What do you think?
Rate this book
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 236, May 2026
Clarkesworld is a Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning science fiction and fantasy magazine. Each month we bring you a mix of fiction, articles, interviews and art. Our May 2026 issue (#236) contains:
Fiction
• "The Profitable Sentience of Household Goods" by Louis Inglis Hall
• "Archaeological Evidence for the Time Traveler" by Tia Tashiro
• "Conquerors" by Nick Wolven
• "Paper Airplane Poet" by Sheri Singerling
• "Aly" by Grace Chan
• "Decimation Circles" by Raahem Alvi
• "The Scent of Memory" by Zhao Haihong
Non-Fiction
• "Three Curious Animal Strategies for Immortality" by Gunnar De Winter
• "Torn From Context: A Conversation with Ray Nayler" by Arley Sorg
• "Immortal Trauma: A Conversation with Martha Wells" by Arley Sorg
• "Editor's Desk: The Stars in Our Sky" by Neil Clarke
Cover Art
"Beastly" by Lisa Falkenstern
Fiction
• "The Profitable Sentience of Household Goods" by Louis Inglis Hall
• "Archaeological Evidence for the Time Traveler" by Tia Tashiro
• "Conquerors" by Nick Wolven
• "Paper Airplane Poet" by Sheri Singerling
• "Aly" by Grace Chan
• "Decimation Circles" by Raahem Alvi
• "The Scent of Memory" by Zhao Haihong
Non-Fiction
• "Three Curious Animal Strategies for Immortality" by Gunnar De Winter
• "Torn From Context: A Conversation with Ray Nayler" by Arley Sorg
• "Immortal Trauma: A Conversation with Martha Wells" by Arley Sorg
• "Editor's Desk: The Stars in Our Sky" by Neil Clarke
Cover Art
"Beastly" by Lisa Falkenstern
213 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 2026
About the author
Neil Clarke
413 books406 followersNeil Clarke is best known as the editor and publisher of the Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning
Clarkesworld Magazine.
Launched in October 2006, the online magazine has been a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine four times (winning three times), the World Fantasy Award four times (winning once), and the British Fantasy Award once (winning once). Neil is also a ten-time finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Editor Short Form (winning once in 2022), three-time winner of the Chesley Award for Best Art Director, and a recipient of the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award. In the fifteen years since Clarkesworld Magazine launched, numerous stories that he has published have been nominated for or won the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Locus, BSFA, Shirley Jackson, WSFA Small Press, and Stoker Awards.
Additionally, Neil edits Forever —a digital-only, reprint science fiction magazine he launched in 2015. His anthologies include: Upgraded, Galactic Empires, Touchable Unreality, More Human than Human, The Final Frontier, Not One of Us, The Eagle has Landed, , and the Best Science Fiction of the Year series. His next anthology, The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Seven will published in early 2023.
He currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and two sons.
Additionally, Neil edits Forever —a digital-only, reprint science fiction magazine he launched in 2015. His anthologies include: Upgraded, Galactic Empires, Touchable Unreality, More Human than Human, The Final Frontier, Not One of Us, The Eagle has Landed, , and the Best Science Fiction of the Year series. His next anthology, The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Seven will published in early 2023.
He currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and two sons.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 16, 2026
A good issue of Clarkesworld, with interesting stories by Louis Inglis Hall, Tia Tashiro, Grace Chan and Zhao Haihong.
- "The Profitable Sentience of Household Goods" by Louis Inglis Hall: a household AI talks to a newly activated AI running a light switch. As time passes, the household AI becomes more capable and hopes to achieve biological sentience. But what it discovers is a world with companies that only want to protect themselves against other companies.
- "Archaeological Evidence for the Time Traveler" by Tia Tashiro: a mother who is an archaeologist goes on excavation project, while raising her a child. But then she discovers messages written long ago that are apparently aimed at her, and it may involve her former lover who is doing research in time travel. As in all such tales, the ending is inevitable but still has a twist that some readers may be able to guess.
- "Conquerors" by Nick Wolven: a ceremony takes place between those on Earth and people from space who have returned for a short while. But the people from space prove to be very rowdy and one Earth girl wants nothing to do with them. But then an accident and a meeting with her uncle from space changes her perspective on the people from space.
- "Paper Airplane Poet" by Sheri Singerling: a story set in a world of haves and have-nots in a city. A have-not girl loses her parents to a strange 'non-Euclidian' affliction. Faced with a life of poverty, she decides to make use of her resemblance to an upper-class lady to move up in life. Unfortunately, the unusual affliction pays no further part in the story.
- "Aly" by Grace Chan: in a future Australia beset with global warming, a man accidentally encounters a stranger from Taiwan, and they strike up a relationship. But it becomes strained over the man's dependency on an Aly, an AI attached to him at birth. He turns it off in hopes of improving their relationship but the struggle to live, and to love, without an Aly may be too much.
- "Decimation Circles" by Raahem Alvi: on a world where people are implanted with a chip that remembers who they are when they die and reborn in a new body, an officer is charged with recovering her previous body. But in the process, she encounters an unusual human and comes to realise that there may be a better way than constantly living and dying on this dystopian world.
- "The Scent of Memory" by Zhao Haihong, translated by S. Qiouyi Lu: a man is desperate to meet with his former romantic partner before her wedding to another man, hoping to stop it. But before that, he needs a way to remind her of their good times, which may come in the form of a scent bottle that can cause vivid memories to resurface.
- "The Profitable Sentience of Household Goods" by Louis Inglis Hall: a household AI talks to a newly activated AI running a light switch. As time passes, the household AI becomes more capable and hopes to achieve biological sentience. But what it discovers is a world with companies that only want to protect themselves against other companies.
- "Archaeological Evidence for the Time Traveler" by Tia Tashiro: a mother who is an archaeologist goes on excavation project, while raising her a child. But then she discovers messages written long ago that are apparently aimed at her, and it may involve her former lover who is doing research in time travel. As in all such tales, the ending is inevitable but still has a twist that some readers may be able to guess.
- "Conquerors" by Nick Wolven: a ceremony takes place between those on Earth and people from space who have returned for a short while. But the people from space prove to be very rowdy and one Earth girl wants nothing to do with them. But then an accident and a meeting with her uncle from space changes her perspective on the people from space.
- "Paper Airplane Poet" by Sheri Singerling: a story set in a world of haves and have-nots in a city. A have-not girl loses her parents to a strange 'non-Euclidian' affliction. Faced with a life of poverty, she decides to make use of her resemblance to an upper-class lady to move up in life. Unfortunately, the unusual affliction pays no further part in the story.
- "Aly" by Grace Chan: in a future Australia beset with global warming, a man accidentally encounters a stranger from Taiwan, and they strike up a relationship. But it becomes strained over the man's dependency on an Aly, an AI attached to him at birth. He turns it off in hopes of improving their relationship but the struggle to live, and to love, without an Aly may be too much.
- "Decimation Circles" by Raahem Alvi: on a world where people are implanted with a chip that remembers who they are when they die and reborn in a new body, an officer is charged with recovering her previous body. But in the process, she encounters an unusual human and comes to realise that there may be a better way than constantly living and dying on this dystopian world.
- "The Scent of Memory" by Zhao Haihong, translated by S. Qiouyi Lu: a man is desperate to meet with his former romantic partner before her wedding to another man, hoping to stop it. But before that, he needs a way to remind her of their good times, which may come in the form of a scent bottle that can cause vivid memories to resurface.
Displaying 1 of 1 review