At the beginning of each month, we here at Tor.com will post the next two months of our schedule of original short fiction. Check back monthly to get excited for upcoming short stories, novelettes, and novellas on Tor.com! Below the cut you’ll find information on new stories in April and May by Nicola Griffith, Genevieve Valentine, Dale Bailey, Mary Rickert, and more.
April and May’s fiction contains end-of-the-world parties, deadly basements, magic fiddles, Cthulhu, and more. To find out all the details, check below the cut.
April 2
“The Devil in America”
Written by Kai Ashante Wilson
Edited by Ann VanderMeer
Illustration by Richie Pope
Scant years after the Civil War, a mysterious family confronts the legacy that has pursued them across centuries, out of slavery, and finally to the idyllic peace of the town of Rosetree. The shattering consequences of this confrontation echo backwards and forwards in time, even to the present day.
April 9
“Something Going Around”
Written by Harry Turtledove
Edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Illustration by Greg Ruth
From the Hugo-winning, bestselling author of The Guns of the South, a tale of love, parasitism, and loss.
April 15
“What Mario Scietto Says”
Written by Emmy Laybourne
Edited by Holly West
Illustration by Greg Manchess
Despite all his disaster planning, and the bomb shelter he built under his shed, Mario Scietto was not prepared for the apocalypse that hit Monument, Colorado. A series of escalating disasters, beginning with a monster hailstorm and ending with a terrible chemical weapons spill that affects people differently depending on blood type, has torn the world as he knows it apart. “What Mario Says” is set in the world of Emmy Laybourne’s Monument 14. The final book in the series, Monument 14: Savage Drift, goes on sale May 6th.
April 22
“Cold Wind”
Written by Nicola Griffith
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustration by Sam Wolfe Connelly
“Cold Wind,” by Nicola Griffith, is a dark fantasy tale about a woman who enters a Seattle bar on a cold wintry night in the midst of the Christmas holidays, searching for something…or someone.
April 23
“The End of the End of Everything”
Written by Dale Bailey
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustration by Victo Ngai
“The End of the End of Everything,” by Dale Bailey, is an sf/horror story about a long-married couple invited by an old friend to an exclusive artist’s colony. The inhabitants of the colony indulge in suicide parties as the world teeters on the brink of extinction, worn away by some weird entropy.
April 30
“The Mothers of Voorhisville”
Written by Mary Rickert
Edited by Liz Gorinsky
Illustration by Wesley Allsbrook
From multiple World Fantasy Award winner and Nebula, Bram Stoker, International Horror Guild, Sturgeon, and British Science Fiction Award nominated author M. Rickert comes a gorgeous and terrifying vision of the Mothers of Voorhisville, who love their babies just as intensely as any mother anywhere. Of course they do! And nothing in this world will change that, even if every single one of those tiny babies was born with an even tinier set of wings.
May 6
“Among the Thorns”
Written by Veronica Schanoes
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustration by Anna and Elena Balbusso
“Among the Thorns” by Nebula-nominated author Veronica Schanoes is a dark fantasy taking place in seventeenth century Germany, about a young woman who is intent on avenging the brutal murder of her peddler father many years earlier, by a vagabond with a magic fiddle.
May 7
“The Madonna of the Abattoir”
Written by Anne Pillsworth
Edited by Miriam Weinberg
Illustration by Sam Wolfe Connelly
In Victorian-era Arkham, Redemption Orne observes that art is indeed long and life only too short when a painter chooses Orne’s wife Patience, mistress of the Outer Gods, for his model.
May 14
“The Litany of Earth”
Written by Ruthanna Emrys
Edited by Carl Engle-Laird
Illustration by Allen Williams
The state took Aphra away from Innsmouth. They took her history, her home, her family, her god. They tried to take the sea. Now, years later, when she is just beginning to rebuild a life, an agent of that government intrudes on her life again, with an offer she wishes she could refuse. “The Litany of Earth” is a dark fantasy story inspired by the Lovecraft mythos.
May 20
“Island in a Sea of Stars”
Written by Kevin J. Anderson
Edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Illustration by Stephen Youll
An adventure from The Saga of Shadows: The Dark Between the Stars.
May 21
“The Walking-Stick Forest”
Written by Anna Tambour
Edited by Ellen Datlow
“The Walking-Stick Forest,” by Anna Tambour, is a dark fantasy about a recluse who creates collectible walking sticks in post WWI Scotland by manipulating the woods somewhat like bonsais. He refuses a commission from a very rich, powerful man, never considering or caring about the consequences.
May 27
“Friends ’Til the End”
Written by Bethany Neal
Edited by Janine O’Malley
Illustration by Ashley Mackenzie
In “Friends ’Til the End,” death isn’t the end for Emily Winstead, not even close. She died with a wrong to make right, and she’s been given a second chance to set things straight. The only problem: her memories are hazy, she doesn’t know who to trust or even why she’s back, but she does know something about how she died broke the course of fate and it’s her ghostly mission to mend it.
May 28
“The Insects of Love”
Written by Genevieve Valentine
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustration by Tran Nguyen
“The Insects of Love,” by Genevieve Valentine, is a dream-like science fiction/fantasy puzzle about two sisters and several possible realities. The only certainty is that one sister gets a tattoo and disappears into the desert. The surviving sister is obsessed with insects and believes her sister has left her clues as to her disappearance.
