[On May 10, 2021 Strange Horizons officially expressed its political support for Palestinian solidarity. The views of Tangent Online reviewers are not necessarily those of Strange Horizons. Fiction critiqued at Tangent Online is, as much as is humanly possible, without prejudice and based solely on artistic merit.]

Strange Horizons, October 20, 2025

“Bullet Time at the Kink Party” by Miriam

Reviewed by Axylus

I have read “Bullet Time at the Kink Party” so you don’t have to. I bring back this report: Strange Horizons has announced that they are very happy to welcome a new Fiction Editor, Joyce Wolf Chng, to the team. Chng has immediately decided (by accepting this story) that the role, scope and purview of Strange Horizons is no longer restricted to genre fiction (F/SF/H). Strange Horizons is now instead a joyously untrammeled propaganda rag promoting hatred of anyone who is not LGTBQ+. From this particular anecdote (“Bullet Time at the Kink Party” by Miriam) it would seem that “cop killers” (or, forgive me, “plastic cop-slab” killers—straightforward dehumanization) can be added to the list of people whom Strange Horizons is happy to elevate and promote. In short, this anecdote is 7,213 words of a huge and very malevolent two-fisted pair of violent middle fingers to everyone who is not LGBT+, and to White Christians, and to police—most especially to police. That is simply all it is. It is nothing else. I would happily relate the plot of the anecdote in this review, if it had one. It does not. The events are that people at a kink party kill cops. As an added bonus, the kink going on at the party is lovingly described at length in x-rated detail. The text is garnished with few words and stray sentences here and there that sound genre-ish (“A bubble of incandescent anti-cruelty is expanding out from Leah’s cock. This broken world abhors anti-cruelty. Anti-cruelty spontaneously manifests and is immediately annihilated by equal and opposite true-cruelty”), but in fact it is simply a fountain of pure, vile hatred. With the advent of their new editor, Strange Horizons should also choose a new name for itself: Execrable Hatred Horizons. “Bullet Time at the Kink Party” is not even fiction, just propaganda pretending to be fiction. I hereby decline to review any further stories at Strange Horizons.