“Humanity will die.” The first time he heard the instructors say that, he was a baby who’d just started school, with nothing more than a huge head devoid of any knowledge. That day, the instructors had been muttering among themselves when they suddenly asked him, “Who are you?” He stared blankly as he rummaged around […]

This story is sincerely dedicated to my Mother. 1 Tom called Adriana Honey-Bunny, and she called him Pumpkin. A moment by a window. An orange California morning. Tom snapped his fingers, the waiter understood and came and refilled his cup with fragrant coffee. The sun shone on their table and the street outside was crowded. […]

Strange boulders littered the Mountain of the Empty. They were ovoid in appearance and similar in size, their corners and edges smoothed away by the wind, so that even the moonlight shining upon them found no purchase. Like ghastly white skeletons, they lay half-buried in the earth, large and small. They all seemed to be […]

1. “Chi-a! Chi-a!” Just as dawn is about to chase away the night, the silence is broken by a distant, earth-rumbling chant. A roiling, dark column of smoke snakes toward the rosy clouds. The giant, towing a rusty furnace behind him, each stride infused with pride, marches into sight from over the horizon. Lit by […]

The transition was much easier than I had imagined. Standing by the console, I set the parameters following my usual observation procedure. I had memorized the numbers when Jin first mentioned them, and I double-checked his experiment records, just to make sure. I rotated the security knob counterclockwise, punched in the password number by number, […]

“My little girl once had a serpentine band that had scenes of red cliffs and white water carved onto it. Whenever she held it as she slept, she would dream of entering that world.” —Excerpt from “Notes about Yushan,” written in the early seventeenth century Prelude The water is not all that cold. It has […]

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My sandwiches will soon appear on the kitchen shelf. Grandpa An doesn’t eat sandwiches because he has cancer. He has only a couple of months left to live. That’s what the doctor said in the corridor, and when I overheard it, I cried all evening long. This had been two winters ago, when I was […]

Xu Haifeng sat down at the desk and tapped a button. Large screens slowly rose to surround him, like a three hundred and sixty-degree theater. All kinds of data scrolled on the screens in a never-ending torrent. Xu waved his hand and the screens responded, scrolls coming and going. When the capital flowchart revolved before […]

We are not so different, sister sojourner. Correct us if we are mistaken, but we are both creatures trying to survive under the most adverse circumstances, evading hazards, defying misfortune, and eluding death. We share more in common than you think. Yet we have never seen anything like you, a strange being from an equally […]

This is a small story, so don’t expect too much from it. The tale proceeds directly from beginning to end and wastes no time about it. Truth be told, I never thought the day would come I’d write it down. The first time I saw her, I didn’t think anything would happen. Nothing worthwhile ever […]

July 9th, 2089 The beast-catching mission was off to a rocky start. Once our spaceship cut into Lamo’s planetary orbit, Old Liu and I sent down atmospheric sensors and language-recording equipment. The data they beamed back informed us that the atmosphere was breathable without mechanical assistance, that the locals were one hundred percent vegetarian, and […]

“Old Liu, what do you say we keep a bird here in the space station?” I turned my head and asked, setting down my tablet. Old Liu’s full name was Liu Zixuan. He was three years older than me, the ranking officer in this humble little space station, commanding exactly one subordinate, one of the […]

The train hurled along at such speed my ears kept popping. We rushed through Voronezh in minutes. More accurately—through what was left of Voronezh. Where there had been a river, there was an empty trough. The fire had burned away the flesh of humanity here and retreated—for a time. Back when trains went slower, I […]

Master Hacker 11:30 a.m. knock, knock, knock. “Hey, Xuejiao, someone’s knocking at the door.” Aksha puts its paw on my face. “I know.” I roll over to my other side, pull the blanket over my head, and continue to dream happy dreams. knock, knock, knock. Aksha burrows out from under the blanket, stretches gracefully, and […]

1 Dong Fang still clearly remembers the joyous love of that rainy night. It seemed quite bad at first. After three years of dating and two years of marriage, their formerly shy and sweet explorations had become routine business. Nevertheless, he was in the mood that night. At 11:00 p.m. he turned off the light […]