I held out my hand with the marble in it, and the drowned girl reached out her long fingers and lifted it gently out of my palm, not even touching me with one of her fingernails. She rolled it in her hand for a moment, looking into the misty shadows in the glass, and then swallowed it, grinning almost like she was still human.

Duration: 23:15
File Size: 16 MB.
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The Best of BCS, Year Two anthology now available

Issue also available on Kindle and as Epub, Mobi, or PDF

The pronouncements of the captain were drowned by the goading of the crowd, but his actions were clear. It took three men to hold Kaul's father's left arm on the block. One soldier brought out a broad-bladed axe and his father's struggles renewed. The axe-man bent over him, giving instructions, but his eyes rolled and he screamed. The axe-man seemed to shrug; then, raising his weapon, he brought it down, once, with a sickening crunch.

I held out my hand with the marble in it, and the drowned girl reached out her long fingers and lifted it gently out of my palm, not even touching me with one of her fingernails. She rolled it in her hand for a moment, looking into the misty shadows in the glass, and then swallowed it, grinning almost like she was still human.

I was sagging, listing in pain, by the time I could see Rattle and the crew. They were waiting on the Eight-B platform, near the engine console. The Eight-B line had a rust-and-people smell that mingled into a peculiar musk. I imagined the stench of Hail's blood and body beneath the usual platform scents. From Rattle's face, I knew she didn't have to.

I tear the robe open. Father's belly's a ruin--but he has been, as he is in all things, strangely exacting. I press in with my fingers, feeling the wound's edges; mercifully, they don't go up underneath the ribs. No, he's slashed his intestines with expert precision--a deadly but slow wound. Plenty of time before swollen guts and poisoned blood will take his life.

I was sagging, listing in pain, by the time I could see Rattle and the crew. They were waiting on the Eight-B platform, near the engine console. The Eight-B line had a rust-and-people smell that mingled into a peculiar musk. I imagined the stench of Hail's blood and body beneath the usual platform scents. From Rattle's face, I knew she didn't have to.

Duration: 29:24
File Size: 20 MB.
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The Best of BCS, Year Two anthology now available

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A flare of illumination washed the chamber in flickering shadow and gleam. I'd gone through another door, into a different room, longer and wider than the one I knew. Runes were scratched on every visible inch of walls, ceiling and floor. Repeated phrases: Death feeds life. Life breeds death. Death breathes. Tall and heavy armoires slithering with gold filigree lined both sides of this horrid space, most with their doors open, spilling out once-beautiful gowns now molded and rotting, reminding me of molted skins.

I was sagging, listing in pain, by the time I could see Rattle and the crew. They were waiting on the Eight-B platform, near the engine console. The Eight-B line had a rust-and-people smell that mingled into a peculiar musk. I imagined the stench of Hail's blood and body beneath the usual platform scents. From Rattle's face, I knew she didn't have to.

They clashed in Bear Forest, and the trees sighed around them. Unarmed, dressed only in shadow, they explored each other with sore fingers and hungry eyes. The enchantments of battle cast aside, they were two men of flesh and bone--no taller than any others and no stronger.

The song became a chant, slow and rhythmic as a sleeping heart. The dance wove together three women, then four, then one alone with steel in her hand. Zel dreamed on her feet, free of pain, comfortable with the prospect of death. Two of the sisters went away into the darkness beyond the ring of fire. When they returned, they bore a white ghost between them. A white-feathered ghost with yellow eyes that burned brighter than the flames.

They clashed in Bear Forest, and the trees sighed around them. Unarmed, dressed only in shadow, they explored each other with sore fingers and hungry eyes. The enchantments of battle cast aside, they were two men of flesh and bone—no taller than any others and no stronger.

Duration: 18:06
File Size: 12 MB.
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The Best of BCS, Year Two anthology now available

Featuring new cover art by Zsofia Tuska

Issue also available on Kindle and as Epub, Mobi, or PDF

They clashed in Bear Forest, and the trees sighed around them. Unarmed, dressed only in shadow, they explored each other with sore fingers and hungry eyes. The enchantments of battle cast aside, they were two men of flesh and bone--no taller than any others and no stronger.

The science of anathema arrayed itself in my thoughts unbidden. I counted the marks--five in each swipe. They reached as high as a man, avoiding the iron fittings on the window frames. Whatever it was, it was as big as me. Something that size wasn't a fair match for ignorant villagers with nothing but a book written by an ex-priest.

The title of the book was Principles of Light-Bearing, and Sharide was engrossed in it by the second page. She had dreamed of being a weaver, and a fisher, and a soldier, and many different wives, but the life of a seeker of knowledge had never come to her yet. When next she slept, she decided, she would try to find a life wherein she had read this book, and other books, and understood them.

Her age was impossible to say, for her face was crusted with muck and roots. Her teeth were like kernels of mottled corn. She was naked, her skin textured like stone, gray and gravelly. Wet, bulbous mushrooms grew in the moss around her womanly crevice. Her reek nearly brought me to my knees.

The title of the book was Principles of Light-Bearing, and Sharide was engrossed in it by the second page. She had dreamed of being a weaver, and a fisher, and a soldier, and many different wives, but the life of a seeker of knowledge had never come to her yet. When next she slept, she decided, she would try to find a life wherein she had read this book, and other books, and understood them.

Duration: 44:14
File Size: 30 MB.
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Enter to win a signed George R.R. Martin anthology for BCS Science-Fantasy Month

Featuring science-fantasy cover art by Mats Minnhagen and Author Interviews

Issue also available on Kindle and as Epub, Mobi, or PDF

Vayag entered Subway Station 14, trying to ignore the book's continued whispering. The station was cleaner than it ever had been during her childhood. Say what you would about the Meroi, but they were excellent administrators. There were no beggars--but neither were there sellers of fruit, players of drums and tellers of fortunes with cards of azalea and crane. Vayag and her sister had come to stations just like this one, buying sour-sweet candies on the way home from school. Now when she looked at the station, all she saw were doors opening and closing, opening and closing, in mechanical defeat.

I closed my eyes and lay my head on my folded arms. I wanted to say yes to Casimar, and not only because I needed her protection. Every word of her argument was true; if Juggernaut denied itself the safety of belonging to Casimar Altan, if it let itself fall into the hands of Tourkis, the Dragons' power in the Tourkis System would be absolute. Like the fuel-starved orbit of Akshayavat, it would be nearly impossible to escape.

Megan Arkenberg on “Juggernaut,” the machinery of subgenre, and why an oppressed underclass is allowed economic power.

Yoon Ha Lee on “The Book of Locked Doors,” an occupied people as neither passive victims nor virtuous heroes, and carved keyholes and giant bird-gods. (Coming March 29)

Vayag entered Subway Station 14, trying to ignore the book's continued whispering. The station was cleaner than it ever had been during her childhood. Vayag and her sister had come to stations just like this one, buying sour-sweet candies on the way home from school. Now when she looked at the station, all she saw were doors opening and closing, opening and closing, in mechanical defeat.

"When you sat down so suddenly, the movement caused an infinitesimal trauma to the flesh in your head. In that chaos, a few of the tiny creatures that compose your brain were killed. Are you sad for them? Or do you only care about them so long as they provide you with movement, emotions, the mirrors that reflect my mind in yours?"

Vayag entered Subway Station 14, trying to ignore the book's continued whispering. The station was cleaner than it ever had been during her childhood. There were no beggars—but neither were there sellers of fruit, players of drums and tellers of fortunes with cards of azalea and crane. Vayag and her sister had come to stations just like this one, buying sour-sweet candies on the way home from school. Now when she looked at the station, all she saw were doors opening and closing, opening and closing, in mechanical defeat.

Duration: 43:11
File Size: 30 MB.
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The second giveaway will take place on Twitter.

To enter, tweet what your favorite science-fantasy book or short story is, using the hashtag #BCSsciFmonth, and very briefly say why.

It must be a prose work; i.e. a book or short story, not a movie or comic.

You must use the hashtag #BCSsciFmonth, so we can find your entry.

You must tweet your entry before midnight EST Thurs. Mar. 29. Any tweets after that will not be eligible.

Each person will be entered only once in the drawing (even if you tweet more than one entry).

BCS will not be responsible for tweets that get lost in Twitter's system or are not displayed.

Your Twitter profile must include a URL of your web site or some other way we can find who you are and contact you.

BCS will conduct a random drawing from among all the entries that follow these rules. The signed anthology will be mailed to the winner.

Enter to win a signed George R.R. Martin anthology for BCS Science-Fantasy Month

Featuring science-fantasy cover art by Mats Minnhagen and Author Interviews

Issue also available on Kindle, and by ebook subscription, and as Epub, Mobi, or PDF

The Spinies pressed flutes to their chest-maws and trilled a maniacal improvisation, something like Chinese opera filtered through jazz and spliced with a catfight. Not what I'd call music to die for, but my opinion didn't count much. Customs had generously allowed me to keep my pistol, after draining its battery to red. I had maybe three shots. Worse yet, if I killed someone, that was the end of my journey to sanity. I'd be deported or executed.

Esthe had no acid and no knife, but she had a little light from the keycards. She bit her tongue hard and spat blood into her hand. Within it she scried, not for the first time, that Karnon Nameless Dae was not a human man. He was neininki; alien. Like all neininki, a lie would cost him his life. Having promised to kill all who sheltered the prince, he would never spare her life.

Anne Ivy on “Scry,” alienness and hegemony, and how Oedipus’s parents caused their prophesied end.

Chris Willrich on “The Mote-Dancer and the Firelife,” Quixotes and Sanchos, and how artificial augmentation in humans might impact how we would interact with alien species. (Coming March 15)

The Spinies pressed flutes to their chest-maws and trilled a maniacal improvisation, something like Chinese opera filtered through jazz and spliced with a catfight. Not what I'd call music to die for, but my opinion didn't count much.

Carneby and the young woman attend the Apogee Swim, that moment at the height of The City's bound when the air is becalmed. Lifeguards watch over the citizens who swim into the great void with flippers and paddles made of cardboard and tape. The young woman is ecstatic as she ventures out above the green and blue smear of The Earth. They thrash their cardboard fins, flirting with the airy abyss which is the only respite from the numbing continuity of The City.

The Spinies pressed flutes to their chest-maws and trilled a maniacal improvisation, something like Chinese opera filtered through jazz and spliced with a catfight. Not what I'd call music to die for, but my opinion didn't count much. Customs had generously allowed me to keep my pistol, after draining its battery to red. I had maybe three shots. Worse yet, if I killed someone, that was the end of my journey to sanity.

Duration: 43:46
File Size: 30 MB.
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Coming Next Issue: BCS Science-Fantasy Month

Issue also available on Kindle and as Epub, Mobi, or PDF

The title of the book was Principles of Light-Bearing, and Sharide was engrossed in it by the second page. It described how light was the underpinning of the world. She had dreamed of being a weaver, and a fisher, and a soldier, and many different wives, but the life of a seeker of knowledge had never come to her yet. When next she slept, she decided, she would try to find a life wherein she had read this book, and other books, and understood them.

Yengec lingered over his spiced yams and rice, reading Hjel's journal. Paramentals, not cauldron-borne like homunculi but spontaneously generated from the city itself. Paramentals--every polisomancer whispered of them. They haunted cities. Not quite ghosts, but spirits just the same.

Yengec lingered over his spiced yams and rice, reading Hjel's journal. Paramentals, not cauldron-borne like homunculi but spontaneously generated from the city itself.

Carneby and the young woman attend the Apogee Swim, that moment at the height of The City's bound when the air is becalmed. Lifeguards watch over the citizens who swim into the great void with flippers and paddles made of cardboard and tape. The young woman is ecstatic as she ventures out above the green and blue smear of The Earth. They thrash their cardboard fins, flirting with the airy abyss which is the only respite from the numbing continuity of The City.

Yengec lingered over his spiced yams and rice, reading Hjel’s journal. Paramentals, not cauldron-borne like homunculi but spontaneously generated from the city itself. Paramentals—every polisomancer whispered of them. They haunted cities. Not quite ghosts, but spirits just the same.

Duration: 36:24
File Size: 25 MB.
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Enter to win a copy of Saladin Ahmed's new novel Throne of the Crescent Moon

Issue also available on Kindle and as Epub, Mobi, or PDF

Aspley turned slowly. He had been washed ashore on the island, and in a daze, a delirium, had stumbled from the beach and into this building. He had no idea where he was or how he had come to be there. No explanations to soothe the rushing of his frantic mind. But then his intellect cut in. Reason, lovely, lovely reason, told him, in all its wisdom, that wherever he was it was preferable to where he had been, preferable, dear god, yes, to the horror of sucking seawater into his lungs.

I saw my men, who had been the cream of the III Corps, gladly charge well-fed, well-shod Cossacks with nothing but the bayonet and stock of the musket frozen in their hands, barefoot and starving. I admired them for their courage. I envied it. Because I had lost what I most cared for: the calculus of risk, and in its disregard, of bravery. That month of frimaire, I learned that nothing could end my life. I was no longer human.

Something moves at the end of the corridor. I raise the gun and stop when I see the small figure, the same soft wings but smaller; coiled serpent hair tight about the head. Little more than a girl. The creature's offspring. What she was protecting.

My voice sounds thin and choked when I speak. "Let the soldiers choose for themselves," I say. "Let those who wish to flee leave now, in good faith. I will not have them stay to be murdered for a cause they cannot support. But let food and bandages be stockpiled through the day, and close the gates"--I almost say, at nightfall, but it is always night now-- "before midnight. We will hold my father's fortress until the last."

Something moves at the end of the corridor. I raise the gun and stop when I see the small figure, the same soft wings but smaller; coiled serpent hair tight about the head. Little more than a girl. The creature’s offspring. What she was protecting.

Duration: 35:56
File Size: 25 MB.
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BCS: How have Dr. Adoulla and Raseed, and the world of the Crescent Moon Kingdoms, changed or evolved from the debut story to the novel?

Saladin: Throne of the Crescent Moon takes place two years after "Where Virtue Lives." As the novel opens, Raseed - who has been apprenticed to Adoulla all this time - is perhaps a bit more used to the Doctor's heterodox ways. But as he's grown into a man, he's begun to question both his training and Adoulla's teachings anew.

And Adoulla himself is even wearier and more fatigued. His relationship with Miri, hinted at in "Virtue," comes to a wrenching crisis point in Throne.


The tone of the novel is darker and a bit less... picaresque than "Virtue," though there's still some hopefully funny stuff in there. And of course, at the novel level, one can explore everything - the world, the magic, the monsters, the city - more extensively.

So Throne is sketched in greater detail, darker, and wider in scope than "Virtue." Adoulla and Raseed wrangle with larger threats and greater self-doubts. But I think anyone who enjoyed this story will like the novel even more!

You must leave your comment in the original comments thread for "Where Virtue Lives". Comments left anywhere else will not enter you in the giveaway.

You must post your comment before midnight EST on Wed. Feb. 15. Any comments after that will not be eligible.

Comments posted in that thread before this giveaway started are not eligible to enter the giveaway. (You must post a new comment even if you posted one back when the story was released.)

Each person will be entered only once in the drawing (even if you leave more than one comment).

You must be a registered member of the BCS Forums, and you must post your comment from that registered user name (otherwise we won't be able to contact you if you win).

Scott H. Andrews will review the entries and decide on the winner. The hardcover of Throne of the Crescent Moon will be mailed to them.

The Best of BCS, Year Two anthology now available

Issue also available on Kindle and as Epub, Mobi, or PDF

Something moves at the end of the corridor. I raise the gun and stop when I see the small figure, the same soft wings but smaller; coiled serpent hair tight about the head. Little more than a girl. The creature's offspring. What she was protecting.

He had heard rumors, when he was working for the bears, that their prince had fallen in love with a human girl, and that she had been the one to betray him. The prince, the young man who should have been a bear, was the reason why the castle must never fail, the reason why Jack must never speak.

This task had not been set to us but to him. How long might one live if they denied a god? Susanoo could not drown me in these waters, nor could a blade pierce my heart, but he commanded all of Yomi, and what tortures he might devise there I did not wish to know.

Condescension, from a slave, though Periphas. How appropriate. He got up, following the loggerhead along the circus' aisle as it swam. The carvings on its shell were spidery and thin, interconnected traceries meaningless in any language of logic or linear thought. He doubted that an untrained eye, even in the first row, would know them for what they were: the marks of madness bent to will. The symbols of a sorcerer's attention.

This task had not been set to us but to him. How long might one live if they denied a god? Susanoo could not drown me in these waters, nor could a blade pierce my heart, but he commanded all of Yomi, and what tortures he might devise there I did not wish to know.

Duration: 30:16
File Size: 21 MB.
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The Best of BCS, Year Two anthology now available

Issue also available on Kindle and as Epub, Mobi, or PDF

And to my shock, they did apologize--some of them not bothering to feign sincerity, but it was clear to them that the turn of the tide was against them, and they must pretend I was not a slave but a person for just a bit, just long enough to satisfy the sensibilities of the others. I made note of which these were, to be careful of them from then on.

This task had not been set to us but to him. How long might one live if they denied a god? Susanoo could not drown me in these waters, nor could a blade pierce my heart, but he commanded all of Yomi, and what tortures he might devise there I did not wish to know.

She leaves the concubine boy sprawled against the parapet and turns to the estuary, so that he falls on her right and vanishes from awareness. She knows he is still there, of course; she is not touched. But she cannot make herself know it, cannot make herself grasp that he still exists. Her mind insists that he has been snatched away, drawn off-stage.

The Prodigy scampered forward at once and sat before the pipe organ's keyboards. Kreisler was with him. Together they began to play, calling the automata back to their city. Just as we had planned. And I, I ran after the Clockwork King, driven, as ever, by the thought of Olympia. For I had more that I would know.

She leaves the concubine boy sprawled against the parapet and turns to the estuary, so that he falls on her right and vanishes from awareness. She knows he is still there, of course; she is not touched. But she cannot make herself know it, cannot make herself grasp that he still exists. Her mind insists that he has been snatched away, drawn off-stage.

Duration: 44:23
File Size: 30 MB.
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The Best of BCS Anthologies - a great gift for that new Kindle, tablet, or smart phone

Issue also available on Kindle and as Epub, Mobi, or PDF

I walked away from the Flare that had once been Scorpion, away from Tal-hedran and toward the deepest parts of the desert. I stumbled in the sand, weeping as much as Frog had when we were children in the manor of stone. I had seen myself, and I was empty, no more than a vessel for my father's belief.

She leaves the concubine boy sprawled against the parapet and turns to the estuary, so that he falls on her right and vanishes from awareness. She knows he is still there, of course; she is not touched. But she cannot make herself know it, cannot make herself grasp that he still exists. Her mind insists that he has been snatched away, drawn off-stage.

The one who brings your food is named Osla. My birds are trained well, and this one will have struck at his eyes. Take this parchment quickly, speak his name, and he will fall like the rain outside your window. You must move quickly, for the first guard will be at the door.

"Shit," I said, and that sat there ugly and twitching between us for a few seconds before his stallion decided he'd had enough and wanted to go check out the mares. The King just had enough time to swoop up into his saddle before the horse made a beeline through the crowd. "Come and see me sometime, Livia!" he called, and then he was gone, swallowed up in the blue.

The one who brings your food is named Osla. My birds are trained well, and this one will have struck at his eyes. Take this parchment quickly, speak his name, and he will fall like the rain outside your window. You must move quickly, for the first guard will be at the door.

Duration: 12:01
File Size: 8 MB.
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The Best of BCS, Year Two anthology now available

Issue also available on Kindle and as Epub, Mobi, or PDF

Swinging from the roof hung a little cage with Garvinger's window-witch inside. It babbled spells to keep Malern alive and conscious on the table throughout the whole operation. Malern couldn't see its mad, warty little face, but now and again, cool drops of its sweat fell onto her fevered skin.

Mateo dreamed of overwhelming power, and of hell. Men harnessed power by merging themselves with mutilated monsters, prodded alight the power of insensate gods through fires poked into other planes. Genoa stole the secrets of domesticating the gods from the Venetians. The Venetians stole from Genoa. Always chasing. Always fleeing. Always hunting up new gods with which to destroy each other.

The BCS Audio Fiction Podcasts are on a short hiatus. Peruse our past episodes for audio stories by authors such as Steve Rasnic Tem, Genevieve Valentine, and Richard Parks until new episodes resume in a month.

The man's head swung wildly, his fingers grasping towards the straining netted bundle. The touch of the God on an unholy man was not pretty. Halla could sense it, crackling the air from the Mouth to the man. It was a compulsion that filled him with blood lust, blanketed his mind with one urge: kill the dove.

The Best of BCS, Year Two anthology now available

Issue also available on Kindle and as Epub, Mobi, or PDF

I spent the whole of the night lying awake, watching the sickly reflection of the moon in my wall of gilded mirrors. At last the sun rose, and I left my rumpled and sweat-soaked sheets with a great and sudden desire to see Gethsemane von Reis again. Before any part of my brain could protest, I washed and dressed, tucked the Times article into the pocket with my watch, and set off across the herb gardens to the shadows of Armitage Wood.

I went to see the specimens, because I thought I should know the face of the Enemy--my father would have been in there prodding and cutting himself--and immediately wished I hadn't. Cleaned of swamp sludge they looked like the gray ice mummies that had been found in caves along the Blue Belt.

The BCS Audio Fiction Podcasts are on a short hiatus. Peruse our past episodes for audio stories by authors such as Steve Rasnic Tem, Rosamund Hodge, and Marie Brennan until new episodes resume in a month.

The music grew louder, skirling with strange harmonies that wove in and out of each other, and I knew then it couldn't be Nanny. I emerged from the artificial forest to stand behind my brother and sister. An elegant divan covered in striped cream and blue silk was faintly visible out of the corner of my eye. I crossed my arms over my chest as though I could protect myself. "Where is this?"

The Best of BCS, Year Two anthology now available

Issue also available on Kindle and as Epub, Mobi, or PDF

They all had to die. That was the right thing, Saga knew for certain, so he buried his fingers into the mound and found the fuse. He yanked it free, unraveling hand over hand, clearing it of fetid earth and inspecting it for rot and wear as he went. When he held a full thirty sticks' worth, he laid straight the line and prepared the flint and replotted his escape route, upwind so the little things couldn't smell him when they came.

Ordinary catastrophe. Is there such a creature? All catastrophe feels extraordinary to the one caught in its tide. It is no comfort to the ones whose fortunes I read, to say to them, This thing is ordinary, this thing that will happen to you.

Cecily grabbed a shard from the mirror, traced an unsteady line along the flesh of her wrist. Scars and metal piercings adorned her arms where she'd cut herself before. "They demand the spilling of blood," Granduncle would always say, when he bothered to notice her at all. "They envy us, you see, and covet the iron flowing freely in our veins."

A heavy pressure struck Imre about the head--the air itself drumming his ears--even as his blade impossibly passed through Ariosa's shape without slowing. No impact. No blood. Instead she blurred and before his eyes faded into the air, a ghostly mist. He swore as he caught his footing, just an instant before Ariosa reappeared with a hammer-fisted blow that jarred Imre to the spleen. Vesti met hymn with a crack and Imre's battle-scarred blade exploded in a cloud of black and copper pieces.

Cecily grabbed a shard from the mirror, traced an unsteady line along the flesh of her wrist. Scars and metal piercings adorned her arms where she’d cut herself before. “They demand the spilling of blood,” Granduncle would always say, when he bothered to notice her at all. “They envy us, you see, and covet the iron flowing freely in our veins.”

Duration: 24:13
File Size: 17 MB.
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