The May/June batch of print SF magazines has brand new fiction from a host of popular writers, including Carrie Vaughn, Ian R. MacLeod, Ted Kosmatka, Bill Johnson, E. Lily Yu, Harry Turtledove, Alec Nevala-Lee, Stanley Schmidt, Bud Sparhawk, Edward M. Lerner, Bruce McAllister (x2), Cynthia Ward, Marissa K. Lingen, Lavie Tidhar, Matthew Hughes, Tobias S. Buckell, Andy Dudak, and many others. Here’s editor Sheila Williams summation of the latest issue of Asimov’s SF.

May/June 2019 is powerhouse issue for novelettes. In his stunning story, Ted Kosmatka reveals the excruciating cost of “Sacrificial Iron” on an interstellar voyage; Asimov’s poet John Richard Trtek’s first prose piece for us is a lyrical tour de force about time travel and “Recrossing Brooklyn Ferry”; Ian R. MacLeod brilliantly conveys the tricks of a broken mind in “The Memory Artist”; and in his enjoyable romp, Bill Johnson escorts us to Canada and onto the Ship for some “Unfinished Business.”

Not to be outdone by the novelettes, Carrie Vaughn’s soaring novella investigates what’s up with “Gremlins.” We also have a full roster of exciting short stories. In Sean Monaghan’s new tale, a heart broken mother races against time while “Chasing Oumuamua”; new to Asimov’s author Rahul Kanakia looks at some timeless concerns in “The Intertidal Zone”; Jay O’Connell presents us with a bizarre caper wherein we discover that it’s “Not Only Who You Know”; Peter Wood explains why “Never the Twain Shall Meet”; and in her first tale for Asimov’s, Campbell-Award-winner E. Lily Yu examines “The Doing and Undoing of Jacob E. Mwangi.”

Robert Silverberg’s Reflections celebrates “Our Shaggy Cousins.” James Patrick Kelly’s On the Net commands us to “Fire the Canon!” In James Gunn’s Thought Experiment “Science Fiction Considers the Post Human” while Norman Spinrad’s On Books ponders whether writers can go “Beyond Mimesis?” Plus we’ll have an array of poetry and more features that you’re sure to enjoy.

And here’s Trevor Quachri on the new Analog.

The story of a frontiersman and his ward, who must escort a scholarly expedition looking for fossils in hostile territory, may not sound like science fiction, but when you discover just who’s doing the escorting and precisely what they’re looking for, you’re going to change your tune. Find out more in our May/June issue lead story, “Bonehunters,” by Harry Turtledove.

Our fact article comes to us from John J. Vester: living on one of the least-habitable planets is more possible than you might imagine, as you’ll see in “The Venus Sweet Spot: Floating Home.”

We also have: A curious automaton studies whale remains and learns something new “At the Fall” by Alec Nevala-Lee; astronauts must adapt to an alien world that’s unexpectedly close to home in J.T. Sharrah’s “Forgetfulness”; the last hope of a dying species in Dave Creek’s “The Dominant Heart Begins to Race”; a gonzo post-human pursuit (in multiple senses of the word) in “Leave Your Iron at the Door,” by Josh Pearce; an outsider who finds the common thread in different forms of fleeting beauty in “The Methuselah Generation,” by Stanley Schmidt; the profitable search for a historical artifact on the Moon, in “Mulligan” by Bud Sparhawk; a sequel to “Paradise Regained,” in Edward M. Lerner’s “Gates of Paradise”; as well as a plethora of pleasing plots from such fine fabricators of fiction as Bruce McAllister, Phoebe Barton, Joe McDermott, Wendy Nikel, Cynthia Ward, Marissa K. Lingen, Alex Shvartsman, Frank Smith, Liam Hogan, Guy Stewart, Antha Ann Adkins, Mary E. Lowd, Joshua Cole, and David Ebenbach, plus all our regular (and regularly excellent) columns.

F&SF doesn’t give an issue summary on their website, so you’ll just have to look at the Table of Contents and imagine it.

NOVELLAS

New Atlantis – Lavie Tidhar

NOVELETS

Thirty-Three Wicked Daughters – Kelly Barnhill
How to Kiss a Hojacki – Debbie Urbanski
Sternutative Sortilege – Matthew Hughes

SHORT STORIES

The Abundance – Andy Dudak
Breath – Bruce McAllister
The Moss Kings – David Gullen
Second Skin – Pip Coen
The Fourth Trimester Is the Strangest – Rebecca Campbell
Apocalypse Considered Through a Helix of Semiprecious Foods and Recipes – Tobias S. Buckell

POEMS

Guinevere – Mary Soon Lee
From Tierra Del Fuego to the Moluccas – Gretchen Tessmer

DEPARTMENTS

Books to Look For – Charles de Lint
Books – Elizabeth Hand
Films: Bird Box Never Quite Takes Off – Karin Lowachee
Science: How to Calculate an Orbit – Jerry Oltion
Competition #97 –
Coming Attractions –
Curiosities – Paul Di Filippo

CARTOONS

Danny Shanahan, Arthur Masear, S. Harris.

COVER

Cory and Catska Ench for “New Atlantis”

All three are available wherever magazines are sold, and at various online outlets. Here’s the details; links will take you to the latest issues.

Asimov’s Science Fiction (208 pages, $7.99 per issue, one year sub $47.94 in the US) — on sale until June 18
Analog Science Fiction and Fact (208 pages, $7.99 per issue, one year sub $47.94 in the US) — on sale until June 18
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (258 pages, $8.99 per issue, one year sub $53.94 in the US) — on sale until July 1

See all our recent magazine coverage here.