Professor X is one of the most famous disabled characters. Since his debut in 1963, he’s been known as the formidable mentor who turned his mansion into a safe space and school for marginalized people. Unlike superhero billionaires Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne, Xavier used his fortune to shelter and organize other heroes who inevitably […]
Buffy the Vampire Slayer wrote the first pages of my adult personality. When I was in high school, my older sister passed down the DVDs as though they were life’s handbooks. I was hooked. The show’s quick and zany sense of humor got me, Buffy’s angst mirrored my own, and the three teenage characters were […]
There are a few things I’ve come to expect from Star Trek: adventures on far-away worlds; sleek high-tech gadgets; a belief in the power of diplomacy, empathy, and teamwork over fear, hatred, and a lot of really big guns; a diverse cast of characters who are more family than mere crewmates. And the fact that […]
When I was 22, I wrote my first personal essay on disability and media.1 The Hunger Games film had just come out, and I crafted an essay on Katniss’s hearing loss in the book, a loss brought on in the Arena and subsequently fixed by the Gamemakers at the conclusion of the book. I delved […]
Uncanny Magazine would like to thank the following people for supporting us on Patreon. This magazine would not be possible without their support. Space Unicorn Ranger Corps COMMANDERS Alex Eiser, Alexander M Henderson, Alina Kanaski, Autumn, Bliss Ehrlich, Crystal Huff, Dain Unicorn, Daniel (a raven), Edmund Schweppe, Elizabeth Galliher, Girish M Duvvuri, Jayme, Justin […]
For me, fiction always starts with a what-if. The work may start with an image or feeling, but at that point it could still be poetry. It doesn’t really become fiction until that what-if element leads me to a succession of events, a story. It’s a literal counter-factual: the what-if reality were different, if dragons […]
It’s late at night on a deserted residential street in Brooklyn. My wife and I are walking to the subway station after a concert, having bid the friends who came with us goodbye at the corner. We’re not thinking much of it—not thinking about the fact that one of the people we left behind is […]
Uncanny Magazine would like to thank the following people for supporting us on Patreon. This magazine would not be possible without their support. Space Unicorn Ranger Corps COMMANDERS Kevin Lyda, Stephen, Elizabeth Galliher, Mairin Holmes, Girish M Duvvuri, Melanie Ashford, Alex E.T. Snyder, Rachel Caine, justin livernois, William T. McGeachin, Alex Eiser, Alexander M Henderson, […]
The Last Jedi was the last movie I saw in theaters. Not the most recent. The last. I thrilled to the familiar cadences of Star Wars, to the joy of the new characters bringing it alive again…and then I barely made it out of the theater upright. I went back to my family’s vacation rental […]
(Content note: Descriptions of online harassment, threats and misogyny.) Like you, like almost all writers, I live on the internet. I work there, too. My Twitter DMs have gotten me gigs and solicitation for anthologies and hot tips and networking. They’ve also brought me suggestions that I should kill myself because of my opinion of […]