It seems impossible that it’s already/only been a year since our last Original Fiction roundup, but what a year it’s been! In 2025, Reactor published 37 stories: 14 original short stories, 21 original novelettes, and 2 reprints. All told, that’s more than 280,000 words, written by our amazing authors, spanning the speculative galaxy, from snarky spaceships to insect politics, alien invasions to augmented ecosystems, and Buddhist heavens to corporate hellscapes.
As always, please consider nominating your favorites for the Hugos, Nebulas, Stokers and any other upcoming awards and lists that honor outstanding works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
Although Stubby is preparing to dock for the winter break, we’re looking forward to bringing you more spectacular speculative fiction in 2026. In the meantime, please join us in celebrating the many talented authors, illustrators, editors, and art directors who brought us so many incredible stories this year.
We are so grateful for them and for you, our readers, who continue to be the very best in the universe.
Original Novelettes
By A.C. Wise
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustrated by Terra Keck
14,040 words | January 13, 2025
In one small town, the delicate balance between predator and prey is threatened when five girls are murdered on prom night.
By Alaya Dawn Johnson
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Illustrated by Ocean Salazar
7,560 words | January 22, 2025
A woman losing her sight turns to small family magics to save the lives of those she loves the most.
By Laird Barron
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustrated by Wesley Allsbrook
8,730 words | February 19, 2025
A pair of sisters are hired to find–and if necessary, dispose of–whatever is killing neighborhood pets in a dying town.
By Elizabeth Bear
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Illustrated by Zelda Devon
17,100 words | February 26, 2025
A new story set in the world of “The Red Mother.” Hacksilver riddled with a dragon, saved his family’s farm, and won the secret to raise his dead. Nothing prepared him, though, for the long cold winter when the dead walked…and his family came back!
After the Invasion of the Bug-Eyed Aliens
By Rachel Swirsky
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Illustrated by Chalzea Xu
9,750 words | March 19, 2025
Two ex-military nurses, one human and one alien, share a friendship in a city following an alien invasion.
The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For
By Cameron Reed
Edited by Mal Frazier
Illustrated by Sara Wong
8,925 words | April 2, 2025
In a corporate-run dystopia, a trans girl plucked out of poverty to give birth to a clone meets her replacement.
By Tade Thompson
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Illustrated by Jenis Littles
7,548 words | April 16, 2025
A young woman is recruited to be part of Nigeria’s first ever space mission, but things go awry when the mission is thrown into chaos.
By Sarah Langan
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustrated by Chloé Biocca
9,170 words | May 7, 2025
A woman talented in the art of spinning–creating pottery by manipulating clay in her mouth–longs to become the best, but wonders if it is worth the sacrifices she must make…
By Wen-yi Lee
Edited by Sanaa Ali-Virani
Illustrated by Holly Warburton
9,300 words | June 18, 2025
A girl reckons with what she must lose–and who she has become–in order to be accepted at the empire’s most prestigious university.
By Rich Larson
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustrated by Ying Ding
7,612 words | June 25, 2025
A fast-moving, futuristic caper about a thief who has planned a job that he hopes will set him up for life by stealing a few biosculptures from a rich couple’s mansion.
Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy
By Martha Wells
Edited by Lee Harris
Illustrated by Jaime Jones
7,540 words | July 10, 2025
Perihelion and its crew embark on a dangerous new mission at a corporate-controlled station in the throes of a hostile takeover…
By Quan Barry
Edited by Lindsey Hall
Illustrated by Jun Cen
10, 730 words | July 16, 2025
The ancient myth of Pandora’s box reimagined in a haunting, post-apocalyptic future…
By Alex Irvine
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Illustrated by Erin Jia
11,530 words | July 30, 2025
Damon’s UBI royalties just crashed. His social capital went up in smoke. His girlfriend left him. Now he finds out he’s going to die. What to do? Solve his own murder, for starters…and maybe, just maybe, strike it rich along the way.
By Martin Cahill
Edited by Ann VanderMeer
Illustrated by Yuta Shimpo
8,600 words | August 13, 2025
Barber Gio Monsargo has learned to stay quiet and keep his head down, offering shaves and haircuts, not political opinions. But when a high-ranking military official of the Empire begins visiting his shop, Gio finds himself tested in ways he could never imagine.
By Caroline M. Yoachim and Ken Liu
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Illustrated by Franco Zacha
8,000 words | September 10, 2025
As humanity moves to the stars, a young woman attempts to preserve the magical forest she fell in love with as a child.
By Sam Davis
Edited by Ann VanderMeer
Illustrated by Michael Hirshon
8,480 words | September 17, 2025
In a newly integrated insect metropolis, generations clash around art, technology, and capitalism. Boris, a rural vesper, chases modernity to the city, but tradition is there first.
By Champ Wongsatayanont
Edited by Mal Frazier
Illustrated by Wenjing Yang
10,140 words | October 8, 2025
A minor deva drudging away in the gleaming offices of Buddhist heaven discovers there are easier ways to improve his karma than kind thoughts and spiritual deeds.
By John Wiswell
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Illustrated by Hokyoung Kim
7,580 words | October 22, 2025
A disabled son care-taking for a disabled father tries to understand the mysterious blur haunting them.
Timelike Curves, Spacelike Curves
By P H Lee
Edited by Mal Frazier
Illustrated by Rebekka Dunlap
7,890 words | October 29, 2025
Is it bad to cheat on your boyfriend with the fabric of space and time?
Content note: This story contains graphic sexual content.
By Kate Elliott
Edited by Oliver Dougherty
Illustrated by Juan Bernabeu
9,900 words | November 5, 2025
An older medic with scant resources fights to support her community as they survive life behind the company wall.
Regarding the Childhood of Morrigan, Who Was Chosen to Open the Way
By Benjamin Rosenbaum
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Illustrated by Tom Dearie
11,330 words | November 19, 2025
A child who falls through the cracks in a world run by machines and politics, might be the savior of all humanity…
Original Short Stories
By Carrie Vaughn
Edited by Ann VanderMeer
Illustrated by Eli Minaya
6,480 words | January 29, 2025
Teenage Graff dreams of going off-world to explore the universe as a documentarian, but he never imagined the adventures awaiting him when he actually gets the chance to leave.
By S. E. Porter
Edited by Claire Eddy
Illustrated by Jana Heidersdorf
4,540 words | February 12, 2025
The spirit of a recently deceased young boy helps a group of ghosts seek revenge on a corrupt and abusive town minister.
By Kelly Robson
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustrated by Elijah Boor
5,040 words | March 5, 2025
A woman about to leave on an overseas business trip, calls home from the airport and discovers that “daddy” isn’t there and her six-year-old son is all alone in the dark…
By Hildur Knútsdóttir
Edited by Lindsey Hall
Illustrated by Deena So’Oteh
3,400 words | March 12, 2025
As a young scholar sets out on a research project to find the stones where the settlers of Iceland made human sacrifices, a long dormant volcano rouses…and other, long-sleeping horrors might also be stirring.
By David Erik Nelson
Edited by Ann VanderMeer
Illustrated by Simone Noronha
7,030 words | May 14, 2025
The star skeptic from a haunted house reality show finds herself in a jam when she discovers her cousin’s nondescript Swedish superstore chair is anything but ordinary…
By Garth Nix
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustrated by Weston Wei
5,130 words | May 21, 2025
A man accidentally summons a shapeshifting demon with anger-management issues…
By Natalia Theodoridou
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Illustrated by Babs Webb
5,500 words | August 6, 2025
Following a mysterious world-wide event that makes ghosts visible, a young woman is invited to attend Ghost Camp.
By Kathleen Jennings
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustrated by Armando Veve
5,430 words | August 20, 2025
A woman returning to her family’s home town for a wedding discovers why people in Connorville—including her family—might be more than they seem.
The Hungry Mouth at the Edge of Space and the Goddess Knitting at Home
By Renan Bernardo
Edited by Ann VanderMeer
Illustrated by Alix Pentecost Farren
6,026 words | August 27, 2025
To celebrate her grandmother, all the captain of the Sopinha de Feijão wanted was to build a street market on a distant moon. But now the captain is dead and trying to figure out what kind of god might have killed her—and what kind of pact her grandmother made with it.
By Isabel J. Kim
Edited by Carl Engle-Laird
Illustrated by Mojo Wang
6,890 words | September 24, 2025
A two-man team must risk a spacewalk when meteoroids threaten crucial portal-spanning telecommunications cables that hang a hundred meters beneath the ocean…and forty-five billion light years away.
By Matthew Kressel
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustrated by Keith Negley
3,850 words | October 1, 2025
A government agent and his mentee are sent into a remote town on a mysterious and dangerous project.
By Stephen Graham Jones
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Illustrated by Leonardo Santamaria
5,030 words | November 12, 2025
In a future where people can travel back in time and do anything they want without consequences, one disgruntled young man decides to visit his parents two years earlier.
By Ruthanna Emrys
Edited by Carl Engle-Laird
Illustrated by Jacqueline Tam
3,565 words | December 3, 2025
Transformed by a broad-spread fungal infection that connects humans with nature, one woman feels closer to the world than ever, but further from the people she loves the most…
Reactor Reprints
By Adrian Tchaikovsky
Edited by Lee Harris
Illustrated by George Wylesol
April 30, 2025
Set years before Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Service Model, the newly-promoted head of Human Resources for a multinational conglomerate navigates their new role in a world where humans are increasingly redundant.
By Nisi Shawl
Edited by Aislyn Fredsall
Illustrated by Jabari Weathers
June 4, 2025
An empathy-generating fungus is the hip new lifestyle accessory that defeats vigilantes and finds you the job of your dreams.
Will there be a download available for individuals who prefer to read these stories offline and/or use their choice of reader to change the font and other accessibility options ?
Agreed. Tor’s unwillingness to do more than a once-a-year-minimal ePub means that I read less of them each month than I do their competitors.
Agreed. Though I can read a short story on my PC, it’s far easier to read the collection on my Kobo ereader — and uses far less energy, so benefits the environment.
Agree! EPUBs please!