Samantha (Sam) Mills

@samtasticbooks

SFF Author | Nebula, Locus, Sturgeon, Compton Crook winner | Hugo, World Fantasy finalist | Repped by Lisa Rodgers | RABBIT TEST AND OTHER STORIES out now! (she/her) www.samtasticbooks.com Newsletter at

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Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· 18h

My two Tachyon titles are The Wings Upon Her Back and Rabbit Test and Other Stories ;D tachyonpublications.com/book_author/...

Cover of The Wings Upon Her Back, featuring a stylized mechanical wing in golds and reds

Cover for Rabbit Test and Other Stories featuring the title in bold white and red font, inset with silhouettes of a rabbit and a pregnancy test

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· 18h

Summer sale at Tachyon this week!! Order two physical books and get a signed "Rabbit Test" chapbook for free (this is a special item separate from the collection!) Look at theeeese. Plus many more fun titles at tachyonpublications.com

Graphic for sale at TachyonPublications.com. August 10-16. Buy any two physical books and get a signed "Rabbit Test" chapbook free while supplies last. No code required! Features covers of Space Opera, The Universe Box, The Adventures of Mary Darling, Foundling Fathers, Audition for the Fox, How to Mars, The Essential Peter S. Beagle, The Emperor's Soul, and Jamaica Ginger.

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· 12d

I am attending my first WorldCon!! I will make something cuter when we get closer, but I am excited, as you can see my programming is a perfect cross-section of my interests XD

List of Sam's WorldCon programming:

Thursday: Causality Violations The Ethics of a Time War

Friday: Autographing and a Table Talk

Saturday: Authoritarianism in Fantasy Worlds and Fantastical Librarians and Their Libraries

Sunday: Bless Your Heart Middle Aged Women as Epic Adventurers and The Short Arc Hugo Best Short Story Finalists

Monday: Siblings The Long Relationship Your Characters Don't Choose

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· Jul 5

Hello, new followers! I am the author of The Wings Upon Her Back (Compton Crook winner/World Fantasy finalist science fantasy novel) and Rabbit Test and Other Stories (all my best shorts from 2018-2025). Welcome, welcome More deets: samtasticbooks.com/novels samtasticbooks.com/collections

Cover for The Wings Upon Her Back by Samantha Mills, featuring a stylized mechanical wing in shades of gold, copper, red

Cover for Rabbit Test and Other Stories by Samantha Mills, featuring the title in bold white and pink font, with silhouettes of a rabbit and a pregnancy test

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· Jun 28

We had our Mel Brooks marathon early and did it yesterday. Blazing Saddles, High Anxiety, Spaceballs, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Young Frankenstein, History of the World Pt 1, The Producers. My eyeballs hurt. Happy 100th bday! XD

5 people posing in front of a TV, dressed as Mel Brooks characters: Frau Blucher, Dr. Frankenstein, Igor, one of Robin Hood's Merry Men, and a Spanish Inquisitor

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· Jun 25

Live footage of me trying to finish this book (my final chapter has splintered into seven smaller chapters)

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· Jun 23

I need to pull out my favorite fancy fella from the first post. Those legs! That posture!

This pigeon is some kind of disco dinosaur, with long white legs that have feathers fan out like bellbottoms, gray wings, and a ruffly black chest.

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· Jun 23

I could not get a photo at a proper angle for this guy, but I assure you: a Dracula

A pigeon with a white head and long white tail peeking out from black wings and a high black ruff of feathers like a vampire's high-necked cloak

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· Jun 16

He love bowl

A small tuxedo cat perched on a bathroom counter, front paws clutching a small wooden bowl to his face

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· Jun 7

Screencap from Mad Max: Fury Road in which Max is pointing off camera and saying, "Uhh, that's bait" except the quote is now "Uhh, that's Cthulhu"

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· May 28

Even the subject lines are getting longer!!

Email subject line: "The Most Dangerous Thing About Rabbit Test and Other Stories Is Not the Time Travel, the Devils, or the Floating Libraries It Is That Readers Searching for Emotionally Devastating Speculative Fiction Still Have Not Found This Collection"

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· May 28

But what if I reply with the word "disregard"? 🤔 (j/k I never reply)

Screencap of bottom of email: "Lillian Roberts
Book Marketing Professional

P.S. The free audit takes roughly an hour on my side and costs absolutely nothing. No pressure. No obligation. Just a clear picture of where discoverability is quietly limiting a speculative fiction collection with extraordinary long-term literary word-of-mouth potential. Reply with the word “audit” and I will begin."

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· May 26

"Readers who insist that good art must be devoid of politics will not find a home here. If, however, you’re interested in fiction that takes risks, pushes boundaries, and is unafraid to be furious about the state of society, then this book is for you." 😍 lareviewofbooks.org/article/rabb...

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· May 24

I know I must have read other books with death in them, but I can't remember anything like the visceral shock of this one because hello whose idea was this, who said this is a good one to illustrate for the youngsters!!

Cover of Great Illustrated Classics version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame featuring Quasimodo looking down on the city from a perch between gargoyles

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· May 22

IT MEANS SOMETHING. IT'S IN THERE. Also

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· May 22

The editing process

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· May 22

Memorial Day saaaale! Order any titles direct from tachyonpublications.com and get 20% off this weekend! That includes THE WINGS UPON HER BACK and RABBIT TEST AND OTHER STORIES, plus a whole lot of other fab novels, novellas, and collections. Treat yourself!

Promo graphic: Memorial Day sale, 20% off May 22-25, use code MEMORIAL20

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· May 20

ALSO at 1pm on Sunday in Baltimore Ballroom A, Jo Miles is launching Tea and Treachery at the Infinite Pantry. This book is going to be super sweet, and Jo is awesome, so you should come. Also: a perfect time for tea and pastries!

Cover for Tea and Treachery at the Infinite Pantry by Jo Miles, featuring super cute kitties, teapots, and sweets in a ring around the title, below a castle

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· May 20

Tomorrow I am headed to Balticon to hand the Compton Crook off to Hayley Gelfuso! Here's where to find meee

Balticon graphic listing Sam's events:
Saturday 1pm a reading in James
Saturday 2:30pm a signing in 5th floor lobby
Saturday 5:30 Smashing Genres Together panel in St. George
Sunday 4pm a kaffeeklatsch in Club Lounge
Monday 11:30am The Structured Pantser panel in Mount Washington

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· May 14

A starred review for Rabbit Test and Other Stories from Publishers Weekly! ⭐🤩 "Even the shortest of these tales packs a powerful punch." www.publishersweekly.com/9781616964511

Some of the most powerful stories in the brilliant, genre-spanning debut collection from Nebula Award winner Mills (The Wings upon Her Back) focus on the contentious relationships between generations. The stunning title entry, for instance, toggles between the past and the future to track the progress and deterioration of abortion access in the United States. Then there’s the brief but impactful “Laugh Lines,” presented in the form of a eulogy for the narrator’s mother that doubles as a paean to disability rights. These speculative pieces resonate deeply with the current moment, teasing out the many possible ways climate disasters and fascistic politics may shape humanity’s future, all while keeping an eye to the communities that support each other behind the scenes. Elsewhere, Mills delves into fantasy, in stories that are no less pleasurable and heart-rending. In the haunting “Adrianna in Pomegranate,” a grief-stricken magician tries to reanimate his dead daughter, and his ex-wife must intercede before he succeeds, while the bittersweet “Spindles” tells of an eight-year-old princess and her pet bear who embark on a quest to save their land from alien invasion. Even the shortest of these tales packs a powerful punch.

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· May 14

This lovely review by Paul Di Filippo, also in Locus! 😍 locusmag.com/review/rabbi...

In her brief and charming “Afterword”, Mills accounts herself more of a born novelist than a creator of short fiction. And yet this volume shows she has all the chops and sensibilities to produce one thrilling and unexpected tale after another. With luck, readers will continue to enjoy a full ration of both states of the storyteller’s art from this thriving and growing new talent.

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· May 14

This lovely review by Gary K. Wolfe in Locus! 😍 locusmag.com/review/rabbi...

It’s perhaps the clearest example of Mills’s fascination with combining different narrative modes and conventions, a fascination that permeates these stories even as Mills never loses focus on the memorable characters who, as Meg Elison says in her appreciative introduction, remind you of “people you’ve known all your life.”

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· May 14

Rabbit Test and Other Stories has been LAUNCHED, and I am finally settling back into my day-to-day groove. I'm collecting nice things in this thread! linky links: Tachyon: bit.ly/3QcZmSx Bookshop: bit.ly/4tvfAET B&N: bit.ly/41TJBCu Amazon: bit.ly/4ccbhqX

Promo graphic for Rabbit Test and Other Stories, featuring the book against a pink backdrop cut by a heart monitor line, along with a quote from one of the stories: "There is a future in which we are fighting and struggling and self-caring our way through the apocalypse, and every day there is something terrible but also something lovely."

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· May 10

The Odyssey (2000) ;P

Poster for O Brother Where Art Thou showing three men in prison stripes escaping into a flat landscape

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· Apr 22

I am doing a poor job holding it open but the interior design is full of stressed bunnies

Interior of Rabbit Test and Other Stories. On the left, a mostly blank page with a silhoutte of a rabbit hopping along a heartbeat line at the bottom. On the right, the opening page of "10 Visions of the Future" with heartbeat line above the title

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· Apr 21

Eeee it is true!! "10 Visions of the Future; or Self-Care for the End of Days" is a finalist for the Hugo Award for Short Story! And look at what great company I'm in 😭😭 And also YES! It is included in my very first collection, Rabbit Test and Other Stories, which came out TODAY!

Graphic listing 2026 Hugo Award Finalists for Best Short Story.
"10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days" by Samantha Mills, Uncanny Magazine.
"In My Country" by Thomas Ha, Clarkesworld.
"Laser Eyes Ain't Everything" by Effie Seiberg, Diabolical Plots.
"Missing Helen" by Tia Tashiro, Clarkesworld.
"Six People to Revise You" by J.R. Dawson, Uncanny Magazine.
"Wire Mother" by Isabel J. Kim, Clarkeseworld.

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· Apr 21

Good morning, book birthday is finally upon me!! Rabbit Test and Other Stories is out in the woooorld 🥳

Sam grinning and holding up a copy of Rabbit Test and Other Stories

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· Apr 16

bsky is planet forbidden

Screencap of my bluesky feed. It is blank with a red "forbidden!" bar at the top

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· Apr 15

Drop your crime-fighting Catholics

Rachel Weisz as Detective Angela Dodson in Constantine, all wet from being dunked into seeing the Other side, about to find a demon's coin at the back of a bowling alley

Samantha (Sam) Mills@samtasticbooks· Apr 15

Drop your crime-fighting Catholics