Books Short Fiction Spotlight Must Read Short Speculative Fiction: December 2025 Ten excellent works of short fiction you may have missed in 2025 By Alex Brown | Published on January 21, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share It may be 2026, but I’m not done with last year yet. While doing all my short fiction reading from December, I didn’t intend to but ended up picking ten science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories that mostly include authors I’ve never featured in this spotlight before. There are a couple repeat guests, but it’s been a few years at least since I last had them on. I hope you’re as excited to meet (or re-meet) these authors as I was. “Drink Poetry, Devour the Sun” by Jonathan Helland Written in the form of electronic messages between two people, this piece ends up in a surprising place. Andy is on sabbatical and raising his preschool-age daughter. She keeps saying strange things while playing with her toys or at daycare, things that are impossible for her to know. The longer this goes on, the more disconcerting her statements become. Andy reaches out to Carol, who gives him a clue as to what the claims might mean. The truth is even worse. If you’re a mythology nerd like I am, you will probably be able to guess where this story is going, but trust me, it’s worth the ride. (Trollbreath Magazine—Winter 2025; issue 6) “Mbali and the Lantern Men” by K.A. Mulenga “The first time Mbali swallowed a star, she was five years old. It shimmered above her, small and flickering like an ember dropped from the sky. She thought it was candy. When she opened her mouth, it tumbled down her throat, leaving a trail of silver in its wake.” Mbali drinks the stars in the sky, but this isn’t a horror story. Ultimately, it’s about finding the best in yourself and not letting anyone dim or smother that. I love how this story is written, too. It feels like a folktale. (F(r)iction—Winter 2025; issue 25) “One Hand Washes the Other” by Karl El-Koura Pietr thinks he’s being held hostage by his two crewmates who have been turned into pod people by an alien hivemind. But what if he’s wrong? Or worse, what if he’s right? El-Koura stages a sci-fi drama that puts trust at the forefront. It’s a fun slice of space opera that feels like an excerpt from a novel. Sadly, this the last ever issue of On Spec. The Canadian magazine was founded in 1989 and has been publishing incredible speculative fiction ever since. It’s won numerous awards over the years, and on a personal note, it is one of those titles I always get really excited to see in my inbox. Fare thee well, On Spec. (On Spec—issue 134) “ReproTech RealWomb User Manual” by Xauri’EL Zwaan This is a very weird story, both in content and in structure, so I’m not going to tell you anything except go read it. And kinda disconcerting. It’s a little cyberpunk, a little satire, and a whole lot great. (Baffling—December 2025; issue 22) “Tapetum Lucidum” by U.M. Agoawike What a gorgeously written story. I also don’t want to tell you too much about this piece since it’s so short and the twist in the plot is a gut punch. It’s about children who play in the Darkwood by a cottage and the awful thing that happens to them out there. It’s written from the perspective of one of those children after it happens. It flows like a nightmare or a particularly dark fairy tale, one of those that the Grimm Brothers might have found too unsettling to include. (Augur—#8.3) “The Matriarch” by Malena Salazar Maciá “He told you he didn’t like your hair.” In our narrator’s culture, hair is how memories and traditions are passed down the generations. Not that her husband cares. He is from the capital where, from his perspective, they are civilized and don’t have all that wild, untamed hair. She gives into his demands, and it still isn’t enough for him. After reading this story, I thought about the comments white people used to make to me as a child about how my hair was “crazy,” as well as how during slavery Black people would weave patterns and seeds into their hair to guide them when they escaped. I thought about “Kill the Indian, save the man” campaigns meant to forcibly assimilate Indigenous people out of their “savage” ways, and how one of those weapons was cutting off their hair at the boarding schools. And yet, despite all that, our people are still here, still resisting, still holding onto our cultures. (Fantasy Magazine—Winter 2025; issue 99) “The North” by Subodhana Wijeyeratne Our narrator is from a land that was terrorized by Northern raiders generations ago. Their culture still tells the stories of those years as if they survived the worst humanity had to offer. Now our narrator is joining a sailing party headed North in search of a passage to the other side of the world, as well as sea creatures they plan to hunt and sell. They find the creatures and the Northerners, but things don’t go the way our narrator expects. Wijeyeratne weaves in commentary on capitalism, resource exploitation, and dehumanization. It’s a world that feels just close enough to ours to make the analogy hit hard. (khōréō—volume 5, issue 4) “The Red River Summers” by Inda Lauryn Madear escapes slavery and makes it as far north as the Territory of Wisconsin. There she gets a little revenge on some white people before she settles into their cabin and builds herself a life. Most people leave her alone, what with the threat of her witchcraft, but not the Indigenous people of the region. The story takes place around the time of Mahkatêwe-meshi-kêhkêhkwa, aka Black Hawk, the Sauk warrior who led a war against the United States in 1832. Lauryn blends real history and fantasy in compelling ways. The characters don’t get a happy ending—if you know anything about this historical era, then Black Hawk’s fate won’t surprise you—but the journey is powerful. (Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction—Summer 2025) “The Short History of a Long-Forgotten, Ill-Fated Telenovela” by Dante Luiz The cast and crew of the telenovela Senhora must be cursed. It ran only for a season in the early 1970s, but had an outsized impact on the television industry. It’s the only thing that explains why they all keep dying in painful ways. We follow a few of these victims through their involvement in the production of Senhora and after, peeking into their lives and the cruelties they meted out to others before their bill came due. It’s a creepy story with a lot of smart things to say about fame. (Nightmare—December 2025; issue 159) “Who Are You Wearing?” by Russell Nichols The gig economy gets dark. Well, darker. You are a divorced parent trying to do your best for your 9-year-old daughter. You work random jobs wearing an exo suit called a Hardiman, anything from a courier to a raccoon evictor to hauling heavy objects. The work sucks, but you put up with it because what other choice do you have? A sharp story that isn’t all that far-fetched, exo aside. (Uncanny—December 2025; issue 67)[end-mark] The post Must Read Short Speculative Fiction: December 2025 appeared first on Reactor.