Ruby Lee Becker is only 10 years old in 1935 when she sits at the double funeral for her grandmother, Alma, and baby sister, Nell, both of whom succumbed on the same day to the deadly dust plague. Ruby’s mother, Willa Mae, is frozen with grief. Just days later, Ruby falls ill with “dust pneumonia” […]
It’s 2212, and 17-year old Earther Weslie has won the Interplanetary Alliance Life Support Bot competition for her bot named ILSA, or Individualized Life Support Assistant unit 001. The prize is a first-class ticket on luxury starship The Boundless, scheduled to embark on its maiden voyage to Mars, a five-week trip. In this future, the […]
This collection abounds with bad decisions, traumatic events, and ominous conclusions. In an introduction, British writer Stuart Evers observes that “the lives Meyer depicts are small ones; ones lived in the margins of society.” The story “I’m Still Here!” follows a boxer—“a Black Dutchman from Rotterdam with a mashed-up face”—as he endures existential doubt and […]
When Frederick Heigold begins his tale of an unlikely cross-country sojourn, the year is 1906 and his intended audience is Jack London, who’s sitting at the table next to his at a hotel bar. The story isn’t being spoken out loud, however; Heigold has been mute ever since he was shot in the neck at […]
In response, Mr. Gill, a white man, tells a story from his childhood in New York City. Mr. Gill (referred to here as Daniel) and his friend Archie, who is Black, are excited to attend their friend Steve’s birthday party. Dressed in suits and ties, they arrive at Steve’s fancy apartment building, ride the elevator […]
Looking for a new start after her long-term boyfriend moved to California and she was passed up for several promotions, Kriya Rajasekar accepts her boss Arthur’s invitation to follow him to a new firm, Swithin Watkins. Her optimism about the new job is short-lived, though, as she soon discovers that she’s sharing an office with […]
Holt, a journalist who has written several books about overlooked women in history, here turns her attention to an odd gap in the world of natural history—namely, the lack of any formal record of the giant panda, “whose whereabouts, habitat, and behavior were still unknown” other than by anecdote outside China. Indeed, when Kermit and […]
Small town girl Billie McCadie has big dreams. A cultural linguist and Jane Austen fan with fantasies of working in a museum, marrying a “dreamy archeologist,” and living a life of “nerdy splendor,” Billie works as a seamstress in her hometown of Eastport, Maine. Everything changes the day she receives an envelope in her post […]
The story opens some time past the 2040s in an underground “pod” bunker, where 16-year-old Eten has formidable psychic powers and trademark silver hair. Her younger siblings share similar genetic traits, though not so strongly developed. Eten can teleport herself or other objects, divine other peoples’ thoughts to some extent, and, most importantly, fight and […]
Judith Drainger moves from London to Adelaide, Australia, at the age of 59 following two major life changes: the death of her domineering mother, Marigold, and her divorce. It’s a big adjustment, but Judith has been known to make such leaps before—years earlier, she sent her daughter, Cassandra, to boarding school and picked up and […]