Dust Runner's Bet
"You're really going to race that heap of scrap?"
Sci-Fi & Fantasy stories
Sci-Fi & Fantasy stories. Sci-Fi & Fantasy stories, from quick reads to long series. Reads run 22 to 27 minutes. Writers to know: Sundown Wanderer, Glass Ritual and Shift of Ivory. Readers usually start with “Lost Key Found” and “Colony 7 Estate”. Ranked by how many readers finish them. Some are free to read in full; the rest open with a free preview.
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Sci-Fi & Fantasy stories, ranked by readers
41 42 Sparks and Ashes
Caroline Phlox was thirty-four years old, and she had learned the hard way, over the two years since a divorce and one year of a mostly…
43 Borrowed Time
I was twenty minutes into clearing out my locker on my Thursday off, wearing yesterday's sock because I couldn't find the other one, when…
44 Sour Mash
The mash smelled wrong.
45 Bet on the Vintage
The vat is winning.
46 The Spiteful Orbit
I'm Tyra Harlow, twenty-four, and I stack grocery store bargains like most people stack receipts.
47 Sixty and Screwed
The shift ended at 6:40 in the morning.
48 The Nebula Waltz
The gallery had been open exactly eleven months and two weeks when I decided to humiliate myself in public.
49 The Dawn Rep
Olwen woke with the sun striping the bed in yellow bars and no spell left in her skin.
50 Trades at the Veil
*This story was born from a bet I once overheard in a farmer's market: how much heat can two people who already trust each other carry in…
51 The Night Baker's Key
The ovens needed feeding at midnight.
52 Last Pour at the Refuge
Piper Benton was forty-three years old and she was wiping the same glass for the second time, which was a habit she'd picked up in the bad…
53 Last Night on Proxima
Six cycles.
54 The Cartographer of Borrowed Tides
Nadia Voss was twenty-eight years old, and her job was stealing memories out of the heads of things that could eat her.
55 Permanent Docking
I woke up with an arm across my ribs that wasn't mine.
56 Spite Date Zero
Lyla Metcalf was forty-two years old and she had been drinking bad coffee out of the same dented thermos lid for eleven years, and she…
57 Switch House
The job ran late.
58 The Deadline Loop
Karl Wilkes was thirty-six years old and bored out of his skull.
59 The Data Refinery Favor
My name is Casey Lowenstein, I'm fifty-two years old, and I came to New Ghent colony on Teth to disappear.
60 A Hot Truce in the Cold
Andrea Houston turned fifty-four on a Tuesday, which she considered the most honest of the weekdays.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy, by tag
Space station sci-fi & fantasyPost-collapse sci-fi & fantasyFantasy town sci-fi & fantasyNear future city sci-fi & fantasyPlayful and teasing sci-fi & fantasyAlien world sci-fi & fantasyWarm and nostalgic sci-fi & fantasyTender and slow sci-fi & fantasyNeighbors sci-fi & fantasyA couple who have been dating a while, not married sci-fi & fantasyRivals sci-fi & fantasyCoworkers sci-fi & fantasyWriters known for it
Sundown Wanderer, Glass Ritual, Shift of Ivory, Iron Contour