First of all, a disclaimer. This list, like all my roundups and lists and reading recommendations here and elsewhere, is a selection of what I had time to read. It’s just a slice of what’s available, and no doubt I have missed stories that are awesome, because nobody can read everything.
Second, if you want to see all the stories I read and loved in 2018, check out my roundups and blog posts from this past year. This list is a selection drawn from those roundups and other things I’ve read, and the most complete account of the short fiction that impressed me this year is in all of those roundups and reviews.
- My roundups at B&N’s Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog
- My roundups here on the blog
- Novels, novellas, novelettes, short story collections and anthologies I read and loved in 2018
(Note: I will add stories to this through December, if I feel the need!)
Added in December:
Girls Who Do Not Drown, by A.C. Buchanan in Apex
Toothsome Things, by Chimedum Ohaegbu in Strange Horizons
Short stories:
White Noise by Kai Hudson in Anathema
We Head For the Horizon and Return with Bloodshot Eyes, by Eleanna Castroianni in Podcastle
Mother Tongues, by S. Qiouyi Lu in Asimov’s Science Fiction (Jan/Feb 2018 issue)
A Cookpot, a Knife, a Pile of Rags, by Virginia M. Mohlere in Cicada Magazine
Variations on a Theme from Turandot, by Ada Hoffman in Strange Horizons
Jewel of the Vashwa, by Jordan Kurella, in Apex Magazine
A Bond as Deep as Starlit Seas, by Sarah Grey, in Lightspeed
The House of Illusionists, by Vanessa Fogg, in Liminal Stories
Strange Waters, by Samantha Mills in Strange Horizons
Black Fanged Thing, by Sam Rebelein in Shimmer
The Heart of Owl Abbas, by Kathleen Jennings in TOR.com
Unplaces: An Atlas of Non-existence, by Izzy Wasserstein in Clarkesworld
STET, by Sarah Gailey in Fireside Fiction
Dead Things, by Becca De La Rosa in Shimmer
More Tomorrow, by Premee Mohamed in Automata Review
Find On Your Body the Bruise, by Maricat Stratford in Shimmer
Abandonware, by Genevieve Valentine in Lightspeed
Solace, by Nora Elghazzawi in Foreshadow
The Glow-in-the-Dark Girls, by Senaa Ahmad in Strange Horizons
The Home for Broken, by Sandra Odell in Godfall and Other Stories
From the anthology Sword and Sonnet:
- As For Peace, Call It Murder, C.S.E. Cooney
- A Subtle Fire Beneath the Skin, by Hayley Stone
- She Calls Down the Future in the Footprints Left Behind, by Setsu Uzume
- Words in an Unfinished Poem, by A.C. Wise
When the Bough Breaks, by Jaymee Goh in Mythic Delirium
Pigeon, Goodnight, by Angie Ellis in Flash Fiction Online
If It Were True Owls Dream, by Jan Priddy in Liminal Stories
Shadows and Bells, by Mari Ness in Kaleidotrope
To the Place of Skulls, by Innocent Ilo in Reckoning
When We Fall, We Forget, by Angela Slatter in the anthology Phantoms
Irregularity by Rachel Harrison in Apex
AI and the Trolley Problem, Pat Cadigan at Tor.com
To Blight a Fig Tree Before It Bears Fruit, by Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley in Apex
Yard Dog, by Tade Thompson in Fiyah #7
Mother’s Rules for a Burned Girl, by Rebecca Mix in Flash Fiction Online
The Starship and the Temple Cat, by Yoon Ha Lee in Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Swan Girls, by Angela Slatter from the paperback edition of her novel Corpselight
The Magician Deletes Her Feed, by Kate Lechler in Kaleidotrope
Stars So Sharp They Break the Skin, by Matthew Sanborn Smith in Apex Magazine
Bondye Bon, by Monique L. Desir in Fiyah
A Brief and Fearful Star, by Carmen Maria Machado in Slate
Quietly Gigantic, by K.C. Mead-Brewer in Strange Horizons
Irregularity, by Rachel Harrison in Apex Magazine
This Will Not Happen To You, by Marissa Lingen in Uncanny Magazine
The Steam-Powered Princess, by Aimee Ogden in Augur Magazine 1.2
Faint Voices, Increasingly Desperate, by Johanna DeNiro in Shimmer
What You Pass For, by Melanie West in F&SF
And Yet, by A.T. Greenblatt in Uncanny Magazine
Our Side of the Door, by Kodiak Julian in Lightspeed
Girl Singing With Farm, Kathrin Köhler in Reckoning
The Pull of the Herd, by Suzan Palumbo in Anathema
Logistics, by A.J. Fitzwater in Clarkesworld
One For Sorrow, Two For Joy, by LaShawn M. Wanak in Fireside Fiction
Snake Season, by Erin Roberts in The Dark
Mr. Try Again, by A. Merc Rustad in Nightmare
Fireskin, by Joanne Rixon in Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Lasciare Suonare, by Andrew Wilmot in Augur Magazine
Earn Your Breath, by Jamie O. Mayer in Cast of Wonders
When the Slipling Comes To Call, by N.R. Lambert in Pseudopod
Traces of Us, Vanessa Fogg in Giganotosaurus
Cry of Desire in a Shrouded Land, by Talisen Fray in Beneath Ceaseless Skies
The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington, by Phenderson Djèlí Clark in Fireside Fiction.
Seven Steps to Beauty for a Girl Named Avarice, by Emily B. Cataneo in Nightmare
Sandals Full of Rainwater, by A.E. Prevost in Capricious #9
A Thing With Feathers, by Jennifer R. Donohue in Mythic Delirium
Me, Waiting For Me, Hoping For Something More, by Dee Warrick in Shimmer
The Eyes of the Flood by Susan Jane Bigelow in Lightspeed
With Lips Sewn Shut, by Kristi DeMeester in Apex Magazine
Asphalt, River, Mother, Child, by Isabel Yap in Strange Horizons
The Miracle Lambs of Minane, by Finbarr O’Reilly in Clarkesworld
The Shrike, by Cameron Suey in PseudoPod
Ten Deals With the Indigo Snake, by Mel Kassel in Lightspeed
Magic Potion Behind the Mountains, by Jaymee Goh in Beneath Ceaseless Skies
One and Two, by Emma Osborne in Kaleidotrope
Marrow, by E.C. Tobler in Black Static #65
Phantom Limb, by Reiko Scott at The Book Smugglers
The Girl Who Ate Galaxies, by L’Erin Ogle in Syntax and Salt
True Crime, by M. Rickert in Nightmare
Ruby, Singing, by Fran Wilde in Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Rapture, by Meg Elison, in Shimmer
Ava Paints the Horses, by Ville Meriläinen in Cast of Wonders
The Anchorite Wakes, by R.S.A. Garcia, in Clarkesworld #143
For All His Eyes Can See, by Steve Rasnic Tem, in The Dark
The Passenger, by Emily Lundgren in Shimmer
Bones In the Rock, by R.K. Kalaw in Uncanny Magazine
To This You Cling, With Jagged Fingernails, by Beth Cato in Fireside Fiction
Vain Knife, by Dare Segun Falowo in The Dark
Hainted, by Ashley Blooms in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction July/August 2018
Heron of Earth, by Vajra Chandrasekera in Clarkesworld #141
A Thousand Tongues of Silver, by Kate Heartfield in Lackington’s Issue 17 (Spring 2018) – Gothics
The Thing In the Walls Wants Your Small Change, by Virginia M. Mohlere in Luna Station Quarterly
In the End, It Always Turns Out the Same, by A.C. Wise in The Dark
Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse, S.B. Divya in Uncanny Magazine
Leviathan Sings to Me in the Deep, by Nibedita Sen in Nightmare Issue 69
Stones in the Water, Cottage on the Mountain, by Suzanne Palmer in Asimov’s July/August 2018 Issue
Four-Point Affective Calibration, by Bogi Takács in Lightspeed
Bride Before You, by Stephanie Malia Morris in Nightmare
Humans Die, Stars Fade, by Charles Payseur in Escape Pod
Don’t Pack Hope, by Emma Osborne in Nightmare
Domestic Violence, by Madeline Ashby in Slate
When The Rains Come Back, by Cadwell Turnbull in Asimov’s May/June issue 2018
When the Letter Comes, by Sara Fox in The Book Smugglers
The Pine Arch Collection, by Michael Wehunt in The Dark
Godmeat, by Martin Cahill in Lightspeed
You Can’t Grow Corn on the Moon, Brendan Williams-Childs in Vulture Bones 3
Novelettes:
Speak Easy, Suicide Selkies, by E. Catherine Tobler in Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Lanny Boykin Rises Up Singing, by Jess Barber in Reckoning
The Other Side of Otto Mountain, by Ivy Spadille in Fiyah
The Inconvenient God, by Francesca Forrest published by Annorlunda Enterprises
No Flight Without the Shatter, by Brooke Bolander, at Tor.com
The Barrens, by Stephanie Feldman in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction(May/June 2018 issue)
The Word of Flesh and Soul, by Ruthanna Emrys at TOR.com
The Wyvern Rider and Those of the Land, by Jeremy A. TeGrotenhuis in Beneath Ceaseless Skies
El is a Spaceship Melody, by Maurice Broaddus in Beneath Ceaseless Skies
How to Swallow the Moon, by Isabel Yap in Uncanny Magazine
The Only Harmless Great Thing, by Brooke Bolander (novelette)
The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections, by Tina Connolly at TOR.com
Seven Months Out and Two to Go, by Rachel Swirsky & Trace Yulie in Asimov’s (March/April 2018)
Triquetra, by Kirstyn McDermott at Tor.com
Novellas
The Emotionless, in Love, by Jason Sanford in Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Umbernight, by Carolyn Ives Gilman in Clarkesworld
Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, by Kelly Robson
The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky – A Novella of Cosmic Horror, by John Hornor Jacobs
Maria Haskins 
Reblogged this on adaratrosclair and commented:
Woo hoo! One of my short stories made it to this list! 😀
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