Ember to Ash
I was thirty-four that autumn, and I thought I knew every kind of tired.
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
81 82 Singularity Drift
I saw Nico four years before I ever touched him.
83 Served With Desire
The scentweave machines hum.
84 The Groundsman's Choice
*This one came from the image of a glass office above a golden tree and the ache of knowing something perfect has an expiration date.
85 The Taste of Her
The implant was Alec's idea, sort of.
86 The Signal Key
The shuttle from the surface took eleven hours and I slept through nine of them, which I counted as a personal victory.
87 The Missing Key
The sleet started an hour out of Reykjavik and never let up.
88 The Glass Adjuster
I was sixty-three years old and I had been retired for four years, which was why I was standing in the central plaza of the Dome at seven…
89 The Hour-Shift at Fort Sweeney
The way I heard it from the transport driver, the anomaly at Fort Sweeney was a big deal when it was found back in the eighties.
90 Reclamation Shift
My wrist-comp chimed the end of the shift right as I was finishing the last manifest line, and I sat there a second in the little office…
91 The Last Bid
Harley had been on Mira for two years now.
92 The Resonance of Old Wood
Sasha Hendricks woke up before the sun on her eighth anniversary with Russell, and she could not for one second figure out why.
93 The Auctioneer's Echo
The auction stage at dawn was the quietest place in Emberfall, and Tori Gunn had always liked that about it.
94 Cleaning the Wrong Hour
I took the night cleaning job because my son moved out in September and the house got too quiet.
95 Bone and Oil
Britt Thatcher was fifty-two years old and she had seen a lot of weird shit come through her shop.
96 The Weaver and the Officer
I had been running the Gates-Haven circuit for eight months before I ever stepped inside the pawn-and-weave shop on Tanner's Row.
97 The Fifteen-Year Crossing
*I wanted to write something quiet...
98 Debt of Light
I was fifty-two years old, thirty years in the Helios Fleet behind me, and I was floating in an airlock outside a temple, waiting for my…
99 Cinnamon & Copper
Shae Hartford was twenty-three years old and she had a problem, and the problem was not the dough sticking to her knuckles.
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Sundown Wanderer, Glass Ritual, Shift of Ivory, Iron Contour