CHANGELOG
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RICH LARSON
In the long-awaited follow-up to his debut collection Tomorrow Factory, Rich Larson plunges us through a multiplicity of futures.
Ranging in length from byte-sized drabbles to elaborate novelettes, the twenty-six stories assembled in Changelog rove from the sands of biopunk West Africa to the scarred hull of a generation ship to the dismantling of time itself — exploring the symbiosis of humanity and technology at every stop.
- September, 2025 978-1-958880-33-3
- trade paperback, 5.5 x 8.5
- Preorder copies below; or order ebook and print copy orders forthcoming from these dealers.
- Artwork by Tithi Luadthong
In the long-awaited follow-up to his debut collection Tomorrow Factory, Rich Larson plunges us through a multiplicity of futures.
Ranging in length from byte-sized drabbles to elaborate novelettes, the twenty-six stories assembled in Changelog rove from the sands of biopunk West Africa to the scarred hull of a generation ship to the dismantling of time itself — exploring the symbiosis of humanity and technology at every stop.
3 available
Table of Contents
Painless | Like Any Other Star | Night Shift | Headhunting | All Electric Ghosts | Smear Job | Brainwhales Are Stoners, Too | In Event of Moon Disaster | Valhalla | Last Nice Day | Cupido | Animals Like Me | Our Lady of Perpetual Disdain | Failsafe | Quandary Aminu vs The Butterfly Man | Tripping Through Time | Dale Dale Dale | Tidings | The Old Man | Safe Space | Still Life of a Death Broker | Complete Exhaustion of the Organism | Horizon Event | You Are Born Exploding | Verweile Doch (But Linger) | Meat And Salt And Sparks
Painless | Like Any Other Star | Night Shift | Headhunting | All Electric Ghosts | Smear Job | Brainwhales Are Stoners, Too | In Event of Moon Disaster | Valhalla | Last Nice Day | Cupido | Animals Like Me | Our Lady of Perpetual Disdain | Failsafe | Quandary Aminu vs The Butterfly Man | Tripping Through Time | Dale Dale Dale | Tidings | The Old Man | Safe Space | Still Life of a Death Broker | Complete Exhaustion of the Organism | Horizon Event | You Are Born Exploding | Verweile Doch (But Linger) | Meat And Salt And Sparks
“Changelog is perfect for fans of Blade Runner and Black Mirror with stories that span across biopunk, military sci-fi, space opera, the cosmic, exploring addiction, trauma, and the webbing of relationships through narratives both quiet and action-packed. Gritty and raw, Larson brings us tales reminiscent of classics like 1984 and worlds eerily palpable in their depictions of our far futures.“
— Ai Jiang, author of Linghun
"Rich Larson is one of the most versatile short story writers I know. He’s equally at home creating believable characters and worlds in space and on Earth. What I especially love about his stories is that I never know what he’s up to until I begin reading. He’s an editor’s and reader’s dream."
— Ellen Datlow, multi-award winning editor
"Rich Larson starts these stories with his foot on the accelerator and never lets up. They race through dark alleys on Earth and soar to spaceships orbiting distant planets. His people get things done, not always in accordance with the laws of their worlds and sometimes with catastrophic results. Changelog is a showcase for one of science fiction’s most inventive writers."
— James Patrick Kelly, winner of the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards
"Rich Larson is among the very best authors of his generation. He skillfully creates sunny dystopian end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it stories, hard-hitting thrillers, and chilling off-world tales. Characters like the mother and child in “You Are Born Exploding” and the violent central figure in “Painless” are beautifully drawn. Rich’s stories are often taut and terrifying, but they also reveal his compassion and humor."
— Sheila Williams, award-winning editor of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
"The astonishingly prolific Rich Larson investigates a plethora of biopunk futures—many of them laser-sharp—in Changelog: Collected Fiction. These twenty-six stories range from drabbles of a few sentences to short stories, and up to complex novelettes in which sentences are press-ganged to do double and triple duty. A preeminent heir to the cyberpunk movement, Larson explores how those inhabiting sand-choked byways of the Sahara, seedy back alleys around the globe, and gritty corners of the universe find their own uses for bio-ware. With inquisitive-eyed drones dancing overhead, his down-and-out bio-tech practitioners labor over gene-riggers even as lyricism lurks among the chromatophores. Larson’s settings are replete with implacable diseases and populated by con artists and ordinary, or downright insignificant, protagonists who struggle against intolerable constraints and combat setbacks and hardships with resolve. . . . Sam Miller’s effusive introduction to Changelog initially struck me as over the top—until I fell for Larson’s vivid prose and rooted hard for every one of his pain-filled protagonists. Hence, it took me a solid month to read all these stories. Do not be surprised if, like me, you can only read two or three of them at a time. They deliver emotional gut punches in small packages. Fair warning: you might well find yourself muttering, “What did I just read?” as you collect yourself before forging ahead to the next one.
— Rosemary Claire Smith, Analog
"Within the astonishing short stories contained in Changelog, the wonder-inspiring visions of technological possibility that lie at the heart of science fiction’s appeal exist simultaneously with a deep concern for the marginalized, the destitute, the powerless, and what future shocks will have in store for the least of us. Rich Larson’s talent never ceases to awe me, whether he’s sketching in only a few words characters that leap off the page, or taking age-old SFNal tropes and tweaking them in ways that will surprise the most jaded reader. You will be thrilled. You will be frightened. You will be moved to tears."
— Mike Allen, World Fantasy Award-nominated author of The Black Fire Concerto
“One of the most exciting and prolific science fiction and fantasy writers working today. His range—and of course his talent — is remarkable.”
— John Joseph Adams, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy
"Rich Larson is one of the best and brightest writers working in science fiction today, and has been since he burst onto the scene nearly fifteen years ago. His smart, sharply observed fiction is always compelling and entertaining, and I'm always looking forward to what he's going to do next. Changelog is the best of his recent work and it belongs on every reader's to-be-read pile and on next year's awards lists. Highly recommended!"
— Jonathan Strahan, award-winning editor and co-host of Coode Street Podcast
"Larson kills it again. Vivid, poignant, driven. Chilling as they are, his far-flung, dark futures never descend into hopelessness or the mere cautionary tale; they're agentic dystopias where you can make things happen. His futures ask no permission. PS. Someone please option 'Quandary Aminu vs the Butterfly Man.' I need to see this as an animated film."
— Ted Kosmatka, author of The Flicker Men
"Rich Larson's Changelog is an exceptional collection of some of the best of his recent short fiction. The focus is mostly on the fairly near future, dark visions of promising technology often misappropriated for horrific ends. It is full of fascinating ideas, and convincing extrapolations of the social effects of technology. There is propulsive action in places, and moving, even wrenching, characters stories in other places — or sometimes both at the same time."
— Rich Horton, Strange at Ecbatan
"Rich Larson's new collection, Changelog, is further evidence that the prolific and talented Larson is one of the best short-form science-fiction writers in the field today. In this masterful collection of stories previously published in top markets, he offers us everything from flash fiction to novelettes, all of them perfect in their length. His ideas
are wildly inventive, his plots are deftly handled, his characters are delightfully strange but all-too real, his storytelling can be touching and angry and violent by turn, and his vivid powers of description bring the setting to life, whether on a colony ship in deep space or a near-future Cape Town that reminds us of our lives today. This is superb science fiction, written by a master of the trade. Highly, highly recommended."
— Rick Wilber, author of Alien Morning
"Rich Larson is the short story surgeon you didn’t know you needed. In Changelog, a superb gathering of his best recent fiction, he operates with razor-sharp precision, slicing open ambiguous, charged dystopias, stitching up tales of fierce human connection in fractured futures, and cauterizing raw emotion with insight on every page. Commanding action and speculative darkness like instruments, Larson’s tales—spanning grimy Earth-bound realities, rogue AIs, orbital stations, bio-hacked power plays, and deep-space reckonings—thrum with energy and invention. Changelog, a collection as smart as it is stirring, is guaranteed to supercharge your brain and rewire your heart."
— Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Hugo finalist, and author of Equimedian
"A hefty collection of twenty-six short stories in Larson's second collection. Better than half of this collection was new to me and the stories were all originally published during the last fifteen years. I remembered the name but had not realized how prolific he has been. There are some very good pieces of fiction here, including "Headhunting," "Our Lady of Perpetual Disdain," "You Are Born Exploding," and "The Old Man." Larson is very varied in subject matter and construction of his stories, though most are narrated in a straightforward manner. Personally I think he is best in his longer stories . . . He will likely always entertain you, although in different ways at different times. This book and its predecessor, Tomorrow Factory, both provide a lot of material at a pleasantly affordable price."
— Critical Mass
“Larson’s stories crackle with energy and imagination, and I'm only a little jealous.”
— Sarah Pinsker, Nebula Award-winning author of Haunt Sweet Home
— Ai Jiang, author of Linghun
"Rich Larson is one of the most versatile short story writers I know. He’s equally at home creating believable characters and worlds in space and on Earth. What I especially love about his stories is that I never know what he’s up to until I begin reading. He’s an editor’s and reader’s dream."
— Ellen Datlow, multi-award winning editor
"Rich Larson starts these stories with his foot on the accelerator and never lets up. They race through dark alleys on Earth and soar to spaceships orbiting distant planets. His people get things done, not always in accordance with the laws of their worlds and sometimes with catastrophic results. Changelog is a showcase for one of science fiction’s most inventive writers."
— James Patrick Kelly, winner of the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards
"Rich Larson is among the very best authors of his generation. He skillfully creates sunny dystopian end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it stories, hard-hitting thrillers, and chilling off-world tales. Characters like the mother and child in “You Are Born Exploding” and the violent central figure in “Painless” are beautifully drawn. Rich’s stories are often taut and terrifying, but they also reveal his compassion and humor."
— Sheila Williams, award-winning editor of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
"The astonishingly prolific Rich Larson investigates a plethora of biopunk futures—many of them laser-sharp—in Changelog: Collected Fiction. These twenty-six stories range from drabbles of a few sentences to short stories, and up to complex novelettes in which sentences are press-ganged to do double and triple duty. A preeminent heir to the cyberpunk movement, Larson explores how those inhabiting sand-choked byways of the Sahara, seedy back alleys around the globe, and gritty corners of the universe find their own uses for bio-ware. With inquisitive-eyed drones dancing overhead, his down-and-out bio-tech practitioners labor over gene-riggers even as lyricism lurks among the chromatophores. Larson’s settings are replete with implacable diseases and populated by con artists and ordinary, or downright insignificant, protagonists who struggle against intolerable constraints and combat setbacks and hardships with resolve. . . . Sam Miller’s effusive introduction to Changelog initially struck me as over the top—until I fell for Larson’s vivid prose and rooted hard for every one of his pain-filled protagonists. Hence, it took me a solid month to read all these stories. Do not be surprised if, like me, you can only read two or three of them at a time. They deliver emotional gut punches in small packages. Fair warning: you might well find yourself muttering, “What did I just read?” as you collect yourself before forging ahead to the next one.
— Rosemary Claire Smith, Analog
"Within the astonishing short stories contained in Changelog, the wonder-inspiring visions of technological possibility that lie at the heart of science fiction’s appeal exist simultaneously with a deep concern for the marginalized, the destitute, the powerless, and what future shocks will have in store for the least of us. Rich Larson’s talent never ceases to awe me, whether he’s sketching in only a few words characters that leap off the page, or taking age-old SFNal tropes and tweaking them in ways that will surprise the most jaded reader. You will be thrilled. You will be frightened. You will be moved to tears."
— Mike Allen, World Fantasy Award-nominated author of The Black Fire Concerto
“One of the most exciting and prolific science fiction and fantasy writers working today. His range—and of course his talent — is remarkable.”
— John Joseph Adams, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy
"Rich Larson is one of the best and brightest writers working in science fiction today, and has been since he burst onto the scene nearly fifteen years ago. His smart, sharply observed fiction is always compelling and entertaining, and I'm always looking forward to what he's going to do next. Changelog is the best of his recent work and it belongs on every reader's to-be-read pile and on next year's awards lists. Highly recommended!"
— Jonathan Strahan, award-winning editor and co-host of Coode Street Podcast
"Larson kills it again. Vivid, poignant, driven. Chilling as they are, his far-flung, dark futures never descend into hopelessness or the mere cautionary tale; they're agentic dystopias where you can make things happen. His futures ask no permission. PS. Someone please option 'Quandary Aminu vs the Butterfly Man.' I need to see this as an animated film."
— Ted Kosmatka, author of The Flicker Men
"Rich Larson's Changelog is an exceptional collection of some of the best of his recent short fiction. The focus is mostly on the fairly near future, dark visions of promising technology often misappropriated for horrific ends. It is full of fascinating ideas, and convincing extrapolations of the social effects of technology. There is propulsive action in places, and moving, even wrenching, characters stories in other places — or sometimes both at the same time."
— Rich Horton, Strange at Ecbatan
"Rich Larson's new collection, Changelog, is further evidence that the prolific and talented Larson is one of the best short-form science-fiction writers in the field today. In this masterful collection of stories previously published in top markets, he offers us everything from flash fiction to novelettes, all of them perfect in their length. His ideas
are wildly inventive, his plots are deftly handled, his characters are delightfully strange but all-too real, his storytelling can be touching and angry and violent by turn, and his vivid powers of description bring the setting to life, whether on a colony ship in deep space or a near-future Cape Town that reminds us of our lives today. This is superb science fiction, written by a master of the trade. Highly, highly recommended."
— Rick Wilber, author of Alien Morning
"Rich Larson is the short story surgeon you didn’t know you needed. In Changelog, a superb gathering of his best recent fiction, he operates with razor-sharp precision, slicing open ambiguous, charged dystopias, stitching up tales of fierce human connection in fractured futures, and cauterizing raw emotion with insight on every page. Commanding action and speculative darkness like instruments, Larson’s tales—spanning grimy Earth-bound realities, rogue AIs, orbital stations, bio-hacked power plays, and deep-space reckonings—thrum with energy and invention. Changelog, a collection as smart as it is stirring, is guaranteed to supercharge your brain and rewire your heart."
— Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Hugo finalist, and author of Equimedian
"A hefty collection of twenty-six short stories in Larson's second collection. Better than half of this collection was new to me and the stories were all originally published during the last fifteen years. I remembered the name but had not realized how prolific he has been. There are some very good pieces of fiction here, including "Headhunting," "Our Lady of Perpetual Disdain," "You Are Born Exploding," and "The Old Man." Larson is very varied in subject matter and construction of his stories, though most are narrated in a straightforward manner. Personally I think he is best in his longer stories . . . He will likely always entertain you, although in different ways at different times. This book and its predecessor, Tomorrow Factory, both provide a lot of material at a pleasantly affordable price."
— Critical Mass
“Larson’s stories crackle with energy and imagination, and I'm only a little jealous.”
— Sarah Pinsker, Nebula Award-winning author of Haunt Sweet Home
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR