Founded by Scott H. Andrews in 2008, the first issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies featured stories by Chris Willrich and David D. Levine. From its start, the magazine focused on fantasy stories set in a secondary world. While the magazine still focuses on secondary-world fantasies, in 2012 Beneath Ceaseless Skies published its first science-fantasy special edition, focusing on science fiction stories set on secondary worlds. The magazine has continued to publish these special science-fantasy-month issues every two years.
In the magazine's first year it was runner-up for the 2008 Million Writers Award for the Best New Online Magazine, losing to Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. In 2010 Beneath Ceaseless Skies became a SFWA qualifying venue for short fiction, with the designation retroactive to the first issue. Later that year they also released their first e-book anthology, entitled The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine, Year One, which contained 14 stories which had been previously published in the magazine. Firkin Press continued to release annual Beneath Ceaseless Skies "best of" anthologies through 2018.
Selected stories from the magazine are also published as audio fiction podcasts.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine each year from 2013 to 2022, after which editor-in-chief Scott H. Andrews recused the magazine from further nominations in this category so other magazines could have a chance at making the award's final ballot.
In 2024, the magazine published its 400th issue. The following year, Beneath Ceaseless Skies noted the magazine averaged 95,000 uniques per month while the magazine's podcast episodes averaged 8,300 downloads.
Jeremy Brett, curator of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Research Collection at Texas A&M University, has called Beneath Ceaseless Skies "One of the preeminent online journals devoted to fantasy short fiction." He added that the magazine "is notable for its beautiful 'cover art,' as well as its frequent reprinting of wonderful stories from its archives" and that the journal is key "for readers looking to understand the evolution of modern fantasy and the many ways that the genre expresses itself today."
Writing in the The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Mike Ashley said that by focusing on secondary world fantasies, Beneath Ceaseless Skies "cultivates the fields that represent the hinterland of science fiction and which can often help define the distinctions between sf and fantasy." Lois Tilton praised the magazine in Locus for reviving "adventure fantasy, secondary-world fantasy, as a respectable subgenre of short fiction, raising it from the midden of disdain into which it had been cast by most of the rest of the field." In a different review, Tilton added that the magazine had become the "premier venue for fantastic fiction, not just online but for all media."
2019 winner of the World Fantasy Award for Scott H. Andrews for Special Award, Non-Professional for Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Andrews has also been nominated 9 other times for the award for his work on Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
The magazine was a ten-time finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine, from 2013 to 2022. In 2022, Andrews recused the magazine from future consideration in this category so other magazines could be finalists.
12"Awards," Beneath Ceaseless Skies, accessed October 13, 2026.
Bibliography
Books
Brett, Jeremy (2024). "Fiction: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror". In LaGuardia, Cheryl (ed.). Magazines for Libraries (32nded.). ProQuest. ISBN978-0835245418.
