REPRISE: “This Is (Not) My Beautiful Cat” • by Ephiny Gale

When the girl is six years old, she uncovers a grey and white kitten in a sagging cardboard box in her local park. She’s walking there with her mother and their two large dogs, but despite this the kitten follows them out to the street, trotting three metres behind on the footpath like they’re trailing a fuzzy ball of yarn. Once the kitten reaches their front porch, the...

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REPRISE: “A Can of Piskies” • by Andrew Jensen

 We’ve published a lot of stories by Andrew Jensen in the past few years.He has a wonderfully wry, understated, very Canadian sense of humor—excuse me, “humour.” It was a challenge to pick a favorite story of his for this “Best of” series. My first choice would be “Running Away with the Cirque,” which you’ll find in Stupefying Stories 24. (And which you can read for free,...

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REPRISE: “At Wit’s End” • by Roxana Arama

And finally, to wrap up Roxana Arama Week, a little something from a very early Pete Wood Challenge: “At Wit’s End.”And a cat, of course. » READ IT NOW! Roxana Arama is an award-winning Romanian American author. She studied computer science in Bucharest, Romania, and moved to the United States to work in software development. She is the author of three novels: The Regolith...

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NEW STORY: “Warp and Warpath” • by Roxana Arama

Captain Selena Mareth was reviewing a dire report on her starship’s dwindling resources when her door chimed.“Enter.”First Officer Astra Varenson walked in. “I have something to show you, Captain,” she said. Mareth leaned over her desk to look at the red dot on Varenson’s tablet. “Spectrometer readings suggest the presence of lithionix deposits on the fifth planet of this...

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REPRISE: “The e-Menace” • by Roxana Arama

It’s Roxana Arama Week!Following the successful first season of The Odin Chronicles, we launched another group-written shared-world serial: Tales from The Brahma, a saga of life aboard, yes, a generation ship the size of a small planet. Brahma never found an audience, though, which led to our decision to cancel it after ten episodes.The single most-read story of all the Brahma...

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REPRISE: “Scared of Short Stories” • by Roxana Arama

It’s Roxana Arama Week!There’s a question every aspiring writer asks, sooner or later: How do I cross the threshhold? How do I make the transition from wanting to become a writer to being a published author?In “Scared of Short Stories,” Roxana Arama was kind enough to share with us the story of her journey from frustrated aspiring novelist with an MFA, to successful and...

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REPRISE: “For Sale: Used Time Machine. No Refunds!” • by Roxana Arama

It’s Roxana Arama Week!In 2021, Pete Wood wrote:“When I created this contest [The Pete Wood Challenge], I expected nothing but tongue-in-cheek takes on time travel tropes. While several writers didn’t disappoint with humorous entries, the variety of the stories surprised me. It never occurred to me that my writing prompt could inspire a serious story, a literary story.“Roxana ...

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SCIENCE FACT: “A Generation Ship The Size of a Small Planet” • by Bruce Bethke

[Nota bene: This was first published in 2008. I rediscovered it recently while looking for fiction to bubble back to the top for The Best of Stupefying Stories SHOWCASE, and after re-reading it now, well… It’s a long read, but I think the length is necessary to support the disturbing conclusion I reached. Enjoy?  ~brb] Part 1: The Multi-Generational Con In the course...

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REPRISE: “Sunday Dinner with la Famiglia (and Nonno’s Brain)” • by Franco Amati

 Art by Justine Backes Sunday dinner with the family was a little different this week. We all sat around a dumpy-ass table in the middle of the nursing home. From where I was sitting, I could see a big bowl of pasta. My younger sister Gina was across from me, and next to her was the big jar with Grandpa’s brain in it. We called him Nonno, and he didn’t say much...

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The Never-ending FAQ • 28 March 2025, Part 2

Continuing the FAQ I ran out of time to finish yesterday:Q: If you are going to post a picture of Mr. Ruffles, the most famous cat in speculative fiction, you gotta republish “Take Me To Your Litter Box.”A: Whether Mr. Ruffles is indeed the most famous cat in speculative fiction is highly debatable. If you want to assert that he is, Lazarus Long and Jubal Harshaw will likely...

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The Never-ending FAQ • 28 March 2025

Oh, good grief: it’s the last Friday in March already? Where did this week month quarter go?Mostly into the “minimally invasive, three days tops” repair and remodeling project that began in January and finally wrapped up just this past Tuesday. At last, I can finish moving back into the half of the house I had to vacate while the work was in progress and start opening up...

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