Sci-Fi Reading Recommendations: Spring 2025 Edition
Bunker Dispatch
Spring. It has sprung… but who coiled It? Who, among us, is capable of such feats, and more importantly— where are they hiding now?
In this newsletter:
Why is this lunatic emailing me?
What to expect this month
M.P. Fitz’s Spring Sci-Fi Reading Recommendations
The Nihilist’s Horoscope
S e c r e t s
The Backlist
Free eBook Giveaways
I just wanted there to be 8 things
Next time lock your door
Hi there! The dog is mine now. I’m renaming her ‘Waffles’.
If you’ve been around and have read me; we’re groovy— you’re great. If you just came my way allow me to introduce myself: I’m M.P. Fitzgerald, an unwell sci-fi author. I write post-apocalyptic parodies and darkly humorous sci-fi. I’m in your home because you either subscribed to me on Substack or grabbed a free book of mine. You’ll get my short stories here in your inbox once a month and newsletters in between like this one. Are you gonna eat that?
What you got last month
Last month I sent you my sci-fi short story Unalive On Air, a story about a man and his onion. It can be read for free and is part of the Emil is My Editor initiative. Within the short story is also a link to the original draft as it was before Mr. Ottoman’s edits. I’ll take the time now to remind you that you can help my editor out in his time of need by tapping the image below:
A big thank you to those who gave during my flash fundraiser. You raised $88.00 for the man, and I appreciate that. Reader, you fucking rock!
What to expect this month
I’ll be sending you another short story this month, it will be free to read before going to the paywalled archive, so read it and share it while you can! And now…
M.P. Fitz’s Sci-Fi Recommendations
Welcome to Sci-Fight Club! The first rule of Sci-Fight Club is— that you read these recommendations because they are genuinely awesome and further, do not expect any Fight Club jokes like maybe the one you were expecting? The second rule doesn’t exist.
Everything below I’ve read (or reread) and can vouch for. Most are free (they shouldn’t be) and if not then they are worth every coin.
Michael Moorcock’s Behold the Man
Of the books on my shelf, this one might be the most sacrilegious in my collection. That is saying a lot, mind you, as I have both National Geographic’s english translation of The Gospel of Judas and a custom-made goat leather-bound translation of Anatole France’s The Revolt of the Angels. You have been warned.
The novella follows the misadventure of a repressed and closeted Londoner who takes a one-way time travel ticket to meet the historic Christ. Nothing goes as planned (this is a hilariously opaque understatement if you have read it).
This is a recent reread of mine as I had originally read it in a night twenty-something years ago (stoned off of that Tahoma shit before it became a brand), so my memory of it was… good, actually. Here is my favorite line:
Trapped. Sinking. Can't be myself. Made into what other people expect. Is that everyone's fate? Were the great individualists the products of their friends who wanted a great individualist as a friend?
Just fantastic. Find it here (and support my favorite local bookstore).
’s Provider
Look, I think you should just expect this wonderful lunatic to be on my recommendations all of the time, okay? Provider is a dark and incredibly sassy satire on the second-worst class of people: landlords. No, I’m sorry, in his story they are a ‘protected class’ and that word is a slur. Providers. I meant Providers.
This last month Futuro has output several powerful short stories, but this one is by far my favorite. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I cannot compete with how prolific and well he writes, so— I’m probably gonna have to put a hit on him. Read him before that happens, here’s my favorite line:
Anna: I know, I know. In my last apartment, the landlord. Sorry! Housing provider had rights to come in at any time and watch what I was doing in person. I hated when he would come in at night to watch me sleep. Any time I heard a noise I thought it was the doorknob clicking.
Read Provider (currently free) here.
’s Jumping with Janus
My god(s) this story! Jumping with Janus is an incredibly claustrophobic story about shame, memory, and the lengths we are willing to go through to absolve ourselves of guilt. The prose is tight, giving you just enough to keep rapid-fire momentum throughout but also just vague enough to be haunting at a very existential and spiritual level. Can you tell I like this story? I do. I very much do.
Jumping with Janus follows a man in a cult with access to a pool that, when jumped in, wipes them of their recent memories, and therefore their recollection of their sins. But what happens when you jump in too many times?
At home, I'm boiling a spud and sauteing some greens. Feeding one self but not the other. My fixations are starved for attention. Does my desire define me?
Superb. Read this short story here (currently free). There is also a french version somewhere on Sum Flux, I believe.
’ Warp & Woof
If you aren’t familiar with the name, be familiar now. Thaddeus Thomas is a powerhouse in literary prose, and his sci-fi serial Warp & Woof WILL HAVE YOU IN TEARS. This will happen, you will cry, and if you don’t, then you need to learn to mask better, you psychopath.
Mr. Thomas bought a bunch of pre-made book covers and went, “Yeah, I can just write those stories,” because he’s a confident madlad. Warp &Woof is one of those. What came of this is an ongoing serial about a man unraveling, and his dog. To say more would be to spoil the journey.
He watched as she closed the door and left him standing, alone and shaken. Desperate for a sense of grounding, he reached his hand into empty space and felt Laika’s wet nose nuzzle against his palm.
This free-to-read serial can be found here.
’s The Earth is a Carnivore
I can say confidently that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed everything I’ve read of NJ, and she might be the most prolific writer on this list. Her prose can have a fairy tale-like quality to it that is at once sinister and dreamy. Expect to see me recommend her again (no, seriously, do).
The Earth is a Carnivore is a story of humankind’s self-inflicted decay, but really it is a revenge story. A revenge story for nature. This specific story was published in The Ponder Review almost ten years ago. Writers tend to hate their old work as they grow in their craft, and I hope that she does not hate this one, as the imagery is fantastic and the emotional core powerful. The premise is simple: what if the flowers started screaming? My favorite line:
I wonder if they will dehumanize us and say that we were hooligans or unnecessarily aggressive. No one fights for the world anymore, that’s so 2000.
This short story is currently free to read here.
’s Entangled
My favorite kind of science fiction story is when a writer takes a deceptively simple thought experiment and plays it out with a wickedly strong human element. Entangled achieves both, and I am still over the moon for this story. If you could sync your mind in real-time with your spouse, would you? Feel what they feel, hear their thoughts, know their emotions as your own.
What if they were dying?
The goddamn heart in this story, I swear. Garratt is going to floor you, and it is going to happen because of bread of all things. So much sci-fi fails at the human element. You will find none of that failure here.
…a flicker of something at the edge of our perception, a wave in our reality. I couldn’t say who sensed it; it was hard to tell in the “US” phase. A flickering static, a tremor, but Sam pulled me away. I was with her; she laughed, arms flowing around me. A whirling dervish, dancing for me and with me.
Entangled is in three parts, all free (for now), with the first part here. Its audio version is how I originally experienced it, which I highly recommend.
& ’s The Wound Channel
Look, I’m going to be straight with ya. You are fucking NOT prepared for this. You’re likely familiar with Ottoman whose stories I’ve pushed before, but I don’t know if I’ve properly introduced
yet. This woman is a naturally gifted author with a talent rarely seen. She also collaborates perfectly with Mr. Ottoman, and that should scare you. I’ve said it somewhere before, but I’ll say it again: it should be illegal for these two to collaborate.Originally conceived of in November (I believe), The Wound Channel was put off for a moment after Luigi, uh, did his thing. This speculative fiction piece concerns school shootings, and if that took you off guard, know that the names Zani D and Emil Ottoman are the warning labels here. Violent, pornographic in its technical detail, and with wit as sharp as it is horrifying, The Wound Channel ruined my night when I read it. It can ruin yours too!
The report of an AK-47 is very distinct in comparison to a .223, like the difference between a tiger roaring fuck you and your orange housecat whining for more kibble
Gentlemen, die well here (free to read).
The Midnight Vault by Tiny Worlds Publishing
It would be terribly remiss of me not to recommend The Midnight Vault. Originally conceived of by
and as a Substack-wide tribute to The Twilight Zone, The Midnight Vault collects those twenty-nine short stories by just as many authors into this beautiful anthology. As far as I am concerned, this is the Twilight Zone, though it does deserve to be recognized as its own milestone. This is the most exciting thing to happen in indie publishing that I can remember and I am personally stoked to have this on my shelf. Put it on your’s here. This will be the best anthology you’ll buy and read this year. Full stop.Rod Serling would be proud.
…and now, for something completely different, it’s—
S e c r e t s
Unalive On Air was recently featured by TiF (Top in Fiction)! which I am still really excited and proud of. If you haven’t subscribed to TiF, check them out in that link, it is an extremely cool publication that collects the best Substack has to offer in fiction each week and sends it to you. Never say that you don’t have enough to read now.
Also, the premise for my story came about because my dear sister (who is smarter and funnier than you) shared some old infomercials with me, and I am mentally and spiritually unwell. There is a line where my editor called me out for being a professional line cook about how I “…know damn well you have to squeeze it to get any real action out of an onion,” but the thing is, you could cut a shallot two floors beneath me and I’d cry. I have no business being in a kitchen. But he was right, and so the line was improved.
Also, something neat happened:
The Nihilist’s Horoscope
Colossal amounts of mass crushed into burning fusion, the stars transmute their primordial states into elements anew. Their fires rage for what seems eternal, only to flick out in a darkness that WILL NOT remember them. At sixty miles an hour, it would take you more than 176 years to drive to our closest star, the sun, did you know that? Can you fathom just how much bigger the sun really is when it looks no bigger than a coin here, 176 years away? The stars in the sky are further, infinitely further, and those that are not already dead care not for your problems.
Damn, the ego on you, Pretentious “Y,” the ego on you! Sure the most impressive and powerful objects in the universe that we can see dictate your month’s luck. Your romantic problems, your fortune, your petty obsessions, I’m just sure that the gods made into specs in the sky have something to do with it. The. Ego. The only thing bigger than a star is your ego, Pretentious “Y.”
So track them. Follow the stars. Make graphs. You are still just a mote of dust to an ocean of nuclear fire. If the stars could talk, I assure you, they would talk shit.
M.P. Fitz’s Backlist
Novels:
The Happy Bureaucracy series:
A Happy Bureaucracy (Post-apocalyptic Parody)
Fear and Loathing in the Wasteland (Post-apocalyptic Parody)
Post-Apocalyptic Pirates (Post-apocalyptic Parody)
(You can get all three at a deep discount when you upgrade)
Short Stories:
Unalive On Air (Cyberpunk QVC)
Love is a Snow-Lettered Word (Sci-fable)
Saturnal Cancer (entry to the Stream of Consciousness POV Workshop)
The Public Humiliation of Brian (“Social Anxiety Horror”/Cyberpunk/Humor)
Roko’s Lathe™ (Cyberpunk Keynote Speech)
Recursive Panopticon (Cyberpunk)
The Museum (Speculative Fiction)
Atomic Death and Taxes (Post-apocalyptic Parody)
Does anyone know how to get barnacles off of their porch? (Horror/Humor)
…and more, when you upgrade.
Podcast Audiobooks:
A Happy Bureaucracy (Post-apocalyptic Parody sound-book for your earpits, music by Dust Mice)
Giveaways:
Greedy for more reading, even after everything listed above? I got ya, you glutton, here’s a Giveaway: The Free Science Fiction Short Story Collections promo runs until the 8th! Want another? How dare you? Take a look at the Books Spring Eternal promo!
My goodbyes are lies
Thank you for being my reader, I really appreciate it! If you appreciate me consider to…
…I’ll see you again later this month with another short story.
Stay hoopy, frood,
-M.P. Fitz
This is a good-looking list!🔥
weee! thank you for the nod!
why does that story feel like a lifetime ago this is the longest year ever