To either commit or thwart a crime often requires speed and agility on shifting ground. The characters in this month's stories show that they can roll with the punches, even as their authors make entertaining use of the unexpected turn.
Tommy Meadows, just out of jail and not eager to return, finds himself squeezed between his old associates and the law in David Edgerley Gates's "The Devil to Pay." Dawna Shepherd, Diana Deverell's quick-thinking federal agent, goes undercover to outsmart a clev... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 46823 - Reading Time: 133-187 min. Category: Mystery/Crime
The action never lets up in our March lead story by newish author Derek Kanksen. Life may have formed very differently in "The Way of the Needle" than it has on Earth, but the nature of conflict remains the same. It won't be easy to put this fast-paced thriller down. Once you do, though, you can turn to another adventure tale on a distant planet. "Golva's Ascent," a new novelette by Tom Purdom, features intriguing aliens, inscrutable humans, and a desperate flight for survival.
James Van Pelt t... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 63188 - Reading Time: 180-252 min. Category: Science Fiction
Our March/April double issue is the perfect cure for any of our readers who are growing winter-weary. The multitude of suspenseful situations this month's characters find themselves in is sure to get your blood pumping. To start with, in a story by celebrated author Joyce Carol Oates, a fateful meeting in a library leads to a boy's obsessive interest in a teenage girl ("So Near Any Time Always"). It's relationships of a more familial sort that really heat things up in Doug Allyn's backwoods tale... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 103972 - Reading Time: 297-415 min. Category: Mystery/Crime
In recent years there has been much talk and concern about invasive species--and countertalk about whether "invasive" species are necessarily bad. Susan Forest leads off our April issue with a thought-provoking novelette about "The Most Invasive Species" and the elusive relationship between quality of intentions and quality of results. Craig DeLancey also has a novelette, "Ecce Signum," which is the latest (and last?) in his series about "Marrion's Children," bred and raised for a unique and ver... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 72062 - Reading Time: 205-288 min. Category: Science Fiction
Examine our annual Holmesian issue as the great detective would have, and you won't be disappointed. First up is "Shikari," a highly original Sherlock Holmes pastiche by James Lincoln Warren that puts a new spin on the roles of Watson and Mycroft Holmes. Following it are tales with fresh twists and turns of alibi and motive. The young narrator in Brian Muir's "Floating Ant" relates a campfire incident with a totally unexpected outcome, while the Glauser-winning story "Out There" by Zoë Beck... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 58147 - Reading Time: 166-232 min. Category: Mystery/Crime
Our March issue offers two novelettes, quite different in some respects yet both dealing with mysteries, things that aren't what they seem, and familiar patterns in very unfamiliar contexts. Craig DeLancey's "The Ediacarian Machine" starts out as archeology, but the archeologists could never guess where it would lead. Kyle Kirkland's "Upon Their Backs" (which you may recognize as part of a familiar saying) also begins with an archeological air (or is it paleontology or anthropology?), this time ... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 74493 - Reading Time: 212-297 min. Category: Science Fiction
February being the traditional month of romance, we start the issue off with a novellette by Rudy Rucker and Eileen Gunn that treats us to the zany courtship of a lovely Southern California woman and her plugged-in and technologically turned-on "Hive Mind Man." In "Murder Born," Robert Reed's latest novella, an utterly engrossing mystery tale is blended with a remarkable idea. It's a future where murder victims may be returned to their families, but the price is high and mistakes happen.Elsewher... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 61885 - Reading Time: 176-247 min. Category: Science Fiction
Money may be evil's root, but the wide variety of business deals and financial transactions that go criminally awry yields the bountiful harvest of this month's stories.
In Christopher Welch's "The Art of the Pyramid," an art dealer finds himself drawn into another dealer's creative financing schemes, with results that are aesthetically unappealing. When the economy goes south in Doug Levin's "Sheltered Assets," a hedge fund manager and his bleeding-heart wife make do--in their very separate wa... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 49461 - Reading Time: 141-197 min. Category: Mystery/Crime
'Tis the season for our annual holiday issue, and this year our pages are decked almost entirely with holiday stories--not to mention mystery, mayhem, and a few of our favorite recurring characters. In true Christmas tradition, take a look at the lives of two characters haunted by the past: a department store Santa in Dan Warthman's "Sonny Taylor: A Nontraditional Man" and an overly ambitious businessman in Barbara Westwood Diehl's "God Bless." And don't miss James Powell's annual holiday story... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 62340 - Reading Time: 178-249 min. Category: Mystery/Crime
Our winter double issue is full of colorful characters and locales (and their sinister undercurrents) . . . the perfect combination for beating the seasonal doldrums. Crime and mayhem--sometimes supernatural--reign from the mysterious shadows of Stonehenge in James Lincoln Warren's "The Satan League" to the woodlands of Zimbabwe in Tony Richards's "The Very Edge of New Harare." Loren D. Estlemen's "Big Band," featuring the Four Horsemen of the Detroit police department, takes us to a war-era swi... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 82379 - Reading Time: 235-329 min. Category: Mystery/Crime
Elizabeth Bear is well known to Asimov's readers. Two of her previous appearances, "Tideline" and "Shoggoths in Bloom," resulted in Hugo Awards for best short story and novelette. She returns to our pages with a knockout novella set in an exquisitely realized future India. Police Sub-Inspector Ferron and Senior Constable Indrapramit must look for clues both in the real world and the virtual if they are to track down a clever murder. "In the House of Aryaman a Lonely Signal Burns" is a tale you w... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 61118 - Reading Time: 174-244 min. Category: Science Fiction
Our January-February double issue is a big event in several ways: It takes advantage of its extra space to include lots of special treats that wouldn't fit in a regular issue, and it leads off with the opening of a new Robert J. Sawyer serial, Triggers. The title, as you'll see, has more than one meaning, but at the center of it all is memory: What is it, how does it work, and what triggers it? And, beyond all that, what happens if an unforeseen event allows--and forces--people to share memories... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 124074 - Reading Time: 354-496 min. Category: Science Fiction
Black Static is the award winning horror and dark fantasy short story magazine from TTA Press, publisher of Interzone and Crimewave. Black Static contains groundbreaking dark fiction by some of the world's best writers and most talented newcomers, plus hard-hitting features and innovative artwork. Many recognised authors started their careers in TTA publications and new ones continue this tradition. However their more well known peers; Ramsey Campbell, Joel Lane, Nicholas Royle, Nina Allan conti... more info>> (Published: 2010) British Fantasy Award Winner
Interzone magazine, which was in its 28th year for this issue, launched the careers of a great many SF and Fantasy writers. It is often shortlisted for awards and has won the Hugo and British Fantasy Awards. Interzone's many features include original/new fiction, interviews, news, and book, DVD and movie reviews. The magazine is published every other month and continues to publish some of the world's finest writers and most talented newcomers. Amongst the authors who have graced its pages are Br... more info>> (Published: 2011) British Fantasy Award Winner, Hugo Award Winner, Hugo Award Nominee, British Science Fiction Award Nominee
Black Static is the award winning horror and dark fantasy short story magazine from TTA Press, publisher of Interzone and Crimewave. Black Static contains groundbreaking dark fiction by some of the world's best writers and most talented newcomers, plus hard-hitting features and innovative artwork. Many recognised authors started their careers in TTA publications and new ones continue this tradition. However their more well known peers; Ramsey Campbell, Joel Lane, Nicholas Royle, Nina Allan conti... more info>> (Published: 2010) British Fantasy Award Winner
The December 2011 issue marks the fifty-fifth anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, the double nickels. We may be well into our second half-century, but our relationship with our readers keeps us ever young.
Our six original stories in this issue are all, in some way, about relationships: victim to killer, mark to con man, criminal to investigator. Eve Fisher weaves her usual dark magic in "No Fences," a tale about the unlikely bond between a liberal librarian and a conservative h... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 44826 - Reading Time: 128-179 min. Category: Mystery/Crime
December is the finale to our seventieth anniversary celebration at EQMM. The year's gamut of special features concludes with an article by celebrated book reviewer Jon L. Breen about the magazine's years since the death of founder Frederic Dannay. If you've been keeping up with our articles throughout the year, this last installment, covering EQMM's days under the editorships of Eleanor Sullivan and Janet Hutchings, will leave you well equipped to peer into EQMM's future.
Since its first issue... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 57564 - Reading Time: 164-230 min. Category: Mystery/Crime
A special holiday issue sporting stories about the winter season has been a semi-annual tradition at Asimov's, and we're delighted that this year the holiday spirit returns to the magazine with a brand new novelette by Connie Willis. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll read this story on the edge of your seat as New York Theater comes alive and an aging Broadway star contends with a very unusual protogeé in "All About Emily." New author Suzanne Palmer makers her Asimov's entrance with ... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 64513 - Reading Time: 184-258 min. Category: Science Fiction
Our December issue starts off with a spectacular Bob Eggleton cover for Brad R. Torgersen's novelette, "Ray of Light," which is one of the more unusual post-apocalypse stories you're likely to read. Given a catastrophe big enough to force practically everybody into hiding, one of the central and most important questions is, "When can you go back out?" It's especially difficult when your hiding place is as unusual as this one, and when you have to stay there long enough to start forgetting what's... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 69495 - Reading Time: 198-277 min. Category: Science Fiction
Interzone magazine, which is in its 28th year, has launched the careers of a great many SF and Fantasy writers. It is often shortlisted for awards and has won the Hugo and British Fantasy Awards. Interzones many features include interviews, news, and book, DVD and movie reviews. The magazine is published every other month and continues to publish some of the world's finest writers and most talented newcomers. Amongst the authors who have graced its pages are Brian Aldiss, Sarah Ash, Michael Moor... more info>> (Published: 2011) British Fantasy Award Winner, Hugo Award Nominee, Hugo Award Winner
Once again, we've somehow managed to cram an unbelievable amount of fiction into our annual October/November double issue. Not one, but two outstanding novellas jostle for room between the magazine's covers (or vie for pixles as the case may be). Multiple award winner Kij Johnson treats us to a remarkable feat of engineering on a hostile alien planet and introduces us to "The Man Who Bridged the Mist." The story's evocative images are sure to linger on long after you reach Empire's Farside for t... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 112201 - Reading Time: 320-448 min. Category: Science Fiction
Andrea Cort, Adam-Troy Castro's prickly but effective troubleshooter, returns to lead off our November issue in "With Unclean Hands," wherein she faces a particularly thorny interspecies problem for which her own past is uniquely relevant. But being especially well qualified does not mean a person will find a task easy. . . . Our science fact article comes from Richard B. Robinson, a researcher on the frontiers of a field that was new to me: "Repairing a Broken Heart: Beyond Electronic Pacemaker... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 70372 - Reading Time: 201-281 min. Category: Science Fiction
We've racked up stories of games and place for your enjoyment this month. David Edgerley Gates fires the break shot with "Slip Knot," a tale of New York City mob wars in the 1950s in which an epic game of pool sets up a dramatic encounter. And Detective Sergeant Cyrus Auburn returns in John H. Dirckx's "Meltdown," in which an explosion interrupts that most sacred of American occasions, the neighborhood Super Bowl party.
Meanwhile, Nancy Pauline Simpson vividly evokes the Jim Crow South in "The ... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 48020 - Reading Time: 137-192 min. Category: Mystery/Crime
In preparation for pre-holiday cheer, our November issue is packed to the brim with family matters. The holiday season, when families gather, isn't far off, and our November issue is packed to the brim with dangerous family dynamics. In Kristine Kathryn Rusch's "Local Knowledge" and Brendan DuBois's "The Tardy Guest," suspense grows as the stories' protagonists try to get to the bottom of crimes that may ensnare their relatives in sinister situations. And the mother in Trina Corey's haunting tal... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 60602 - Reading Time: 173-242 min. Category: Mystery/Crime
Espionage and skulduggery are afoot in our September issue. At "The Observation Post," a new novelette by the always popular and multiple Hugo-Award-winning author Allen M. Steele, dangerous secrets of the Cuban Missle Crisis are unwittingly uncovered. The disruptive consequences of these secrets will continue to play out in our own precarious era. Additional perils can be found in distinguished author Alan Walls's novelette about British and American agents who must race against time to determi... more info>> (Published: 2010)
Words: 63489 - Reading Time: 181-253 min. Category: Science Fiction
![Long [72062 words]](/images/long.gif "Long [72062 words]")
![Mid-Length [46823 words]](/images/medium.gif "Mid-Length [46823 words]")
To either commit or thwart a crime often requires speed and agility on shifting ground. The characters in this month's stories show that they can roll with the punches, even as their authors make entertaining use of the unexpected turn.
Tommy Meadows, just out of jail and not eager to return, finds himself squeezed between his old associates and the law in David Edgerley Gates's "The Devil to Pay." Dawna Shepherd, Diana Deverell's quick-thinking federal agent, goes undercover to outsmart a clev... 
The action never lets up in our March lead story by newish author Derek Kanksen. Life may have formed very differently in "The Way of the Needle" than it has on Earth, but the nature of conflict remains the same. It won't be easy to put this fast-paced thriller down. Once you do, though, you can turn to another adventure tale on a distant planet. "Golva's Ascent," a new novelette by Tom Purdom, features intriguing aliens, inscrutable humans, and a desperate flight for survival.
James Van Pelt t... 
