MARIA DONG
Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Short Fiction By Genre

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Published Pieces

Cover of Khoreo Magazine, 1

The Frankly Impossible Weight of Han. Khoreo Magazine, #1. Feb. 15, 2021. (5038 words.)

Cover of Khoreo Magazine, 1
"Four hours after Grant Rutherford completes his life’s work—a machine that extracts energy and matter from ambient sources to create exact copies of anything it scans—he passes out behind the wheel of his 2025 Ford Fusion, crests a highway embankment, and flips into a ditch."
#Grief #Hope #Community #Machines #Ghosts
Reviewed by Charles Payseur, Quick Sip Reviews: "A strange but powerful story."
Reviewed by Maria Haskin, Short Fiction Treasures - Strange Horizon: "Read and savour this for its unsettling strangeness and its piercing beauty."
Reviewed by Vanessa Fogg, It's A Jumble: "... notes of humor and whimsy amid the poignancy. Moving, original, and lovely."
Cover of Fusion Fragment, 4

The Ten Thousand Lives of Luciana Kim. Fusion Fragment, #4. Jan. 18, 2021. (3800 words.)

Cover of Fusion Fragment, 4
She’s got goosebumps, but she doesn’t mind. It’s peaceful here, and she’s always enjoyed the cold. So, she thinks. This is what it’s like to be dead.
#Afterlives #PTSD #Queer #Games
Reviewed by Jeff Xilon, JeffXilon.com: "I quite enjoyed this disturbing story of a possibly gamified afterlife."
Reviewed by Charles Payseur, Quick Sip Reviews: "Gripping and wrenching."
Reviewed by Erin, Insectoid Reviews: "...A really brilliant take on afterlife ..."
Reviewed by Vanessa Fogg, It's A Jumble: "... a mysterious and surreally resonant piece..."
Cover of If There's Anyone Left, 1

A Brief History of KFSD: A Presentation Only Partially Slept Through. If There's Anyone Left, #1. Nov. 21, 2020. (500 words.)

Cover of If There's Anyone Left, 1
"He mentioned he would have preferred to keep the new face, as it was more attractive. He retracted this statement when he discovered the face belonged to a murderer."
#Flash #Race #Diaspora #ScienceFiction
Cover of Fusion Fragment, 2

EZ2Luv Is Hard To Leave. Fusion Fragment, #2. Sept. 1, 2020. (7600 words.)

Cover of Fusion Fragment, 2
"EZ2Luv has never been awake and alone at the same time. She almost wishes there was something wrong with her programming instead."
#SexRobots, #Identity, #Loneliness, #Space, #FreeRead

Pending Publication

In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird. Lightspeed Magazine. Date pending. (5400 words.)

In the beginning of me, I was a bird. A magpie, although I’ve since been a jay and a red-tailed hawk and even a big, black crow, crying tok-tok-tok at every passerby. But the magpie was special: on my first day, I saw those flashing blue wingtips, and I was myself. And every day after, I woke up and flew to a shiny window, just to admire my plumage.
#eco #sci-fi #obession #animals
Cover of Fusion Fragment, Issue Pending

A Star On Earth Is Always Lonely. Fusion Fragment, #Issue Pending. Date pending. (7300 words.)

Cover of Fusion Fragment, Issue Pending
"He thinks he finds it in his earlobe, a rice-like grain by the piercing-hole--but then he locates a corresponding bump on the other side and flushes with shame. How is it possible that so much of his body is still foreign topography when he's spent the last two years cataloging it under a microscope?"
#queer #science #paranoia #obsession
Cover of The Reinvented Heart,

Little Deaths and Missed Connections. The Reinvented Heart. Date pending. (3000 words.)

Cover of The Reinvented Heart,
Each time Alex steps into the creche, she imagines her own funeral. Not the way it would actually happen—the solitary recycling, the asynchronous audio beamed through satellites—no, she imagines pallbearers grunting under the heft of her body as it floats in white padding, the shine of a curved wooden coffin. She’s never seen wood in real life, but in her daydreams, it feels like bamboo and smells like coffee.