May was full of stories. Great stories, wonderful stories, frightening stories, EXCELLENT stories. So. many. stories. I share ten of them here, and there’s another ten for your reading pleasure at B&N:

• Read my short fiction roundup for May at Barnes & Noble’s SciFi & Fantasy Blog

Faint Voices, Increasingly Desperate, by Johanna DeNiro in Shimmer
This rich, devastating tale is so good it sort of gives me vertigo to read it. DeNiro vividly reimagines Freia and Odin, the world tree, life and death (silk worms!), AND gives you Freia living in Vienna, blood magic, and a shattering love story. This Freia is such a fantastic character – awesome and hot-blooded, vulnerable and powerful. It’s a story that took me completely by surprise from beginning to end, and I love that.

What You Pass For, by Melanie West in F&SF
With an old fence-painting brush, white fence paint…