Science Fiction in Our Issues
River & Sound Review is an independent literary journal that has published 11 science fiction stories since its founding in 2016, and those stories sit inside the wider field of science fiction magazines: the current trade and indie titles that still exist today, from long-running anthologies to small presses that accept 1500 word flash submissions on a rolling basis. This page maps that field and then turns to the specific stories our issues have carried, so a reader can find both the landscape and our contribution to it in one place.
The field of science fiction magazines is only one lane of the review's work; our other lanes include Poetry in Literary Magazines, Pulp Fiction in Our Issues and Flash Fiction in Our Issues, and the review itself belongs to the family of Literary review magazines that pair fiction with criticism and craft notes on the same page.
The Field of Science Fiction Magazines Today
The field of science fiction magazines today still exists, and it does so in 3 distinct tiers. The flagship tier carries print and digital editions with paid rates around 8 to 12 cents a word; the indie tier runs digital only, accepts 500 to 1500 word flash and short stories, and pays 5 cents a word or less; and the anthology tier collects the best of the year from both. Current science fiction magazines in the flagship tier include Asimov's Science Fiction, which has published since 1958, and Analog Science Fiction and Fact, which began in 1933 and remains the oldest continuously published title in the field. The indie tier includes Clarkesworld, a digital magazine that has run since 2006 and publishes 20 to 25 stories a year, and Lightspeed, which launched in 2012 and focuses on short stories under 7500 words. The UK tier, which answers the question of which science fiction magazines UK readers can buy, is smaller but steady: Interzone has published since 1985, and the UK also hosts several literary titles that take speculative work, such as The Stinger and The Moth.
For readers searching for a science fiction magazine for sale, the answer is yes, back issues exist, and the specific case of the Astounding Science Fiction magazine for sale is real: used back issues of Astounding Science Fiction, the pre-1960 name of Analog, appear regularly at collectors' rates because the early issues contain the first printed versions of stories by Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert A. Heinlein. A 1942 Astounding Science Fiction back issue sells for 50 to 500 dollars depending on condition, and the magazine's own archive is searchable through the digital reprints that Analog has released. Fiction magazines for sale in general, including used subscriptions and single issues, circulate through collector forums and online marketplaces, and the demand for first appearances of classic science fiction keeps the secondary market active.
Magazines Accepting Science Fiction Submissions
Magazines accepting science fiction submissions in 2026 number in the dozens, and the ones most likely to respond to a new writer are the indie and anthology titles that publish 4 to 6 stories a month. Science fiction magazines accepting submissions right now include Clarkesworld, which reads 2000 to 3000 stories a month and pays 6 cents a word; Lightspeed, which accepts stories up to 7500 words and pays 8 cents a word; and Asimov's, which pays 10 cents a word and also runs a slush queue. Literary magazines for flash fiction that take speculative work include Flash Fiction Online, which publishes 10 to 12 stories a month under 1000 words, and Tiny Fiction, which runs 1 issue a month and takes pieces under 750 words. Crime fiction magazines uk that take speculative crossovers include The Crime Writers' Review and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and the weird fiction magazines that sit closest to science fiction are Weird Tales, which has published since 1923 and revives its horror and science fiction mix, and Nightmare Magazine, which takes dark speculative fiction under 5000 words. Fiction magazines accepting submissions in general, from literary to genre, post their open windows on submission platforms, and a writer who sends 20 queries a month to the right tier typically hears 1 to 2 acceptance emails within 6 months.
The Science Fiction Stories Our Issues Have Carried
The science fiction stories our issues have carried since 2016 number 11, and they fall into 3 groups by length and theme. The short stories, 6 of them, run between 2000 and 6000 words and appear in issues 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13; the flash pieces, 3 of them, run under 1000 words and appear in issues 4, 8 and 12; and the speculative essays, 2 of them, run about 1500 words each and appear in issues 6 and 10. The themes run from near-future urban life to hard science extrapolation, and every story was paid at our standard rate of 5 cents a word at publication.
| Issue | Year | Title | Author | Word count |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 2017 | The Quiet Engine | Mara Ellison | 3200 |
| 4 | 2017 | Static | Dev Okafor | 850 |
| 5 | 2018 | A Cartography of Rain | Lena Voss | 4100 |
| 6 | 2018 | What the Tides Remember | Harper Quinn | 1500 |
| 7 | 2019 | The Last Ferry to Kesh | Anya Radek | 5600 |
| 8 | 2019 | Glitch Bloom | Tomás Herrera | 950 |
| 9 | 2020 | Orbital Decay | Sana Idris | 2800 |
| 10 | 2020 | Notes from a Drowned Library | Caleb Wren | 1500 |
| 11 | 2021 | The Glass Orchard | Yuki Tanaka | 4400 |
| 12 | 2021 | Signal Loss | Priya Nair | 780 |
| 13 | 2022 | Meridian | Jonas Lindqvist | 3900 |
Where River & Sound Review Sits Among the Best Fiction Magazines
Where River & Sound Review sits among the best fiction magazines is as a mid-tier literary title that publishes 2 to 3 science fiction pieces a year alongside its poetry and nonfiction, and that distinction matters to a writer choosing where to send a speculative story. The best fiction magazines, measured by acceptance rates, payment rates and the career impact of a first appearance, cluster at the top with the flagship science fiction titles, and the literary magazines that take speculative work form a second cluster, and River & Sound Review belongs to that second cluster. For a first-time writer, a publication in a literary review magazine that takes science fiction carries 2 to 4 times the career weight of a print-only indie title, because the literary audience reaches agents and editors who do not read the genre press. The review's acceptance rate for science fiction submissions sits around 8 percent, and the reading window runs 8 to 12 weeks, which is 2 to 3 weeks faster than the flagship tier and about the same as the indie tier.
How to Reach the Science Fiction Side of the Review
How to reach the science fiction side of the review is to send a submission through the review's online portal, and the process takes 3 steps. Step 1 is to register an account and select the science fiction category, which the portal lists alongside poetry, flash fiction and nonfiction. Step 2 is to paste the story into the submission form, which accepts 500 to 6000 words, and to add a 2 sentence synopsis that names the speculative element. Step 3 is to wait the 8 to 12 week reading window, during which the story goes to 2 editors, and to accept or decline the response when it arrives. Writers who publish a science fiction story in a River & Sound Review issue keep the digital rights and the print rights for 1 year, and the review posts 1 excerpt per issue to its social channels, which gives a new writer 3 to 5 thousand additional readers in the first month after publication.