A Tor.Com Original

Homecoming, by Susan Palwick, is a dark fantasy novelette about  a young girl on the cusp of womanhood who yearns to leave her village and go to sea with her...

The War is endless. It's time that's scarce.

The apocalypse has hit Monument, Colorado, and Jake Simonsen, captain of the football team, is caught in the middle of it. A series of escalating disasters,...

"Burning Girls", by Veronica Schanoes, is a fascinating dark fantasy novella about a Jewish girl educated by her grandmother as a healer and witch growing up...

The Syrena don’t trust many humans. Rachel is one of them. The story of how Galen met her – and how they bonded -- is both exciting and heartbreaking.

In a possible far future animals have taken over and democratized the world where humans once ruled. Tim, a lonely slime mold, is worried about his human pet...

Tom Teal and Albert Barnes are government employees tasked with visiting a hard-to-reach house and convincing its inhabitant, a member of the Zarene family...

"A Window or a Small Box," by Jedediah Berry, is a charming and weird contemporary novelette of magic realism about a couple about to get married who find...

In Ravka, just because you avoid one trap, it doesn't mean you'll escape the next. This story is a companion folk tale to Leigh Bardugo’s upcoming novel, Siege...

George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards multi-author shared-world universe has been thrilling readers for over 25 years. Now, in addition to overseeing the ongoing...

Gian returns to Sea-john from the Kingdom's wars certain that he has skills beyond killing, death and destruction. He needs to prove to himself that love is...

George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards multi-author shared-world universe has been thrilling readers for over 25 years. Now, in addition to overseeing the ongoing...

When one world brushes another, asking the right question can be magic…

"Fire Above, Fire Below" is about the crisis that the dying of a dragon living below a major city causes, and the pact made many years earlier to deal with...

Jack of Coins, by Christopher Rowe, is about a strange, amnesiac man who is befriended by a rebellious group of teenagers living in a repressive city. ...

Nina, one of the few descendants of human colony on Mars that was abandoned by Earth, is surprised to discover that she can breathe the toxic atmosphere of the...

People send their dreams and wishes floating down the Mae Ping River with the hope that those dreams will be captured, read and come true. It is a surprise...

Lane doesn't understand why people have such a hard time following directions. All these paintings are clearly marked "DO NOT TOUCH" for a reason.

In a village on the distant colony of Kiruna, the outcast Aino has worked hard to created a life for herself. The fragile status quo is upset when the...

Rag and Bone, by Priya Sharma, is about Tom, who buys unwanted household items and scavenges other materials (including bones) and resells them in an...

Life might emerge under the most unlikely conditions...or in the last extremity.

There's what we know...and what we assume.

Sent to Southern Arizona to investigate rumors of chupacabra running rampant, SEAL Team 666 becomes embroiled in Mexican cartel politics, the loss of one of...

Sometimes a game, even a sacred game, can have far-reaching consequences. In bear country young Skye learns just how far she is willing to go to play the game...

Terrain, by Genevieve Valentine, is a steampunk western about six diverse people living and working together on a farm outside a small town in Wyoming. The...

When a security breach is detected, the Memory Restoration Department is called upon to do what they do best: make you forget. But with every memory that’s...

In the near future water falls from the sky whenever someone lies (either a mist or a torrential flood depending on the intensity of the lie). This makes life...

Jeremy’s girlfriend is pregnant, and he returns home to the mountains to tell his drunken, ne’er-do-well father. The only thing Jeremy’s dad was ever good at...

After the sickness and quarantine almost destroyed the city, the traders arrived creeping out from the sea to live off the memories of those people left...

George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards multi-author shared-world universe has been thrilling readers for over 25 years. Now, in addition to overseeing the ongoing...

A collection of some of the best original short fiction published on Tor.com in 2012. Includes stories by Elizabeth Bear, Adam Troy Castro, Paul Cornell,...

By now, it's hard to tell how human my father still is. But we're still family. What that means...is another question.

The line between utopia and dystopia...is, often, who you are. Or who your neighbors think you are.

We are marked by what we have been. And erasing either of those can have unpredictable consequences...

This anthology includes short stories from six fierce young adult authors! Inside, you’ll find a futuristic zombie tale from Ann Aguirre, a science fiction...

Which is harder: seeing your own future -- or truly knowing your past? A science fiction tale of Christmases past and yet to come.

Lena’s not your typical animal trainer. And when she and her unicorn partner, Steve, decide to enter a fight, it’s definitely not your typical fight…

It is time. The boy must leave his family to serve in the Queen’s army. To be chosen is an honor. To decline is impossible. The boy is modified. He is trained...

A chilling tale of science, science fiction, and how we break.

Ah, love. A many splendored thing. Here is a rather unusual love story, sweet and strange as could only happen in the post-magical reality of the Indigo...

A Tor.com original short story by Leanna Renee Hieber.

In Ann Aguirre’s award-winning novel, Enclave, humans have taken refuge in colonies below ground. Here is the story of what drove them there, told through the...

Few know that the Great Chicago Fire was started deliberately, as a genocide of deadly creatures called Shades. Fewer still know that they didn't die, not...

Marbury is another world, a dark world that best friends Jack Whitmore and Conner Kirk have fallen into before. A stranger had given Jack a pair of glasses –...

The first piece of short fiction by popular Television Without Pity writer Jacob Clifton is like nothing we’ve ever read, a piece of postmodern steampunk...

In a world woven of secrets, a woman seeks a back-alley tailor for a sinister procedure, but she can't escape from her own tangled web of lies. The women of...

The third in Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Michael Swanwick's "Mongolian Wizard" series of tales set in an alternate fin de siècle Europe shot through with...

From the author of Rule 34 and Halting State, a tale of deception, engineering, and the most unlikely rocket propulsion technology imaginable.

The bracelet sits in his pocket, patiently waiting to be slipped around Gaia's wrist. Leon needs to see her again. He finds out that Gaia is delivering a baby...

From the Falmouth Historical Society Collection Cited as the only extant firsthand record of a mermaid encounter in New England waters, this deathbed letter...

The line between art and magic is a treacherous thing.

A second “Mongolian Wizard” tale from Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Michael Swanwick – continuing an epic of magic and deception in an alternate Europe...

It's hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean, and a hundred times too big to be a ship. It looks like nothing anyone ever saw. And it's crashed just outside...

Dylan has just moved to New Hampshire to live in a house his family has inherited from a great aunt he's never met. There he meets his cousin, a bully who...

A retelling of the Prince Lindwurm fairy tale, Brother Prince Snake is a story of love, sibling rivalry, and how a monster became King.

With "The Mongolian Wizard," Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Michael Swanwick launches a new fiction series at Tor.com -- beginning with this story of a...

“The feds aren’t going to fund you anymore. Not when your boss is a self-flattening radioactive pancake.” Desperate times call for desperate inventions....

This anthology includes short stories from five fierce young adult authors! Inside, you’ll find a magical mermaid tale from Anna Banks, a fantastical...

Ethan Kaille is a thieftaker in Colonial Boston, scratching out a living by restoring stolen property to its rightful owners. But unlike others in his...

There was a time when the woods near Duva ate girls…or so the story goes. But it’s just possible that the danger may be a little bit closer to home. This story...

On a savage backwater world, the last ragged survivors of an expedition to hunt down the infamous war criminal known as The Beast Magrison set off into an...

It was just a test report. Like one of many, many he’d written up in the past. Except this time, several of the test subjects are dead…” At first, Dr. James...

He is a mer-prince, she is the mermaid princess that his family orders him to marry so that their kingdoms unite. Grom dreads this arrangement, until he meets...

Doug and Judy have both had a secret power all their life. Judy can see every possible future, branching out from each moment like infinite trees. Doug can...

Old Man's War author John Scalzi's sendup of the heroic fantasy genre, now a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story.

Some things happen whether or not you clap your hands. A Tor.Com original.

I am American. We are all Americans. The year is 1942. A Japanese-American girl’s life is turned upside down by Executive Order 9066, and she must cope with a...

Some men are born monsters . . . others are made so.  In “Prophet,” Rance Ridley, the teenage son of a cult leader, lives on an isolated compound, disconnected...

To the Fringe…and Beyond.A Tor.Com Original.

Knowing the future is not about knowing the future. It’s about knowing which path to take.   Ilven comes from a family of Saints—future-tellers—but she knows...

Five stories inspired by the same painting. Contributors include Gene Wolfe, L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Gregory Benford, Michael Swanwick, and  James Morrow....

For centuries, the island nation of Redcap has been obligated to pay tribute to the powerful nation of Sylvanna.  Suffering under the heavy burden of the...

A collection of some of the best original short fiction published on Tor.com in 2011. Includes stories by Charlie Jane Anders, James Allan Gardner, Yoon Ha...

Do you believe in Santa? And in his terrible swift sword? A Tor.Com original.

In the war that never ends, dreaming the future is not an unmixed blessing.

You can't win a ghostly prank war with your dead big brother. Only survive it.

Award-winning science fiction author James Alan Gardner brings us Damon Runyon-esque tale of courteous guys, bulletproof dolls, and the fedora-clad spacemen...

A new, original science fiction story by Mary E. Pearson which features characters from and takes place in the near-future world of The Jenna Fox Chronicles....

With all the places ghosts could go, why do they keep hanging around me?

There is witchcraft in science and a science to witchcraft. Both will conspire against you eventually.

When we encountered the aliens, we thought we knew the story they were telling. But we were looking at the wrong end . . .

The electrifying prequel to VACATION by Matthew Costello, debuting this fall from St. Martin's Press. 76th Precinct, Union Street, Brooklyn - 8 a.m. NYPD...

It is December 1944 and Europe is still gripped by war. In the densely forested mountains of Belgium one of the conflict’s most brutal battles is raging. Cut...

In the history we know, General Robert E. Lee felt compelled to fight on the Confederate side, because honor (as he saw it) forbade him to take up arms against...

The aliens have arrived. And they want to Join. Yes, that means what you think it does.

Among the universe's civilizations, some conceive of the journey between stars as the sailing of bright ships, and others as tunneling through the crevices of...

This original short story tells the tale of how a girl named Mallow defeated King Goldmouth with the help of the Red Wind, Mr. Map, and many fairyland friends...

Long after the wars, there are things abroad in the world—things more than human. And they have scores to settle with one another.

There are ever so many ways to conduct a war. Only a few of them look like war.

Time travel, changing history, forestalling atrocities: it's not a job for the weak. For one thing, the things people in the future wear…...

After the end of the world, there's still love. And revenge. And a particular Glock Nine. A tale of post-apocalyptic Iceland, told in the manner of the ancient...

In a world in which horses survived to flourish in 13th-century America, the wars and rivalries of thirteenth-century Ireland have new players: the mysterious...

All politics is local. Even while the world is collapsing. A Tor.Com original story.

Professional actors Veit Harlan and his wife Kristi are happy citizens of the prosperous, triumphant Reich. It's been over a century since the War of...

In wartime, what price honor, when the odds are against you, the enemy is remorseless, and it is the eleventh hour? A Sheason who lives to help his people...

I share a house with Crazy Me. We get along, except when he sneaks out of the house to pretend to be me. If only it weren’t quite so true....

When the elves come out of the mirrors one Christmas, they send Sasha on a harrowing train trip to get back a brother she never knew she had....

"The Desecrator" is an original short story from the Draegaran Empire, by bestselling author Stephen Brust. This is a tale of the Hawklord Daymar, and of a...

Published continuously since 1968, Locus is the monthly trade magazine of the science fiction and fantasy publishing industry. Every February it runs an...

The goverment doesn't usually hire vampires, but they're willing to make an exception for Hilde -- after all, they're already got pyromancer Cal on the...

Layosah has lost five sons and her husband to her kingdom's endless wars; all she has left is an infant daughter and a dangerous idea.

When an ex-clown tries to go into the insurance business, he gets into monkey business instead.

Charlie is dealing with complicated grief, and even his therabot is out of ideas. But the back-alley grief counsellors might have something to help: it looks...

The mind has an amazing ability to heal itself, especially given the newest therapies, but Aaron's mind just won't cooperate. And neither will… he....

William Shakespeare is mightily out of sorts -- every scribbling wagtail cullion in London is shamelessly pilfering his ideas, and this new fellow is the...

The bugs eat metal and leave people and animals alone -- unless you crush one, and then they'll swarm and destroy everything they touch. When Kimball comes...

How many guys carry a parasail in their carry-on? And how many guys carry a key for every kind of car in their carry-on? Just one, and he's a TVA baby, and he...

What is there to do, when you have the power to do anything? John can fly, he can see through solid objects, he can take over the world and give it back again,...

Between the incessant music of the stars and the spectre of a giant squid caught inside a locket ball, it is difficult for Don Horacio to maintain a restful...

One February morning, H.L. Mencken walked into a Baltimore restaurant to have a bite and talk baseball with the owner, a has-been player named George…...

When a fire destroys her home and scatters her colony, Small Cat sets out to find the home of her ancestor, the Cat From the North, and to make her own name...

With EyesTM and EarsTM, everything can look and sound just fine, just like it used to be; it's quite a shock when they break down, though.

A story for everyone who ever loved the work of the late, great SF writer Cordwainer Smith.

Even ordinarily, cloudmining can be dangerous -- those silver linings are heavy and potentially lethal -- but it's nothing compared being a cloudminer on the...

Will Radio Jones's invention save the day? Can Amelia Spindizzy outfly all competition and outsmart the brains in jars?

Inspector Wilde is a rabid fan of tit-tat, the broadsheet arguments that get printed several times a day; the Chief Inspector thinks he's an idiot, but Wilde's...

True story: in 1954, Joe Baumann hit 72 home runs for the Roswell Rockets, the most exciting thing to happen to Roswell since the alien landing. Not to imply a...

There's a harpy with bronze wings living in the dumpster behind Desiree's building. She's ugly and she eats garbage, but she has a little kingdom back there....

Jaskey has a flashlight, a captive audience, and a story about the end of the world -- what could be better?

Harris Moffatt III, President of the Free United States and Prime Minister of Canada, has never seen Washington, D.C.; it belongs to the Krolp now, along with...

His grandma is just your average sweet, supportive, lipstick-wearing, enchilada-loving Christian Scientist. Yeah, and the aliens are just tourists....

Once upon a moment, the One spoke to He and She, and learned that infinity and eternity are slippery concepts. At best.

The next invasion won't be little green men landing their spaceship in the National Mall. It will start somewhere quiet, like a dark road at night…...

What's a horseman of the Apocalypse to do when the Earth has been picked bare, scoured clean, and burned black? Perhaps a spot of...gardening?

Some boys play baseball or computer games, but Brian keeps an army of shells in their dresser drawers. And every night, he fights for the honor of the Queen...

When Sam Gregory wakes up to find he has turned into a big cockroach, he is understandably dismayed. Luckily, the condition appears to be a little contagious....

Gretel has wires in her head. Gretel likes to pick wildflowers. Gretel is one of the subjects on the farm, and she is Doctor Gottlieb's responsibility, but she...

Earth wizard Olga Petrovic is falsely accused of the most heinous of crimes—the murder of two fellow wizards, one of them her own sister! To clear her name,...

What should be a simple summer internship in the county morgue is transformed into the most unusual experience of Lia Thantos’s life when she unthinkingly...

When a teenaged girl goes missing, her mother calls Kit Colbana, scion of an ancient line of warriors -- unfortunately, Kit's heritage doesn't impress the...

The question is, how can you tell the President's brain is missing? And are we sure we need it back?