Authors in This Issue

“Moon and Mars” by James Patrick Kelly
Longtime contributor James Patrick Kelly is pleased to return to the ongoing tale of Mariska Volochkova. Mariska has grown up in these pages, first “Going Deep” in 2009 and again in the 2010 novelette “Plus or Minus,” both of which were Nebula nominees. The long interval between those stories and this one is appropriate since Mariska is a hibernator who can enter suspended animation at will, although at great personal danger. Born on the Moon, in this final adventure she has finally found true love on Mars, only to become enmeshed in the most daring crime of the twenty-second century. While this is the first time in print for “Moon and Mars,” parts of it were recorded for Jim’s Audible Original novel Mother Go.

“In the Splinterlands Crows Fly Blind” by Siobhan Carroll
Siobhan Carroll is an associate professor of English at the University of Delaware, where she researches the literary history of empire and the environment. Her short stories can be found in magazines like Reactor and on her website at voncarr-siobhan-carroll.blogspot.com. A previous story in the Unsettled Worlds, “The Airwalker Comes to the City in Green,” appeared in the December 2019 edition of Asimov’s. The author would like to thank all her readers for their help with “Splinterlands,” but particularly Dr. John Bird for his cultural feedback. As usual, all the mistakes are hers. Of her new tale she says, “You might think the end of the world would solve all your problems. But for Charlie Stone, the problems just got weirder.”

“Shadow of Shadows” by Frank Ward
Frank Ward has been a writer of short stories over the past four and half decades, inspired by having met Asimov’s first editor, George Scithers; Barry Longyear; Lester Del Rey; Jack Williamson; and Fred Pohl, all in one weekend at the second NorthAmeriCon in Louisville in 1979. Since then, his work has appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, Amazing, Haunts, Space and Time, and other magazines, and anthologies sadly no longer in print. His current story leads a once-wunderkind research physicist to what may be his greatest discovery or his deepest regret, all connected to an arrogant undergraduate student and a Hot Wheels toy, neither of which should exist.

“A Girl From Hong Kong” by Robert Reed
Of his latest tale Robert Reed says, “Quee Lee began as a name without context. A name residing in a remote future, and there was no reason to believe she resembled anyone alive today. But the cover art for her original story—‘The Remoras’—gave her a face. And over the last thirty years, I’ve built a biography about that perpetually young woman and her adventures onboard the finest cruise liner to ever sail across the galaxy, and beyond. ‘A Girl from Hong Kong’ is the child of at least three parents—‘The Man With the Golden Balloon,’ ‘Best, Last, Only,’ and ‘Conversations in the Dark.’ All of which are available from my little shop up on Kindle.”

“My Biggest Fan” by Faith Merino
Faith Merino is a ‘22–’24 Stegner Fellow and the author of Cormorant Lake, which was longlisted for The Center For Fiction First Novel Award. Her short stories have appeared in Asimov’s, F&SF, The Indiana Review, The Forge, and more. She lives in Sacramento where she teaches English and Creative Writing. Her latest story for Asimov’s follows a young man as he attempts to uncover the identity of his life-long time-traveling stalker.

“Five Hundred KPH Toward Heaven” by Matthew Kressel
Matthew Kressel’s <BlueSky: bsky.app/profile/matthewkressel.net, Facebook: www.facebook.com/matthew.kressel, and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattkressel> many works of short fiction have appeared in Analog, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Tor.com/Reactor, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and in dozens of other publications and Year’s Best anthologies. His far-future novel Space Trucker Jess (Fairwood Press) is scheduled for late 2025. And his Mars-based science fiction novella “The Rainseekers” (Tordotcom) will appear in early 2026. Alongside Ellen Datlow, he runs the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series in Manhattan. And he is the creator of the Moksha submissions system, used by many of the largest fiction publishers today. His first story to appear in Asimov’s concerns the life a of space-elevator operator forced into early retirement, the death of third spaces, and a window that looks out at Earth.

“What the Frog’s Eye Tells the Frog’s Brain” by Beston Barnett
During the day, author Beston Barnett designs and builds furniture in San Diego. At night, he plays Romani jazz. The rest of the time, he writes quirky little stories in which he struggles—rarely successfully—to leave his characters living happily ever after. He is a finalist for the 2024 Theodore Sturgeon Award who has placed short fiction with Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, and Trollbreath. He is also a graduate of the 2018 Clarion Workshop. Beston’s latest tale is about computer scientists taken hostage by their own creation, but the central premise has its root in a 1959 article written by Chilean biologist Humberto Maturana.

“Through the Pinhole, or, the Origin of a Holostory” by Nikki Braziel
Nikki Braziel <Instagram: @nikkibraziel and Bluesky: @nikki braziel.bsky.social>, whose work has also appeared in Sunday Morning Transport, is making her Asimov’s debut with the tale of a washed-up holonovelist who crosses forty light-years and seventeen centuries to find himself trapped in the Great Siege of Malta. Will his near-death—and the romance he found alongside it—be enough to save his flailing career?

“Jilly in Right: a Thought Experiment” by Rick Wilber
Rick Wilber is the author of a half-dozen novels and short story collections for Tor Books, WordFire Press, McFarland Books, and others, along with two dozen poems and seventy short stories, many of those in Asimov’s. His work has won a Sidewise Award for alternate history for the Asimov’s story, “Something Real,” and the Asimov’s Readers’ Award and the Canopus Award (with Kevin J. Anderson), for “The Hind.” The son of a major-league baseball player, coach, and manager, Rick so often includes baseball players in his tales that the Coode Street Station podcast called him “Science fiction’s dean of baseball stories.” The parent of an adult son with Down syndrome, Rick often writes about characters with Down as well. Every now and then Rick’s interest in alternate history, baseball, and Down syndrome collide, as in his latest story.

“Completely Normal” by Jendayi Brooks-Flemister
Jendayi Brooks-Flemister (they/them) has been writing since they were eight. They focus on Black queer experiences within Afrofuturism/speculative and science fiction, and fantasy literature. Jendayi has been published in Asimov’s, Lightspeed, FIYAH, and many other venues. When not working on short stories or their debut novel, they are hard at work as a People Operations professional, playing video games, or fixing up their new home.