– Richard Thomas –

I miss high-stakes horror movies.

I miss not knowing who’s going to die. I miss not being able to telegraph the end. I miss protagonists that make bad decisions. I miss last-minute twists. What I really miss are lasting consequences. I miss horror movies where every bet is off save for one eternal rule: The Price.

This is the law of The Price. Imagine that in every horror movie, there is a troll under the bridge who collects the fare – The Price – for crossing over from the so-called normal world, or their ordinary existence, into the world of the dead or the damned or whatever else. Sometimes it’s a conscious decision to trespass across this boundary – a character decides to use a ouija board to contact a dead relative; a character uses a spell to hex a rival – and sometimes it’s not – a character makes…

December was full of wonderful short fiction, and in this monthly roundup I am making space for some special mentions.

• I’m very sad to say that December 2017 brought us the last issue of Gamut. I’ve really loved the strong voice and vivid dark/noir vibe of this magazine. Gamut published some of my favourite stories last year (and yes, they also published one of my own stories!), and I will sorely miss it. All the best to everyone involved with this publication.
• This past month I read The Fantasist for the first (but definitely not the last) time. It’s a magazine of fantasy novellas, and it looks rather brilliant to me. Read more about it. Check out their Patreon.
• Finally, December brought fabulous issues of Lamplight, Anathema, and Capricious. I’ve included stories from all three publications in this roundup, and I highly recommend them…

November seemed to disappear in a flash. I wrote a lot, and I didn’t read as much as I wanted to read. But then, that pretty much describes any and every month of the year… Here are 14 stories I read and loved.

An Unexpected Boon, by S. B. Divya in Apex Magazine. “Kalyani kept Mithraba close over the next few days and nights, watching the lightning beetle’s glow. She decoded his yes and no patterns on the first night: Two light flashes meant yes; one was no.” S.B. Divya tells a gripping story about magic and family and hard choices in a hard world. The perspective switches between Kalyani, a child who sees and experiences the world differently than the other people in her village; and her brother who is trying (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) to understand her, and allow her to be as she is…

Honestly, August passed in a bit of a blur. I was writing a story that had to be finished by August 31, and the kids were still out of school, so there was a lot of stuff going on. But, yes, there were still so, so many good stories to read.

Right before I put together this month’s roundup, Augur Magazine published their preview issue. This is a brand new Canadian magazine of intersectional, speculative fiction, and it is definitely worth checking out. The preview issue contains wonderful reprints by a range of fantastic authors that gives you a taste of what this magazine is all about. Augur is also running a Kickstarter campaign – so if you feel like supporting a new, pro-paying, Canadian-based venue… head on over and invest a few bucks.

The Lamentation of Their Women, by Kai Ashante Wilson at TOR.com. “They loped…