Welcome, Stranger! This is a story for you, you who wait for my words to fall into your ear, so that we can share being and become more than we are alone. The tales I have to tell today are woven into this fabric that unrolls before you as I work my Loom. As to who or what I am, you have the right to ask, but I won’t tell you as yet. To be honest, I am not quite sure, myself. you. Be careful the way you drag me into a corner, shove me against the wall, dig your puny fists into my belly, and search me for valuables if you do not want to incur the wrath of my father ..read more

Looking for a terrific anthology full of scary and thoughtful stories? Arley Sorg recommends  The White Guy Dies at the End , edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker ..read more

Jo drives urgently as they race toward the star, not sure how far to go, racing because the baby is coming tonight, now, and He (a He, of course) is supposed to be born under the star, that’s how the story goes. The story, the new story and the old, begins with a visitor, a messenger. Molly had just logged out for the day when the monk knocked on her door ..read more

Are you looking for your next juicy read? Aigner Loren Wilson recommends The Eyes Are the Best Part ..read more

True love’s kiss works miracles. Everyone knows the story: The sculptor who carved a perfect woman, his own creation, and when he fell in love with her (and how could he have failed to fall in love with her, his own creation?) and kissed her ..read more

Nate doesn’t often receive wedding invitations. This year, he gets seven. To be fair, the first one is work, so he doesn’t even get to pick his outfit. But an olive-scented breeze squirrels joyfully through his hair; waiters bring out little triangles of flatbread ..read more

Jeanne Calment said she was 122, but there were questions. The records from 1875 were shaky, some of them deliberately burned. Tanaka Kane, 119, was on firmer ground, and then there were loads of others in the hundred-teens. For some time 120 seemed to be a firm limit ..read more

The story as it is told in the dry valleys north of Averon, where the only roads run down to the Cricket River and the only power is the freehold of Skadar, begins with a merchant envoy from the southern coast who traveled from Averon ..read more

You don’t know why you ask because you already know he can’t answer. A body is only a body when it has all its parts. And he—that beloved man you once hiked through Angkor Wat’s abandoned halls and root-choked courtyards with, who once pulled you from the dizzying edge of the Queens-Manhattan skywalk—is now just an unsightly array of incomplete parts ..read more

A fast-paced thriller that will appeal to science fiction fans? Yes, please! Chris Kluwe explains why he’s recommending  ..read more