Books Short Fiction Spotlight Must Read Short Speculative Fiction: January 2026 This month’s short fiction recs include strange tales, near future explorations, and at least one giant. By Alex Brown | Published on February 19, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share This month I have for you short fiction from a new magazine and several long running ones, from authors who are new to this spotlight and returning favorites. Some of these stories are short enough to be drabbles and some are longer and more immersive. Some are strange tales and some are near future explorations. And one has a giant. Here are my ten favorite short science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories I read in January. “Awakening” by Natalia Plos The first issue of Quotidian Bagatelle, a new micro imprint focusing on fiction and poetry under 250, is a banger, and Plos’ piece is a great introduction for readers. In 12 sentences, Plos drops a dystopian nightmare. Our protagonist wakes up hundreds of years after entering cryostasis. The reason they’re woken up will send a chill down your spine. (Quotidian Bagatelle—January 2026; issue 1) “Bots All the Way Down” by Effie Seiberg ““Once upon a time,” outputted the algorithm, “there was an AI.” I’m iffy on speculative fiction involving generative AI—I work in secondary education and trust me, whatever horrible things you’ve heard about genAI in schools, the reality is even worse—but I knew Seiberg wouldn’t let me down. She digs into the superficiality of generative AI while also satirizing the ways pro-AI weirdos treat it like a sentient, conscious being. A fairy tale of web crawlers and a dead internet. (Lightspeed—January 2026; issue 188) “Into the Briarpatch” by Ella N’Diaye If you, like me, know about Black history in the American South and the Caribbean and were raised on African American folktales—all hail The People Could Fly—you’ll get a kick out of this story. Lots of references and deep cuts. Sadia is a pilot for a maroon community hiding out in the furthest reaches of space. She rescues people seeking freedom and delivers them to safety, like Harriet Tubman with a spaceship. After an unexpected betrayal, she must take evasive action to protect her passengers. N’Diaye could write a space opera trilogy about Sadia and I’d be seated for the whole thing. (FIYAH—Winter 2026; issue 37) “Love in the Time of Te Rāhuinui” by Hiria Dunning The title of this story is inspired by Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera. We begin in a future where the climate crisis is being mitigated by ending nearly all international travel and forcing everyone to justify any extravagances by acknowledging the subsequent environmental damage their actions will cause. In Aotearoa, Ingrid studies godwit birds. In Alaska, Noah also studies godwits. The annual migration of the birds offers a chance at communicating off the grid for these two scientists. As tough as things are down south, they’re even worse up north. While this story isn’t quite dystopian, it’s not hopepunk either. It’s something more complex and thoughtful. (Reckoning—January 2026; issue 10) “Magical Girl: Corporate Failure” by Lia Lao “The problem with saving the world at sixteen is that you’re doomed to chase that high for the rest of your life.” What happens when you save the day for one last time and are no longer the Chosen One? In the case of our protagonist, she becomes a corporate drone. And she fucking hates it. She longs for the adventure and excitement of battling demons from the Netherworld rather than the drudgery of debates over serif fonts in slide decks and private school tuition. It doesn’t go where you expect it to. (Haven Spec—January 2026; issue 21) “The (Mis)Fortunes of Saint Ilia’s School for Gifted Girls, In No Particular Order” by Catherine Tavares This horror story starts off almost like an urban fantasy. “You” are the lead detective assigned to investigate the murders of six students and two teachers from Saint Ilia’s School for Gifted Girls. Everyone at Saint Ilia’s has strange abilities—one can fly, another can speak in any language, a third has super strength, etc—but their powers also seemed to lead them to their terrible deaths. What got this story on this list isn’t that it’s well-written and entertaining but that Tavares picked a particularly interesting format: she structured it around a paper fortune teller. If you grew up in the US you probably made one of these at some point in your childhood. A piece of paper is folded so you can slip your fingers into slots and say a little rhyme while you open and close the paper in different ways. Then you ask a question and lift up a flap to get your fortune. What a killer (pun in tended) premise! (The Dark—January 2026; issue 128) “The Metabolism of Grief” by Elitsa Dermendzhiyska “The comma of you nestles against my aching body as if you’re merely asleep and I wonder what you might be dreaming of, when two nurses strut in through the door. It’s time, they say. Time? For what? For what?” It took me a moment to realize what was going on in this story, and when I finally did, all the air rushed out of my lungs. It’s a heartbreaking, beautiful story about motherhood and the kind of grief few of us are unlucky enough to experience. This is the saddest bit of fiction I’ve read so far this year, but also one of the most powerful. (Small Wonders—January 2026; issue 31) “More Than Feathers” by Phoebe Barton Our hero takes the form of a giant in order to kill a dragon after it kills their companion Tuaamala, but ends up stuck as in oversize. They’re saved, so to speak, by a mysterious mage calling herself Mijanlirel. She tries to resize our hero, but for now they’re going to have to get used to being big. A great little story that is deeper than it seems at first glance. Plus, giants! (Kaleidotrope—Winter 2026) “On the Anthology Entitled “Frames of Colour and Un-colour”” by Dmitri Akers Our protagonist, known only as The Luddite, is sent a roll of film to develop. The Luddite describes the 24 photographs in all their grotesque, increasingly cosmic horror. I won’t tell you what’s on them, but I agree with the Luddite that “what remains visible in the developed film is awful. Things a man should not see. You are a sick man for photographing them.” (The Deadlands—Winter 2026; issue 41) “Slake” by Victor Manibo Want a deeply upsetting short story? Well, here you go. Manibo’s piece is climate fiction by way of horror. Calix is trapped in their apartment as a hurricane bears down. It’s been raining for weeks straight and the city has more or less shut down as the flooding gets worse. Calix is separated from Jericho by the rising water, and the combination of the isolation, intense anxiety, and constant rain pushes Calix to the brink. I was glad I had already finished my tea by the time I read this story. (Sunday Morning Transport—January 18, 2026)[end-mark] The post Must Read Short Speculative Fiction: January 2026 appeared first on Reactor.