Non-fiction
Short Stories for a More Sympathetic Robot
by Jessica Peter in Issue Twenty-Four, July 2026
I’m sick of AI and artificial "intelligence" that is more plagiaristic and environmentally degrading than intelligent. I’m even more sick of tech billionaires using the warnings in classic sci-fi novels as inspiration instead (see the “torment nexus”), but at least their ideas largely seem to only be resulting in robots that bumble around (expensively) thus far.
I’m also the sort of person who can’t help but humanize a Roomba.
We have plenty of classic sci-fi with sentient machines, and many help us consider the implications of big business and what it really means to be human. Modern stories b...
Little Fiction Reviews
by The Editors of Haven Spec Magazine in Issue Twenty-Four, July 2026
The following comments are made by Associate Editors here at Haven Spec. Associate Editor is the name we give to our first-tier readers, and, in many cases, they serve as champions for those stories recommended to the Assistant Editors, and finally, to the Editor-in-Chief. Below, we gave those Associate Editors some space in our pages to speak a little about those stories, which were recommended out of hundreds of others received by Haven Spec over the past few months.
We here at Haven Spec firmly believe in the awesome joy of discovering new voices—and not just those that come in through the...
Letter from the Editor, Ya Herd?
by Leon Perniciaro in Issue Twenty-Four, July 2026
Dear Reader,
I’ve been thinking a lot about damnatio memoriae. In the ancient world, if the wrong person was mad at you, they’d scratch your name from the history books. This mostly involved chiseling chunks from stone inscriptions and blotting out faces from statues and murals, and the whole process kind of reminds me of that Chris Rock joke about how bullets should be really expensive—erasing people from history sounds like a lot of work and hardly worth the effort. Damnatio memoriae remains everpresent in the modern era, but we no longer strike from tombs or tondos the names of those consig...
Letter from the Editor
by Leon Perniciaro in Issue Twenty-Three, June 2026
Dear Reader,
When Lauren Berlant wrote Cruel Optimism, I wonder if she had my dog in mind. Rory is a cattle dog mutt, and she yearns for rough country and the herds of animals our zoning laws proscribe. We play fetch three times a day, and Rory thinks that every bird and squirrel that happens through our yard is on the menu for a dog that’s fleet of foot and stout of heart. But Rory has hurt her leg. She needs surgery. And because we live in a land where care is controversial, where even we great apes are given great big bills when we get hurt, there is no hope for furry little friends with r...
Poetry for the End of the World
by Jessica Peter in Issue Twenty-Two, February 2026
First, hello! I’m the still-quite-new Poetry Editor of Haven Spec Magazine. While the first poems I’ve selected from submissions will appear in later issues, right now I’d like to share some poems I’ve loved from other places. When I started gathering poems, they fell naturally into a few categories. You may see more in the future, but the best theme to start to get to know me as Poetry Editor has to be. . . the end of the world.
Now while the general state of the world right now may contribute to my current interest in the topic, the end of the world always seems to be on my mind. I’m a bit o...
Continue →Little Fiction Reviews
by The Editors of Haven Spec Magazine in Issue Twenty-Two, February 2026
The following comments are made by Associate Editors here at Haven Spec. Associate Editor is the name we give to our first-tier readers, and, in many cases, they serve as champions for those stories recommended to the Assistant Editors, and finally, to the Editor-in-Chief. Below, we gave those Associate Editors some space in our pages to speak a little about those stories, which were recommended out of hundreds of others received by Haven Spec over the past few months.
We here at Haven Spec firmly believe in the awesome joy of discovering new voices— and not just those that come in through the...
Continue →Letter from the Editor
by Leon Perniciaro in Issue Twenty-Two, February 2026
Dear Reader,
What does hope look like in an age of climate catastrophe? I've been working on the second chapter of my dissertation, and I keep coming back to this question because, at times, things feel so hopeless. Yesterday, the United States federal government destroyed the EPA's ability to regulate pollution from cars, buildings, power plants, and other sources of greenhouse gases. More emissions means more asthma and heart disease, higher food prices, and rising temperatures and sea levels. It's easy to feel small in the face of a problem so big, and it makes me think about what Timothy C...
Continue →Little Fiction Reviews
by The Editors of Haven Spec Magazine in Issue Twenty-One, January 2026
Magical Girl: Corporate Failure
Lia Lao
The prose of "Magical Girl: Corporate Failure" is the first thing to hit you in the teeth—it’s thick, visceral and compelling. In less than twelve hundred words, the story manages to pack a great deal of context and character work, conjuring up a world that feels incredibly realistic. There are elements of spiky humor in this story, braided with the tragic and the beautiful. There are plenty of sharp edges too, not least of which is a protagonist struggling to come to terms with her life. What it was, what it is now, and what it could be—all explored in ...
Continue →Letter from the Editor
by Leon Perniciaro in Issue Twenty-One, January 2026
Dear Reader,
You tell your daughter that she is right. That humans really can fly. You started the conversation with what amazing creatures ducks are, that they can walk on land and swim in lakes and soar through the air. Water fowl are all magicians, you say. All finefeathered wizards, and there is nothing else quite like them.
But she says, No, Papa, humans can do that too. The magic is just different. Instead of wings and webbed feet, we have planes and boats, wheelie shoes and pogo sticks. But we can walk and swim and soar. The magic is still real.
In your hands, dear reader, you hold a bo...
Continue →Letter from the Editor
by Leon Perniciaro in Issue Twenty, July 2025
Dear Reader,
The last few months have taken roughly ten thousand years, a time dilation so bad it's got me shouting Murph! and reading Dylan Thomas poetry. The thing I hated about Interstellar was that they named the bad guy Dr. Mann and told us "he was the best of us" over and over. All Matt Damon was missing to broadcast his evil was a mirror-Spockian goatee because as metaphors go, Dr. Mann is as subtle as a frying pan to the head, a real this-is-your-brain-on-drugs level of metaphor, and please, are there any questions? But time dilation is real, and dry land is not a myth, I've seen it, a...
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