Tor.com is honored to reprint “Night’s Slow Poison,” a short story by Ann Leckie originally published in 2012 by Electric Velocipede. Ann Leckie’s debut novel Ancillary Justice (Orbit 2013) has taken the science fiction world by storm. So far it has won the Kitschies Golden Tentacle for best debut novel, the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best novel, the BSFA Award for Best Novel, and the Nebula Award for Best Novel. It is a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, which will be announced at Loncon 3 on August 17.
“Night’s Slow Poison” is from the same setting as Ancillary Justice, and tells a rich, claustrophobic story of a galactic voyage that forces one guardsman to confront his uneasy family history through the lens of a passenger with his lost lover’s eyes.