October 2026 Round-up and Short Fiction Miscellany

After a bit of a slow reading month, I’ve ramped back up in October, with a lot of sci-if/fantasy short fiction reviews and a couple seasonally-appropriate novels. Let’s take a look!

Short Fiction

I’ve posted four short fiction reviews this month, and I won’t repeat them here. But check out my review of Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume Two, Revolution in the Heart, this month’s Clarkesworld and GigaNotoSaurus, and Magazine Minis that dip into Apex, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Kaleidotrope, and Uncanny.

October Favorites

The Hydraulic Emperor (2018 short story) by Arkady Martine. Do I have some questions about the details? Yes. But everything else is dead-on in the story of an alien auction where the only acceptable bids are personal sacrifices. The lead’s yearning imbues the whole story with a sense of urgency, and even if the ending follows familiar story structures, it still delivers plenty of emotional impact.
Until the Cure (2026 short story) by Marissa Lingen. Am I sucker for stories about pressing on in dark times? Perhaps. Nevertheless, this story of eldercare and (magical) medical research in the midst of a plague delivers the goods. The reader can feel the lead’s desperation to make a difference and the slow coming to terms with that difference not being what she’d hoped.

Strong Contenders

How to Write a Suicide Note (2026 novella) by Leah Cypess. The investigation into the missing daughter of a pioneer of psychological modification brings the lead’s own modifications to the forefront of her mind. There are enough bad actors to give the lead room to investigate and to introduce plenty of narrative tension, and even if the ending doesn’t shock, both the narrative itself and the exploration of psychological control via technology are high-quality.
Njiran Folk Beliefs, Volume II (2026 short story) by Claire Jia-Wen. An exploration of folkloric monsters–told via snippets of interviews, with the occasional editorial comments–comes together into something more profound. The interview segments are short and disparate, making it hard to get a hold on a unified narrative, but even if there’s never a clear plot, it resolves into thematic implications that hit with real power.

Others I Enjoyed in October

Playing Nice With God’s Bowling Ball (2008 short story) by N.K. Jemisin. An early career work that displays flashes of Jemisin’s writing talent but doesn’t yet demonstrate her mature style. It’s a police investigation into something inexplicable, and it’s told well.
Passage of Earth (2014 short story) by Michael Swanwick. I did enjoy this one, but with some mixed feelings. It’s an alien story with some fantastic xenobiology and a narrative that spirals into increasingly unhinged horror, both of which put Swanwick’s writing chops on full display. But there’s also an enormous chunk of the story dedicated to bilious sparring between the lead and his ex-wife that makes for a more frustrating read. Is there such animus in the real world? Of course. But it comes through here in a way that makes the story feel more dated than its 12 years since publication.

Novels and Novellas

Reviews Posted

Homebound (2026 novel) by Portia Elan. A literary-leaning, three-timeline story without much driving plot but with plenty of found family.
The Girl with a Thousand Faces (2026 novel) by Sunyi Dean. A revenge-tinged ghost story that interrogates cycles of violence

Tar Vol on

Science Fiction and Fantasy