Description

Stimulate your immune system against today’s normalized dystopia with a fortifying draught from The Fabulist.

FICTION: Your dose of short fiction includes the dreamlike disquiet of Tara Campbell’s “Night Comes Down,” the ethical dilemma of Gordon Graham’s playful but stingy “Area 7: Painted Guardroom,” and the sumptuous corruption of L.P. Lee’s “The Feast.” You’ll ponder the lonely perplexity of Nick Mamatas’s pithy, problematic “Punchline,” and the difficult ritual of Claire J. Bateman’s musical memento mori, “Relics.”

POETRY: Via Oakland, California, poet James Cagney’s fantastically askew love cries burst with “apricot bellybuttons” and “chupacabra smiles.”

ART: We invite you to dig in—carefully—to artist Craig Latchaw’s gross food porn, and puzzle over the peculiar paleontological excavations depicted in Philip Myers’ “SUBJECT: Dragon Bones.”
For our cover and interior featured artist, we’re pleased to present selections by Romania’s Sergiu Grapă, whose mastery of traditional easel and modern digital-art techniques depict a surreal, evocative “hybridization” of human subjectivity, abjection, and technological imperfection.

As with any tonic, these complex flavors may fizz in the brain long after the cup is drained. Reread as necessary if symptoms persist.…

• No AI/LLM anything, ever
• Single copies are $15, or $10 each with your bimonthly subscription.