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Table of Contents, July 2026

Summer readin'

Table of Contents, July 2026
Images: Analog, Clarkesworld and Uncanny Magazines

We're somehow over the halfway point of the year, and with it comes a new batch of short SF/F fiction. Something I didn't anticipate when I launched this column back in May 2025 was how dynamic it's been: I've steadily added a handful of magazines as I've come across them, and the list gets bigger and bigger each month.

You can check out last month's (newly updated!) installment here, and the prior installments here.

There's a wealth of short fiction out there, and if you find a story that you like, or a publication that calls to you: help them out. Subscribe, buy an issue, post about it on social media and encourage your friends and followers to check it out.

Here are the short stories coming out this month:

Amazing Stories (July 2026)

Fiction

Analog Science Fact and Fiction (July/August 2026 Vol. XCVI No. 7 & 8)

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Fiction

  • "Red Ships" by Tom R. Pike
  • "Go Forth And Multiply" by Meg Elison
  • "Casual Brutality" by Michael T. Kuester
  • "Dead God’s Algorithm" by Auston Habershaw
  • "The Inheritance" by Alyssa Abigail Aquino
  • "Conversations With Callie, Or The Synthesis Of Disdain And Love" by Lettie Prell
  • "The Elegant Test" by David Horn
  • "Variables In The Drake Equation" by William Preston
  • "Sightseers" by Nikolai Lofving Hersfeldt
  • "Disaster Relief" by Jennifer R. Povey
  • "And Her Bones Made The Hills" by Mel Hubahib Loja
  • "Falling" by Jen Downes
  • "The Eemian" by J.A. Schultz
  • "Churn" by Andrew Dana Hudson
  • "The End Of The Line" by William Paul Jones
  • "A Sky For The End Of The World" by Gregor Hartmann
  • "Along the Farthest Shore" by Robert Frazier
  • "Hope is an Illogical Concept" by Fiona Perry

Nonfiction

  • When a Greenhouse Goes Wild by Kevin Walsh
  • Guest Editorial: As Above, So Below—and Closer Than They Appear by Howard V. Hendrix
  • Unknowns, a Slice of Pi by Alec Nevala-lee
  • Alternate View by John G. Cramer
  • In Times to Come
  • The Reference Library by Rosemary Claire Smith
  • Brass Tacks

Asimov's Science Fiction (July/August 2026 Vol. 50 Nos. 7 & 8)

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Fiction

  • "A Flame in the Dark" by Sam W. Pisciotta
  • "Better the Devil You Know" by Allen M. Steele
  • "Roma Delenda Est" by Alan Smale
  • "Oliana’s Skull" by Robert Reed
  • "Gumchew" by Zack Be
  • "Last Train to Gertrude Stein" by Sandra McDonald
  • "Brother Adalbert’s Last Shift" by Karol Lagodzki
  • "Seeking" by Gregory Marlow
  • "The Translation of the Sirens" by Matthew De Abaitua
  • "The Hydrological Cycle of Souls" by Minister Faust
  • "The Cosmic Knot" by Geoffrey A. Landis
  • "Ghazal" by Joshua Gage
  • "The Mussel Shell" by Marianne Hoffard
  • "Someday We’ll Look Back on This and Laugh" by Marissa Lingen
  • "So This Is The Middle Kingdom" by Mary Soon Lee

Nonfiction

  • Editorial: The 2026 Must Read Books Award by Emily Hockaday
  • Reflections: One Thing Happens by Robert Silverberg
  • On the Net: Worldwide Editors by James Patrick Kelly
  • On Books by Paul Di Filippo

Aurealis (July 2026, #191)

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Fiction

Nonfiction

Baffling Magazine (July 2026)

Support here.

Fiction

Nonfiction

Beneath Ceaseless Skies (July 2026, Issues #461 and #462)

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Fiction

Clarkesworld Magazine (July 2026, Issue #238)

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Fiction

Nonfiction

The Dark (July 2026, 134)

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Fiction

The Deadlands (Summer 2026, Issue #43)

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Fiction

  • "Vessel, Skin, Daughter, Stranger" by Claire Jia-Wen
  • "Your Name Goes Here" by Rich Larson
  • "Inheritance" by Shobhita Narayan
  • "Antigone; or, Bath Oil Libations" by Maro Reus
  • "The Three Apocalypses of Kabir Vasudeva" by Amal Singh

Poetry

  • "Maybe" by Phodiso Modirwa
  • "Do You Believe There are People Who, Noticing an Insect on the Sidewalk, Step Out of Their Way to Crush It Under Their Feet?" by Andrew Kozma
  • "There are lonely things in the forest" by Rukman Ragas
  • "Stoneman Willie Looks Upon His Mummy" by Samuel A. Betiku

Nonfiction

  • Dark Souls III and the Exhaustion of a Long Life by Kelsey Nichols
  • Ask a Necromancer by Amanda Downum

Diabolical Plots (July 2026)

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Fiction

Flash Fiction Online (July 2026, Issue 154)

Donate here.

Fiction

Nonfiction

Forever Magazine (July 2026, Issue #138)

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Fiction

  • Proof of Concept” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
  • “We Are the Cloud” by Sam J. Miller
  • “Mender of Sparrows” by Ray Nayler

Fusion Fragment (July 2026, Issue #28)

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Fiction

  • “Birdguts” by Erin Strubbe
  • “Chutes, Slides, and Ladders” by Allison Wall
  • “Diet Tips for the Apocalypse” by Sophie Casarico
  • “Grave Bells” by Corey Farrenkopf
  • “In the Wake of Whales” by Claire Jia-Wen
  • “Iso E Super” by Francis Van Ganson
  • “(Non)deterministic Finite Automata” by Audrey Zhou
  • “u last saw hana in the mageverse” by Tuesday Pil

Future Tense Fiction (July 2026)

Fiction

Nonfiction

GigaNotoSaurus (July 2026)

Fiction

Grimdark Magazine (Issue 47)

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Fiction

  • "Of Beasts and Bindings" by Ken McEwen
  • "The Path to Kahinae" by R.R. Virdi
  • "Cold Comforts" by Matthew Ward
  • "A Hunter in Arin-Qin" by Daniel Abraham
  • "That When I Waked I Cried to Dream Again" by Ken Scholes
  • "Black Hearts and Bloody Murder" by Josh Roundtree
  • "Reconnaissance Notes Episode IV. Scarper" by Miles Cameron and Emma Burnett

Nonfiction

  • The Pebble That Starts the Landslide: Richard Swan on The Infinite State. Interview by Adrian Collins
  • REVIEW: Infinite State by Richard Swan by Adrian Collins
  • REVIEW: Killswitch Protocol by M.J. Kuhn by Krystle Matar
  • The Art of the Framed Narrative by Z.B. Steele
  • REVIEW: The Demon Star by Jesse Aragon by Pete Barnable
  • The Art of Awe: Jeff Brown on Fantasy Covers, Dragons, and Epic Scale. Interview by William MccLelland
  • REVIEW: Dust of the Dead by Michael R. Fletcher by Z.B. Steele
  • Hope Is the Teeth: Daniel Abraham on Compromise, Power, and Dark Fiction. Interview by Beth Tabler
  • REVIEW: The Red Sacrament by Sara Hinkley by Fiona Denton

Haven Spec Magazine (July 2026, Issue )

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Fiction

  • "Pieces of Anna" by R.L. Meza
  • "In This Dimension, Do You Still Believe in God?" by Lora Gray
  • "If You Don’t Return, I Want You To Know" by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
  • "Convergence" by Dan Peacock

Poetry

  • "flowers, coffee, cinnamon and the long way home" by Arden Baker
  • "Here Come The Men In Black, or, Out Wrecks The Shroud, or, Kelly’s Black Boyfriend Is Actually The Eschaton???" by Christopher Leigh Silverberg
  • "The First Spider on the Moon" by H.V. Patterson
  • "Wintering Grounds" by Anna Madden

Nonfiction

Kaleidotrope (Summer 2026)

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Fiction

Poetry

Lightspeed Magazine (July 2026, Issue 194)

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Fiction

Nonfiction

Mythmaxis (Summer 2026, Issue 46)

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Fiction

Nonfiction

Nature Futures (July 2026)

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Fiction

Neon Dystopia (July 2026)

Fiction

Nightmare Magazine (July 2026, Issue 166)

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Fiction

Nonfiction

Reactor (July 2026)

Fiction

Small Wonders Magazine (July 2026, Issue #37)

Donate here.

Fiction

Solarpunk Magazine (July / August 2026, Issue 28)

Support here.

Fiction

  • “Ruminants” by T. Chiu-Chu
  • “Where the Water Carried Us” by Anuoluwa Ngozi
  • “The One Who Walked in From Omelas” by Jack Wolflink

Poetry

  • “The Garden Does Not Forget” by Pravy Jha
  • “We Grew the City Back” by Khayelihle Benghu

Essay

  • “Salah Al-Din Street in Gaza: A Road Through Time and Conflict” by Aya Al-Hattab

Strange Horizons (July 2026)

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Fiction

Poetry

Nonfiction

Reviews

The Sunday Morning Transport (July 2026)

Fiction

Three-Lobed Burning Eye (July 2026, Issue 48)

Support them here.

Fiction

Uncanny Magazine (July/August 2026, Issue #71)

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Fiction

Nonfiction

As always, let me know in the comments what you end up reading, and what you'd recommend to your fellow readers!