Table of Contents, February 2026

Welcome to another installment of Table of Contents: a roundup of the latest short fiction hitting the web for the SF/F world.

You can check out last month's installment here – it's been newly updated with the stories that came out over the course of January 2026, and you can check out prior installments of this column here.

Amazing Stories (February 2026)

• "The ICE Man Goeth" by Tom Easton
• "All-Inclusive" by Bruce Strand
• "Ansible Report" by R. L. Farr
• "Commercial Ambitions" by D. M. Woolston

Apex Magazine (Spring 2026, Issue 152)

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Fiction

• "Unsettled Nature" by Jordan Kurella
• "Piglet Delivers" by Maria Haskins — 2/17
• "Shrinkage!" by Ashlee Lhamon — 2/10

Nonfiction

• "Musings from Maryland" by Lesley Conner
• "Intellectual Colonialism and the Erasure of South and Eastern European Writing Voices: Another Tikka-Masala" by Sophia-Maria Nicolopoulos — 2/5
• Interview with Author Maria Haskins by Marissa van Uden — 2/19

Beneath Ceaseless Skies (February 2026, Issues 450 and 451)

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Fiction

• "A Dirge for the Mirrorbirds" by Emily C. Skaftun
• "Precipice Sun" by Ewen Ma
• "Like Thorns on Her Tongue" by R.Z. Held
• "Medusa’s Ship, or The Thing About Bodies" by Natalia Theodoridou
• "Bloom Where You Are Planted" by Melanie Mulrooney
• "What Might Come of Today" by Leah Ning
• "To Atone for Evil" by Megan Chee
• "Hollow in The Hope" by Aimee Ogden

Clarkesworld Magazine (February 2026, Issue 233)

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Fiction

• "Remember Me in the Meat" by Sarah Pauling
• "Chip" by D.A. Xiaolin Spires
• "Think of Me Before I Disappear" by Raahem Alvi
• "A Sleeper Ship Is Like a Game of Go" by Claire Jia-Wen
• "The Iron Piper" by Fiona Moore
• "Painstaking" by Rich Larson
• "Three Fortunes on Alcestis as Told by the Fraud Baeliss Shudal" by Louis Inglis Hall

Nonfiction

• Will Tiny Black Holes Solve Dark Matter by Terry Franklin
• The Literary Buffet: A Conversation with James Sallis by Arley Sorg
• The Wondrous Nature of Existence: A Conversation with Michael Swanwick by Arley Sorg
• Editor's Desk: 2025 Readers' Poll Finalists by Neil Clarke

The Dark (February 2026, Issue 129)

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Fiction

• "In Absentia" by Suzan Palumbo
• "Nā Heʻe" by Wailana Kalama
• "Hunger" by Michael Kelly
• "Within the Pink Paisley Walls" by Kelsea Yu

Dark Horses Magazine (February 2026, Issue 49)

Fiction

• "Helpless" by Andy Kumpon
• "Whoever Said" by Stephanie Halldorson
• "Harold The Harbinger" by Rain Sullivan
• "02:28 Hours To Yuma" by Wayne Kyle Spitzer
• "The Queen’s Justice" by Solar Hoàng
• "I Miss You" by Jeremee Nute
• "Islands In The Stream" by Zeke Jarvis
• "Lifelong Sentence" by Robin J. Bartley
• "A Full Moon Botheration" by Lesley L. Smith
• "Long Ride Home" by John Tavares

The Deadlands (Winter 2026, Issue 41)

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Fiction

• in which orpheus is a hmong daughter" by Phoua Lee (poetry; online 2/2)
• "On the Anthology Entitled “Frames of Colour and Un-Colour" by Dmitri Akers (fiction; online 2/5)
• "Mushaboom" by Jeremy Morris (fiction; online 2/12)
• "Babe" by gray lindsey (poetry; online 2/16)
• "A Woman Is Screaming" by Joe Koch (fiction; online 2/19)
• "Sole" by Aliya Whiteley (fiction; online 2/26)

Nonfiction

• Bible Verses for the Dying and the Heathen by Robin Wheeler (nonfiction; online 2/9)
• Ask a Necromancer: C’est ici de l’empire de la Mort by Amanda Downum (nonfiction; online 2/23)

Flash Fiction Online (February 2026, Issue 149)

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Fiction

• “Me an’ Streeter (an’ Vince) Chase a Comet” by Christopher Degni
• “This Blue World” by Samantha Murray
• “A Thimbleful of Need” by Christine Hanolsy
• “Everyone Hates It When The Alien Shows Up At The Club” by Elijah J. Mears
• “A Lesson On Learning Your Place In the Universe” by Thomas Price, and
• “In Brightness and in Darkness, We Sit” by Christopher Blake

Future Tense Fiction (February 2026)

Fiction

• "What Would Akanda Do?" by Samit Basu

Nonfiction

• The Dividing Towers of Mumbai by Moira Shourie

GigaNotoSaurus (February 2026)

Fiction

• "The Winter of the Icebergirl" by Renan Bernardo

Lightspeed Magazine (February 2026, Issue 189)

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Fiction

• "Death Echoes Overlapping" by Megan Chee (2/5)
• "Six Sides of a Fairy Tale" by Audrey Zhou (2/5)
• "The Worldbuilder" by Phoenix Alexander (2/12)
• "Dream Destinations (From the Lost Traveler’s Tour Guide)" by Alexander Weinstein (2/12)
• "Sensor Ghosts" by Deborah L. Davitt (2/19)
• "The Salt and the Cure" by Rukman Ragas (2/19)
• "Warren’s Tentacle" by Susan Palwick (2/26)
• "A Handbook to Spirit-Hunting" by Modupeoluwa Shelle (2/26)

Nonfiction

• Editorial: February 2026 by John Joseph Adams (2/5)
• Author Spotlight: Megan Chee by Phoebe Barton (2/5)
• Author Spotlight: Alexander Weinstein by Erik Grove (2/12)
• Book Review: The Best Weird Fiction of the Year Volume One by Michael Kelly, ed. by Arley Sorg (2/12)
• Author Spotlight: Deborah L. Davitt by Robin Jeffrey (2/19)
• Book Review: The Hospital at the End of the World by Justin C. Key by Melissa A Watkins (2/19)
• Author Spotlight: Susan Palwick by Delia Cullity (2/26)
• Book Review: Reliquary by Hannah Whitten by Chris Kluwe (2/26)

Nature Futures (February 2026)

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Fiction

• "Eviction notice" by Celso Antonio de Almeida
• "18,000,000 minutes" by Spencer Nitkey
• "Mid-cycle update" by Lucien R. Starchild
• "The future perfect continuous passive and other transitive disorders of the mind" by Timothy Quinn

Nightmare Magazine (February 2026, Issue 161)

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Fiction

• "The Ghost in Apartment 5K" by Everdeen Mason (2/4)
• "Rest Stop" by Pedro Iniguez (2/11)
• "Twelve Facts About the Dermestid Beetle" by Marisca Pichette (2/18)
• "when i die" by Matthew Wollin (2/25)

Nonfiction

• Editorial: February 2026 by Wendy N. Wagner (2/4)
• Author Spotlight: Everdeen Mason by Devin Marcus (2/4)
• The H Word: Snakes Beneath the Kudzu by Elizabeth Broadbent (2/11)
• Author Spotlight: Marisca Pichette by Carrie Finch (2/18)
• Plumbing the Depths: Haunted Writers and Haunted Writings by Mike Thorn (2/25)

Reactor (February 2026)

Fiction

• "Agency" by George Sandison
• "Of Two Bloods" by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward
• "Deathcap" by Lara Elena Donnelly

Small Wonders Magazine (February 2026, Issue 32)

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Fiction

• "Drinking the Heron" by RJ Aurand
• "Straw Gold" by Mari Ness
• "Grief Trawling" by Suzanne J. Willis
• "Stop Thinking, the Kid Can Hear" by Lucy Eller
• "Mary’s Bag" by Marisca Pichette
• "The Beauty You Cannot Buy" by Marie Vibbert
• "A Simulacrum of Self" by Aimee Ogden
• "(Just) Alice" by Diana Olney
• "7 Things the Tychonaut Princess Elisabeth Did NOT Experience on her Marvellous Voyage to the So-Called Medicean Stars" by M. J. Pettit

Strange Horizons (February 2026)

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Fiction

• "Mother, Darling" by Allison Pottern
• "A Night with Hui ‘Enehana ‘Ike" by Maʻemaʻeolehua Matsumoto
• "The River Speaks My Name" by Ocoxōchitl la Coyota

Poetry

• "Plastic Paradise Awaits" by Josh Pearce
• "The Sunfish Considers Flotation Therapy" by Alison Clara Tan
• "Why You Don't Buy Your Wife a Dishwasher for Her Birthday" by Larina Warnock
• "The Point" by Darius Jones
• "They Leave" by Garth Upshaw
• "The Secret to Being a Dragon" by Carolina Marchioro

Nonfiction

• Statement on ICE Operations in the USA by the Strange Horizons staff

Reviews

• Monday: Spiderlight by Adrian Tchaikovsky by Andy Sawyer
• Wednesday: Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree by Anushree Nande
• Friday: Hazelthorn by C. G. Drews by Cameron Miguel
• Monday: Cathedral of the Drowned by Nathan Ballingrud by Matt Holder
• Wednesday: Arctic Knot by Ivan Leonov by Tristan Beiter
• Friday: Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905–1989 by Andrea Horbinski by Rachel Cordasco
• Monday: Into the Sun by C.F. Ramuz, translated by Olivia Baes and Emma Ramadan by Dawn Macdonald
• Wednesday: Lies Weeping by Glen Cook by Roz Kaveney
• Friday: Slow Gods by Claire North by Ian J. Simpson

The Sunday Morning Transport (February 2026)

Fiction

• "Wounds" by Celia Marsh
• "Realm of the Shorn" by David Bowles
• "The Definition of a Second" by Carrie Vaughn
• "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and birds that fly above the earth across the expanse of sky" by P. Lee

Uncanny Magazine (Issue 68, January / February 2026)

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Fiction

• Words That Wither, Words That Bloom" by Jules Arbeaux
• "The Memory Hounds of Bak-Ankham" by A. W. Prihandita
• "This Story Does Not Exist" by Kylie Lee Baker

Poetry

• "A Field Guide for Broken Sons in Transit by Joemario Umana
• "The Parsley Girl by Theodora Goss

Nonfiction

• I Write in English Because I Can by Jana Bianchi
• Frognative Dissonance by Riley Silverman
• Interview: A. W. Prihandita by Caroline M. Yoachim

Remember to check back at the end of the month for updates as new stories come online, and to let me know in the comments what caught your eye!