Elephants and Corpses

10 best books like Elephants and Corpses (Kameron Hurley): A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers, Brimstone and Marmalade, Red as Blood and White as Bone, That Game We Played During the War, A Kiss With Teeth, The Hanging Game, The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere, Waiting on a Bright Moon, The City Born Great, Triquetra

A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers

Author

Alyssa Wong

The day my sister ended the world, the sky opened up in rain for the first time in years, flooding the desert wash behind our house. The snakes drowned in their holes and the javelinas stampeded downstream, but the water overtook them, and the air filled with their screaming as they were swept away.

this...

Brimstone and Marmalade

Author	Aaron Corwin
ISBN	1466856394

Just in time for Halloween, we have a funny, sweet, and slightly skewed short story by Aaron Corwin, an up-and-coming writer from Seattle.

All Mathilde wanted for her birthday was a pony. Instead, she got a demon. Sometimes growing up means learning that what you think you want is not always...

Red as Blood and White as Bone

Author	Theodora Goss
ISBN	0765389428

I am a daughter of these mountains, and of the tales. Once, I wanted to be in the tales themselves. When I was young, I had my part in one—a small part, but important. When I grew older, I had my part in another kind of story. But now I want to become a teller of tales.

this story is everything that's...

That Game We Played During the War

Author	Carrie Vaughn
ISBN	0765389355

The people of Gaant are telepaths. The people of Enith are not. The two countries have been at war for decades, but now peace has fallen, and Calla of Enith seeks to renew an unlikely friendship with Gaantish officer Valk over an even more unlikely game of chess, in Carrie Vaughn's novella That Game We Played...

A Kiss With Teeth

Author

Max Gladstone

I'm upping my rating from 4.5 stars to 5 stars on rereading this Tor.com online freebie. I love this story! Vlad the vampire is married to a human (in fact, the woman who was originally hunting him down!). They have a young son, and Vlad tries to live like a regular human, denying his darker self and powers....

The Hanging Game

Author	Helen Marshall
ISBN	1466839252

Sometimes a game, even a sacred game, can have far-reaching consequences. In bear country young Skye learns just how far she is willing to go to play the game properly in order carry on the traditions that came before her and will most likely continue long after she is gone.
At the publisher's request,...

The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere

Author	John Chu
ISBN	1466838116

In the near future water falls from the sky whenever someone lies (either a mist or a torrential flood depending on the intensity of the lie). This makes life difficult for Matt as he maneuvers the marriage question with his lover and how best to "come out" to his traditional Chinese parents.

This...

Waiting on a Bright Moon

Author

J.Y. Yang

Xin is an ansible, using her song magic to connect the originworld of the Imperial Authority and its far-flung colonies— a role that is forced upon magically-gifted women “of a certain closeness”. When a dead body comes through her portal at a time of growing rebellion, Xin is drawn deep into a...

The City Born Great

Author

N.K. Jemisin

In this standalone short story by N. K. Jemisin, author of The Fifth Season, the winner of this year's Hugo Award for Best Novel, New York City is about to go through a few changes.

Like all great metropolises before it, when a city gets big enough, old enough, it must be born; but there are ancient...

Triquetra

Author

Kirstyn McDermott

"Triquetra" by Kirstyn McDermott is a dark fantasy novelette about the fraught relationship between Snow White and her stepmother after Snow White has married the prince and has her own child. She visits her stepmother monthly promising to kill her in ever more horrible ways, at the same time attempting...

These Deathless Bones

Author

Cassandra Khaw

“I hate you.” I crouch in front of him. “You have no understanding as to how much. You charmed little prick.”

I have to say I agree with this statement when I read about the horrific little brat kid and all of the things the stepmother was telling us he did. He deserved to boil!



He...

The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections

Author	Tina Connolly
ISBN	1250296994

Nebula nominee for best novelette in 2018! 4.5 stars for this excellent Tor fantasy story, free online here at Tor.com. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:

Saffron is one of the official food tasters for Duke Michal, the regent for an infant prince. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind...

Come See the Living Dryad

Author	Theodora Goss
ISBN	0765395673

I am improbable, am I not?

Almost, but not quite, impossible.


theodora goss won my heart with the stunning free tor short Red as Blood and White as Bone, and after giving me something so perfectly perfect, it would have taken a complete dud to mar my high opinion of her. fortunately,...

Daughter of Necessity

Author

Marie Brennan

i do love stories like this - stories that take a well-known work as their foundation and then poke around in it to locate the parts of the story that stick out in our minds as unfinished or unexplored. where the heck did heathcliff go for those three years? what were bertha and miss havisham like before all...