Books Short Fiction Spotlight Must Read Short Speculative Fiction: November 2025 Add some of the best new short fiction stories to your end of year reading lists! By Alex Brown | Published on December 18, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share As I was looking over this list of stories, I realized most of them were by authors who were new to me. I love it when I encounter voices I’ve never heard before. I also have a new publication on the reading list, and one of their stories is featured here. Let’s bow out the hell that was 2025 with at least a little excitement and joy, shall we? Here are the ten short science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories I enjoyed reading in November. “Beneath the Umdlebe Tree; or, A Vegetable Love Story” by Modupeoluwa Shelle Our narrator addresses Orhija, who is returning to Earth after a while away. The story blends science fiction and Yoruba cosmology in a way I’ve never seen before. Shelle opts for large paragraphs that give the story a tense yet sprawling feel. “You always blamed the gods for everything we did out of our own free will. Are you going to blame them now for the war your kind wages on mine out of an agelong resentment? Did you even blame them for the reason my kind are doing this to the Earth?” (Lightspeed—November 2025; issue 186) “Coin Flip” by Aeryn Rudel The narrator of this story tracks down several humans being held hostage by a demon-possessed serial killer and gets killed in the process. Good thing that this isn’t his first death. He is resurrected in time to save the day. But who is this man? That you’ll have to read the story to find out. The twist isn’t just a silly little reference but one loaded with layers of meaning, especially if you were raised in the Christian church. (Flashpoint SF—November 14, 2025) “The Fire Burns Anyway” by Kemi Ashing-Giwa The protagonist here is a dreamweaver, someone who can use a neural scanner to create “imaginary settings” and “realistic worlds” you can enter in your dreams. This felt like a metaphor for trying to be creative in the age of generative AI. Everything being concentrated in the hands of the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, turning creativity and passion into commodities and resources to be extracted, and trying to hold onto the joy of creating art in the face of the capitalist machine. (Clarkesworld—November 2025; issue 230) “For When the Night is Behind You and the Depths are Ahead” by Corey Farrenkopf Coincidentally, I had just read the excellent eco-horror short story collection The Writhing, Verdant End by Corey Farrenkopf, Eric Raglin, and Tiffany Morris when I came across this story by Farrenkopf. Of course I had to read it, and of course it exceeded my expectations. Our narrator’s older brother Dave is one of many who die during the nationwide release events for a videogame, Castles Underground III. They become obsessed with beating the game, and soon we realize the game is more real than Dave let on. (Three-Lobed Burning Eye—November 2025” by issue 46) “If You Can’t Make Your Own Regret, Store-Bought Is Fine” by RJ Aurand Val is a membalmer, someone who preserves memories by extracting them from the dead. Those memories are given to the survivors as they process their feelings toward the recently deceased. This story follows Val as she extracts regret from Mr. Jensen to give to his daughter, who wants as little of him as possible. Aurand wrote in the author’s note that this story was inspired by a video of someone finding cremains at a Goodwill and what kind of person would donate those. What do you do when you’re expected to honor the memory of someone who didn’t care for you the way you deserved? (Inner Worlds—November 2025; issue 9) “The Last Two Gardeners of Mars” by Irene W. Collins Years ago, Anara and Mireille were part of a crew of scientists sent to terraform Mars. Now, they’re the only two left in a collapsing dome. The terraforming project was abandoned, and they didn’t want to leave the garden behind untended. “Fifty years of this. Not quite lovers, never merely friends. Something more ferocious, more faithful. A queerplatonic tether forged in the red dust and sealed in chlorophyll.” Their time is done and they’re preparing to go out together. A different kind of love story, but a nevertheless beautiful and bittersweet one. (Heartlines Spec—Winter 2025; issue 9) “Occupational Hazards” by Nicole M. Babb Welcome to the spotlight, Foofaraw! This was such an unsettling and distressing story. It starts off fine before descending into horror territory. A detective shows up at Pinnacle Ergonomics to interview the coworkers of a man who died after being crushed to death in a prototype of a new technology. “Blood, brain matter, and Gary’s shirt aside, the room was an unrelenting white. Sunshine streamed through floor-to-ceiling windows, baking Gary like a ham surprise casserole.” By the time the detective figures out who the culprit is…well, I’ll let you find out what happens. (Foofaraw—November 27, 2025) “Pink Witches” by Melissa Jornd A child is at the reception after her Grandma’s funeral. Bree misses her Grandma so much and would give anything to see her again. When she escapes to the bathroom, she steps into a room filled with flowers…and the spirit of her grandmother. They do a little magic together to help Bree’s mother in her grief. It was a wonderful story about honoring your ancestors and being compassionate. Bree taps into power she could wield for any purpose, and her first thought is to do something kind for someone without expecting any reciprocation or appreciation in return. (Small Wonders—November 2025; issue 29) “Waterways” by Diana Dima David inherits his father’s boat after his death and becomes a fisherman. He had a fraught relationship with his father, unable to please him but always trying to anyway. David has a surreal experience with several other fishermen, then something in him snaps. This story is dark and creepy; it has the feel of a nightmare, with things spiraling out of control. (PodCastle—November 18, 2025; #918) “When Eve Chose Us” by Tia Tashiro In the years after an alien species arrives on Earth, peace has finally been declared. Part of the treaty included the option for humans to join the alien hivemind. Those that do still look mostly human, and are jokingly called “drones” by other humans. Liza’s best friend Eve decides to join, and Liza has a hard time understanding why. Eve has her reasons, reasons she isn’t inclined to share with Liza, leaving Liza feeling adrift and like she lost something she never really had in the first place. This is a really interesting way to explore an alien invasion. In this situation, the aliens offer troubled humans the chance to let go of what ails them. The hive isn’t submission but freedom. (Diabolical Plots—November 3, 2025; #129A) [end-mark] The post Must Read Short Speculative Fiction: November 2025 appeared first on Reactor.

Books Teen Horror Time Machine Holiday Spirits, A Killer Christmas, and R.L. Stine’s The New Evil  It just isn’t Christmas until the Evil Entity is released from the ice. By Alissa Burger | Published on December 18, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share The Cheerleaders trilogy (1992) are among the most iconic books in R.L. Stine’s Fear Street series. We’ll check out the trilogy in the new year, but with the holiday season upon us, we’ll turn our attention first to Stine’s follow up Super Chiller to the trilogy, Cheerleaders: The New Evil (1994). Throughout the original trilogy, the Shadyside High School cheerleading squad found themselves up against an amorphous evil power that can take possession of humans and hide itself behind the faces of their closest friends, resulting in all manner of mayhem and murder.  When Stine returns to the cheerleaders in The New Evil, the evil seems to have been safely contained, frozen in ice in the nearby Cononoka River. But when mysterious “accidents” start taking out the cheerleaders one by one, Corky Corcoran begins to have her doubts. First, Hannah is badly injured when she, Kimmy, and Corky are in a car accident. The roads are slippery and Hannah’s not wearing her seatbelt when they crash, so jumping straight to a supernatural explanation might feel like a bit of a leap, though Kimmy is adamant that the evil is back. Corky tries to rationalize with her, telling Kimmy, “You can’t blame the evil spirit every time something bad happens … Sometimes bad things happen. They can’t be helped” (12). But Kimmy has planted a seed of doubt in Corky’s mind and she talks her boyfriend Alex into driving her out to the river to see for herself, where she finds an ice-fishing hole cut in the ice, with vapor rising from the water. This time, it’s Alex who tries to reason with Corky, explaining that the steam is rising from the hole in the ice “because the water below the ice is warmer than the air above the ice” (26), but Corky’s having none of it.  To be fair, accidents seem to plague the cheerleading squad, though there’s some doubt as to whether the evil spirit is to blame or just some cutthroat sabotage of the competition, as new girls vie to take Hannah’s spot on the team. At tryouts for Hannah’s replacement, team captains Corky and Kimmy narrow their choice down to three finalists: Ivy, Lauren, and Rochelle. Just when they’ve made their minds up to give the spot to Rochelle, she is badly injured when a workman loses his grip on a screwdriver, which plummets to the gym floor and lodges in the back of Rochelle’s neck. While this could just be a freak accident, a case of Rochelle being in the wrong place at the wrong time, this is complicated by Ivy’s eavesdropping on Kimmy and Corky’s deliberations and the workman’s anguished confusion, as he tells the cheerleading coach Ms. Closter “It flew out of my hand! … I don’t know what happened. I was holding it tight. But it just flew out!” (51, emphasis original).  Rochelle survives, but she won’t be cheering any time soon and as a result of her injury, Ivy makes the squad. Lauren is furious and lobbies the coach to be part of the team as an alternate, practicing with the cheerleaders and learning the routines, seemingly just biding her time until another unfortunate “accident” will free up a spot for her on the squad. Heather gets powder burns from a malfunctioning confetti cannon and Naomi is badly burned when a fire baton twirling routine goes wrong, and in no time, Lauren has her wish and takes her spot next to the other cheerleaders.  Corky, Kimmy, and Debra have confronted the evil before and they aren’t willing to take any chances, even if that means committing murder, which is where the lines between the influence of the evil and the actions the cheerleaders are willing to take to stop the evil begin to get a bit blurry. Debra has started dabbling in magic spells that can help them detect the evil, deciding it’s best to fight supernatural dangers with supernatural defenses. Corky, Kimmy, and Debra come up with a plan to invite their friends to a pre-Christmas skating party on the frozen river, cast one of these spells to find out who the evil is inhabiting—their top contenders are Ivy and Lauren—and then drown the girl in the icy river. This has worked before and they’re hopeful that once the girl is dead and the evil is forced to vacate her body, they can do some quick CPR to bring her back to life, but the possibility that Ivy or Lauren might actually die doesn’t seem to be a dealbreaker. All is fair in cheerleading and evil banishing, apparently. The spell seems to work and Ivy starts skating toward the three of them (though this could also reasonably be a natural, non-possessed “what the heck is going on over there?” response when she sees three of her fellow cheerleaders gathered around a circle of candles on the ice and chanting). It ultimately turns out that Corky, Kimmy, and Debra have had it wrong all along and when they cast the spell to draw the evil out, they release it from the ice, where it had still been trapped. All of the accidents were really just accidents (or sabotage) and in overzealously being on the lookout for the evil, they’ve brought it back, as it explodes from the frozen river in “A malodorous blanket of black fog … [that] darkened the ice, blackened the sky … The ice blistered and burned. The smoke spewed up thicker, faster, swirling up over the shivering trees, up to the clouds” (100-101).  And now the cheerleaders are in real trouble. The evil is definitely back, just in time for the basketball players and cheerleaders to travel to a pre-holiday tournament, with the evil of course coming along for the fun. One of the basketball players becomes uncharacteristically violent and belligerent with the coach, who is later discovered murdered near the locker rooms. The confetti cannon that the cheerleaders roll out again (despite their first disastrous attempt with it) spews hot black tar all over the fans, the seats, and the court, resulting in several serious injuries and the tournament being temporarily suspended, just when the Shadyside team was really getting into their groove. A cheerleader on the opposing team’s squad starts doing backflips and can’t stop. The Shadyside teens are far from home, unsupervised, and at the mercy of the evil spirit, but despite all of the terrifying things that are happening—including the violent and unsolved murder of one of their two chaperones—the tournament continues, with the Shadyside teens largely left to their own devices.  When Corky, Kimmy, and Debra follow the other cheerleaders and the basketball players to a nearby lake in the middle of the night, it feels like a reprise of their ill-advised skating party, but this time there’s definitely something weird going on, as the gathered teens form a circle, moving and dancing in unison with raised hands and blank eyes, as “Their shadows dipped and turned, dark blue against the gray ice. Slowly, the dancers moved, as silent as shadows” (151). They repel an angry dog with a collective supernatural strength, throwing the poor animal high into the air before he comes crashing back down to the ice, injured, frightened, and driven away. So this time, when the gathered group sets their sights on Corky, Kimmy, and Debra, there’s little doubt about the influence of the evil, which apparently possessed the bodies of ALL of their friends when that dark smoke rolled over them at the skating party. Prior to this, the evil has been content to claim one host at a time, but now the remaining cheerleaders are outnumbered and outmatched: the possessed teens drown Kimmy in the lake and Debra disappears when she and Corky get separated in the dark woods as they try to escape. When the sun comes up, Corky is alone but still alive, watching in horror as the possessed basketball players and cheerleaders climb onto the bus to head back to the tournament.  The evil spirit intends to kill the remaining cheerleaders and Corky decides the only way to stop it is to kill the evil first, which she attempts to do by hijacking the bus when the driver goes into the motel office and driving it off a cliff to plunge into the icy lake below. Corky bails out at the last moment, listening in mingled horror and triumph as all of her friends scream the whole way down to their frigid, watery graves. Like the skating party, she holds onto the naive hope that some of them might be resuscitated once the evil has been expelled from their dead bodies, but she’s fully aware that they could all die, and that’s a price she’s willing to pay. Traumatized and in shock, she walks to the arena to find her coach and tell her what has happened, but as Corky desperately tries to get Ms. Closter to see the truth, the Shadyside basketball players and what’s left of the cheerleading squad take the court, a rampaging horde of the angry and waterlogged undead, “lurching, stumbling after her, reaching for her with their swollen purple hands, coming for her, coming for their revenge” (187).  But not really. The final section of The New Evil is an uneasy combination of reality and Corky’s hallucinations, which are chalked up to a concussion. The basketball team and the other cheerleaders really were possessed by the evil. Kimmy really is dead. Corky really drove the bus off the cliff and walked to the arena in a daze. But the basketball players and cheerleaders never became the vengeful undead because they really were miraculously saved, pulled from the water and resuscitated by a couple of incredibly intrepid ice fishermen who just happened to be in the right place in the right time with the right skill set to make this incredibly difficult and dangerous rescue. The possessed teens have no memory of what happened while they were inhabited by the evil, including no memory of how they killed Kimmy or how Corky killed them, which presumably lets Corky off the hook for a whole slew of crimes.  The teens are themselves once more and grateful to be alive. One of the players heaves a big sigh of relief and exclaims “I still can’t believe everyone survived” (198) and just like that, Kimmy is forgotten, marginalized and nearly erased within the larger context of their shared trauma—or at least their shared trauma as they remember it, with only Corky and Debra aware of the whole dark story. As the teens recuperate in the hospital, they realize that it’s Christmas Eve. It seems like this year, their gift is their lives, though the horrifying reality of what actually happened is sure to be the gift that keeps on giving for the two girls … and if it’s anything like the Cheerleaders trilogy that came before The New Evil, there’s nothing to say the evil won’t come back for a visit in the new year.[end-mark] The post Holiday Spirits, A Killer Christmas, and R.L. Stine’s <em>The New Evil</em>  appeared first on Reactor.

News Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Enters the Cold War With New Lee Shaw Prequel Series Sadly, economic cutbacks will seemingly reduce the series to one Russell By Matthew Byrd | Published on December 18, 2025 Photo: Apple TV Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Apple TV Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is getting a prequel spinoff that will give us what we all want this holiday season: more of the Russell boys. Yes, Apple TV announced that they have greenlit a Monarch: Legacy of Monsters prequel series that will focus on the younger version of Col. Lee Shaw. Wyatt Russell will reprise the role of Col. Lee Shaw in this series as well as serve as executive producer on the spinoff. Joby Harold will serve as showrunner on the new series. There aren’t many details about the plot of the series at this time, but let’s toss it over to the official description for a little more info. Official description? The spinoff series will follow the story of Colonel Lee Shaw, an American operative who in 1984 went on a secret mission behind enemy lines in an attempt to stop the Soviets from unleashing a horrific new Titan big enough to destroy the U.S. and turn the tide of the Cold War. Thanks official description! Apple also says that “Viewers around the world haven’t been able to get enough of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters since its global debut,” which is certainly true enough, and that “this new spinoff will kick off an epic Monsterverse expansion that brings audiences even closer to their favorite Titans, along with fantastic character-driven storytelling.” The wording of the various statements seem to suggest that this show will stick to telling its own story and won’t feature the older version of Col. Lee Shaw (played by Wyatt’s dad Kurt Russell in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters). So far as that goes, the timing of this prequel series is fascinating, both in terms of the existing Monarch: Legacy of Monsters series and the greater Legendary Monsters universe. The bulk of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters‘ first season was split between the mid-2010s and 1950s flashbacks. That means that the “current” sections of the show are set before Godzilla: King of Monsters while the flashbacks occur before pretty much every other major entry in the Legendary universe (except for the Godzilla: Awakening graphic novel series, which is not strictly adhered to). The ending of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters brought us closer to the apparent timeline of this spinoff series, so it’s going to be interesting to see how Monarch‘s recently confirmed second season and this spinoff balance that period of Shaw’s life while also filling some of the gaps that exist in the greater Legendary timeline. Then again, that timeline has always been somewhat loose, so it’s easy to assume this period was chosen to enable some of those immaculate Cold War espionage vibes. There’s no word on this prequel series’ name or release date, though it’s easy to assume that it won’t premiere until quite some time after Monarch: Legacy of Monsters‘ second season debuts on Feb 27, 2026. [end-mark] The post <i>Monarch: Legacy of Monsters</i> Enters the Cold War With New Lee Shaw Prequel Series appeared first on Reactor.

Books reading recommendations Five Scary Short Stories That Read Like Urban Legends When dark rumors, local legends, and disturbing memes suddenly become all too real… By Lorna Wallace | Published on December 18, 2025 Photo by William Nettmann [via Unsplash] Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by William Nettmann [via Unsplash] The first time I ever heard an urban legend, I was about 5 or 6 years old. My older brother and I each had a few friends staying over and while we sat in the dark, one of his friends told us a story called “Humans Can Lick Too.” It’s about a woman who lets her dog lick her hand for comfort when she hears a creepy dripping noise in the night. If you’ve not heard it before, I’m sure you can guess how it ends based on the title. It was one of my earliest experiences of horror and while I was suitably terrified, I was also captivated. In that spirit, here are five spooky short stories that manage to perfectly capture the creepily compelling feel of an urban legend… “each thing i show you is a piece of my death” (2009) by Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer Although urban legends are often most effective when they’re whispered between friends or shared aloud with a gathering (maybe at a sleepover), “each thing i show you is a piece of my death” is perfectly suited to being read because it unfolds through articles, emails, chat logs, and interviews. The mixed media story kicks off with an article explaining an urban legend known as “Background Man.” Essentially, a naked man keeps popping up in the background of obscure movies. Originally “Background Man” was thought to be a hoax, but the unclothed figure has been appearing more prominently in an ever-increasing number of films, TV shows, and music videos, leading to the legend being taken more seriously. Experimental filmmakers Soraya Mousch and Max Holborn find themselves caught up in the mystery surrounding “Background Man.” But although they’re treated as suspects by the police, they’re just as haunted by the unsettling phenomenon as everyone else. This story was first published in Clockwork Phoenix 2: More Tales of Beauty and Strangeness (2009), but can also be found online at the link above, in The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen (2014), and in Dark Is Better (2023). “Thirteen” (2013) by Stephen Graham Jones The teenage protagonist of “Thirteen” lives in a small town that’s home to an urban legend surrounding the Big Chief Theater. According to local lore, at that cinema there’s a trick to thinning the veil between the world of the movie and the real world, allowing fiction to bleed into reality. All you have to do is close your eyes during the scariest part of the film—this trick is said to be exclusive to horror movies—and then hold your breath for two minutes. It’s a simple idea pulled from childhood—I’m sure most of us were told at some point that we had to hold our breath passing a graveyard or going under a bridge for whatever superstitious reason—but in Stephen Graham Jones’ hands it becomes something far more creative and sinister. An audio version of this story read by Jones himself is available online at the link above, but if you’d prefer to read it with your own eyes then you can find it in Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre (2013) and After the People Lights Have Gone Off (2014). “Only Unity Saves the Damned” (2014) by Nadia Bulkin Bay, Roz, and Lark are three outcasts who have big plans to get out of their small—and, in their eyes, dead-end—hometown. They decide to shoot a video at Goose Lake which supposedly catches Raggedy Annie—an alleged witch who was hanged by the townspeople hundreds of years earlier—on film. Tales of Raggedy Annie haunting the town and the lake have been circulating for years and many people are convinced that this footage finally proves that the stories are real. But while the three friends should be enjoying their viral moment, their lives take an unfortunate turn for the genuinely creepy. Maybe it’s not Raggedy Annie they should be looking out for, though… This story was first published in Letters to Lovecraft: Eighteen Whispers to the Darkness (2014), but it can also be found in Nadia Bulkin’s collection She Said Destroy (2017) and online at the link above. “You Know How the Story Goes” (2018) by Thomas Olde Heuvelt There are many urban legends about picking up hitchhikers in the dead of night (essentially, don’t do it!), but Thomas Olde Heuvelt flips the script in “You Know How the Story Goes” by having the hitchhiker be the protagonist. Our main character is drinking at a bar and decides not to get a lift home with his friend—the designated driver—in the hopes of spending the night with a pretty girl. He fails. Faced with a long and cold walk home, he decides to try his hand at hitchhiking. The first lift he gets goes off without a hitch, but the strange woman who picks him up for the next leg of the journey takes him on the most terrifying ride of his life. The English version of this scary supernatural story can be read right here at Reactor (link above!). “The DEATH/GRIP Challenge” (2020) by Johnny Compton As a lover of movies that are so-bad-they’re-good, I deeply wish that I could watch DEATH/GRIP—the fictional film that kicks off the events of this story. Teenager Alicia and her dad Benito bond over their shared enjoyment of not only the movie, but also of the meme challenge that it spawns. All people need to do is taken a picture of one of their hands restraining the other while reaching for something funny and add some text to accompany it, always ending with a quote from the movie: “IT’S NOT ME, IT’S THE DEATH/GRIP!” When Benito gets a job at his brother’s office—which is not a working environment that he’s used to, being more of a hard hat kind of guy—he starts sharing increasing numbers of DEATH/GRIP Challenge memes to get through the day. It doesn’t take long for Alicia to start getting seriously worried about his growing obsession with the memes. There’s a good amount of humor in this short story thanks to the memes themselves, but that doesn’t take away from the horror, which really ramps up towards the end.As well as at the link above, you can also find this story in Johnny Compton’s collection Midnight Somewhere (2025). Have you got any recommendations of short stories that feel like urban legends? Whether it’s a new spin on a classic tale or an original story that has that happened-to-a-friend-of-a-friend feel to it, I’d love to hear your suggestions below![end-mark] The post Five Scary Short Stories That Read Like Urban Legends appeared first on Reactor.

News Outlander Listen to Annie Lennox’s Version of Outlander’s Theme Song Lennox brings her talents to “The Skye Boat Song” for the show’s eighth and final season By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on December 17, 2025 Photo: Starz Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Starz We have one more season in which Starz’s Outlander will sing me a song of a lass that is gone, and for that final season, Academy Award and four-time Grammy winner Annie Lennox will perform the show’s opening title sequence. The song that has graced Outlander’s opening credits since its first season in 2014 is “The Skye Boat Song,” a 19th-century Jacobite lament. Composer Bear McCreary created the first arrangement, and season seven saw Sinéad O’Connor give her own take on the theme. (You can listen to every single opening sequence for Outlander, in fact, on this YouTube playlist Starz has helpfully compiled.) “I’ve loved and sung ‘The Skye Boat Song’ since I was a young girl growing up in Aberdeen,” Lennox said in a stateament. “It represents such an iconic part of Scottish culture and history and it’s a real honor to have been asked to record it for Outlander’s final season.” “Providing musical support for Claire’s emotional journey through time in the series Outlander has been an unforgettable journey for me as well,” added McCreary. “More than a decade ago, I produced a demo of ‘The Skye Boat Song’ sung by my wife, Raya Yarbrough, that would go on to become the main title theme for a series beloved by fans around the world. For the eighth and final season, there was only one singer I hoped to work with to craft a satisfying conclusion to this musical arc: the legendary Annie Lennox. I was delighted that Annie recognized the depth of the series’ narrative and channeled that into her heartfelt performance. The score for season eight is the culmination of more than a decade of work, and I am excited for fans to experience the final season, our new main title, and other musical surprises ahead.” You can listen to Lennox’s rendition below, and head to Starz starting on March 6, 2026, with new episodes premiering weekly on Fridays. [end-mark] The post Listen to Annie Lennox’s Version of <i>Outlander</i>’s Theme Song appeared first on Reactor.