Clarkesworld is a Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning science fiction and fantasy magazine. Each month we bring you a mix of fiction, articles, interviews and art. Our December 2020 issue (#171) contains: * Original fiction by Fiona Moore ("The Island of Misfit Toys"), Lisa Nohealani Morton ("Things That Happen When You Date Your Ex''s Accidentally Restored Backup From Before The Divorce"), Michael Swanwick ("The Last Days of Old Night"), Robert Reed ("Conversations in the Dark"), Chi Hui ("No Way Back"), AnaMaria Curtis ("Forward Momentum and a Parallel Toss"), and Andy Dudak ("Songs of Activation"). * Non-fiction by Carrie Sessarego, interviews with Stina Leicht and Tim Pratt, and an editorial by Neil Clarke.

The twenty-first century has witnessed an explosion of speculative fiction in translation (SFT). Rachel Cordasco examines speculative fiction published in English translation since 1960, ranging from Soviet-era fiction to the Arabic-language dystopias that emerged following the Iraq War. Individual chapters on SFT from Korean, Czech, Finnish, and eleven other source languages feature an introduction by an expert in the language's speculative fiction tradition and its present-day output. Cordasco then breaks down each chapter by subgenre--including science fiction, fantasy, and horror--to guide readers toward the kinds of works that most interest them. Her discussion of available SFT stands alongside an analysis of how various subgenres emerged and developed in a given language. She also examines the reasons a given subgenre has been translated into English. An informative and one-of-a-kind guide, Out of This World offers readers and scholars alike a tour of speculative fiction's new globalized era.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has demonstrated such advancement that people ask if it should be granted the moral status of personhood. This book argues that this view assumes that personhood corresponds to how well one's thinking mirrors the biases, worldview, and intelligence of the middle class, relegating the poor to the status of "nonhuman."

This Companion offers students and scholars a comprehensive introduction to the development and the diversity of the American short story as a literary form from its origins in the eighteenth century to the present day. Rather than define what the short story is as a genre, or defend its importance in comparison with the novel, this Companion seeks to understand what the short story does – how it moves through national space, how it is always related to other genres and media, and how its inherent mobility responds to the literary marketplace and resonates with key critical themes in contemporary literary studies. The chapters offer authoritative introductions and reinterpretations of a literary form that has re-emerged as a major force in the twenty-first-century public sphere dominated by the Internet.

In this sequel to Cold Iron, "the Kingdom of Eledore has fallen and Nel and Suvi lead a diaspora of their people to safety, but the magic that has kept the demon forces away is dwindling, and they must find a new way to protect themselves"--Amazon.com.

FROZEN HELL is the original version of John W. Campbell's classic novella, Who Goes There? (filmed as The Thing). Recently discovered among Campbell's papers, this version adds another 45 pages to the story. Includes a Preface by Alec Nevala-Lee and an Introduction by Robert Silverberg.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “One of our most inventive purveyors of the form returns with pitch-perfect, genre-bending stories that stare into the abyss of our national character. . . . An exquisite work from a writer whose reach is galactic.”—Oprah Daily Booker Prize winner George Saunders returns with his first collection of short stories since the New York Times bestseller Tenth of December. ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker The “best short-story writer in English” (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose—wickedly funny, unsentimental, and exquisitely tuned—Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: Here is a collection of prismatic, resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality. “Love Letter” is a tender missive from grandfather to grandson, in the midst of a dystopian political situation in the (not too distant, all too believable) future, that reminds us of our obligations to our ideals, ourselves, and one another. “Ghoul” is set in a Hell-themed section of an underground amusement park in Colorado and follows the exploits of a lonely, morally complex character named Brian, who comes to question everything he takes for granted about his reality. In “Mother’s Day,” two women who loved the same man come to an existential reckoning in the middle of a hailstorm. In “Elliott Spencer,” our eighty-nine-year-old protagonist finds himself brainwashed, his memory “scraped”—a victim of a scheme in which poor, vulnerable people are reprogrammed and deployed as political protesters. And “My House”—in a mere seven pages—comes to terms with the haunting nature of unfulfilled dreams and the inevitability of decay. Together, these nine subversive, profound, and essential stories coalesce into a case for viewing the world with the same generosity and clear-eyed attention Saunders does, even in the most absurd of circumstances.

After the Celebration explores Australian fiction from 1989 to 2007, after Australia's bicentenary to the end of the Howard government. In this literary history, Ken Gelder and Paul Salzman combine close attention to Australian novels with a vivid depiction of their contexts: cultural, social, political, historical, national and transnational. From crime fiction to the postmodern colonial novel, from Australian grunge to 'rural apocalypse fiction', from the Asian diasporic novel to the action blockbuster, Gelder and Salzman show how Australian novelists such as Frank Moorhouse, Elizabeth Jolley, Peter Carey, Kim Scott, Steven Carroll, Kate Grenville, Tim Winton, Alexis Wright and many others have used their work to chart our position in the world. The literary controversies over history, identity, feminism and gatekeeping are read against the politics of the day. Provocative and compelling, After the Celebration captures the key themes and issues in Australian fiction: where we have been and what we have become.

City Under the Stars completes a journey undertaken by Gardner Dozois and Michael Swanwick 25 years ago, when they published the novella The City of God. Over two decades later, the two realized there was more to the story, and began the work of expanding it. Now, after Gardner Dozois' tragic passing, the story can be told in full. God was in his Heaven—which was fifteen miles away, due east. Far in Earth's future, in a post-utopian hell-hole, Hanson works ten solid back-breaking hours a day, shoveling endless mountains of coal, within sight of the iridescent wall that separates what’s left of humanity from their gods. One day, after a tragedy of his own making, Hanson leaves the city, not knowing what he will do, or how he will survive in the wilderness without work. He finds himself drawn to the wall, to the elusive promise of God. And when the impossible happens, he steps through, into the city beyond. The impossible was only the beginning. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

After a long day at work, Tripti is unable to find a cab for home. Since it’s already very late and it’s pouring, she agrees to share a cab with a colleague she has crushed on for years, but never interacted with. Would this romantic setting make her ride memorable? Is there something more mysterious waiting for her?