify both characters. This one develops a bit more quickly than I’d prefer, but the main plot remains compelling regardless.