Short Fiction

Here's everything tagged: Near Future

All Sci-fi Fantasy Horror
Pulp Literature

Stragglers Lament

Coming Soon

Guirguis keeps to himself, eyes downcast, voice muted, but when he reaches a fork in the road, when every path exacts a terrible toll, he has to decide how much is too much.

Near Future X Exploitation Rebellion
A photograph of an ornate, multi-level historic library interior, with floor-to-ceiling wooden bookshelves filled with old books, an elaborate wrought-iron balcony railing in the foreground, and a large, white, sans-serif text overlay across the center that reads "Coming Soon".
Utopia Science Fiction

Pomegranates for Kangaroos

Twins Nesma and Nady make the best of life in a refugee camp until the raptors intervene.

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Near Future X Inequality Family
Cover of Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Volume VII June, 2026, featuring an illustration of an astronaut looking out from behind a plant stem where an orange caterpillar crawls.
Reckoning

Life According to Tabeeb

To care for humans, CAMS-45 must first learn what it means to be human: exploitation but also community, and eventually Rebellion.

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Near Future X Inequality Climate Machine Sentience
Cover of Reckoning: It Was Paradise, featuring an intricate, symmetrical illustration of a horned, green, and white mythological monster mask with striking red eyes and an open mouth on a plain white background.
Gavagai

Son of the Sea

Amid the ruins of a world all but submerged under surging oceans, a community of gritty survivors rediscover hope.

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Near Future X Family Climate
A black-and-white photograph of the silhouette of a pregnant person standing against a bright, cloudy sky, looking down and gently cradling their stomach.
Cast Of Wonders

Life According to Tabeeb

To care for humans, CAMS-45 must first learn what it means to be human: exploitation but also community, and eventually Rebellion.

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Near Future X Inequality Climate Machine Sentience
A cropped section of the header artwork for Cast of Wonders 654, featuring an abstract illustration composed of ink-sketch lines, a prominent vibrant red shape speckled with white splatters, and the outline of a stylized human face.
Robots Past & Future (Flame Tree Press)

Arboreal Recovery Cluster, Node 896

Are loneliness, duty, honor, and most of all hope strictly human-only emotions?

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Near Future X Machine Sentience Climate Family
Cover of Gothic Fantasy: Robots Past & Future Short Stories, featuring an ornate turquoise-and-black illustration surrounding the title.
Amplitudes (Erewhon Books)

Fettle & Sunder

When a queer couple's worst nightmare is reified, it upends their orderly life and sends them scrambling for a way out.

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Near Future X Queer Family Religion
Cover of Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity, featuring elongated, iridescent metallic lettering for the title surrounded by shiny four-pointed stars on a dark background.
Learning to be Human (Flame Tree Press)

Life According to Tabeeb

To care for humans, CAMS-45 must first learn what it means to be human: exploitation but also community, and eventually Rebellion.

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Near Future X Inequality Climate Machine Sentience
Cover of Gothic Fantasy: Learning to be Human Short Stories, featuring a highly ornate, glowing teal filigree border surrounding a central text frame, below which a small, pixelated green digital face is visible.
Anathema Magazine

Semsema of the Zabbaleen

Semsema is caught between clinging to the familiar and venturing into the unknown.

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Near Future X Inequality Colonialism Family
Cover of Anathema: Spec from the Margins, Issue 14, December 2021, featuring a stylized graphic illustration of a person sitting at a desk working on a laptop surrounded by tall stacks of paper, with a massive cloud of black smoke billowing from their head against an orange background.
Andromeda Spaceways Magazine

Arboreal Recovery Cluster, Node 896

Are loneliness, duty, honor, and most of all hope strictly human-only emotions?

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Near Future X Machine Sentience Climate Family
Cover of Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, Issue 80, September 2020, featuring a purple-haired woman writing at a desk surrounded by books and papers.
Sci Phi Journal

Three Scores and Ten

Are our worst imperatives also our salvation? Could greed ever be truly Good?

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Near Future X Aliens
Cover of SciPhi Journal, 2020, Issue 1, "The Immortality Issue", featuring two black-and-white stone relief panels depicting ancient Mesopotamian mythological figures against a solid black background.
Little Blue Marble

In the Teeth of the Gale

What would you sacrifice for a lifelong dream? What wouldn't you?

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Near Future X Utopia Climate Family
Cover of Little Blue Marble 2019, featuring a landscape image that juxtaposes rolling sand dunes in the foreground with a massive wall of white glaciers under a clear blue sky.