The March/April 2021 issue of Hugo Award-winning Uncanny Magazine.
Featuring new fiction by Catherynne M. Valente, Dominica Phetteplace, Caroline M. Yoachim, Carrie Vaughn, Rati Mehrotra, and Sarah Pinsker. Reprint fiction by Alaya Dawn Johnson. Essays by Tansy Rayner Roberts, Sid Jain, Marieke Nijkamp, and Jay Edidin, poetry by Tamara Jerée, Brandon O'Brien, Terese Mason Pierre, and Ali Trotta, interviews with Caroline M. Yoachim by Tina Connolly, and Sarah Pinsker by Caroline M. Yoachim, a cover by Paul Lewin, and editorials by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas.
Contents:
The Uncanny Valley / Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas
The Sin of America / Catherynne M. Valente
The Perils of a Hologram Heart / Dominica Phetteoplace
Colors of the Immortal Palette / Caroline M. Yoachim
The Book of the Kraken / Carrie Vaughn
Eighteen Days of Barbereek / Rati Mehrotra
Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather / Sarah Pinkser
They Shall Salt the Earth with Seeds of Glass / Alaya Dawn Johnson
Deadly Frocks and Other Tales of Murder Clothes / Tansy Rayner Roberts
Seduced by the Ruler's Gaze: An Indian Perspective on Seth Dickinson's Masquerade / Sid Jain
Protector of Small Steps / Marieke Nijkamp
Please Be Kind to the Singularity / Jay Eddin
The Most Humane Methods Could Involve a Knife / Tamara Jerée
Lagahoo Culture (Part II) / Brandon O'Brien
Future Saints / Terese Mason Pierre
Of Monsters I Loved / Ali Trotta
David Brin's Uplift novels are among the most thrilling and extraordinary science fiction ever written. Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War—a New York Times bestseller—together make up one of the most beloved sagas of all time. Brin's tales are set in a future universe in which no species can reach sentience without being "uplifted" by a patron race. But the greatest mystery of all remains unsolved: who uplifted humankind?
The Terran exploration vessel Streaker has crashed in the uncharted water world of Kithrup, bearing one of the most important discoveries in galactic history. Below, a handful of her human and dolphin crew battles armed rebellion and a hostile planet to safeguard her secret—the fate of the Progenitors, the fabled First Race who seeded wisdom throughout the stars.
Airships and sky pirates! Brain Modification chips! Technologically enhanced nymphs! Shakespeare goes punk in this first volume of stories from Writerpunk Press.
Profits to go to PAWS Lynwood, an animal shelter and wildlife rescue.
Ask a bunch of eclectic writers to write stories inspired by one of the greatest dramatists of all time. Cast the stories in various punk genres: Cyber, Tesla, Diesel, Steam, Clock. Result: an innovative collection of stories inspired by the Bard, with a twist! Punk stories show the path not taken or the path that shouldn't be taken. Let us reshape your world.
Conrad Nomikos has a long, rich personal history that he'd rather not talk about. And, as Arts Commissioner, he's been given a job he'd rather not do. Escorting an alien grandee on a guided tour of the shattered remains of Earth is not something he relishes—especially when it is apparent that this places him at the center high-level intrigue that has some bearing on the future of Earth itself.
To Your Scattered Bodies Go is the Hugo Award-winning beginning to the story of Riverworld, Philip José Farmer's unequaled tale about life after death. When famous adventurer Sir Richard Francis Burton dies, the last thing he expects to do is awaken naked on a foreign planet along the shores of a seemingly endless river. But that's where Burton and billions of other humans (plus a few nonhumans) find themselves as the epic Riverworld saga begins. It seems that all of Earthly humanity has been resurrected on the planet, each with an indestructible container that provides three meals a day, cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, a lighter, and the odd tube of lipstick. But why? And by whom?
That's what Burton and a handful of fellow adventurers are determined to discover as they construct a boat and set out in search of the river's source, thought to be millions of miles away. Although there are many hardships during the journey--including an encounter with the infamous Hermann Goring--Burton's resolve to complete his quest is strengthened by a visit from the Mysterious Stranger, a being who claims to be a renegade within the very group that created the Riverworld. The stranger tells Burton that he must make it to the river's headwaters, along with a dozen others the Stranger has selected, to help stop an evil experiment at the end of which humanity will simply be allowed to die. --Craig E. Engler
All eyes were watching the eclipse of the Moon when the Wanderer--a huge, garishly colored artificial world--emerged. Only a few scientists even suspected its presence, and then, suddenly and silently, it arrived, dwarfing and threatening the Moon and wreaking havoc on Earth's tides and weather. Though the Wanderer is stopping in the solar system only to refuel, its mere presence is catastrophic.
A tense, thrilling, and towering achievement.
Winner of the Hugo Award for Best SF Novel of the Year!
Father Ruiz-Sanchez is a dedicated man--a priest who is also a scientist, and a scientist who is also a human being. He has found no insoluble conflicts in his beliefs or his ethics . . . until he is sent to Lithia. There he comes upon a race of aliens who are admirable in every way except for their total reliance on cold reason; they are incapable of faith or belief.
Confronted with a profound scientific riddle and ethical quandary, Father Ruiz-Sanchez soon finds himself torn between the teachings of his faith, the teachings of his science, and the inner promptings of his humanity. There is only one solution: He must accept an ancient and unforgivable heresy--and risk the futures of both worlds . . .