written by David Steffen
Nightmare Magazine is the horror sister magazine of Lightspeed Magazine, published/edited by John Joseph Adams, with Wendy Wagner as senior editor, and their podcast produced by the excellent Skyboat Media. The podcast publishes about half of the stories they publish in text. They didn’t publish enough stories in 2017 for a list, so this list covers both 2017 and 2018. They published 47 stories between the two years.
The stories eligible for the upcoming Hugo and Nebula award seasons are marked with an asterisk (*).
The List
1.“Dead Air” by Nino Cipri**
Particularly good narration on this one, presented as a series of recordings from a project where a woman records interviews with people she’s slept with.
2.“The Island of Beasts” by Carrie Vaughn*
What happens when werewolves are captured and confined to an island together.
3.“Kylie Land” by Caspian Gray*
An awkward kid befriends a kid with powers.
4.“House of Small Spiders” by Weston Ochse**
It takes a particular set of events for a house to have a soul.
5.“The Ten Things She Said While Dying: An Annotation” by Adam-Troy Castro*
A pedantic retelling of a gruesome death as told by the demon who caused it by entering our dimension.
Honorable Mentions
“Promises of Spring” by Caspian Gray
“A Mother’s Love Never Ends” by Halli Villegas
