Yeah, I’m still getting caught up, so it’s not really the latest fiction at Tor.com. But I’ve made it into April, so that’s progress!

Anyway, here’s a fine new batch of fantasy and adventure SF short fiction from Michael R. Underwood, Joan Aiken, Lavie Tidhar, Jack Nicholls, and Tara Isabella Burton, all available for free at Tor.com.

“The Destroyer” by Tara Isabella Burton
Posted April 20, edited by Ann VanderMeer. Art by Ashley Mackenzie (above right)
Fantasy, Science Fiction || In a futuristic, fascistic Rome, a brilliant, unstable scientist proves that she can transcend the human body’s limitations. The test subject? Her own daughter. A mother-daughter mad scientist story, “The Destroyer” asks how far we’ll go to secure our own legacies — and how far we’ll run to escape them.

“Dune Time” by Jack Nicholls
Posted April 19, edited by David Hartwell. Art by Mark Smith (above middle)
Contemporary Fantasy, Magical Realism || Isolated in the desert with his brother, Hasan learns that there is more to the legends of the dunes than he initially believed.

“Terminal” by Lavie Tidhar
Posted April 13, edited by Ellen Datlow. Art by Richie Pope (above left)
Science Fiction || “Terminal” by Lavie Tidhar is an emotionally wrenching science fiction story about people, who, either having nothing to lose or having a deep desire to go into space, travel to Mars via cheap, one-person, one-way vehicles dubbed jalopies. During the trip, those in the swarm communicate with each other, their words relayed to those left behind.

“The Cold Flame” by Joan Aiken
Posted April 7
A reprint, a tasty sample from her latest collection, The People in the Castle.

“There Will Always Be a Max” by Michael R. Underwood
Posted April 6, edited by Lee Harris
Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic, Science Fiction || A hero is missing. The post-apocalyptic wasteland is awash with violence and injustice, and the genrenauts’ own King must step in and show precisely why There Will Always be a Max.

We last covered Tor.com with their March fiction. See the complete fiction catalog at Tor.com here.

For more free fiction, see our recent online magazine coverage.