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This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, April 2018.

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This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, July 2017.

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Nebula Award nominated short story. It was originally published in Lightspeed, August 2010. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011, edited by Rich Horton, Lightspeed: Year One (2011), edited by John Joseph Adams and the Nebula Awards Showcase 2012, edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel. It is collected in Her Husband's Hands and Other Stories (2014).

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This novella was first published in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, May/June 2022.

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This short story originally appeared in the anthology 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories (1995) edited by Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg and Martin H. Greenberg, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, February 2015. The story can also be found in the anthology The Way of the Wizard (2010), edited by John Joseph Adams. It is included in the collection An Alien Darkness (2000).

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This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, March 2017.

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This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, July 2018.

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Nebula and Stoker Award nominated short story. It was originally published in Lightspeed, October 2011 and can aslo be found in the anthology War & Space: Recent Combat (2012), edited by Rich Horton and Sean Wallace as well as in the collection Her Husband's Hands and Other Stories (2014).

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A utopia where the most privileged get to do whatever they want to do with their lives, indulging their slightest whims via the bodies whose wombs they occupy; a soldier's wife tries to love a husband who is little more than backup memory; a society in which the citizens all make merry for nine remarkable days, and on the tenth get a taste of hell; the last ragged survivors of an expedition to a savage backwater world hunt down an infamous war criminal; a divorcing couple confront their myriad troubles to gain resolution, reason, respect--but not without sacrifice. Introducing these stories (and more) from Adam-Troy Castro, whose short fiction has been nominated for two Hugos, three Stokers, and eight Nebulas.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (2014) - essay by David Gerrold
• Arvies - (2010) - shortstory (read at Lightspeed Magazine)
• Her Husband's Hands - (2011) - shortstory (read at Lightspeed Magazine)
• Of a Sweet Slow Dance in the Wake of Temporary Dogs - (2003) - novelette (read at the website of the Imaginings anthology)
• Our Human - (2012) - novelette
• Cherub - (2011) - shortfiction
• The Shallow End of the Pool - (2008) - novella
• Pieces of Ethan - (2010) - shortfiction
• The Boy and the Box - (2013) - shortstory (read at Lightspeed Magazine)
• Extro: "Bad People Doing Evil Things" - (2013) - essay

This story originally appeared in Lightspeed, May 2017.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, September 2012.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Imaginings: An Anthology of Long Short Fiction (2003), edited by Keith R. A. DeCandido, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, Issue 103, December 2018. It can also be found in the anthologies Nebula Awards Showcase 2005, edited by Jach Dann and Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories (2011). It is included in the collection Her Husband's Hands and Other Stories (2014).

Read the full story for free at the Imaginings anthology website or Lightspeed.

There are few authors who consistently turn out magnificent novella-length stories. Adam-Troy Castro is one of these authors. His stories are evocative and far-reaching. Among the stories featured in the collection are: The Funeral March of the Marionettes, Unseen Demons, The Tangled Strings of the Marionettes, The Magic Bullet Theory, and Sunday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl's (winner of the AnLab award for best novella).

Table of Contents:

• The Funeral March of the Marionettes - (1997) - novella
• The Tangled Strings of the Marionettes - (2003) - novella
• Unseen Demons - (2002) - novella
• The Magic Bullet Theory - (2000) - novella
• Sunday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl's - (2001) - novella
• Afterword - (2003) - essay by Adam-Troy Castro

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, August 2016.

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Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July-August 1999. It is included in the collection With Stars in Their Eyes (2003).

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, July 2013. It is included in the collection Her Husband's Hands and Other Stories (2014).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This novelette originally appeared in Lightspeed, September 2018.

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This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, Issue 108, May 2019.

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This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, July 2014.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Resolution. Reason. Respect.

Among U.S. couples marrying today, roughly 40% will divorce. About half of those will have children at the time of the split. Ensuing ugliness will engulf the lives of both divorcees and offspring. They can in most cases expect years of legal battles, deceit, rage, depression, baiting, vitriol, manipulation, and hurt.

Perhaps there is another way, a better way. A way that allows for resolution, reason, and respect. An agreement, of sorts, but one that confronts rather than masks the myriad troubles at hand. Lays them all out on the table. Settles the issues once and for all in an honorable arena. Something direct. Fair. Final.

Adam-Troy Castro, Hugo/Nebula/Stoker-nominated author of the SF novel Emissaries from the Dead, brings you a brutally horrific tale of the ultimate settlement in the battle of broken-hearted wills in a new novella from Creeping Hemlock Press. Petty power-plays have been cast aside. The façade of decency is shelved. For one blistering week in an abandoned desert motel, there will be no excuses, pleading, or games. Only resolution, reason, respect.

And blood.

This novella was first published in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, September/October 2021.

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This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, January 2018.

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This short sotry originally appeared in Lightspeed, January 2014. It can also be found in the anthology The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, edited by Joe Hill and John Joseph Adams.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, January 2017.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This novella was first published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July/August 2023.

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This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, October 2017.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (2003) - essay by Stanley Schmidt
• The Astronaut from Wyoming - (1999) - novella by Jerry Oltion and Adam-Troy Castro
• If You Wish Upon a Star... - (1988) - shortstory by Jerry Oltion
• Crisis on Ward H! - (1998) - shortstory by Adam-Troy Castro
• Suicide - (1990) - novelette by Jerry Oltion (variant of Suicide by UFO)
• Jesus Used a Paper Cup - (1994) - shortstory by Adam-Troy Castro
• Unfamiliar, Foreign, Outré - (1995) - shortstory by Jerry Oltion
• The Adventure of the Garrulous Codger - (2003) - shortstory by Adam-Troy Castro

Finalist for the AnLab Reader's Choice Award

Investigator Andrea Cort faces a murder suspect who has three bodies. Andrea's own lover, the Porrinyards, has two bodies, so she's the perfect person to ferret out the truth.

This story was originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, April 2011.

On a savage backwater world, the last ragged survivors of an expedition to hunt down the infamous war criminal known as The Beast Magrison set off into an inhospitable wilderness in search of the alien village that may be sheltering this beast. The hunters are aliens from two different species, the village is inhabited by strange aliens of yet another species, and Magrison himself is no sterling advertisement for humanity. Who's human in this situation? The answer may surprise and upset you.

This novella from acclaimed SF writer Adam-Troy Castro explores the fate of the dread Magrison. Readers can find out more about the world that spawned Magrison by tracking down his Andrea Cort novels, Emissaries from the Dead and The Third Claw of God.

This story is included in the collection Her Husband's Hands and Other Stories (2014).

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

AnLab Readers' Choice Award-winning Novella

On the hostile home-world of the Caith, Andrea Cort has been assigned the case of a murderer who's been condemned to a horrible death. All legal options have been exhausted, but the Caith offer a rarely-used alternative to execution, one that purports to ensure that the accused will never break the law again. Alas, it's not so much another chance at life, but deliverance into a hell far worse than mere death...

Read this novella for free at Analog (PDF).

Includes bonus Novella Tasha's Fail-Safe (2015):

Once, she and Andrea Cort hated each other. Now the victim of a savage assassination attempt by a traitor to the Confederacy, she lies in an unresponsive state, the identity of her assailant locked inside her head. Can Andrea penetrate a vital secret she never even knew existed?

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1997. The story is included in the collections An Alien Darkness (2000) and Tangled Strings (2003).

Sturgeon and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 2003. The story is also included in the collection Tangled Strings (2003).

finalist for the AnLab Reader's Choice Award

EMIL SANDBURG.

Serial killer. His victims were all Catarkhans, specimens of a closed-off sentient race incapable of sensing the great atrocities he committed against them. Prosecuting him by their laws is going to be a problem.

Enter ANDREA CORT.

Misanthrope. Genius. Controversial figure. Aware even as she takes the case that other alien forces intend to use her past against her, and against humanity. Unaware that its implications will change the course of her life...

Nebula-nominated and AnLab Readers' Choice Award-winning Novella

Andrea Cort. War criminal. Genius. Outcast. Heroine.

Sent to the home-world of the Zinn, a once-powerful race now on the long path to extinction, she's expected to sign the approval for a simple prisoner transfer - but why are the Zinn so eager to take custody of an unremarkable human murderer? What brutal crime is being planned against an innocent? What hidden agenda threatens to topple the balance of power?

This is the earliest adventure of Andrea Cort, heroine of the Philip K. Dick Award-winning novel, Emissaries From The Dead. This story was originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, November 2011.

Two murders have occurred on One One One, an artificial ecosystem created by the universe's dominant AIs to house several engineered species, including a violent, sentient race of sloth-like creatures. Under order from the Diplomatic Corps, Counselor Andrea Cort has come to this cylinder world where an indentured human community hangs suspended high above a poisoned, acid atmosphere. Her assignment is to choose a suitable homicide suspect from among those who have sold their futures to escape existences even worse than this one. And no matter where the trail leads her she must do nothing to implicate the hosts, who hold the power to obliterate humankind in an instant.

But Andrea Cort is not about to hold back in her hunt for a killer. For she has nothing to lose and harbors no love for her masters or fellow indentures. And she herself has felt the terrible exhilaration of taking life....

Andrea Cort became a "war criminal" at the age of eight when an unexplained darkness invaded her soul.

Now, decades later, the Devil is calling her.

Employed by the Diplomatic Corps but secretly aiding the AI masters of the universe, Counselor Andrea Cort despises the powerful Bettelhines-unrepentant death merchants who have prospered from the annihilation of civilizations. Now curiosity compels her to answer a cryptic summons to their home world, where the only law is Bettelhine law. But a murder attempt greets her arrival at Xana's orbital entry port-and far graver peril awaits aboard the elevator transport meant to carry Andrea to the planet's surface.

Trapped miles above Xana-surrounded by suspicious Bettelhines, their slavishly loyal retainers . . . and a corpse liquefied by a 15,000-year-old weapon-Andrea must unmask an assassin or die an equally hideous death. But the true reason for her summons-and sordid secrets weaving through her own dark past-threaten to destroy Andrea Cort more completely than the Claw of God.

finalist for the AnLab Reader's Choice Award

Welcome to Greeve. A sun-drenched backwater world, where people earn their keep from the sea. It's nowhere important, far from any of Mankind's petty politics and intrigues. Few of its residents are more familiar than old John, who's been fishing its waters for decades. He keeps to himself, mostly. Nobody really knows him. No one knows where he came from. But how dangerous can he be?

Then another off-worlder settles in, with no apparent goal other than devoting the rest of his days to local drugs and local women. Old John is horrified to recognize him at once. How dangerous can Old John be? As dangerous as any man alive...

This story was originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July/August 2015. Read this novella for free at the author's website (PDF).

Finalist for the AnLab Reader's Choice Award

The woman in the pod has just asked him:"How long do you need me to have been your wife?" Draiken considers the contorted syntax. Not how long would you like to be married, or how long are we supposed to have been married, but how long do you need me to have been your wife, a construction that only fits this one situation, a contract to lie. And this lie will help the former spy get revenge on his past masters.

This story was originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, October 2016. Read this novella for free at Analog (PDF).

finalist for the AnLab Reader's Choice Award

Draiken and Thorne, having both been imprisoned and tortured by the machiavellian organization for which they once worked, now seek vengeance by means of destroying their former employers. But in order to obtain information necessary to achieve their goal, Draiken agrees to be locked into a prison from which there is ony one way to escape; if he succeeds in solving the mystery of how to escape, he will win the release of all the prisoners and the information he requires. But the prison cell has technology which distorts his senses, making an escape seem impossible.

This story was originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, January/February 2018. Read this novella for free at Analog (PDF).

finalist for the AnLab Reader's Choice Award

Still on his path of seeking the destruction of his former employers, Draiken engages in surveillance of prosecutor Andrea Cort, whom he believes has ties to his targets. But she is aware that he's up to something, and he may end up a casualty of her own machinations.

This story was originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July/August 2018. Read this novella for free at Analog (PDF).

Draiken, with Stang's help, is on a mission to capture a deadly enforcer/killer who works for a crime boss on a space station. But who are the mysterious clients waiting for delivery of the hostage on a nearby asteroid, and why does Draiken believe that the killer will be willing to cooperate with him?

This novella was a Finalist for the Analog Readers' Awards and was first published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in January/February 2019.

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Analog Anlab Readers Award Finalist Novella

Far-future espionage operative John Draiken, after a long career, instead of retiring to enjoy the fruits of his high-paying but brutal job, has decided that his previous employer needs to be wiped out for its evil work in mind control on the galaxy's populace. His recently-acquired associate and companion, Delia Stang, is hanging out on a backwater hellhole planet for seemingly no reason - but where is Draiken? And if he's dead, how will his vengeance be fulfilled?

This novella originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, September-October 2020. Read it for free at the publisher's website.

A 90-year-old man reminisces about the time when he was in his 20s, living and working as a technician on the Moon, and the mysterious aliens who had the appearance of an older couple from the Midwestern United States and lived with their dog in a "house" there.

This Nebula Award-nominated novella originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, June 2001. The story can also be found in the anthologies Nebula Awards Showcase 2004, edited by Vonda N. McIntyre, Alien Contact (2012), edited by Marty Halpern, and The Eagle Has Landed: 50 Years of Lunar Science Fiction, (2019), edited by Neil Clarke. It is included in the collection Tangled Strings (2003).

Read this story online for free at Analog.

A young engineer working on the Moon repeatedly encounters a couple of strange astronauts doing bizarre things – but it never happens when one of his co-workers is around. Is he going crazy? Or is he being pranked? And who would have the ability to pull off pranks requiring this level of technological advancement?

This novella was a Finalist for the Analog Readers' Awards and was first published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in September/October 2019.

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