12 brilliant fantasy & science fiction short stories

 

I read a lot in July: both zine/online short fiction and books. I also discovered an important life-hack: reading short fiction when you’re traveling long distances by plane is a most excellent way to pass the time in airports and on airplanes.

Here are 12 brilliant short stories I encountered this month:

The Big Bah-Ha, by C.S.E. Cooney in Apex Magazine. It is hard for me to articulate just how awesome, unsettling, and plain breathtaking this story is. It’s a reprint of a story that is included in Cooney’s short story collection “Bone Swans”, and it is an astonishing work of fiction. There is a bottomless pit of almost unbearable darkness here (such as: all the adults in the world are dead, only children survive… for now…), and yet the prose glimmers and sparkles and skips over that darkness, like a kid playing in puddles. The language is lush and weird and gorgeous, and the story makes me shiver and smile and cry, almost all at the same time. A standout work from an amazing writer.

Painted Grassy Mire, by Nicasio Andres Reed in Shimmer. This is a stunning story from Nicasio Andres Reed. A girl has just lost her mother and everything around her seems to be permeated by her grief and loneliness, as well as a strange and unnamed magic. Reed’s prose is so vivid that I swear I could feel the humid heat pressing down on me as I was reading. And the alligators… they are the stuff of both dreams and nightmares: “A gator was a solitary monster. A young girl in the marshes will find no alligator cities, no gator nations or schools, no broad alligator avenues, no matter how long she may look.  They were strict heathens. God formed them not to kneel, and so they worshipped nothing but the sun.” Unique and magical.

Helio Music, by Mike Buckley at Clarkesworld. Brutal, harsh, bleak, grim: that’s life for the girl in this heartbreaking and darkly beautiful science fiction story. The universe around her, is one where violence and war seem to rule everyone’s lives, and where people, even children, are used as killing machines (quite literally). There’s all sorts of scifi goodies: mind-blowing tech, space battles, psychic powers…but the focus is always on the girl, who eventually becomes something other than a girl, even though she still carries the pain and memories of childhood inside her. This story will haunt me for a while.

Red House, by Gavin Pate at Nightmare Magazine. This story is trippy, mind-bending horror at its finest. Pate takes a regular horror trope – abducted girl is rescued from horrible things – and turns the story inside out and upside down,staying with the girl after she’s rescued, pulling us into her thoughts and memories and nightmares and visions. It’s labyrinthine and strange, mesmerizing, bone chilling and truly terrifying – real horror that unsettles and makes your skin crawl.

El Cantar of Rising Sun, by Sabrina Vourvoulias in Uncanny Magazine. Imagine telling the stories of lives lived here and now, on the streets and in the houses and in the towns and cities we know, in the style of an epic story-poem. That’s what Vourvoulias does in this short story, and the result is brilliant: a fast-moving, dizzying, tragic tale with magic tattoos, rhymes, love, friendship, and death. The language is powerfully alive, swaggering and moving to its own rhythm and its own beat. Original and skillfully crafted.

So This, by Chloe N. Clark in Flash Fiction Online. I’ve been away from home and from our dog for a few weeks as I’m writing this, and that might be why this quiet and altogether heartbreaking (and heart-healing) story cut me so deep. A flash fiction gem.

Postcards From Natalie, by Carrie Laben in The Dark Magazine. This seemingly simple story deepens and darkens as Laben expertly unfolds it bit by bit. There’s a twist of sorts towards the end, but this is not a story that relies on its twist to be worth reading. It holds so much more: what it’s like to grow up in a small town, the relationships between two sisters and a mother… and then, eventually, as the story tilts and skews, another world is revealed beneath the world you thought you were looking at. Brilliant storytelling.

The Last Sailing of the Henry Charles Morgan in Six Pieces of Scrimshaw (1841), by A.C. Wise in The Dark Magazine. A short story that is essentially a detailed description of six pieces of scrimshaw might not seem like it would be much of a horror story. However, that’s exactly what this story is. Wise’s carefully and skillfully crafted non-fiction-ish prose reveals a growing darkness and deepening terror with every sentence.

The Cartographer’s Price, by Suzanne J. Willis at Mythic Delirium. There’s a mysterious map that can’t be sold to just anyone, and a mysterious customer who enters the cartographer’s shop wishing to buy it: “I know it isn’t for sale. Such an object must stay put until a worthy owner comes to claim it, no?” What a delicious tale this is, easily and effortlessly weaving in so much awesome world-building and character backstory, while also making even the scents and sounds of the fictional world come to life.  Excellent fantasy, with a romantic, dark-tinged flair.

Her Sacred Spirit Soars, by S. Qiouyi Lu at Strange Horizons. I’m a bit of a sucker for tragic love stories, and if you’re looking for a story to squeeze your heart and make your soul hurt (in the best way), then this scifi/fantasy love-story (with wings and a beak) is it. A bird is captured, two souls that were joined are torn apart… and that’s just the beginning. Lu’s writing shimmers and glows while telling a story that really cut me to the quick.

Scar Tissue, by Brad Preslar in AE. I love the twisted and strange vibe of this well-written science fiction story: it has a real golden-age Twilight Zone-feel that really creeped me out (that’s a good thing, of course). Whatever relationship therapy should be…it’s probably not this.

The Last, by Premee Mohamed in Metaphorosis. I love stories that commit wholly and fully to a radically crazy idea, and then carry it through with conviction, skill, and style. That is the case here. Semi-sentient icebergs and Morse-code using volcanoes in a post-apocalyptic sort of world? Yep. And yet this tale is also so much more: it explores a boy’s grief and and fear as he is forced to grow up too son. There’s fast-paced action and complex dynamics going on between two characters who don’t like each other, but who have to cooperate in order to ensure their own survival and the survival of their community. Great stuff: excellent world-building and engaging characters.

  (Originally published at mariahaskins.com)

11 fabulous fantasy & science fiction short stories

 

I’ve read a lot of great short stories this past month. Here are 11 of my favourites.

You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay, by Alyssa Wong in Uncanny Magazine. “But here, as the mountains cup the sky with deep brown hands, the call to bound away, howling, with the coyotes in the brush becomes almost unbearable.” (I love that line so much that I just had to quote it.) Wong’s weird western/desert story is beautifully written, haunted by undead creatures, strange beings (both human and not), and revenge. It also packs a a lot of emotional power: love and friendship and family are tightly entwined with some very trippy desert-magic. There’s an underlying sense of deep sadness and profound loss woven into the story from the very beginning, and it kept me captivated from the first sentence to the last.

A Dead Djinn in Cairo, by P. Djeli Clark at tor.com. This is the kind of story that makes me want to jump through the pages and into the world it describes. It’s a supernaturally charged steampunk-ish murder-mystery, set in an alt-history Cairo, and the characters and the world are so vividly and brilliantly captured that by the time I finished the story, I wanted a) a tailored suit (read it and you will know why), and b) more more more of this world. Awesome stuff.

A Certain Kind of Spark, by Gwendolyn Kiste in Mantid Magazine. Kiste’s story of two sisters, one blessed with “a spark” that makes the world take notice of her, and the other without, is mesmerizing. There is magic here, certainly, but the relationship between the sisters feels excruciatingly genuine and true. It’s a story that perfectly captures the often complicated and complex relationship between siblings, and it has haunted me ever since I read it.

Things With Beards, by Sam J. Miller in Clarkesworld. A horror story, a monster tale, and also a story about the scariest things of all: what human beings do to other human beings. Miller’s short story captures so many levels of horror and fear: the fear of what others can do to us, and the fear of what we ourselves are capable of doing to them. One of the best short stories I’ve read this year.

Suicide Bots, by Bentley A Reese in Shimmer. Oh, how I love this story. Robots losing their minds, a heist, fast cars, body parts flying every which way… and action-packed writing so taut and wired that I felt on edge, unsure of what crazy turn the story would take in the next paragraph (or the next sentence). An unsettling and thoroughly engrossing read.

Life in Stone, Glass, and Plastic, by José Pablo Iriarte in Strange Horizons. One day when Sergio has to clean up some graffiti, he encounters a mysterious collage/mural that draws him in to another life, another place, another time… There’s magic in this gorgeously crafted story, a magic that feels so close and real I could well imagine it occurring around the corner where I live. Weaving together the everyday with the fantastical, it’s a brilliantly told tale that really lingered in my mind after I read it. (I also LOVE the ending.)

Cuckoo Girls, by Douglas F. Warrick in Apex Magazine. Two girls, bound together by the same horrific fate: they are being chased by monsters that have killed their families, and are now seemingly hellbent on killing them. A basic horror-story premise? It could be, but Warrick cleverly plays around with a lot of horror-story and horror-movie tropes, turning the expected into something very original and unexpected. As the story goes on, we go deeper and deeper into the horror and fear that drives both the girls, and the monsters. Also: ‘Cuckoo Girls’ freaked. me. out. An excellent read.

Salto Mortal, by Nick T. Chan in Lightspeed.  Domestic abuse, aliens, drones, lucha libre… all these things play an important role in the captivating ‘Salto Mortal’, set in the near-future on the border between Mexico and the United States. It’s an eerily familiar world where there is a wall between the two countries, and where the fear of naguals, or aliens (the extra-terrestrial kind), looms large. I love how real and close this story feels: it’s the kind of science fiction that is rooted in the fear of what human beings can do to each other, rather than whatever imagined cruelty an alien species might bring down on us.

The Red Thread, by Sofia Samatar in Lightspeed.  Samatar’ story is set in a future-world that is familiar, yet strange enough to be both haunting and unsettling. Many people, including Sahra and her mother, are continuously on the move, away from the so-called isolation zones and the ever-looming threat of violence and destruction: “What’s isolation but a kind of shunning? — “That’s what we do, in the Movement. We move on, away from violence. A place ruined by violence is a prison.” It’s written as a series of letters from the young Sahra to her friend/lover Fox, and it’s a rich, complex tale of love, desire, longing and belonging, loneliness and friendship.

Ruminations, by Rena Mason in Nightmare. I love stories that jump between timelines and realities, and Mason’s story is a fantastic example of how deep and layered you can make that kind of tale. ‘Ruminations’ blends the story of the old woman Luisa, living in something like our present day, and the young woman Ottaya, who is on a mission in a conflict-ridden future-world. The two stories and worlds intersect and affect each other in strange and haunting ways, but I won’t give away too much: it’s a pleasure to just let this story take your ever further into its mind-bending rabbit-hole of strangeness. Make sure you read Sandra Odell’s author spotlight interview with Rena Mason after you’ve read the story.

Bonus classic:

Mountain Ways, by Ursula K. Le Guin in Clarkesworld. Gorgeous prose is a given in a story by Le Guin, but this tale also shows how well she can tell a tale where “nothing” happens. Well, nothing but the drama that occurs because of the ever-changing relationships between people. In ‘Mountain Ways’, she sets her tale in a society where marriage involves four people – two men and two women – all expected to behave in very particular, strictly regulated ways within that union. It’s a quiet but gripping tale of love and family, with characters who fight hard to make their own wishes and desires fit into the restraints placed on them by society.

  (Originally published at mariahaskins.com)

13 exceptional science fiction & fantasy short stories

 

It seems I had lots of time to read short fiction this past month, because my shortlist of “great speculative short fiction I read online” is even longer than usual. I’ve tried to keep each list to nine stories, but this month it was impossible, so I went with 13 instead. So many fantastic stories, so many fantastic zines, sites, and writers.

Bearskin, by Angela Slatter at The Dark. Angela Slatter is one of my favourite writers right now, and this short fantasy story is a brilliant showcase of her skills. Dark, lustrous prose, and a tale that weaves together both horror, sadness, and bits of joy. It’s beautiful stuff, and it made me cry: definitely a story that I keep turning over in my mind long after reading it.

All The Colors You Thought Were Kings, by Arkady Martine at Shimmer. This is an astonishing science fiction short story that manages to contain and evoke a vivid world, a whole civilization in just a few thousand words. You get that feel of an entire universe, glinting around the edges. The language is gorgeous, and the story moves and throbs with action and desire and tension. Totally extraordinary.

The Men From Narrow Houses, by A.C. Wise at Liminal Stories. Wise’s short story appears in Liminal Stories very first issue (it’s definitely a zine well worth checking out for fans of speculative fiction), and it is an absolute trip to read. I won’t try to describe it, except to say that it will bend your mind and twist your expectations all around. Fantastic writing, and a very original story.

17 Amazing Plot Elements… When You See #11, You’ll Be Astounded!, by James Beamon at Daily Science Fiction. Wow. That was pretty much what went through my mind when I read this story. From the “clickbait” title, to the story’s structure, to the ending that flipped the whole thing all around, this is brilliant, gutsy, and unique.

Whale-Oil, by Sylvia V. Linsteadt at Beneath Ceaseless Skies. A very strange, very beautiful, and very moving story about a boy who sees the souls of whales floating above the city of San Francisco, and sets out to do something about it. Ecology, Native American spirituality and mythology, geology… many things are twined together in this story.

The Cedar Grid, by Sara Saab at Clarkesworld. Saab’s gripping short story is set in a future-verse where humans and aliens rub up against each other on new planets far away from earth, yet Majd, the main character, lives a life haunted by earth and a way of life that is very far removed from his own existence. The world and characters in ‘The Cedar Grid’ have an astonishing depth, and there’s a vivid sense of place, whether we’re on a new planet, or running through the streets of old Earth’s Baalbek.

The Blood That Pulses in the Veins of One, by JY Yang in Uncanny Magazine. A science fiction / horror story that had me simultaneously spellbound and cringing – this is definitely scifi that stands out. Fantastic writing by Yang.

Now Watch as Belinda Unmakes the World, by Lynette Mejía at Flash Fiction Online. Mejía’s story is dark, evocative, and beautifully written to boot. It’s also fierce and relentless in the way it plays out, with a strong undertow of real-world sorrow and grief that sets it apart. A great example of gripping flash fiction.

1957, by Stephen Cox in Apex Magazine. Whoa. As soon as I finished reading this very unsettling short story, I had to read it again. It’s just that kind of story. In the beginning it appears to be one thing, but then it twists and turns and creeps up on you with a growing sense of unease and weirdness.

Cottage Country, by David K. Yeh in Apex Magazine. Yeh’s story skilfully weaves together a vividly described place and landscape, family relationships, dark fantasy, history, and folklore. Gorgeous and haunting.

Deathlight, by Mari Ness at Lightspeed. I love weird and strange science fiction, and this is definitely that. It’s the story of a very strange encounter, very far away in outer space, and also involves alien lifeforms. The two well-written main characters and the relationship between them was another reason this story hooked me. Brilliant writing, an original idea, and fantastic prose.

How High Your Gods Can Count, by Tegan Moore at Strange Horizons. This story definitely got under my skin. A temple, fickle gods, clueless tourists, guns, monkeys, and a sudden terrifying and mind-bending perspective on humanity and evolution. There’s a sense of dread and a chilling, existential horror pervading the entire story: “We did not satisfy, and the gods must be satisfied.”

To Dr. Von Lupe, Concerning the Kraken, by Alanna McFall at Mad Scientist Journal. This is a hilariously written science fiction-ish short story, involving knitting, octopuses, and scientists working for a very demanding boss. Click through for the illustration that goes with the story, if nothing else…

  (Originally published at mariahaskins.com)