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This short story originally appeared on Sci Fiction, July 7, 2004. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Second Annual Collection (2005), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Telling Tales: The Clarion West 30th Anniversary Anthology (2013), edited by Ellen Datlow. The story is included in the collection Leviathan Wept and Other Stories (2010).

What if you had a holocaust and nobody came?

Imagine a father who has sent his child's soul voyaging and seen it go astray. Or a backyard tale from the 1001 American Nights. Macbeth re-imagined as a screwball comedy. Three extraordinary economic tasks performed by a small expert in currency exchange that risk first career and then life and then soul.

From the disturbing beauty of 'Flat Diane' (Nebula-nominee, International Horror Guild award-winner) to the idiosyncratic vision of 'The Cambist and Lord Iron' (Hugo- and World Fantasy-nominee), Daniel Abraham has been writing some of the most enjoyable and widely admired short fiction in the genre for over a decade.

Ranging from high fantasy to hard science fiction, screwball comedy to gut-punching tragedy, Daniel Abraham's stories never fail to be intelligent, compassionate, thoughtful, and humane. Leviathan Wept and Other Stories is the first collection of his short works, including selections from both the well-known and the rare.

Table of Contents:

• A Hunter in Arin-Qin - (2010) - shortfiction by Daniel Abraham
• As Sweet - (2001) - shortfiction by Daniel Abraham
• Exclusion - (2001) - shortstory by Daniel Abraham
• Flat Diane - (2004) - novelette by Daniel Abraham
• Leviathan Wept - (2004) - shortstory by Daniel Abraham
• The Best Monkey - (2009) - novelette by Daniel Abraham
• The Cambist and Lord Iron - (2007) - shortfiction by Daniel Abraham
• The Curandero and the Swede - shortfiction by Daniel Abraham
• The Support Technician Tango - (2007) - novelette by Daniel Abraham

A monster sails the seas, carrying the threat of atomic catastrophe on the one hand and of a potential oil slick in the other. This is how a group of worried ecologists perceives the nuclear powered giant oil tanker Gargantua, which they soon nickname Leviathan. But in the end, this evil creature comes out to be a double blessing: first because of the unexpected virtues of atomic desintagretion, and secondly, because of the unpredictable carateristic of the slimy poison it holds in its side.

This short story originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 28, May-June 2019.

Read the full story for free at Uncanny.

Delyafam is our world! And these "human" strangers had best move warily here! I am the Kimassu Lady; my duty is to restore equity. "Madame Judge-and-jury," Neill, the dead Terren walking, calls me. "Grem; policechief." Words. Terre words. Though I have learned their language, I cannot understand them. So many differences: their "technology"; their "war"; their males unnaturally the rulers; their lack of all female virtues, especially honor.

Neill claims we are outgunned, outmanned, and outscienced. Worse, my ethical, fiercely conservative people are contemptuous of dangers they cannot understand and will not see; dare I defy... yet I must somehow drive these "guests" who-would-be-conquerors from our blue seas. I restore equity. There--must--be--a--way......

A moving fascinating tale of two opposed alien cultures.

Lord Ajax! First and greatest Ascendant; conqueror of the Martian machine-minds; mighty Steward of Leviathan's Dominion! For a thousand years, Ajax has ruled the solar system's worlds and moons with an iron fist. But history catches up with everyone - even an immortal tyrant. On the frozen dwarf planet Ceres, a scribe composes a record of his millennium-long rule. Unbeknownst to Ajax, her account contains a coded message that will spark a revolution.

Originally published on 13 April 2022, read it for free at Tor.com

HERE BE DRAGONS...

Beware! A shadow will cover you, larger than that cast by any other dragon of this world. Black as the lightless chasm from whence it was born at the beginning of time.

In the coastal city Skargakar, residents make a living from hunting dragons and use them for everything from clothing to food, while airborne ships hunt them in the white expanse of a cloud sea, the Cloudmere.

Lian does his part carving the kyrillian crystals that power the ships through the Cloudmere, but when he makes an enemy of a dangerous man, Lian ships out on the next vessel available as a drachenjager, or dragon hunter.

He chooses the wrong ship. A fanatic captain, hunts more than just any dragon. His goal is the Firstborn Gargantuan?and Adaron is prepared to sacrifice everything for revenge.

Nebula Award winning and Hugo Award nominated novelette.

Harry Malan is the president of a Mormon congregation on a station in the center of the Sun, where humans interact with "swales"--gigantic star-dwelling plasma beings. When a Mormon swale has a problem, Harry is determined to resolve it, even if it means confronting Leviathan, the largest swale.

It originallya appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September 2010. The story can also be found in the anthology Nebula Awards Showcase 2012, edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel and the collection Rejiggering the Thingamajig and Other Stories (2011).

Science Fiction. Southern California -- sunny days, blue skies, neighbors on flying bicycles ... ghostly submarines ... mermen off the Catalina coast ... and a vast underground sea stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Inland Empire where Chinese junks ply an illicit trade and enormous creatures from ages past still survive. It is a place of wonder ... and dark conspiracies. A place rife with adventure - if one knows where to look for it. Two such seekers are the teenagers Jim Hastings and his friend, Giles Peach. Giles was born with a wonderful set of gills along his neck and insatiable appetite for reading. Drawing inspiration from the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Giles is determined to build a Digging Leviathan. Will he reach the center of the earth? or destroy it in the process?

Illuminatus! Part III cheerfully ushers in the apocalyptic high-camp conclusion of the Illuminatus! Trilogy. The 9th and 10th Trips are performed by a grand ensemble cast. The Appendices (which are most instructive) are performed by the incomparable Ken Campbell, bringing the audiobook trilogy full circle. The Illuminati has never looked so good. All Hail Eris!

Leviathan Three is the third volume in the World Fantasy Award and British Fantasy Award finalist Ministry of Whimsys Leviathan series.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Jeff VanderMeer
• The Library: 1. Virtual Library - shortstory by Zoran Živkovic
• While Wandering a Vanished Sea - shortstory by James Bassett
• The Fork - shortstory by Jeffrey Thomas
• State Secrets of Aphasia - novelette by Stepan Chapman
• Up - shortstory by James Sallis
• The Library: 2. Home Library - shortstory by Zoran Živkovic
• A Season with Doctor Black - novelette by Brendan Connell
• The Camus Referendum - shortstory by Michael Moorcock
• The Vengeance of Rome (Chapter 3) - shortfiction by Michael Moorcock
• Phocas - shortfiction by Remy de Gourmont (trans. of Phocas 1895)
• The Evenki - shortfiction by Eugene Dubnov
• The Library: 3. Night Library - shortfiction by Zoran Živkovic
• Kafka in Brontëland - shortstory by Tamar Yellin
• The Weight of Words - novelette by Jeffrey Ford
• The Swan of Prudence Street - shortstory by Scott Thomas
• Moonlight - shortstory by Tamar Yellin
• The Library: 4. Infernal Library - shortstory by Zoran Živkovic
• The Progenitor - shortstory by Brian Evenson
• The Face of an Angel - novelette by Brian Stableford
• Village of the Mermaids - shortstory by Lance Olsen
• The Genius of Assassins - novelette by Michael Cisco
• The Library: 5. Smallest Library - shortstory by Zoran Živkovic
• The Divided Knight - shortstory by Théophile Gautier (trans. of Le chevalier double 1840)
• The Fool's Tale - novelette by L. Timmel Duchamp
• The Prince of Mules - shortstory by Carol Emshwiller
• Buz - shortfiction by Rikki Ducornet
• The Library: 6. Noble Library - shortstory by Zoran Živkovic

It is the cusp of World War I, and all the European powers are arming up. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, steam-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ fabricated animals as their weaponry. Their Leviathan is a whale airship, and the most masterful beast in the British fleet.

Aleksandar Ferdinand, prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is on the run. His own people have turned on him. His title is worthless. All he has is a battle-torn Stormwalker and a loyal crew of men.

Deryn Sharp is a commoner, a girl disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She's a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered.

With the Great War brewing, Alek's and Deryn's paths cross in the most unexpected way... taking them both aboard the Leviathan on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure. One that will change both their lives forever.

The behemoth is the fiercest creature in the British navy. It can swallow enemy battleships with one bite. The Darwinists will need it, now that they are at war with the Clanker powers.

Deryn is a girl posing as a boy in the British Air Service, and Alek is the heir to an empire posing as a commoner. Finally together aboard the airship Leviathan, they hope to bring the war to a halt. But when disaster strikes the Leviathan's peacekeeping mission, they find themselves alone and hunted in enemy territory.

Alek and Deryn will need great skill, new allies, and brave hearts to face what's ahead.

Alek and Deryn are on the last leg of their round-the-world quest to end World War I, reclaim Alek's throne as prince of Austria, and finally fall in love. The first two objectives are complicated by the fact that their ship, the Leviathan, continues to detour farther away from the heart of the war (and crown). And the love thing would be a lot easier if Alek knew Deryn was a girl. (She has to pose as a boy in order to serve in the British Air Service.) And if they weren't technically enemies.

The tension thickens as the Leviathan steams toward New York City with a homicidal lunatic on board: secrets suddenly unravel, characters reappear, and nothing is at it seems in this thunderous conclusion to Scott Westerfeld's brilliant trilogy.

A brand-new edition of the second novel in Moorcock's acclaimed steampunk series.

Oswald Bastable visits an alternate 1904. Here, he discovers that most of the Western world has been devastated by a short, yet horrific, war fought with futuristic devices and biological weapons. An Afro-American Black Attila is conquering the remnants of the Western nations, destroyed by the wars, in an attempt to bring civilization and social order.

An eccentric detective and her long-suffering assistant untangle a web of magic, deceit, and murder in this sparkling fantasy reimagining of the classic crime novel...

In Daretana's greatest mansion, a high Imperial officer lies dead--killed, to all appearances, when a tree spontaneously erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire's borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the Leviathans works strange magical changes, it's a death both terrifying and impossible.

Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times--and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol. Din is an engraver, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana's brilliance.

Din finds himself at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior--but as the case unfolds and Ana's mind leaps from one startling deduction to the next, he must grudgingly admit that she is, indeed, the Empire's greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself, Din realizes he's barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra--and wonders how long he'll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

Featuring an unforgettable Holmes-and-Watson style pairing, a gloriously labyrinthine plot, and a haunting and wholly original fantasy world, The Tainted Cup brilliantly reinvents the classic mystery tale.

A new god has risen.
The immortal Zaifyr has arrived at the Floating Cities in chains, to await trial for murder. Despite this, he's preparing for war against a new child god - for she will do anything to destroy those who stand in her way.

A city has fallen.
Ayae must fight to protect the survivors, and finds herself ensnared in a web of political intrigue. She'll find politics can be as lethal as any sword, and hers is not the only life at stake.

A warrior has arrived.
Across the ocean, the exile Bueralan returns home. And he's bearing a dead man's soul around his neck. God-touched and grief-stricken, he treads a dangerous path. He'll confront a legendary fighter... and discover a secret that will change the world.

Humanity has colonized the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond - but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, The Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for - and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to The Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations - and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

James S. A. Corey is a collective pseudonym for authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck.

The Laconian Empire has fallen, setting the thirteen hundred solar systems free from the rule of Winston Duarte. But the ancient enemy that killed the gate builders is awake, and the war against our universe has begun again.

In the dead system of Adro, Elvi Okoye leads a desperate scientific mission to understand what the gate builders were and what destroyed them, even if it means compromising herself and the half-alien children who bear the weight of her investigation. Through the wide-flung systems of humanity, Colonel Aliana Tanaka hunts for Duarte's missing daughter... and the shattered emperor himself. And on the Rocinante, James Holden and his crew struggle to build a future for humanity out of the shards and ruins of all that has come before.

As nearly unimaginable forces prepare to annihilate all human life, Holden and a group of unlikely allies discover a last, desperate chance to unite all of humanity, with the promise of a vast galactic civilization free from wars, factions, lies, and secrets if they win.

But the price of victory may be worse than the cost of defeat.

In Ben Bova's novel JUPITER, physicist Grant Archer led an expedition into Jupiter's hostile planetwide ocean, attempting to study the unusual and massive creatures that call the planet their home. Unprepared for the hostile environment and crushing pressures, Grant's team faced certain death as their ship malfunctioned and slowly sank to the planet's depths. However one of Jupiter's native creatures--a city-sized leviathan--saved the doomed ship. This creature's act convinced Grant that the huge creatures were intelligent, but he lacked scientific proof.

Now, several years later, Grant prepares a new expedition to prove once and for all that the huge creatures are intelligent. The new team faces dangers from both the hostile environment and from humans who will do anything to make sure the mission is a failure, even if it means murdering the entire crew.

Two Syndicate World star systems have fallen prey to a mysterious fleet of warships--a fleet controlled entirely by artificial intelligence--that is now targeting Alliance space. The warships are no mystery to Geary. They were developed by his government to ensure security, but malfunctioned. If the Syndics learn the truth, the war with the Alliance will resume with a vengeance.

As the government attempts to conceal the existence of the A.I. warships--and its role in their creation--Geary pursues them, treading a fine line between mutiny and obedience. But it soon becomes clear that his fleet is no match for the firepower of the machine-piloted armada.

With the help of the Dancer species of aliens, Geary has tracked the A.I. ships to their secret base in the supposedly mythical Unity Alternate star system where his fleet, the last hope of the Alliance's future, will end the conflict at any cost...

Trapped on the exotic alien world of Typhon, their DNA forcibly altered by a strange (and often capricious) godlike entity, Dilani and her fellow colonists no longer know who or what they are. What they do know is that they are being stalked across the seas by the vicious Bone Killers, who are bent on their extinction. Their only hope for survival may lie with relics of a vanished past—a past which still lies waiting, deep beneath the waves. But the past isn't all that awaits there.

While a struggle for control erupts within the god itself, something vast and ancient is stirring in Typhon's secret depths. Something as strange and powerful as any deity. And the consequences of its coming will forever affect the lives of every creature living beneath the seas...