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Table of Contents: August 2025

A rundown of this month's short genre fiction

Table of Contents: August 2025
Images: Clarkesworld, Flash Fiction Online, and Lightspeed Magazine

Short fiction is one of the best places to find some of the best storytelling in the science fiction and fantasy genres: it's where you can find some incredible experimentation and up-and-coming authors (as well as familiar favorites!).

Here's the latest installment of Table of Contents, which rounds up this month's short fiction releases. You can check out last month's installment here. (I've just updated it with links to stories that have since this was originally published.) You can also find prior roundups here.

If you read a story that you enjoyed, let us know in the comments! Okay, here's what's coming out this month:

Apex Magazine (July-September, Issue 150)

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Fiction

Nonfiction

Analog Science Fact and Fiction (July/August 2025, Vol. XCV No. 7 & 8)

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Fiction

  • "Analytical Laboratory Results out of "Some Warm Little Pond," Part 1: "Rifters" and the RNA World" by Kelly Lagor
  • "Biolog: Kelly Lagor" by Richard A. Lovett
  • "The First Velodrome on Mars" by Marie Vibbert
  • In Times To Come
  • "Desert Soul" by David Gullen
  • "Hidden Achievement" by Shane Tourtellott
  • "Patient Was the Doctor" by Victoria N. Shi
  • "Last Dam Standing" by Dawn Vogel
  • "If the Algorithms are Gentle" by Bernie Jean Schiebeling
  • "Low-Tide Salvage" by Matthew Claxton
  • "Unknowns Edited by Alec Nevala-Lee: Back to Square One" by Rachel Fabi
  • "Eri" by James Dick
  • "Mother Hubble's Elegy for Rhessi: (2002-2023) April 19, 2023 by Sandra J. Lindow
  • "Jennifer Does Pushups" by Joseph Weber
  • "Imaginary" by Daniel D. Villani
  • "Your Entry to Paradise Memorial Experience" by Robert Morrell Jr.
  • "The Marks We Leave" by M. Ian Bell
  • "Ready for New Arrivals?" by Sean Monaghan
  • "Under the Moons of Venus: A Tale of a Princess Altivolant by Jay Werkheiser and Frank Wu
  • "North Station Blues by David Gerrold
  • "Our Lady of the Atom by Josh Pearce (Poetry)

Nonfiction

Asimov's Science Fiction (July/August 2025 Vol. 49 Nos. 7 & 8)

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Fiction

  • "The Chronolithographer’s Assistant" by Suzanne Palmer
  • "Most Things" by Rich Larson
  • "Another Mother on Mars" by Dominica Phetteplace
  • "In the Gardener’s Service" by Michèle Laframboise
  • "Pirates of Highship" by Stephen Case
  • "Perri’s Fate" by Robert Reed
  • "In the Halls of the Makeshift King" by Tobias S. Buckell
  • "Worm Song" by Derek Künsken
  • "Aftermath" by William Preston
  • "The Courier" by Lavie Tidhar

Poetry

  • "Styx Seasons" by Robert Frazier
  • "Try to Explain the Concept of Teeth to My Alien Roommate" by Rachel Linton
  • "What Death Reads" by Mary Soon Lee
  • "Matter/Antimatter" by Lynne Sargent
  • "Vivienne" by E. H. Lupton

Nonfiction

Beneath Ceaseless Skies ()

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Fiction

Clarkesworld Magazine (August 2025, Issue 227)

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Fiction

Nonfiction

The Dark (August 2025, Issue 123)

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Fiction

Dark Horses Magazine (August 2025)

Fiction

  • "The Bite of the Cherry Blossom" by Lawrence Dagstine
  • "Black Magick 101" by Gray McClary
  • "Gladiators in the Sepulchre of Abominations by Alexander Zelenyj
  • "Lex Talionis (the Rule of Cord) by R.c. Bramhall
  • "Sadie by Wayne Kyle Spitzer
  • "Norman Nodding by Stephen Mcquiggan
  • "The Crooked Road by Stephen Shewmake
  • "The Good Shit by Brian J. Smith
  • "Beyond Unknown by Barry Vitcov
  • "Wisp" by M.P. Strayer

The Deadlands (Issue 39, Summer 2025)

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Fiction

  • "Deliquescence" by Kelsea Yu (fiction; released 8/7)
  • "Plus One" by Olufunmilayo Makinde (fiction; released 8/14)
  • "Miles To Go Before I Sleep" by Beth Goder (fiction; released 8/18)
  • "Séance" by Elizabeth Wing (poetry; released 8/21)
  • "Little Trinkets" by A. J. Sharpe (fiction, released 8/25)
  • "quietude II" by Adamu Yahuza Abdullahi (poetry, released 8/28)

Nonfiction

  • Blind Date With a Corpse by RJ Aurand (nonfiction; released 8/4)
  • Ask a Necromancer: Fun with Formaldehyde by Amanda Downum (nonfiction; released 8/11)

Fantasy Magazine (Issue 97, Summer 2025)

Fiction

Nonfiction

  • Left of Center: A Conversation with Amara Hoshijo (online 8/8)
  • The Interrogation of So-ssang by Seoung Kim (online 8/22)
  • Interview With World Fantasy Finalists, Part Two (online 8/29)

Flash Fiction Online (August 2025)

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Fiction

  • “Textures” by Lisa Fox
  • “No Laughter in a Vacuum” by Anna Clark
  • “I Was Made for Loving You” by Angela James
  • “The Body, Electric” by Lauren Kardos
  • “Dislocated” by Stephen Granade, and
  • “The Color of Things” by Eleanor Lennox

Future Tense Fiction (August 2025)

Fiction

Nonfiction

Lightspeed Magazine (August 2025, Issue 183)

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Fiction

  • "Five Dispatches from Conflict Zone W-924/B Regarding Post-Battle Deployment of A. Thanatensis" by David Anaxagoras (8/7)
  • "It Might Be He Returns" by Fatima Taqvi (8/7)
  • "Feast of Famine" by Adam-Troy Castro (8/14)
  • "Dad Went Out to Get the Milk" by Osahon Ize-Iyamu (8/14)
  • "The Dream Tourists" by Sarah Langan (8/21)
  • "Savannah and the Apprentice" by Christopher Rowe (8/21)
  • "To Access Seven Obelisks, Press Enter" by V.M. Ayala (8/28)
  • "Anti-Capitalism vs. the Man of Flowers" by Naomi Kanakia (8/28)

Nonfiction

  • Editorial: August 2025 by John Joseph Adams (8/7)
  • Author Spotlight: Fatima Taqvi by Alex Puncekar (8/7)
  • Author Spotlight: Osahon Ize-Iyamu by Mayookh Barua (8/14)
  • Book Review: Mindscape by Andrea Hairston by Melissa A Watkins (8/14)
  • Author Spotlight: Christopher Rowe by Alex Puncekar (8/21)
  • Book Review: Not Your Papi’s Utopia: Latinx Visions of Radical Hope by Matthew David Goodwin, Alex Hernandez, Sara Rivera, eds. by Arley Sorg (8/21)
  • Author Spotlight: V.M. Ayala by Delia Cullity (8/28)
  • Book Review: When They Burned the Butterfly by Wen-yi Lee by Chris Kluwe (8/28)

Nightmare Magazine (May 2025, Issue 152)

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Fiction

  • "Bunny Ears" by Kristina Ten (8/6)
  • "Swallow Test" by Angela Liu (8/13)
  • "Eight Ball" by Martin Cahill (8/20)
  • "Turnip Heads" by Pedro Iniguez (8/27)

Nonfiction

  • Editorial: August 2025 by Wendy N. Wagner (8/6)
  • Author Spotlight: Kristina Ten by Alex Puncekar (8/6)
  • The H Word: The Waking Nightmares of Philip K. Dick by David Agranoff (8/13)
  • Author Spotlight: Martin Cahill by Kevin Figueroa Quiñones (8/20)
  • Plumbing the Depths: Archaeology in Horror Fiction by Rebecca Stone Gordon (8/27)

Reactor (August 2025)

Fiction

Strange Horizons (August 2025)

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Fiction

Poetry

Nonfiction

Uncanny Magazine (Issue 65)

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Fiction

  • "The Terrarium" by Jordan Taylor (Aug 05, 2025)
  • "Whalesong" by Daniel H. Wilson (Aug 05, 2025)
  • "The Garden" by Emma Törzs (Aug 05, 2025)
  • "Seaside Prophets" by Avra Margariti (Aug 05, 2025)
  • "Wishbone" by Prosper Ìféányí (Aug 05, 2025)

Nonfiction

  • Precarious Employment in Precarious Futures by Amanda Wakaruk and Olav Rokne (Aug 05, 2025)
  • What’s a Novel Idea? What’s a Short Story Idea? I Used to Know the Difference by Charlie Jane Anders (Aug 05, 2025)
  • Interview: Daniel H. Wilson by Caroline M. Yoachim (Aug 05, 2025)

Check back at the end of the month: I'll update the links to the stories that haven't come out at the time of publication.