#365Stories in 2023 - 126/365
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"Only the End of the World Again" (1994)
by Neil Gaiman

Working as an adjuster in the coastal town of Innsmouth, Lawrence Talbot gets caught up in a plot to wake the Deep Ones and bring about the end of the world.

Casting Talbot as an investigator, Gaiman drops the title character of the Universal WOLF MAN films into the world of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, putting a hard-boiled spin on classic horror.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 125/365
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"Divine Madness" (1966)
by Roger Zelazny

A grieving man, suffering from epilepsy, experiences an unusual new symptom - after each seizure, time moves in reverse. The longer the seizure, the further back he goes.

This early example of time-reversal in fiction is light on action, but shines in the details; Zelazny masterfully depicts the little things that happen as the protagonist moves backward through time.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 124/365
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"The Voice in the Night" (1907)
by William Hope Hodgson

In the Pacific, a ship's crew encounters an old man on a raft. Afraid to approach, he tells from afar of escaping with his fiancée from a sinking ship, and the strange experiences that followed.

Against the backdrop of the open sea, Hodgson tells a chilling story of contamination; its central conceit still an influence on the horror genre a century later.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 123/365
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"Abandonware" (2010)
by An Owomoyela

David inherits his sister's obsolete Quadra computer after her death. He finds and runs a disk labeled "BURN THIS DISK." The program on the disk, written by his sister, tells David things it should have no way of knowing.

With plenty of nods to vintage computing, Owomoyela compares and contrasts the order and logic of computers with the chaos and randomness of life.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 122/365
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"Preserves for Life" (2011)
by Olga Tokarczuk (translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones)

After a mother's death, her son goes through her belongings, hoping to find money or documents. Instead, he finds an assortment of jarred preserves. As he reflects on their time together, he begins to find jars with spoiled or irregular contents.

Tokarczuk examines the relationship between mother and son, and what will happen when parents are gone.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 121/365
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"Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" (1969)
by Brian Aldiss

Monica Swinton and her son David struggle to connect. Both seek the help of Teddy, David's robot companion, in trying to understand the situation. Meanwhile, Henry Swinton makes a presentation about his company's new product - an artificial "serving-man."

The basis for Steven Spielberg's film A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, Aldiss's story ponders what it means to be real.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 120/365
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"The Demoiselle D'Ys" (1895)
by Robert W. Chambers

Lost on the Breton moors, Phillip encounters Jeanne, the Demoiselle D'Ys. Taking shelter at her chateau, he falls in love with her, even as he notices that everything around him seems to be from long ago.

Chambers puts his own spin on star-crossed lovers across the ages, leaving open to debate whether this is a ghost story or a tale of time-travel.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 119/365
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"Arria Marcella" (1852)
by Théophile Gautier (translated by Lafcadio Hearn)

Octavian sees a mass of cinders at a museum, bearing the imprint of a woman, and visits the spot in Pompeii where her remains were found. That night, he is transported to the year 79 AD, where he finds Arria Marcella alive.

Inspired by his own visit to Pompeii, Gautier's melancholy romance looks at the divide between past and present, old and new.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 118/365
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"The Red Tower" (1996)
by Thomas Ligotti

A factory, which once produced disturbing novelty items, sits in ruins, seemingly abandoned. No doors or docks, its machinery gone from the surface, the only access is underground, where a new venture is said to be taking place.

Despite no discernable plot or characters, Ligotti conjures a nightmare, showing the reader, up close, the terrible depths of the Red Tower.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 117/365
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"Luella Miller" (1902)
by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

Years after her death, Luella Miller's name is still a source of fear throughout the village. The one remaining neighbor who knew her recalls how Luella came to town and left a trail of death in her wake.

Using elements of ghost and haunted house stories, Freeman is ambiguous about exactly what Luella does to her victims, but is quite clear in her critique of the upper class.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 116/365
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"Crazy Old Lady" (1976)
by Avram Davidson

Widowed and known as the "Crazy Old Lady," Mrs. Nelson struggles to adapt to her changing neighborhood. When the police fail to protect her and her neighbors from violence, she turns to her late husband's war souvenirs to protect herself.

Nominated for an Edgar Award, Davidson's story of a woman pushed to the brink provides no mystery, only a snapshot of crime and urban decay.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 115/365
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"The Cafeteria in the Evening and a Pool in the Rain" (1991)
by Yoko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder)

Ahead of her wedding, a woman moves into a new house, and is greeted by a strange man and his young son, the latter of whom has an unusual fascination.

Ogawa explores connections and distance, the past and the future.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 114/365
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"The Judge's House" (1891)
by Bram Stoker

Looking for a quiet place to study, Malcolm rents a home in the small town of Benchurch. Despite warnings from the locals, he moves into "the Judge's House," believed to be haunted by a cruel judge with a penchant for hangings.

Although best known for the vampire novel DRACULA, Stoker expertly tells a ghost story here, depicting conflict between a man of reason and the paranormal.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 113/365
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"Cat Pictures Please" (2015)
by Naomi Kritzer

An artificial intelligence, whose primary job is to run algorithms for a search engine, reflects on its attempts to improve the lives of its human users and prevent them from coming to harm.

Kritzer expands on the idea of a helpful AI, previously explored in Bruce Sterling's "Maneki Neko," describing that work as "wish-fulfillment fiction" for her AI narrator.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 112/365
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"Maneki Neko" (1998)
by Bruce Stirling

In near-future Japan, artificial intelligence manages an emerging "gift economy," directing individuals through their phones. Tsuyoshi accepts an assignment on behalf of his pregnant wife, and runs afoul of law enforcement.

Stirling subverts our perceptions of A.I. with this fun story of a benevolent network, cynical officials, and skepticism in the face of kindness.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 111/365
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"Effigy Nights" (2013)
by Yoon Ha Lee

Imulai Mokarengen, a city of arts on the edge of the galaxy, comes under attack by a fierce general and her forces. A cursed surgeon-priest creates short-lived paper defenders from schematics in a secret library.

Lee writes of colonization, rebellion, and the power of stories.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 110/365
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"Isobel Avens Returns to Stepney in the Spring" (1994)
by M. John Harrison

China specializes in delivering medical cargo. He begins a relationship with Isobel, who dreams of flying. After a chance meeting with one of China's clients, Isobel makes a radical move in pursuit of her dream.

In his afterword, Harrison says it best - a story "about the confusion of dream with ambition...where greed intersects fantasy."

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#365Stories in 2023 - 109/365
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"Coming to Terms" (2004)
by Eileen Gunn

An elderly writer dies after a month-long stay in the hospital. Weeks later, his daughter arrives from out-of-state to dispose of his belonging. She finds several notes around the apartment - and something else.

Inspired in part by her friendship with writer Avram Davidson, Gunn's Nebula award-winning story describes a sort of conversation between the living and the dead.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 108/365
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"Waxy" (2016)
by Camilla Grudova

Women live to support their men, who spend their days studying for philosophy exams. The narrator moves to a new apartment and takes up with Paul, an unregistered man with no knowledge of philosophy. They have a child, also unregistered, and come into conflict with the couple across the hall.

Weird and unsettling; Grudova crafts a dystopia that feels both fantastical and all too familiar.

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#365Stories in 2023 - 107/365
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"Awakening" (1931)
by Isaac Babel (translated by Maxim D. Shrayer)

In Odessa, parents enroll their children in lessons with Mr. Zagursky, in hopes of producing the next great violinist. One boy has other ideas, however; hiding novels on his music stand during practice, before skipping his lessons altogether.

Thought to be a semi-autobiographical tale, Babel describes finding the path to one's true calling.

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