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  "description": "Summer readin' ",
  "path": "/table-of-contents-scifi-fantasy-horror-short-fiction-july-2026/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-07-02T18:14:17.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.andrewliptak.com",
  "tags": [
    "here",
    "Analog Science Fact and Fiction",
    "Asimov's Science Fiction",
    "Aurealis",
    "The New Thirty",
    "Crow",
    "A Good Age to Go",
    "The Reciprocal Relationship between AI and Pop Culture in the 20th Century",
    "Interview with Travis Baldree",
    "Paying for Impossibility—the Trade-off in Science Fiction",
    "Clarkesworld Magazine",
    "The Life and Times of the Extraterrestrial Potoo",
    "Cliff's Girl",
    "Focus",
    "The Animator and the Glazer",
    "Our Revels Now Are Ended",
    "This Is an Emergency Broadcast",
    "Nesting Behavior of Imported Species Troglodytes aedon on Planet Americearth",
    "Donut Brains and Skin Dreams: Aliens on Earth",
    "Art and Arcade Games: A Conversation with Tran Nguyen",
    "Horror And Absurdity: A Conversation with Meg Elison",
    "Editor's Desk: July Is for Survivors",
    "The Dark",
    "Gas Leak at St. Gentian",
    "The House Mother",
    "Please Turn on Your Magic Beam",
    "A Thousand Forbidden Weddings and a Song for Dead Darlings",
    "Flash Fiction Online",
    "Editorial: Deeper and Deeper",
    "Forever Magazine",
    "GigaNotoSaurus",
    "The Portishead Tunnel",
    "J. D. Moyer",
    "Grimdark Magazine",
    "Kaleidotrope",
    "“A Song in a Minor Scale",
    "“Warmer Welcomes”",
    "“The Bee Fairy”",
    "“Herschel Finds His Way Back to the Road”",
    "“A Family Forged”",
    "“Hark the Herald”",
    "“Itsy Bitsy”",
    "“Carina Sagittarius”",
    "“Jurassic Perk”",
    "“Uglifruit Two-Shoes”",
    "“Rift”",
    "“Endless Thirst, Undying Desert”",
    "“Enter Rumor, Painted Full of Tongues”",
    "“Apostrophe for the Monstrous”",
    "“a minotaur encounters banshees at a summer concert”",
    "“The Moon Makers”",
    "radon daughter”",
    "“Murmurations”",
    "“Whisper a Prayer Before a Walk in the Woods”",
    "Lightspeed Magazine",
    "Nature Futures",
    "Nightmare Magazine",
    "Uncanny Magazine"
  ],
  "textContent": "We're somehow over the halfway point of the year, and with it comes a new batch of short SF/F fiction. Something I didn't anticipate when I launched this column back in May 2025 was how dynamic it's been: I've steadily added a handful of magazines as I've come across them, and the list gets bigger and bigger each month.\n\nYou can check out last month's (newly updated!) installment here, and the prior installments here.\n\nThere's a wealth of short fiction out there, and if you find a story that you like, or a publication that calls to you: help them out. Subscribe, buy an issue, post about it on social media and encourage your friends and followers to check it out.\n\nHere are the short stories coming out this month:\n\n* * *\n\n## Analog Science Fact and Fiction (July/August 2026  _Vol. XCVI No. 7 & 8_)\n\nSubscribe here.\n\n### Fiction\n\n  * \"Red Ships\" by Tom R. Pike\n  * \"Go Forth And Multiply\" by Meg Elison\n  * \"Casual Brutality\" by Michael T. Kuester\n  * \"Dead God’s Algorithm\" by Auston Habershaw\n  * \"The Inheritance\" by Alyssa Abigail Aquino\n  * \"Conversations With Callie, Or The Synthesis Of Disdain And Love\" by Lettie Prell\n  * \"The Elegant Test\" by David Horn\n  * \"Variables In The Drake Equation\" by William Preston\n  * \"Sightseers\" by Nikolai Lofving Hersfeldt\n  * \"Disaster Relief\" by Jennifer R. Povey\n  * \"And Her Bones Made The Hills\" by Mel Hubahib Loja\n  * \"Falling\" by Jen Downes\n  * \"The Eemian\" by J.A. Schultz\n  * \"Churn\" by Andrew Dana Hudson\n  * \"The End Of The Line\" by William Paul Jones\n  * \"A Sky For The End Of The World\" by Gregor Hartmann\n  * \"Along the Farthest Shore\" by Robert Frazier\n  * \"Hope is an Illogical Concept\" by Fiona Perry\n\n\n\n### Nonfiction\n\n  * When a Greenhouse Goes Wild by Kevin Walsh\n  * Guest Editorial: As Above, So Below—and Closer Than They Appear by Howard V. Hendrix\n  * Unknowns, a Slice of Pi by Alec Nevala-lee\n  * Alternate View by John G. Cramer\n  * In Times to Come\n  * The Reference Library by Rosemary Claire Smith\n  * Brass Tacks\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n## Asimov's Science Fiction (July/August 2026  _Vol. 50 Nos. 7 & 8_)\n\nSubscribe here.\n\n### Fiction\n\n  * \"A Flame in the Dark\" by Sam W. Pisciotta\n  * \"Better the Devil You Know\" by Allen M. Steele\n  * \"Roma Delenda Est\" by Alan Smale\n  * \"Oliana’s Skull\" by Robert Reed\n  * \"Gumchew\" by Zack Be\n  * \"Last Train to Gertrude Stein\" by Sandra McDonald\n  * \"Brother Adalbert’s Last Shift\" by Karol Lagodzki\n  * \"Seeking\" by Gregory Marlow\n  * \"The Translation of the Sirens\" by Matthew De Abaitua\n  * \"The Hydrological Cycle of Souls\" by Minister Faust\n  * \"The Cosmic Knot\" by Geoffrey A. Landis\n  * \"Ghazal\" by Joshua Gage\n  * \"The Mussel Shell\" by Marianne Hoffard\n  * \"Someday We’ll Look Back on This and Laugh\" by Marissa Lingen\n  * \"So This Is The Middle Kingdom\" by Mary Soon Lee\n\n\n\n### Nonfiction\n\n  * Editorial: The 2026 Must Read Books Award by Emily Hockaday\n  * Reflections: One Thing Happens by Robert Silverberg\n  * On the Net: Worldwide Editors by James Patrick Kelly\n  * On Books by Paul Di Filippo\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n## Aurealis (July 2026, #191)\n\nSubscribe here.\n\n### Fiction\n\n  * \"The New Thirty\" by Anne Aulsebrook\n  * \"Crow\" by Kit Holmes\n  * \"A Good Age to Go by Adam Porkolab\n\n\n\n### Nonfiction\n\n  * From the Cloud by Dirk Strasser\n  * The Reciprocal Relationship between AI and Pop Culture in the 20th Century by Lynne Lumsden Green\n  * Interview with Travis Baldree by Trevor Howis\n  * Paying for Impossibility—the Trade-off in Science Fiction by Matthew Harrison\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n## Clarkesworld Magazine__(July 2026, Issue #238)\n\nSubscribe here.\n\n### Fiction\n\n  * The Life and Times of the Extraterrestrial Potoo\" by K. J. Khan\n  * \"Cliff's Girl\" by Fiona Moore\n  * \"Focus\" by Carlos Hernandez\n  * \"The Animator and the Glazer\" by Ju Chu, translated by S. Qiouyi Lu\n  * \"Our Revels Now Are Ended\" by Thomas Ha\n  * \"This Is an Emergency Broadcast\" by R.S.A. Garcia\n  * \"Nesting Behavior of Imported Species Troglodytes aedon on Planet Americearth\" by R.L. Meza\n\n\n\n### Nonfiction\n\n  * Donut Brains and Skin Dreams: Aliens on Earth by Gunnar De Winter\n  * Art and Arcade Games: A Conversation with Tran Nguyen by Arley Sorg\n  * Horror And Absurdity: A Conversation with Meg Elison by Arley Sorg\n  * Editor's Desk: July Is for Survivors by Neil Clarke\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n## The Dark (July 2026, 134)\n\nSubscribe here.\n\n### Fiction\n\n  * \"Gas Leak at St. Gentian\" by __ Sara Omer\n  * \"The House Mother\" by __ Kristi DeMeester\n  * \"Please Turn on Your Magic Beam\" by __ Orrin Grey\n  * \"A Thousand Forbidden Weddings and a Song for Dead Darlings\" by __ Ai Jiang\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n## Flash Fiction Online (July 2026, Issue 154)\n\nDonate here.\n\n### Fiction\n\n  * \"End of the World\" by Nick Ekkizogloy\n  * \"Seastrand Beyond\" by Anna Clark\n  * \"Fragments Recovered from the Wreck of the Seaglass\" by E. M. Linden\n  * \"A Perfect Light\" by Laura Duerr\n  * \"Kingdom of Steve\" by Nick Badot\n\n\n\n### Nonfiction\n\n  * Editorial: Deeper and Deeper by Rebecca Halsey\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n## Forever Magazine (July 2026, Issue #138)\n\nSubscribe here.\n\n### Fiction\n\n  * Proof of Concept” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch\n  * “We Are the Cloud” by Sam J. Miller\n  * “Mender of Sparrows” by Ray Nayler\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n## GigaNotoSaurus__(July 2026)\n\n### Fiction\n\n  * \"The Portishead Tunnel\" by J. D. Moyer\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n## Grimdark Magazine (Issue 47)\n\nSubscribe here.\n\n### Fiction\n\n  * \"Of Beasts and Bindings\" by Ken McEwen\n  * \"The Path to Kahinae\" by R.R. Virdi\n  * \"Cold Comforts\" by Matthew Ward\n  * \"A Hunter in Arin-Qin\" by Daniel Abraham\n  * \"That When I Waked I Cried to Dream Again\" by Ken Scholes\n  * \"Black Hearts and Bloody Murder\" by Josh Roundtree\n  * \"Reconnaissance Notes Episode IV. Scarper\" by Miles Cameron and Emma Burnett\n\n\n\n### Nonfiction\n\n  * The Pebble That Starts the Landslide: Richard Swan on The Infinite State. Interview by Adrian Collins\n  * REVIEW:  _Infinite State_ by Richard Swan by Adrian Collins\n  * REVIEW:  _Killswitch_ Protocol by M.J. Kuhn by Krystle Matar\n  * The Art of the Framed Narrative by Z.B. Steele\n  * REVIEW:  _The Demon Star_ by Jesse Aragon by Pete Barnable\n  * The Art of Awe: Jeff Brown on Fantasy Covers, Dragons, and Epic Scale. Interview by William MccLelland\n  * REVIEW: Dust of the Dead by Michael R. Fletcher by Z.B. Steele\n  * Hope Is the Teeth: Daniel Abraham on Compromise, Power, and Dark Fiction. Interview by Beth Tabler\n  * REVIEW: The Red Sacrament by Sara Hinkley by Fiona Denton\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n## Kaleidotrope (Summer 2026)\n\nSubscribe here.\n\n### Fiction\n\n  * “A Song in a Minor Scale\" by Gunnar De Winter\n  * “Warmer Welcomes” by Mia Xuan\n  * “The Bee Fairy” by E.B. Sommer\n  * “Herschel Finds His Way Back to the Road” by Alex Langer\n  * “A Family Forged” by Aaron Emmel\n  * “Hark the Herald” by Louis Inglis Hall\n  * “Itsy Bitsy” by U.M. Agoawike\n  * “Carina Sagittarius” by Josh Pearce\n  * “Jurassic Perk” by T.K. Rex\n  * “Uglifruit Two-Shoes” by Eliezra Schaffzin\n  * “Rift” by Uchechukwu Nwaka\n  * “Endless Thirst, Undying Desert” by Alex Yuschik\n\n\n\n### Poetry\n\n  * “Enter Rumor, Painted Full of Tongues” by Jennifer Crow\n  * “Apostrophe for the Monstrous” by Jonathan Duckworth\n  * “a minotaur encounters banshees at a summer concert” by Keira Perkins\n  * “The Moon Makers” by Elena Zhang\n  * \"radon daughter” by A J Dalton\n  * “Murmurations” by Ian Li\n  * “Whisper a Prayer Before a Walk in the Woods” by Shelagh Rowan-Legg\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n## Lightspeed Magazine (July 2026, Issue 194)\n\nSubscribe here.\n\n### Fiction\n\n  * \"You, Me, Us\" by Oyedotun Damilola Muees (7/9)\n  * \"Waru Waru\" by Ruth Joffre (7/9)\n  * \"Down in the Dim Kingdoms\" by Tobias S. Buckell (7/16)\n  * \"The Assumption of Maria\" by Max Gladstone (7/16)\n  * \"Hungry Like The\" by E. Catherine Tobler (7/16)\n  * \"FETSPACE\" by Rhiannon Rasmussen (7/23)\n  * \"The Punishing Animal\" by B. Pladek (7/23)\n  * \"If a Discarded God Can Change, So Can I\" by V.M. Ayala (7/30)\n  * \"Concerto For Wartime by Sean Williams (7/30)\n\n\n\n### Nonfiction\n\n  * Editorial: July 2026 by John Joseph Adams (7/9)\n  * Author Spotlight: Ruth Joffre by A Humphrey Lanham (7/9)\n  * Author Spotlight: Max Gladstone by Erik Grove (7/16)\n  * Book Review: _Back for Blood: Never Whistle at Night Part II_ by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., eds. by Arley Sorg (7/16)\n  * Author Spotlight: B. Pladek by Erik Grove (7/23)\n  * Author Spotlight: V.M. Ayala by Robin Jeffrey (7/30)\n  * Book Review: _We Interrupt This Program_ by Randee Dawn by Chris Kluwe (7/30))\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n## Nature Futures (July 2026)\n\nSubscribe here.\n\n### Fiction\n\n  * \"RS-232 and other forms of grief\" by C. A. Russell\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n## Nightmare Magazine (July 2026, Issue 166)\n\nSubscribe here.\n\n### Fiction\n\n  * \"The Plague Comes from Chinatown\" by Claire Jia-Wen (7/8)\n  * \"A Nebraskan Choir\" by Steve Toase (7/15)\n  * \"Annette Funicello Is My Dream Mouse\" by S. L. Coney (7/22)\n  * \"A Bargain Made in the Monster’s Shadow by Sam W. Pisciotta (7/29)\n\n\n\n### Nonfiction\n\n  * Editorial: July 2026 by Wendy N. Wagner (7/8)\n  * Author Spotlight: Claire Jia-Wen by Carrie Finch (7/8)\n  * The H Word: The Walls of the Box by Mary Berman (7/15)\n  * Author Spotlight: S. L. Coney by Devin Marcus (7/22)\n  * Interview: Chloe Lauter by Alex Puncekar (7/29)\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n## Uncanny Magazine (July/August 2026, Issue #71)\n\nSubscribe here.\n\n### Fiction\n\n  * “Leavetaking” by Tia Tashiro (7/7)\n  * “Learning the Loom” by P. Djèlí Clark (7/7)\n  * “This Is Just Another Carnaval Love Story” by Jana Bianchi (7/7)\n  * “White Lines on a Green Field” by Catherynne M. Valente (7/7)\n  * “Instructions for Becoming Fire” by Chisomaga Umenyi (7/7)\n  * “Six Views of a Speedster” by Gwendolyn Hicks (7/7)\n\n\n\n### Nonfiction\n\n  * “The  _Uncanny_ Valley” by Michael Damian Thomas\n  * “The Strange Worlds Among Us—of Turing, Trans People, and the Road to Laniakea” by Ryka Aoki (7/7)\n  * “Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with AI Slop 1969 AD” by Lizbeth Myles (7/7)\n  * Interview: P. Djèlí Clark by Caroline M. Yoachim (7/7)\n\n\n\n* * *\n\nAs always, let me know in the comments what you end up reading, and what you'd recommend to your fellow readers!",
  "title": "Table of Contents, July 2026",
  "updatedAt": "2026-07-02T18:14:18.280Z"
}