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 June and July by Yoon Ha Lee, Stephen Graham Jones, Kathleen Ann Goonan and more.
June and July’s fiction contains eschatology, time travelers, interactive theatre, Raymond Chandler, and much more. To find out all the details, check below the cut.
June 11
“Chapter Six”
Written by Stephen Graham Jones
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustration by David Palumbo
“Chapter Six,” by Stephen Graham Jones, is an anthropological zombie story about Crain, a grad student, who has a theory of mankind’s evolution. As he and his former professor scavenge on bone marrow left behind by the local zombie horde, he makes his well-reasoned argument.
June 18
“Combustion Hour”
Written by Yoon Ha Lee
Edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Illustration by Jeffrey Alan Love
A new original short story by the author of Conservation of Shadows. This story is about the eschatology of shadow puppets.
June 24
“Little Knife”
Written by Leigh Bardugo
Edited by Noa Wheeler
Illustration by Anna and Elena Balbusso
In this third Ravkan folk tale from Leigh Bardugo, a beautiful girl finds that what her father wants for her and what she wants for herself are two different things. “Little Knife” is a companion story to the third book of the Grisha Trilogy, Ruin and Rising, and the stories “The Witch of Duva” and “The Too-Clever Fox.”
June 25
“The Color of Paradox”
Written by A. M. Dellamonica
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustration by Jeffrey Alan Love
“The Color of Paradox,” by A.M. Dellamonica, is a science fiction story about one of a series of time travelers sent back to the past in order to buy more time for the human race, which in the future is on the verge of extinction.
July 2
“A Short History of the Twentieth Century, or, When You Wish Upon a Star”
Written by Kathleen Ann Goonan
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustration by Wesley Allsbrook
“A Short History of the Twentieth Century, or, When You Wish Upon a Star,” by Kathleen Ann Goonan, is about the daughter of a rocket scientist in the post 1950s who wants to go to the moon, despite being discouraged because “girls don’t do that.” A novelette that’s science fiction by association.
July 2
“The Devil in the Details”
Written by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald
Edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Illustration by Dominick Saponaro
A new adventure of Peter Crossman, special agent of the Knights Templar—a man prepared to administer last rites with one hand while wielding a flamethrower with the other. Now an ancient manuscript of peculiar power has surfaced, and Crossman’s assignment is simple: Get it for the Temple at all costs. This will lead to conflict with entities secular and otherwise—and to a new encounter with Sister Mary Magdalene of the Special Action Executive of the Poor Clares.
July 9
“Sleep Walking Now and Then”
Written by Richard Bowes
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustration by Richie Pope
“Sleep Walking Now and Then,” by Richard Bowes, is a weird, futuristic novelette about an interactive theater production in The Big Arena (aka New York City) and the mystery surrounding its inspiration.
July 16
“La Signora”
Written by Bruce McAllister
Edited by Ellen Datlow
“La Signora,” by Bruce McAllister, is a dark fantasy about a teenage American living in an ancient Italian fishing village with his parents. He’s invited by his friends to go night-fishing on one special night, and although he knows his parents would disapprove, he goes anyway.
July 23
“Brisk Money”
Written by Adam Christopher
Edited by Paul Stevens
Illustration by Gérard Dubois
Raymond Chandler famously hated science fiction, saying “They pay brisk money for this crap?” However, it has recently come to light that Chandler secretly wrote a series of stories and novels starring a robot detective. He then burnt all the manuscripts and went on writing his noir masterpieces. Unknown to Chandler, his housekeeper had managed to save some of these discarded manuscripts from the grate in his study, preserving the tales for future generations.
July 29
“The Colonel”
Written by Peter Watts
Edited by David G. Hartwell
Illustration by Richard Anderson
Colonel Moore is in trouble. His wife has retreated into a virtual heaven and his son remains missing after joining an extrasolar mission to track down an alien race. He is presently tasked by his superiors with the threat assessment of hived human intelligences, one of which successfully attacks a compound under his watch. Now, one of the strongest hive minds in the world approaches Moore with an offer that could completely change his world.
July 30
“A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Proposed Trade-Offs for the Overhaul of the Barricade”
Written by John Chu
Edited by Ann VanderMeer
Generation after generation, engineers have maintained the barricade, a shield that protects civilization against Turbulence, this strange force that destroys both minds and machines. As Turbulence grows ever more intense and the barricade begins to fail, can Ritter live up to the demands of his father, an engineer the equal of any hero in the Five Great Classical Novels, as they struggle to prevent this civilization from falling like every civilization has before it?
