Welcome to the LimFic anthologies page. Like your speculative fiction stories short? We’ve got ’em in spades. These are sorted by newest first by default.
Word Count: 105000
Summary: The Silver Age of Science Fiction saw a wealth of compelling speculative tales — and women authors wrote some of the best of the best. Yet the stories of this era, especially those by women, have been largely unreprinted, unrepresented, and unremembered. Until now. Volume one of REDISCOVERY represents a historic first: fourteen selections of the best science fiction of the Silver Age, written by the unsung women authors of yesteryear and introduced by today’s rising stars. Curated by the team that produces the Hugo-nominated Galactic Journey. Join us and rediscover these lost treasures. “Female authors wrote stories about coming of age…cautionary tales…stories set beyond our universe… You’ll find these themes and more in this anthology. I hope that as you read their stories you don’t try to ferret out ‘feminine’ versus ‘masculine’ elements. What you are about to read is really good science fiction, plain and simple. I certainly enjoyed the journey and have every expectation that you shall, too.” -from the Foreword by Dr. Laura Brodian Freas Beraha
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Summary: More portals, including science fiction ones that either take to other worlds, aliens, back in time or other dimensions. With some traditional portal fantasy and a couple of weird tales of passages between worlds. 10 portal stories of discovery that sometimes lead to love.
Word Count: 51000
Summary: The world was whole before the war. But war is a terrible thing, and terrible things are done in the name of defense and protection. And this war tore the world apart, fractured it, separated families and lives and dreams. The reasons why no longer matter, but the effects still linger. They cause pain, though the war is over. But despite the monsters and the poisons and the despair, there is a glimmer of light. And hope and love are not gone from the world. These four stories, set in the Fractured World, explore how light can make it through the darkness. How hope can conquer fear. And most of all, how love can still flourish, even when the world is bleak. A young woman braves monsters to see the sky. A reluctant man chooses forgiveness over suffering. Lovers reunite to save a child and their community. Best friends risk everything for each other. Come see the light for yourselves.
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Summary: Eighteen well-reviewed stories in the rare subgenre of trucking science fiction.
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"Once upon a time" is a phrase that immediately conjures images of enchantment. Royal balls, magical creatures, love at first sight... We are taken to a fantasy world where anything is possible. The Queen of Clocks and Other Steampunk Tales brings together the magic of fairytale and the allure of cogs and gears. Within these pages, find dancing automatons, industrial age fairies, a mermaid with wind-up legs, heroes of the steam age, and more. Drawing from classic tales of the Brothers Grimm, Carlo Collodi, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen, and Homer, these original interpretations are sure to delight fans of steampunk and fairytales alike.
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Summary: Don’t you long for heroines who win each other? In this anthology you can find erotic romance and wild adventure with women who use their wits and/or weapons and come together in a blaze of passion. These twelve wonderful writers present a wide range of stories. Some adapted traditional tales, and some updated old ones to contemporary times, not merely changing the gender of a character but making the female aspect essential. Some created original plots with a fairy tale sensibility, while others wrote with merely a subtle aura of fantasy. Their heroines are witches, princesses, brave, resourceful women of all walks of life, and even a troll and a dryad. There are curses and spells, battles and intrigue, elements of magic and explorations of universal themes, and, yes, sex, sensuality and true love, all bound skillfully together into complex and many-layered stories.
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Summary: ---From the Archives--- Stories by Mike McPhail and Danielle Ackley-McPhail based on the 1986-96 military science fiction role-playing game The Alliance Archives. By the late 21st century, humanity has final reached for the stars and established an off-world colony in the system of Tau Ceti, only to discover that man's greatest enemy is still man. On the colony world of Demeter, ADF power-armored troopers and their Parr scouts fight a desperate, covert war against invading corporate mercenaries. Even in the vastness of space, there is no room for lasting peace.
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Summary: WILL YOU BE ONE OF THE INVITED? A forbidden midnight market is coming to town. The Night Bazaar isn't new. In fact, it's as old as civilization. Its first recorded appearance was in Sana'a, around 700 B.C.E. with secretive merchants from the East who presented covered stalls of exotic goods and arcane services. Various mentions appear in obscure and controversial works from around the world. The only common element is that the market opens at midnight, closes before sunrise, and may appear for up to a week in the same city . . . Paris, 1796 . . . London, 1888 . . . Berlin, 1936 . . . San Francisco, 1906 . . . but never in the same venue each night. And never again in the same city. There's just one catch: In order to find it, you must be Invited. Tonight, The Night Bazaar opens in a parking garage somewhere in Manhattan. A whole subterranean city full of antique costumes, alchemical treatments, magical dentistry, palmistry, Tarot, tea leaf-reading, and water-, glass-, and crystal-gazing, oddities and objets d’art, medical curiosities and surgical instruments. Other lost arts and body alterations are offered in certain alcoves. Through the narrow aisles throng jongleurs, freaks, charlatans, mountebanks, faeries, prostitutes, and acrobats. The scents of opium, perfume, tobacco, greasepaint, incense, plastic explosive, alcohol, and sex permeate the air. But each object or service comes with a gift, a curse, or a haunting. (This is the summary of volume one. However, The Night Bazaar anthologies need not be read in any particular order; they are all designed to stand alone as well.) The Bazaar sells that which cannot be had elsewhere. Everything you’ve read about but thought had passed away, or perhaps never existed. How wrong you were! Your guide is Madame Vera, a tall, thin woman of uncertain age, ethnicity, and trustworthiness. The stories within are your invitation to join us. It seems you have already spotted something you desire . . . but don’t head off that way, not just yet. You have all night . . . but not a moment more.
- Fantasy
- Fantasy - Comedy
- Fantasy - Contemporary
- Fantasy - Dark Fantasy
- Fantasy - Faery & Fae
- Fantasy - Low Fantasy
- Fantasy - Magical Realism
- Fantasy - Slipstream
- Fantasy - Urban & Magical Beings
- Fantasy - Weird Fantasy
- Fantasy - Young Adult
- Horror
- Horror - LGBTQ+
- Horror - Lovecraftian/Cthulhu
- Horror - Occult
- Horror - People of Color
- Horror - Psychological
- Horror - Weird Horror
- Horror - Witches
- Paranormal
- Paranormal - Magical Beings
- Paranormal - Young Adult
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Summary: The plan had been to un-man the battlespace, replacing flesh and blood with steel and carbon fiber. Machines, both remote-controlled and autonomous A.I.s, would fight and be destroyed in the name of freedom; sparing the troops at the cost of the nation's treasure. However, as with any arms race, the opposing side's technology eventually catches ups to yours, resulting in the need to put lives back in harm’s way on the frontline; to deal with, and adapt to the unknown, as only humans can. With stories by Brenda Cooper, Bud Sparhawk, Jennifer Brozek, Ronald T. Garner, Aaron Rosenberg, James Chambers, Nancy Jane Moore, Patrick Thomas, Jeff Young, Eric V. Hardenbrook, Robert E. Waters, Anton Kukal, and Danielle Ackley-McPhail, and an afterword by the late CJ Henderson.
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Summary: There’s just nothing sexier than a man who loves kids and knows how to show it. Everyone knows that’s a man who can be trusted with your heart. And, as they grew older and hotter (and so do we), it’s equally sexy to see a man treat his teenaged or young adult offspring with love and respect. So curl up in your favorite chair and read these radically different tales of fathers we love from new dads to old dads, gay dads, vampire dads and even some dad ménage! With stories by Guy New York, Trinity Blacio, Ryan Field, Jon Jockel, John Michael Curlovitch, Stacy Brown, Stephen B. Pearl and Misha Martin.
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Summary: Animals have fought for us for centuries, not because of the ideals of service to King and Country, but out of unwavering loyalty and devotion to their human Masters. The future, it would seem, is no better than the past, as some animals become expendable weapons or augmented semi-machines, while others receive the honor and dignity of being treated as fellow soldiers. In tribute, we bring you seventeen stories of our animal comrades-in-arms.
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Summary: Love defies time, crosses the infinite distance of space, and sparks formidable magics in the hearts of those it touches. And immortality? Yeah, it’s got that covered, too. In this powerful volume, Pop Seagull Publishing presents twelve science fiction and fantasy short stories on the theme of love and its role as a force of nature. Follow an ambitious 1930’s journalist and her high-society boyfriend as they defend the world from evil beings that hide in shadows. Can love prevail when science fails? Take a wild ride with Zephraim Cochrane as he searches for his long lost love through inter-dimensional travel. After all, the best inventions are always made to get dates. Embark on a whirlwind romance with a creature of the Fey in seven days, a beautiful story of friendship and finding self-love before all else. Descend into a very Torontonian sort of hell in search of lost love in Melanie in the underworld... just don’t forget to pet the corgi. You’ll find these adventures, and many more, inside.
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Summary: Some time in January of 2011 I wrote to a friend: 'I feel like I am floating in an alternate universe of silver goggles and artificial wombs and look there's Emily Dickinson smoking a cigar.' I was deep inside the process of editing The WisCon Chronicles, Vol. 5: Writing and Racial Identity, surrounded by all those elements and more-- a delightful place." —from the Introduction.; This volume of the WisCon Chronicles celebrates, challenges, and discusses the varied faces of WisCon 34. Its contributors include a mix of writers, scholars, and fans, among whom number Greer Gilman, Nnedi Okorafor, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Nisi Shawl, Nancy Jane Moore, Vandana Singh, Andrea Hairston, Eileen Gunn, MJ Hardman, Maurice Broaddus. It also, notably, includes a handful of short stories. And as with previous volumes, it does not shy away from controversy.
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Summary: Yard Dog is a famously quirky publisher, they\'ve been at this for a long time and continue to bring out great stories.
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Summary: Part of the four-volume \"Bubbas of the Apocalypse\" series. Can\'t get much weirder than this.
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Summary: We have always been here. For as long as there's been such a thing as sex, alternate sexual identities have been a fact of life. So why have we been so nearly invisible in recorded history and historical fiction? Connie Wilkins,the editor of this book, has assembled fourteen stories that span the centuries from ancient times to the Renaissance to the modern era, and explore alternate versions of our past. Their queer protagonists, who bend history in ways dramatic enough to change the world and subtle enough to touch hearts and minds, rescue our past from invisibility, and affirm our place and importance throughout all of history, past, present, and future. From Lethe Press
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Summary: The focus of the Heiresses of Russ series, a tribute to iconic author Joanna Russ, was lesbian speculative fiction in short story form, and its mission was to highlight the breadth and quality of what had been published during the past year. There was so much excellent work, in fact, that a single anthology couldn’t possibly contain it all, in so many styles, voices and far reaches of creative minds that the true uniting themes of our book turned out to be variety, and a breaking down of limitations and expectations. The writers in this book portray being lesbian as a vital component of their protagonists, but not to the exclusion of all the variation possible for any characters in speculative fiction. Their plots may or may not hinge on the lesbian factor, but they are also about much more, with the unrestricted inventiveness and well-crafted prose of all good work in the genre. From Lethe Press A Lambda Literary Award Finalist
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Summary: Collected here are 35 short vampire tales by David Lee Summers and Lee Clark Zumpe. You'll find humor, horror, and history, loss, love, and legends, sex, seduction, and surprises. Many are good tales for couples to share. You'll find vignettes such as "Jornada del Muerto,""On the Ramjet," "Nosferatu Watches Dracula on the Lateshow," "Until Tonight,""The Poet," and "Ostrava, 1995." These particular pieces first ran in the magazine Blood Samples between 2001 and 2003. You'll also find longer works here including "Dragon Reborn" which is an excerpt from Dragon's Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires that tells the origin of Lord Draco from Vampires of the Scarlet Order and Lee Clark Zumpe's story "Becalmed". The collection features a cover by Laura Givens and interior illustrations by Marge Simon. Blood Sampler is a must-read, even if you don't care for the usual suckers.
Word Count: 59349
Summary: Question your typical perception. See beyond the normal you know. Step into divergent realms. Let this anthology of new and original short stories show you the fantastic and futuristic through a new lens. A struggling father discovers why his autistic daughter becomes consumed with a virtual reality simulator in the wake of her mother’s death. An android who can’t stop ruminating about her consciousness being trapped inside a machine for all eternity confronts her worst fear to stop a sentient AI. Authorities deny a man with a distractible mind a position navigating a chaotic place outside space and time that provides access to other universes, only to realize he’s their only hope to recover their lost agents. Divergent Realms showcases the wide spectrum of neurodiversity through the open worlds of speculative fiction. Written and edited by the neurodiverse themselves, these stories express a new side of ADHD, Autism, OCD, and more. Experience an atypical reality and deepen your understanding of the world around you today!