Beneath Ceaseless Skies

BCS #463 ebook is out early today at @WeightlessBooks@wandering.shop & Kindle Store and for subscribers, featuring stories of shapeshifters and humanness by returning BCS author Richard Parks (a sequel to several of his previous BCS stories) and Chezza Lee, behind cover art by returning BCS artist Tyler Edlin.

https://weightlessbooks.com/fiction/beneath-ceaseless-skies-issue-463/
https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Ceaseless-Skies-Issue-463-ebook/dp/B0H9W4W5QG/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory #litmag #shapeshifter #ebook

Live in BCS #462 and podcast BCS 363: "Dreams in Burnished Silver" by Christine Hanolsy.

"When the evening bell rang, we filed past each other once more, and this time I kept my chin lifted. You found me right away, pressed a tiny metal disc into my hand as we passed: a minuscule mirror that, under the light of the moon, captured my image in parts; a freckle here, an eyelash there. In return, I gave you my name."

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/dreams-in-burnished-silver/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory #podcastfiction

Live in BCS #461 "They Rob the Hybla Bees" by Louis Morris

"mourn the dishes we couldn’t recreate, here on the wrong side of the wrong world. A cold, empty land, good for sorcery and engineers, where our vineyards failed, our olive groves withered, and our lemons and figs faded from memory. There is only one of the ancients’ culinary feats we’ve come close to surpassing, for everywhere that flowers grow, the bees can be coaxed to make honey."

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/they-rob-the-hybla-bees/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory

BCS #462 ebook out early today at @WeightlessBooks@wandering.shop & Kindle Store and for subscribers, featuring stories by Christine Hanolsy and Sally Sultzman, behind cover art by Tyler Edlin.

(Buying BCS ebooks or an ebook subscription at Weightless Books gets you BCS stories a week early on your e-reader and helps us pay our authors a pro rate and our First Readers an honorarium. Thank you!)

https://weightlessbooks.com/fiction/beneath-ceaseless-skies-issue-462/
https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Ceaseless-Skies-Issue-462-ebook/dp/B0H7Z5ZTBL/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory #ebook #litmag

Live in BCS #461: "The Teahouse" by @prashanthsrivatsa@home.social

"It is the third she fears today, for the Shibra leaves demand time (time she does not have) to settle with the boiled milk. The buck-toothed General of Warsi, who wields a shamshir and dons gauntlets carved in bones, desires only the Shibra. For him, she has drawn the milk from a Shibrasi cow, the descendant of a calf once brought to the teahouse by a merchant from the distant valley."

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-teahouse/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory

New Issue: BCS #461 out today, featuring stories of food and restaurants that are more than they seem by returning BCS author @prashanthsrivatsa@home.social and Louis Morris, a From the BCS Archives story of a ghostly restaurant by Nghi Vo, behind cover art by Tyler Edlin.

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/issues/issue-461/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory #litmag #fantasyfood

BCS #461 ebook out early today at @WeightlessBooks@wandering.shop & Kindle Store and for subscribers, featuring stories of serving food and steering life by @prashanthsrivatsa@home.social Louis Morris, behind art by Tyler Edlin.

(Buying BCS ebooks or an ebook subscription at Weightless Books gets you BCS stories a week early on your e-reader and helps us pay our authors a pro rate and our First Readers an honorarium. Thank you!)

https://weightlessbooks.com/fiction/beneath-ceaseless-skies-issue-461/
https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Ceaseless-Skies-Issue-461-ebook/dp/B0H6R958VS/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory #ebook #litmag

Live right now in BCS #460: "The Ecstasy of the White Sea" by returning BCS author KJ Kabza.

"The _Comet_—and my awful fate within her—sped away, not yet aware of my escape. My heart and bones still banged together. My body screamed at me to flee, or to hide, but perhaps it did not matter. My death was still near, whether that be in the _Comet_'s return or in the White Sea's soft and endless arms."

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-ecstasy-of-the-white-sea/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory

New Issue: BCS #460 is out today, featuring stories of ships and life commitment and destiny by returning BCS author KJ Kabza and new one Edward Hodge, with a podcast of the Hodge guest-narrated by @MichaelJDeLuca@climatejustice.social , behind new cover art "Mossbridge Hollow" by returning BCS artist Tyler Edlin.

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/issues/issue-460/
#fantasy #sff #litmag #shortstory #fictionpodcast

Live in BCS #459: "A Candle for Her Tireless Dead" by Louis Inglis Hall.

"Twelve years, imagining their empire in my mind. Confronting its demons and devising my own antidotes. Despairing of my evidence: the soft and mouldering leaves of manuscripts, the songs of heretics before a gallows dawn. Fashioning theodicies, weaving argument and counter-argument. Any tool to lead them from the hungry dark."

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/a-candle-for-her-tireless-dead/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory

BCS #460 ebook out early today at @WeightlessBooks@wandering.shop & Kindle Store and for subscribers, w stories of ships and commitment by KJ Kabza and Edward Hodge, cover art by Tyler Edlin.

(Buying BCS ebooks or an ebook subscription at Weightless Books gets you BCS stories a week early and helps us pay our authors a pro rate and our First Readers an honorarium worthy of writing all replies personalized. Thank you!)

https://weightlessbooks.com/fiction/beneath-ceaseless-skies-issue-460/
https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Ceaseless-Skies-Issue-460-ebook/dp/B0H535V928/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory #ebook #litmag

Live in BCS #459: "Fletcher's Flights" by @jonolfert.bsky.social .

"In smoky light, Carmora watched for jackals and looters (which he'd been at times) and Churchmen (which he'd also been), one hand by the short-sword on his thigh. For months, he'd ranged back and forth across these lands in search of food, safe water, steel, refuge, blood, and pleasant company. The prairie was bow country and he'd snapped his last bowstring"

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/fletchers-flights/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory

BCS Archives: "Here-and-Now-and-Then" @jonolfert.bsky.social, BCS #428 (who has a story of the same protagonist in BCS #459 now).

"the memory he needed became clear: young Churchmen trembling around a fire, hands numb from the frosty iron latches on their tithe-purses. Speaking together over the wind, coughing out old soot, talking of deep matters that resolved contradictions and raised new ones. Carmora felt that long-ago cold and that rare excitement."

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/here-and-now-and-then/

New Issue: BCS #459 out today, featuring stories of determination and clashes of faith by Louis Inglis Hall and @jonolfert.bsky.social , a From the BCS Archives novelette by RK Duncan, behind cover art by Anthony Avon.

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/issues/issue-459/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory #litmag

From the Archives: "Ten Fruits and Other Memories of Rialynas" by AnaMaria Curtis, BCS #353:

"The skin of the fruit seemed to harden wherever my fingers landed, showed sharp scales everywhere I moved my thumb, made a bloody mess of my hand. When at last I wrestled the flesh out, it tasted of nothing at all. The flavor of a berenton is determined entirely by its surroundings. Alas, in Rialynas I came to find that I was the same."

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/ten-fruits-and-other-memories-of-rialynas/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory

From the Archives with BCS #458 (and the bloody story by AnaMaria Curtis therein): "Blood and Desert Dreams" by Y.M. Pang, BCS #408 (a 2025 Aurora Award winner).

"My twenty-ninth kill. My heart twisted inside me, as if it were tired of pretending to be calm. I’m sorry, I thought, continuing down the hallway. Lord Farand hadn’t seemed like a bad man. He’d even stopped to help a stranger."

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/blood-and-desert-dreams/
#fantasy #sff #shortstory

BCS #455 ebook out early today @WeightlessBooks@wandering.shop & Kindle Store and for subscribers, featuring stories of odd quests and identity by Alex Irvine and Bee Hyland, cover art by Silas Goewey.

(Buying BCS ebooks or an ebook subscription at Weightless Books gets you BCS stories a week early on your e-reader and helps us pay our authors a pro rate and our First Readers an honorarium. Thank you!)

https://weightlessbooks.com/fiction/beneath-ceaseless-skies-issue-455/
https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Ceaseless-Skies-Issue-455-ebook/dp/B0G8KJR7KF/
#fantasy #sff #litmag #ebook

BCS #453 ebook out early today @WeightlessBooks@wandering.shop & Kindle Store and for subscribers, featuring stories of mothers and their children by W.A. Hamilton and Justin Wesley Ferguson, behind new cover art by Silas Goewey.

(Buying BCS ebooks or an ebook subscription at Weightless Books gets you BCS stories a week early on your e-reader and helps us pay our authors and our First Readers. Thank you!)

https://weightlessbooks.com/fiction/beneath-ceaseless-skies-issue-453/
https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Ceaseless-Skies-Issue-453-ebook/dp/B0GRP4G2GD/
#fantasy #sff #litmag #ebook

Live right now in BCS #451 Science-Fantasy Month 8: "To Atone for Evil" by Megan Chee.

"I understand her. If I were in her position, robbed of my wings and trapped on the ground, I would roar my rage into the sky, rampage into the village and kill everyone I see. I would do anything for a chance to fly again, even seek the help of an enemy. Isn’t that what you were trying to teach me? That thing you call empathy?”

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/to-atone-for-evil/
#fantasy #sff #sciencefantast #shortstory