My Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror Short Fiction Roundup for June, 2023

The artwork for this roundup includes a detail of the cover for Fantasy Magazine #91, by Warmtail / Adobe Stock. More about Warmtail here: https://www.artstation.com/mariniurii

An audio version of this roundup is available on YouTube:

The Uncool Hunters by Andrew Dana Hudson in Escape Pod (narrated by Valerie Valdes)

Oh my gosh. Read. this. story. It is hilarious, it is heartfelt, and it includes a slapdown, dragout fight in a future Costco where plant-based SPAM, cinnamon pickled dates, and hand-rolled microdolmades are used as weapons (among other things). It’s a showdown between two “uncool hunters” – Rocky Cornelius and her nemesis Amherst Swarthmore. What's an uncool hunter, well, they are market researchers with a twist. To quote the story: “Rocky had an eagle eye for generic branding and had analyzed all fifty-eight seasons of NCIS and its attendant IP multiverse. For a reasonable fee, Rocky could tell the bluechecks and one percenters just what the rest of the country spent their money on.” Which is why Rocky is prowling a Costco at night, waiting for the doors to open: “When the store opened… She’d watch their faces make crucial consumer choices, and from their microemotes divine what they wanted, what they needed. And she’d do it without getting caught, lest she end up bag-headed in a Costco corporate black site.” But Amherst is also prowling the Costco, leading to an utterly hilarious fight that also tells you a whole heck of a lot about the society Rocky and Amherst find themselves in. Brilliant, and hilarious, science fiction.

☀

Constellation Burn by Josh Rountree in Bourbon Penn

Jordan was on the run again.

No fixed direction, just a fast escape from her life with Tad, and a hitched ride with a talkative long-haul driver on his way to El Paso.

A half-dreamed, half-horror gorgeous beauty of a tale that is brutal and mesmerizing and utterly captivating. Jordan is on the run from her life, and ends up hitching a ride with a stranger who says he will protect her and take care of her. The place he brings her to is a corner of the world that seems to exist in the world and yet also be outside of it, and the man's seven daughters haunt and fascinate Jordan with their strange whispers of "mother mother mother". Rountree weaves a tale that feels like myth and horror and real world intertwined, and it is a brilliant read.

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Some Assembly Required by Anne E.G. Nydam in Fantasy Magazine

Don’t read my review of this story. Click that link and check it out in person. Nydam’s story is written in the style of an IKEA manual, telling you exactly how to assemble your very own LUFTSLOTT, AKA Castle in the Air. Nydam uses this form brilliantly and to great effect, and it’s paired with some wonderful and beautifully charming drawings.

2. Place one or more inspirations (A) in base position to provide foundation.

Important: Be sure all inspirations are securely tethered before proceeding with assembly.

While this piece is whimsical in tone, there is a soulful, heartfelt depth beneath.

☀

Joy by Dale Smith in IZ Digital

The drone appeared as a little black dot: not one of the bigger ones, but maybe enough to keep her going for another couple of weeks. Last year they’d still been sending them in flocks of thirty or forty, but they seemed to have realised any idiot could wing at least one in a flock that size. Now they usually flew alone. Harder to hit, but in a way it was better: they’d sold their customers twenty-four hour delivery, and the fastest way to Ireland from the warehouses in Denmark was over what they still sneeringly called the former United Kingdom. Until they found a way to increase their range, speed or defences, they’d keep coming, regular as clockwork.

She took aim carefully.

Well, if you, like me, love stories about humans forming unlikely bonds with robots, then this story will be right up your alley. I love everything about this story. The setup with 24-hour delivery drones being poached by human beings trying to survive in a harsh future that truly doesn’t seem so far from our present. The way Joy, the story’s protagonist, finds it almost impossible to attack and disassemble the drone once it speaks to her. AND the way the drone clearly shows itself to have its own agenda, in spite of whatever its programming might say. It’s masterful piece of science fiction, and I adore every bit of it.

☀

Nnome by Audrey Obuobisa-Darko in Cast of Wonders (narrated by Tsiddi Can-Tamakloe, first published in A Mind to Silence – 2022 Caine Prize Anthology)

A riveting, and harrowing, story about Nnome, a child born without magic in a world where magic is expected. Nnome’s father has told them all their life that they caused their mother’s death, that they should have never been born. It’s a life lived with constant harassment and crushing psychological abuse, and yet Nnome has not been crushed. Together with their robot companion, Akuba, they imagine and build amazing inventions, finding a way to use their creativity and dreams in new ways. No matter how Nnome works, though, their father remains hostile and abusive, leading to a terrible showdown between child and parent. This is a powerful story about strength and creativity, and about survival under harsh and difficult circumstances.

☀

The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar by Indrapramit Das from Subterranean Press

It wasn’t a seed pod at all. With practiced care she nudged open the curled, broad leaves, unwrapping it to reveal what was inside.

The broad petals of the pod were the brown wings of a creature that fit gently in the pink cradle of my grandmother’s palm like a bat. Its tail was the thin stem that connected it to the branches of the tree. And curled inside the embrace of its own wings was the contracted body of the beast, its six limbs clutched to its torso in insectile fragility, its sharp and thorny head like a flower’s pistil, the curled neck covered in a dew-dusted mane of white fur like the delicate filaments of a dandelion seed. The gems of its eyes were left to my imagination, because they were closed in whatever deep sleep it was in.

“It’s a dragon,” I said, to encase the moment in the amber of reality.

I am an unabashed fan of Indrapramit Das's work, and this new novella is an outstanding piece of fiction. It is a coming-of-age tale, about family and friendship, and it's a story that features dragons of a kind I've never met before. Dragons capable of traveling between universes. Das tells this story through the eyes of Ru, a boy who is trying to find out, to remember, who he is.

To quote the publisher's official blurb:

 "Ru is a boy from nowhere. Though he lives somewhere—the city of Calcutta—his classmates in school remind him he doesn’t look like them, and must come from somewhere else. When Ru asks his parents, they tell him they are descended from nomads. But even nomads must come from somewhere. The question, forever on the mind of the boy from nowhere, is where.

Ru dreams things that wouldn’t seem out of place in the fantasy novels his father read to him when young. Fragments of a culture that doesn’t exist in this world, but might in another, where sky and sea are one, and humans sail this eternal ocean on the backs of divine beasts.

Ru dreams of dragons, of serpents impossible. Perhaps Ru remembers dragons."

It's a deeply strange, quietly gripping and devastating story, that is also profoundly life-affirming. 

☀

  No Spoilers by Ben Murphy in Many Worlds

This intriguing and intricately crafted epistolary story is written as a missive from one person to another, musing on various scientific and academic subjects related to the multi-world/multiverse of Many Worlds; and as an academic paper (with footnotes and commentary). Wrapped up in all of this, is a tender and fraught love story that sparks questions about the nature of the universe we live in, about free will and fate, about how we play roles in our lives – either consciously or not – and how others might influence and even control our very essence, our thoughts and emotions. It’s a profoundly thought-provoking piece where the academia is wrapped around a beating, troubled heart.

☀

This Is What You Came For by Phong Quan in khōréō

It starts with a beat. A steady electronic thump in my chest. Electric waves pulsing through my body with a feeling like forever before breaking into the tips of my fingers and the doors of perception. I gasp in the first chords of the song as they hit like my first breath of air, and when I open my eyes the club embraces me the way you used to every time the beat dropped: hot, sticky, lingering.

I won’t talk too much about this story, and honestly I'd rather just quote it endlessly, because it is a story that needs to be read, savoured, experienced. The way the prose flows and slips and repeats and swirls around the same place, the same people, coming back again and again. There’s a club, there’s the music and the drinks, the people and the dance, and the music is magic and the lyrics are magic, and all of it becomes the emotions of the crowd, and the narrator is there, looking for something, finding something, but never quite able to hold onto it or fully remember what they are searching for:

I realize my memory of you is a string of songs, of the beat dropping and the music pulsing in our blood, of this place where we never hurt each other because notes don’t bleed. Because that’s all that’s left when love leaves: music and dancing. Is it you I want or the memory of you in this place? Was it you I loved or the beat of the drums on the dance floor? Why couldn’t I decide?

It’s a gorgeous, mysterious, sinuous piece and the prose is pure magic.

☀

What Was Left Behind by Epiphany Ferrell in Coffin Bell

A deliciously dark and wickedly sharp slice of fantasy, about a horse named Robey, a woman named Crystal, and a marriage that does not quite work out. Ferrell captures mood and setting and characters with exquisite precision in this flash story, and the it is as sharp as a knife, with a jagged blade.

☀

After the Animal Flesh Beings by Brian Evenson in TOR.com

This is a post-apocalyptic tale about “[a] post-human civilization of synthetic beings, fixated on the concept of children, grapples with the meaning of life…after life ceases to exist.”

In the time in which we now find ourselves, we acquire our children by digging in the earth. This is hard work, much harder than the way the scattered records we are still capable of interpreting suggest it used to be done for the animal flesh beings. In the time in which we now live, we dig through soft rock and clay and heap this up, delving deeper and deeper in search of something harder, more substantial. When we find it, we tear it out of the earth the best we can and haul it to god.

Evenson’s story is hauntingly bleak, dark and evocative like a future seen through a glass darkly. It is written like a future fairytale or myth, retold by the inhabitants of a future where the past is lost, and even their own origins are forgotten. Were they once “animal flesh beings” or just constructs made by them? Like everything else about the past, only fragments of the truth remain. There are images here that will be haunting my thoughts for a long time, including what happens to the malformed child. Brilliant and devastating.  

☀

A Pilgrimage To Memories Tattooed by Elena Pavlova in Samovar (translated by Desislava Sivilova)

The tattoo machine is humming quietly, and clouds are gathering over the beach on the parlor window. It seems rather cold at that shore. I squint, trying to focus better on the people wandering about—without success. This view is an old model. My eyes are old, too.

You cannot thlog about things of the past while using eyes from the future.

A gorgeously wrought tale about a future where tattoos carry memories and dreams, and where someone is visiting the last tattooist in a small town. What was the purpose of tattoos? the visitor wonders and allows herself to be tattooed again and again, searching for an answer and for a connection to the past and to the world.  Pavlova weaves together a bleak and harrowed present with a conflicted, complex, and haunting past revealed by the tattoos: people and places, emotions and moments, many forgotten or lost by everyone else.

There are no whales nowadays. No elephants either. The rhinoceroses we succeeded in cloning. 

"Are you crying?" she asks. "Don't you like your tattoo?"

"It's most wonderful." I plunge my face into my palms and burst into tears. Tattooed whales sing in the depths of my mind.

☀

Hausferatu by Chris Willrich in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

My friends, it’s been many years since then, and I have found wonders, and freedom from my curses, and strangest of all a poet who’s become my partner in crime, love, and occasionally dubious heroism. But I will never forget the one who, though little I knew it, started me on a changed path. I walk the shadowed cities of the west with more fear, and more heart, since I met the hausferatu.

I've picked both stories from this particular issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies for this roundup, and both of them are stories that put a real twist on what you might at first perceive as a monster. In this story by Willrich, a (very long-lived) master thief meets and enters a partnership with a woman and mother who is sort of kind of a vampire. But she is a hausferatu, rather than a regular vampire. I won't give away the details of the hausferatu's fate, but I really love how this story twists and turns the old vampire trope, and how it also delves deep into issues of motherhood, parenthood, and what a person might lose when their family, children and spouse, demand too much of them. It's a story with a sense of humour and a lot of heart.

Spinning Shadow by Margaret Ronald in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Tarma had only just begun the Widow Fenton’s flax when the Shadow Undying rose once more. At first she thought that the shutter on the upper window must have come unwedged, since the light shouldn’t have failed so early in the day. But the unholy chanting in a voice like the bottom of a well ruled out it being any of the shutters.

The Shadow Undying has risen! Yes, “the master of Frostkeep, the lord of the dominion of night" has been reborn as was foretold. But... things are not at all the way the Shadow Undying had planned when he decided to use magic in order to rise again. A lot of time has passed for one thing, and the he finds himself rising from a shard of crystal that is being used by a woman, spinning thread. Ronald gives us a tender, funny, and heart-tugging tale of redemption and love. Not exactly what the Shadow Undying had planned, but maybe making for a better ending than what might have been the case otherwise. It's a charming, thoroughly enjoyable tale.

☀

Baobab Lover by Kwame Sound Daniels in Tales & Feathers Magazine

You and your sisters left your bodies where they were standing, in a grove in Zimbabwe, some fifty years ago. You left the dead buried among your roots, but still remember the way their bones nestled against your bark. Corporate development hadn’t really reached you yet, but you could tell it would eventually. As the years wore on, the droughts became longer and drier. It was time. So, you and your sisters each took a piece of your bodies with you as you left.

Tales & Feathers is a magazine for the "slice of life fantasy genre", focusing on "the cozy, the comforting, and the sentiment "no plot, just vibes." In this story, a dryad leaves her grove in Zimbabwe and ends up in America. The world is different there, life is different there, and living there requires her to change and adapt. And then she meets Sofia, who also has roots in another part of the world, and has her own, entirely different kind of magic. It's a beautifully woven, quietly powerful story about magic and life, love and finding your way in a new world. 

☀

In Her Wake by Elis Montgomery in Apparition Lit

I try to remember what the others did wrong. Mattias a ribcage in a heap of dead leaves; Nova spread like jam on the skeletal branches overhead.

Do I pray for forgiveness? Strength? Maybe I should ask for privacy, because if Eius listens to my thoughts now, She will know what little hope remains.

In this story, the protagonist is being tested, quite literally, by the gods. It's a deadly and competitive game of worship, faith, and tasks that must be performed in order for the participants to win and stay alive. There's faith here, faith and fear and death, and in the end, we find out what matters most to the winning god. A harsh and harrowing tale with one heck of a kick at the end.

☀

Undog by Eugenia Triantafyllou in Strange Horizons

There’s a dog in this house. A not-quite-a-dog. An undog. I heard its whimpering the first week I slept here, the thump, thump, thump of its bulky legs on the old tiles. I found long brown hair mixed with dust bunnies where the walls met. When there’s a loud noise outside, the undog barks, a wounded kind of bark, and each day I discover a new couch pillow chewed to shreds.

Oh gosh I love this dark and strange and tangled tale of the undog and the haunted house it inhabits, and the way the story's narrator finds a way to live with the creature lurking in the shadows. Triantafyllou tells a visceral, heart-rending tale of abuse and healing, and about how to make space for the undog in your life. 

☀

Want Itself Is a Treasure in Heaven by Theodora Ward in Uncanny Magazine

and in a strip mall parking lot off a side road in some Baltimore suburb my hand is trembling as I take the last of the voidwater in its little bootleg dropper and I peel my eyelid back and though I am so careful and try so hard a bit of the precious fluid dribbles down my temple cold and slimy and for a moment I am seized with furious regret, for this and for all the waste, all the waste in all the world, everything that has ever missed its mark

Aaaa, I love this story. I love the way it winds itself through past and present, the way it soars high and dives deep, and I love the way it captures the real, conflicted, complex, and sometimes terrible emotions of love (and obsession), and the arduous journey it can be to find yourself, your true self, in the world. Ward's story is set in a future where it's possible to install technology into your body and then share your body with someone else. To let your mind enter another person and experience the world as they see it. To see yourself as they see you. Ward captures the love, agony, pain, joy, lust, and grief of the narrator with prose that is both tender and jaggedly fierce.

The Rain Remembers What the Sky Forgets by Fran Wilde in Uncanny Magazine

My favorite childhood memories are accompanied by the rustle of wings. In my dreams. In the shelter of Dr. Ventri’s aviary. The ibis with its clatter. The egret’s nettled song. Sharp beaks nipping my hair for nests. Gathering eggshells after chicks hatched. The echoes of birdsong in the townhouse when they got loose. How silent it must be up there now.

A story that combines a deep and profoundly affecting look at grief and retribution with the art of hat-making, and the terrible trade of using the feathers and bodies of birds to make hats. Fran Wilde's masterful storytelling and prose makes every bit of this story gleam darkly and the ending, OH THE ENDING.... It's worth noting that there is real history behind this tale. To quote the author's note:

...in the early 1900s, the plumage fashion battles were in full swing, with Audubon societies formed to protect endangered birds, and hundreds taking pledges to wear only sustainable feathers. States and municipalities attempted to pass, or successfully passed, numerous local laws, until the Migratory Bird Act passed nationally in 1918.

☀

Place of Four Winds, by Gabriel Mara in The Deadlands

It is not her death that troubles him most. They are a people who live close to death, hear it breathing heavy in the dappled leaves beneath the overstory in a thousand different bodies. All must walk the path, and he knows this even as it saddens him, but this is not the source of his anguish.

What vexes and draws him to this vigil is the fact that the body before him has stopped rotting.

The afterlife is twined together with the world of the living in this powerful and compelling story by Mara. A dead woman fights against the pull of death to warn the living of an approaching danger, while a father mourns the death of his daughter. The implacable forces of the afterlife, and the dead woman's determination to find a way to reach beyond the veil, make this story cut true and deep. I especially like how vivid the world of the dead is drawn here, in all its strange and punishing detail.

There’s a Door to the Land of the Dead in the Land of the Dead by Sarah Pinsker in The Deadlands

Vera works in a theme park called The Land of the Dead. It’s a place out in the boonies somewhere, far from everything, not exactly a roaring success. Vera has come there after a breakup, looking for a place to stay, not quite knowing where the rest of her life is headed. At the theme park, she meets and befriends one of the park’s original employees, Adelaide: “the oldest, coolest queer I’d ever met. Blue hair with a rattail that was either decades out of date or art school au courant, six feet tall even with her back starting to curve in at the shoulders, butch as the local sheriff, who she played poker with because she believed you had to “keep your friends close and your enemies poor,” her words.” Pinsker’s writing is always a treat, and this story is both deeply moving and quietly funny, and its mood deepens and darkens as Adelaide shows Vera a mysterious door, or gateway, in the woods.

☀

Non-fiction pick of the month:

"Whither Queer?: The Genre at Midlife and a Rec-List" by Kai Ashante Wilson in Strange Horizons 

Also, read anything and everything by Wilson himself, for example: 

• The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps
• The Devil In America
• Kaiju maximus®: “So Various, So Beautiful, So New”.

You can support Strange Horizons current Kickstarter at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strangehorizons2019/strange-horizons-2024 

☀

Preorder pick of the month:

If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes and Other Stories by Malon Edwards (published by Fireside Fiction)

"...collects 10 cyberpunk dispatches, including a brand-new, epic rap novella. On offer is a guided tour of an independent Chicago, a beacon of Black excellence that is done with the ever-hostile State of Illinois showing its ass.

Your guides are a little rough around the edges: hackers and assassins, thieves and grieving parents, elders and teenagers. Don’t fret. These people will take good care of you, so long as you mind yourself.

Welcome to the Sovereign State of Chicago.

This is a grand, dark, twisted, and visceral deep dive into Malon Edwards's cyberpunk future. It's out in September and it's a great read from start to finish.

 ☀

To support my work, check out my Patreon or Ko-Fi.

BEHIND THE ZINES with Joyce Chng, articles editor at STRANGE HORIZONS

For this month's Behind the Zines interview, I'm happy and excited to be talking to Joyce Chng, an amazing writer who is also the articles editor at Strange Horizons.

 

More about Joyce Chng:

Born in Singapore but a global citizen, Joyce Chng writes mainly science fiction and YA. They like steampunk and tales of transformation/transfiguration. Their fiction has appeared in Crossed Genres, The Apex Book of World SF II, We See A Different Frontier, Cranky Ladies of History, and Accessing The Future. They can be found at A Wolf’s Tale (awolfstale.wordpress.com) and at @jolantru on Twitter.

Joyce Chng's pronouns are she/her or they/their.

More about Strange Horizons:

Strange Horizons is a weekly magazine of and about speculative fiction. We publish fiction, poetry, reviews, essays, interviews, roundtable discussions, and art.

Our definition of speculative fiction includes science fiction, fantasy, horror, slipstream, and all other flavors of fantastika. Work published in Strange Horizons has been shortlisted for or won Hugo, Nebula, Rhysling, Theodore Sturgeon, James Tiptree Jr., and World Fantasy Awards.

***

Q. Tell us a bit about yourself. What’s your background, where did you grow up, and what do you do outside the world of speculative fiction?

I am Joyce Chng/Ch’ng. I was born in and am currently based in Singapore. I am second/third-generation Chinese. Outside the world of speculative fiction, I am a parent and an ex-teacher. I am a History major (specifically late medieval) – you can say I am a medievalist.

Q. If you think back on your life, what was the first thing that got you hooked on the speculative fiction genre? Was it a book or a movie, or something else?

I think it would be a confluence of many things. First, children’s books with shapeshifting and fairies, then Star Blazers (Spaceship Yamato) my gateway to military science fiction and space opera… and Pern.

Q. You are one of the people behind Strange Horizons, a zine I write for, and one of the oldest and I would argue most interesting speculative fiction zines around. Can you talk a bit about Strange Horizons, and how you got involved at SH, and what you see as Strange Horizons mission, or what sets it apart in the field of spec fic?

Strange Horizons is one of the speculative fiction zines that is doing what no other zines have promised to do this, and I say this because I am biased: spec fic has always been diverse and international, focusing not only just North American (United States of America) but many other centres of speculative fiction around the world. That is one of Strange Horizons’ mission: spec fic is global.

How I got involved? Around 2016, Vanessa Phin (Ness) asked me if I would like to join as an articles editor. The zine was then helmed by Niall Harrison. We set up a tele-conference and talked. Then here I am.

Q. What does your work involve behind the zines? How does a usual “workday” for you at the zine look like?

As we are volunteers, time is indeed very precious and we do have other things in life. There is no “workday”, just a couple of hours we allocate. So, a “workweek” would look like – for me – 48 hours (2 or 3 hours).

My role as articles editor is to solicit and commission nonfiction pieces from writers. We do have a slush pile for pitches and submissions. Besides soliciting and commissioning, I edit (copy and development), give feedback to writers, and then when the final drafts are OKed, uploaded them on the SH portal (thanks for Wordpress skills!).

Q. What are some things you have learned since you started at Strange Horizons, and what are some of the most enjoyable things vs. the hardest things about your work?

Editing is hard. Managing people is hard. Managing myself is hard. Publishing is hard. But I also have learned that working with like-minded people in a diverse anarchist setting is amazing. That I actually enjoy “working” as a nonfiction editor and that speculative nonfiction/creative writing is such an underrated but much needed genre. We need more critical analyses of our field and we definitely need more from marginalised and non-US regions.

Hardest thing(s): I hate to reject people. There are many pitches and submissions that are good which we have to say no to. It’s not the quality we are against, but sometimes, yes, they just don’t fit and normally the calendar has already been filled up with submissions we have accepted prior. As I have said, publishing is hard. Another “hardest thing”: dealing with difficult writers. We all have different personalities and characters, different backgrounds and belief systems. Sometimes, they just clash.

Q. The world of speculative fiction zines and speculative fiction writing has undoubtedly changed over time. What are some trends you pay attention to, whether they are good or bad?

I am not sure if I pay attention to trends. But there are now more daring approaches and focuses which I like. Solarpunk, for example. Also zines inspired by and found on all the ‘punks. Not sure if they are good or bad though. It is only bad if it’s just a buzzword or the zine is a product because the creators have believed striking the iron where it is hot. The hardest part is to persist on the values they have based their zines on and promised to deliver.

Trends come and go. They seem to ebb away, until they surface once more (if the pendulum swings the other way).

Q. You’re based in Singapore and the main focus of the speculative fiction world seems to still be North America when it comes to cons, events, zines, and so on. What are your thoughts on that phenomenon and what it means for speculative fiction – what and who gets published, what and who wins awards and gets attention? And do you have any thoughts on how this situation can be improved?

My thoughts? The focus on North America (specifically, again, the United States of America) is a double-edged sword. The US of A has always presented itself as a beacon for speculative fiction and writers from places where they don’t even give any consideration for speculative fiction will try to get published in America. What it ultimately means for speculative fiction… SFF might end up becoming parochial, advocating narratives and beliefs the dominant culture wants to read/watch.

I am often leery about tokenisation and even though I am happy for the BIPOC and nonwhite folk who get awards and recognition, I am afraid that they are held up as tokens by the dominant white cis-gendered Americans: see, we are not racists! Walking the talk is hard, but this is just the bare minimum, the lowest bar.

Tokenisation has the unfortunate effect of splitting the community apart, another “us versus them” thing I hope will go but not in my lifetime. I am not sure how the situation can be improved without a total sea change/complete overhaul of publishing itself. As long as the dominant white (racist) voices have power, the dynamics will still be unfair and unequal. I am not sure who will have the courage to tackle the privilege(s) head-on.

Q. How has your involvement behind the scenes affected your view of the business of genre fiction publishing, compared to your perspective before? Have you gained any insights you didn’t previously have?

Genre fiction publishing is hard. Genre fiction publishing has unequal and unfair power dynamics. However, we have talent. BIPOC and marginalised people have talent. I see them in the pitches and submissions.

Q. If people want to support Strange Horizons, what can they do?

They can support Strange Horizons in the annual fund-drive: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strangehorizons2019/strange-horizons-2024.

Or become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/strangehorizons

The staff are all volunteers. But we want to pay our artists, writers and columnists!

Q. For writers and readers out there who might be thinking about getting involved with a zine in any capacity, what would you say to them? Do you have any advice, and/or warnings?

Most zines are volunteer-run, so be mindful of your own expectations and theirs. Go in with an open mind but draw your boundaries, know your strengths (what you are able to/capable of) and your weaknesses. Don’t be afraid to seek help or assistance (if your zine has a Slack, discuss and talk it out).

Q. You’re also a wonderful writer of speculative fiction. How did you get started as a writer? Is it something you always did or wanted to do, or something that you came to later in life?

Thank you! J

How I got started? I started writing fiction in my teens, pretty much inspired by the stuff I read (McCaffrey). I always wanted to be a writer, even though I was told not to because “writing doesn’t earn you money”. I dabbled in short stories and got things published in uni Pride zines. Also, fanzines.

I stopped for a short while after I got married and started work. I only started writing for real around the late 2000s and I debuted when I was 35. In between, I taught as an adjunct teacher and this went on for quite some time.

Q. Speaking as a writer, what do you have on the go right now, and what’s up next for you as a writer?

I am working on a couple of contracted work (games-related), a pitch for a collaboration with an illustrator, and dipping into an Orlando Furioso- inspired story I have wanted to write for a long time. Because it’s Singapore, I am planning on school visits for Fire Heart, my YA fantasy (Scholastic Asia) and Oyster Girl, a picture book supported by the Heritage Board.

***

• Find out more about Joyce Chng and her work at https://awolfstale.wordpress.com/
• Read Strange Horizons
• Support Strange Horizons current Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strangehorizons2019/strange-horizons-2024

***

About Behind the Zines:

In this interview series, I talk to people working behind the scenes at various speculative fiction publications. My goal is to highlight the work that goes into keeping these publications alive, and to share insights from the people doing that work. Each interview is available exclusively on my Patreon for one week, and is then posted here at Maria's Reading.

If you want to support my work, check out my Patreon or Ko-Fi.

 

My Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror Short Fiction Roundup for May, 2023

 

The artwork for this roundup includes a detail of Cynthia Sheppard's cover for The Deadlands #24. More about the artist: http://www.cynthia-sheppard.com/. (Fair warning: this issue of The Deadlands also contains my essay "A Dog, a Heart, a Box of Ashes, or Whom Rhodope Shed Tears For".)

An audio version of this roundup is available on YouTube:

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AnyPercent by Andrew Dana Hudson in GigaNotoSaurus

When he wasn’t scouting, Luckless was running. Here’s what that looked like: you slather on the electroconductive gel, hook up the halo that reroutes your nervous system, press and hold START, and boom—it’s midnight on your 18th birthday, in a different body, a different identity, a new clutch of memories swirling in your simulated hippocampus.

What an amazing roller coaster ride of a story this is. It takes you into the life, or rather lives of Luckless, a man who plays the game AnyLife where you enter a very realistic virtual reality and can live countless lives in mere minutes and hours. In the game, you can be many things, strive for many different goals, and one of the ultimate goals for many players is to reach Economic Victory, to become the richest person in that in-game world, and to do it in the shortest possible time. Luckless becomes obsessed with reaching that goal, but it ends up costing him a lot in his real life. I've read a lot of great stories that deal with games and virtual reality and how they can intersect and affect our lives, and Hudson's story takes some interesting and unique twists and turns along the way, spinning a multi-faceted and deeply thought-provoking tale. As he spirals into his obsession with beating the game and "winning", Luckless abandons the relaxed way he used to play and enjoy AnyLife. He tries every trick he knows, and every trick he learns, in order to reach the top. And eventually, he does find a revolutionary way to win. I love how Hudson shows us that while the game is a simulation of real life, it also has the potential to affect Luckless, and other players, in real, profound and life-changing ways.

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Bruised-EyeDusk by Jonathan Louis Duckworth in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Rugg the spellbreaker was only passing through the Devil’s Palm on his way down to the coast, where he hoped to find his mother. He’d have avoided Ganvill, except he was running low on boom powder and salt, and the little settlement was the last tame place before a lot of nowhere.

After reading this wonderful and absolutely captivating story, I would like to follow Rugg the spellbreaker and his gator Tugboat anywhere, any time. Duckworth spins a hugely enjoyable tale where there is magic, sweet and sour, and where people are trying to find a way to live their lives in peace after war and tribulation. The language here is an utter joy to read, and a prime example of how to weave and stitch the worldbuilding into the fabric of your prose and story.

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AnAtlas of Names and Footprints and Thoughts Unsaid by Carlie St. George in IZ Digital

 Monsters play by certain rules; all you truly need know is which game you agreed to play. But a case means a human culprit, and humans cheat; it’s what they do. A human will break any law, any promise, any salt line in order to keep their sins secret and safe.

Cimcim, not quite human, can bend the rules better than most – but she feels the weight of it, of compulsion, obligation. More likely than not, it’ll put her in the ground someday.

Oh, this story is an absolute, gosh-darn delight. It's a story about monster hunting, about investigations and deductions, about ghosts and demons, murders, and sharp sharp teeth. But most of all, this is an intricately woven, complex, and conflicted love story, between Cimcim, not quite human, and Yesterday, "round, beautiful, with soft, thick, inviting arms that Cimcim has slept inside before when shelter was scarce". Cimcim keeps things, has kept things, about her true nature from Yesterday, and the relationship between them is deep and profound, but also fraught with things unsaid and undone. It is a gorgeous tale, with all its monsters and all its longing, spoken and unspoken.

More about IZ Digital: 

IZ Digital is the digital offshoot of Interzone. It publishes fiction and non-fiction from all over the planet. Every story is illustrated with full-colour art. 

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A Toitele by Celia Rostow in The Dark

All that remained of Chana came back from Kraków in a little wooden box: a golden chain with a pendant, a palm facing out with a carved unblinking eye to protect from evil.

Chana’s death lived on the mantle in the main room of the house, where it would gather dust if Rochel didn’t clean it once a week before shabbos, along with everything else in their little home. There had been no note, but even if there had, Rochel knew that Dovid wouldn’t have read it. The only reason she knew the box contained a chain was because he had opened it for half a heartbeat before snapping it shut again.

Rostow describes this gorgeously wrought story about a ghost, and a ghostly lover as "queer Jewish erotic horror". It's also a story about tight-knit and fracturing relationships, between Dovid and Rochel in their marriage, and between Rochel and Chana who were once the closest of friends, before life separated them. I love the darkness and the fire of this story, and I love the way it captures Rochel's complicated and complex feelings about her own identity, her place in the world, as well as her husband Dovid and her friend Chana.

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The Pigeon-Keepers Daughter by Su-Yee Lin in Strange Horizons

It is in the summer, during the monsoon season in Taipei, when the pigeon keeper’s daughter moves into the apartment on the top floor of a building on an alleyway in Wenshan District. From her window, she sees not only Taipei 101 in the distance with Elephant Mountain behind it, but also the rooftop of the building abutting hers. Her mind recognizes those buildings atop that roof, the ladder leading to a sitting area, the shoddy tin roofing above the makeshift coop, even the old man with his shock of white hair, and she is hit with nostalgia for a past not so long ago.

I can't even properly describe how much I love this gentle, quiet, utterly gorgeous and devastating story. There is shapeshifting and magic here, there's a quiet life lived on the outskirts of society, there is the sound of birds and the memories they evoke, and there is a longing and the lost memories of a past the protagonist cannot quite grasp. One of the most beautiful and emotionally powerful stories I've read in a long time.

The Miraculous Account Of Khaja Bairaq, Pennant-Saint Of Zabel by Tanvir Ahmed in Strange Horizons

It is said that when Bibi Siti wrapped herself in the pennant, the cloth was soaked by her blessed sweat and warmed by the prayers she breathed into it. Overflowing with her wild graces, the pennant pledged itself to the same way of truth and righteousness, out of adoration for the saint who had held it close.

Tanvir Ahmed writes prose that enchants and glitters, that has the texture and gloss of fairytale, myth, and history, while telling stories that feel brand new and ancient, all at the same time. I read and loved Ahmed's story in The Deadlands, "A Dervish Among the Graves of Ghazni", and this story in Strange Horizons is just as lush, just as fierce, and just as devastatingly gorgeous.

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Every Time the Circus Comes to Town by Fred Coppersmith in Etherea Magazine

Every time the circus comes to town, someone dies.

It was only a few years ago that comic, death-defying spectacle was the circus’ bread and butter. The audience couldn’t go a night without seeing one of the clowns snatched at the last minute from the lion’s jaws or saved from a perilous drop by an acrobat and a well-timed seltzer bottle. Back then, there were sword-swallowers and red-nosed knife-throwers aplenty. The crowds would cheer as tiny cars spilled pancake-makeup-covered faces through rings of fire so hot they’d singe the electric-colored curls of the clown collective’s wigs.

But that was back when death could still be defied. That was before the curse.

Coppersmith puts his own unique spin on the cursed traveling circus here, in a tale that blends fantasy with strands of horror. This circus is a place where magic is at work, where someone must die and where Death will always get their due. But then something happens: a new employee at the circus turns the tables on the curse, and on Death itself. I love the Bradbury-esque vibes here, and the gentle way Coppersmith inverts and subverts some well-known genre tropes.

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The Bleak Communion of Abandoned Things by Ariel Marken Jack (narrated by Kitty Sarkozy) in PseudoPod

I accept the house in lieu of a settlement. I don’t want Ashley’s dirty money. The house is the least ill-gotten thing she owns, an isolated property she won in a card game and forgot. We’ve never even been there. I’m hoping that the lack of shared memories will make it a perfect place to hole up while I try to get over her and get on with my life. I’m comforted by the fact that the house is supposed to be haunted. I don’t think I’m quite ready to be alone.

Yes, I do love haunted house stories, and this haunted house story is magnificent. Here, the person moving in actually welcomes the haunted presence in the house and soon establishes a close relationship with it as she cleans and dusts and fixes up the old abandoned house. But few things come without a price, and sometimes, when something seems too good to be true, it really REALLY is. There's an undercurrent of (sometimes dysfunctional) love to this horror that is beautifully subversive as it explores profound feelings of both loneliness and belonging.

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She Blooms and the World is Changed by Izzy Wasserstein in Lightspeed

I was six months old when we landed on Lilit. Sera was born three years later. Now I wonder: was I born too soon? Or was she born too late?

A fantastic, gripping, and deeply thoughtprovoking story about two sisters, and the new planet their parents have brought them to. While the parents try their best to shield the planet, Lilit, from any interference and contact with the family, the sisters take a different path. What's happening to the younger sister is proof that contact has already occurred. Can we cut ourselves off from a world and just observe it? Can we live (should we even try to live) without changing, and being changed, by the world around us? Wasserstein's story is a beautiful exploration of change, the fear of change, and what we can find on the other side of that fear.

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A Chestnut, A Persimmon, A Cunning Lie by Michelle Denham (narrated by Isabel Kim) at Podcastle

Haewon’s Omoni brought home the tiger-hearted girl and said, “This is your sister, Hyojin. She has been reborn to us, isn’t that wonderful?”

The tiger-hearted girl had amber eyes that burned, red stripes on her face, and long white teeth that gleamed in the dark. Omoni looked at Haewon like she expected her to do something. (A chestnut. A persimmon. A cunning lie.) So Haewon threw her arms around the tiger-hearted girl and said, “Hyojin-ah! I thought we’d never see each other again. I missed you so much.”

I absolutely LOVE this fairytale-tinged story of two sisters and a mother who find a way to live, and make a family, at the edge of a precipice. There are so many facets and so many layers to this story: deception in order to survive, violence and power in society and a family. And also: how do we see those around us? and how are they, and we, changed by how we see them? Denham's story is both gorgeous and powerful as it delves deep into one family, and the power of truths and lies.

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Jar by Erin Brown in The Deadlands

They say the Jar standing high on the hill above the city, silhouetted against the sky, alone and imposing, is the eternal stomach of the River God of the Valley, who is praised to devour us one by one. But one doesn’t have to be in the Jar for his digestion of your flesh to begin. I knew this—it was in all the teachings—but I didn’t understand until he chose me.

I adore this beautifully strange and gorgeously crafted short story by Brown. There's a good amount of body horror and some rather gory details here, but they are set in a story that seems to me to be about the transcendence, and the transformation after death -- diving deep into a metaphysical reality beyond the horror of decaying and digested bodies. I particularly like how Brown makes the ritual, the transformation, of Death and digestion so visceral in its details and yet also so lyrical. It's a truly unique take on the afterlife, and a must-read, as far as I'm concerned. 

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Carapace by Angela Sylvaine in Dose of Dread from Dread Stone Press

It started with the red heel. Or pump, as my mother called them. I saw it while walking to school with the other kids in my neighborhood. A single red high-heel in the middle of the street. Some of the kids blew it off, didn’t care, while others insisted they couldn’t see it at all. Playing pranks on me, as usual.

A lovely slice of unsettling and surreal darkness that feels like it pays an almost tongue-in-cheek homage to Kafka. I love the deceptive simplicity of this story, and how that simplicity hides layers of meaning and horror, all lurking beneath that surface.

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Come Out, Come Out by Myna Chang in Radon Journal

Nati wanted her mother. She needed her mother’s jellied eyes and flesh-whorled fingers. Her heat. The chill of the ruined space station gnawed at Nati’s biometal bones, leached into her human-tinged processing lobes. She was tired of the cold.

An excellently creepy and unsettling slice of science fiction flash. Motherhood can be dangerous and have unexpected consequences, as we find out here. I love the way Chang blends love and longing with fierce, even obsessive, determination.

Money Thirst by Eva Papasoulioti in Radon Journal

“Water is overrated,” they say, and you agree. You’ve been drinking nothing but water for the past year and think, well, you can easily do without. For this kind of money, you definitely can.

What if you could earn a lot of money, just by never ever drinking water again? This is a wicked sharp story about a near future where the protagonist signs a lucrative contract with an energy drink manufacturer, but the terms of the contract might be more than they bargained for... Everything in this story is sharp and jagged, and it has such a deliciously dark and sinister vibe. What can I say? I just love the pitch-black sense of humour and the way it cuts so close to the bone.

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How to Stay Married to Baba Yaga by S.M. Hallow in Baffling Magazine

7. In the woods, in the dark, your heart thuds and your breath makes ghosts in the starlight. Nothing here will harm you, but when you stand between white pillars of petrified sycamores, you feel the way you did the night you met her, when you were just another Vasilisa, another Yelena, another Marya, another Ivan Ivanovich: another lost soul in a litany of lost souls whose skulls stake the path to her door. Don’t ever forget how your story started.

A beautifully layered, and thoroughly devastating story about Baba Yaga, written as a list of tips. There's such richness in every detail of this story, in the way it brings together different versions and parts of the tale into a new whole. And there's an emotional depth here where love and pain and fear run through everything. Hallow uses the old expertly and makes it into something new and heartrending.

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Quandary Aminu vs The Butterfly Man by Rich Larson in TOR.com

“Thought it’d be bigger,” Jow says, to mask the crawling in his spine.

“You spilled some,” the woman says.

The butterfly man doesn’t breathe like a human, no familiar up-and-down locomotion to the ribcage. Instead, its whole body seems to ripple.

“We used to play butterfly man, when we were little,” Jow says. “Me and my sisters. Always imagined it bigger. Scarier.”

How scary can something be when it's called a "butterfly man"? Turns out, pretty freaking scary. In Larson's brutally entertaining science fiction tale, we follow Quandary Aminu who is trying to survive the butterfly man sent to kill her. To quote the story description at TOR:

When an illicit trade deal goes wrong and Quandary is blamed for it, she goes on the run to avoid the crosshairs of a bioengineered killer that only lives for 24 hours. If Q can evade it for that long, she just might survive.

This is a high-powered, fast-moving story with a squishy, regenerating body-horror center (the creation of the butterfly man in a bathtub is the stuff of sci-fi nightmares), and I enjoyed every bit of it.

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Timekeeper's Symphony by Ken Liu in Clarkesworld

While the question of whether the nature of the universe is continuous or discrete remains hotly debated, there is sufficient consensus that consciousness doesn’t so much flow like a smooth river as leap forward from moment to moment, a glistening frog atop a drifting lily pad.

Any story by Ken Liu is a must-read, and this story, about the way time is experienced, differently by various creatures in various parts of the galaxy is a mind-bending, thought-provoking trip. I love the way Liu takes big scientific, and science-fiction-y, concepts and turns them into lyrical beauties. Here, Liu explores the concept that a creature's metabolic rate is linked to its perception of time, and it is a fascinating and profoundly haunting read.

The Massage Lady at Munjeon Road Bathhouse by Isabel J. Kim in Clarkesworld

Kim Jinah has worked at the Munjeong Road bathhouse for six years. She’s scrubbed the tiles of the large baths. She’s manned the counter that sells squeeze packs of shampoo, baked eggs, and cold drinks. Jinah is now a massage lady. It’s not a glamorous job.

Jinah stands in her old underwear and scrapes the future from women’s skin. Their scales fall to the floor. The women sit up scoured red and smooth.

A thoroughly wonderful and uniquely imagined story where a person's future shows up as scales on their skin, and the thicker and harder the scales become, the less possibility there is of change for that person. Most people cannot see the scales, but Jinah, the massage lady, can. She scrubs away the scales on the women who come to the bathhouse, and also ponders her own scales. Kim tells this story with such gentle and insightful voice, exploring the joy and fear of change, and what futures and what choices we might impose on ourselves and others. What choices would we make if we were less set in our ways, less covered in hard scales? And what choices would we allow others to make if we allowed ourselves and them more freedom? 

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My Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror Short Fiction Roundup - April 2023

 

The artwork for this roundup includes a detail of DM7's art for Lightspeed #155. More about the artist at https://www.deviantart.com/dm7

An audio version of this roundup is available on YouTube:

The Time Traveler’s Cookbook by Angela Liu in Cast of Wonders (narrated by May Chong)

Don’t eat dinosaur. Just don’t. Mom marked it as a must-have, saying it looks and tastes “like an exotic giant chicken,” but just getting to the meat has been a nightmare. The skin’s teeth breakingly-tough and the sucker hooked me in the thigh with one of its nasty claws during the hunt. I’ve staunched the bleeding with Happy Time Traveler’s super medical glue, but holy hell it still hurts.

Oh how I love this story. It's a time travel story that is both whimsical and heartbreaking. The food, the recipes, the time travel tips... they're all fabulous and funny, but Liu's story is also a deeply emotional tale about family and grief and about trying to find a way to move forward, even when it's the hardest thing we'll ever do.

Crown Prince by Melissa Mead in Cast of Wonders (narrated by Jordan Kurella)

Behind a gauze screen, Crown Prince Manu slumps in his cushions. He’s grateful for the screen, hiding his lapse from Father’s petitioners. It takes so much energy to maintain his Stupid Body in anything like a posture of alertness. The more effort he puts forth, the more it writhes about. The law says that he, the Only Royal Son, must be present at all official proceedings, but behind the screen no one can see him if he chooses to save his energy for listening. He always listens. And remembers.

This is a fairytale about Manu, a prince with a difference: he has cerebral palsy. Mead's story deals with cerebral palsy, the challenges for Manu, and how his condition makes others view him differently and often underestimate him (sometimes at their peril!). To quote the CoW story commentary:

 Accessibility isn’t just about giving people access to support tools to engage more fully with society – it’s also about re-shaping society such that all people are included, regardless of their circumstances, with as much or as little extra support as they want or need.

I love this story for its fresh perspective and its terrific characters, and I also love it for the entertaining palace intrigue. Sadly, Mead passed away in 2022 before this story was accepted and published by Cast of Wonders. 

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, Bird by Uyen Dang in Necessary Fiction

Several years ago, the rain started stripping people of their memories. With every rain a memory or two would dissolve into oblivion only to later reappear, suddenly, in physical form, at the edge of the city. Cats, childhood homes, a beloved dead houseplant… Some believed it was a weird symptom of climate change. Others said it was divine punishment, that the rain was actually godly spit, an amnesiac. Hard to believe, but they claimed it true. There was something vengeful happening here, they could feel it.

This is a surreal and uniquely imagined story where memories are stripped away but do not disappear. I love the unabashed strangeness here, and the way that strangeness is made real and tangible. Dang's evocative prose has the feel and melody of poetry, giving this story real depth and heart. 

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Through the Glass, a Full Sea by P.H. Low in Apparition Lit

There is a girl behind the mirror.

You see her first when you are five, pinching your nose and cheeks and wondering if the greenish shade of your skin, which you’ll later learn is just the tint of glass, means you are made of cheese. She moves a half-breath before you do; speaks a language you have already forgotten, her pink mouth forming a childish perfect

Nǐ sì séi?

A life, and the process of trying to understand yourself and the world and what your life can be, what YOU can be and what you want to be, is captured with exquisite brilliance in this short story. Low twists in a strand of horror, with the recurring presence in mirrors and other reflections, but the pain of this story goes beyond horror tropes. Beautiful, heart-rending darkness.

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The Librarian and the Robot by Shi Heiyao in Clarkesworld (translated by Andy Dudak)

One day, the Curator salvaged a robot. It was a model ST-19, a military machine, designed for search and destroy missions. The Curator found it outside in a knee-deep snowdrift. The robot’s ship had crashed into a hill two kilometers away, the explosion cutting the summit right off.

A lquietly moving science fiction story about a far-future where humans have left Earth and colonized other planets, but where one person, the Curator, has returned to the old home-planet. There, she finds an old library and begins to salvage books. And when she salvages a military robot, she finds new uses for it too. I love the gentleness of this story as it explores human nature and the nature of artificial intelligence, and how we can become something different than the world wants to make us into.

Voices Singing in the Void by Rajan Khanna in Clarkesworld

On Narraweena-4, the Builders have begun.

A Worker drone surveys its assigned territory as its tunneler beam warms. A fluting call pierces the air, answered by a warbling trill. The drone pauses. Its code, shared with others of its kind, sings the story across their web. A Scanner glides free of its dock, winging toward the lifeforms, far enough away that it won’t alarm them. Optics and sensors identify two arboreal creatures, each clinging to a tree branch, their gray, spotted hide fringed by feathers of blue and vermilion.

A hauntingly beautiful science fiction story with a deep sadness and sense of loss at its heart, yet it's not without hope and wonder. On various planets in the universe, human-constructed artificial Builders have constructed places where people were supposed to live, and yet, no people have arrived. Khanna's story travels to these different worlds and sees them through the eyes and minds of the Builders, and then returns to Earth where we learn the difficult truth. There's an epic sweep and feel to this story that gave me chills.

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One Eye Opened in That Other Place by Christi Nogle in Three-Lobed Burning Eye

They were tied up together from the start: Dottie and that other place. That other place, that other eye. Charles didn’t like to think of it as a third eye, though that’s what it was. It wasn’t in his forehead, wasn’t in the center of his face at all. Instead, it rested between the right side of his nose and the tear duct. It wasn’t actually there, of course, and yet it felt like it was there.

A new issue of Three-Lobed Burning Eye is always good news if you like your speculative fiction dark and weird. Nogle's story, about a man who can see another place with his third eye, is dark and weird and deliriously unsettling. There's a quiet, ever-increasing strangeness to this story that is both mesmerizing and disturbing. And the ending? The ending is a scream.

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Kudzu Boy Dreaming by SJ Powell in FIYAH #26

He’s ten years old when he finds the body in the kudzu patch.

A boy and his mother live in a house where there is magic, both protective magic and terrifying magic, at play. Beyond the house, the kudzu grows and one day, the boy finds a dead body there. Powell's story has a dreamlike undercurrent, but is also firmly rooted in a real and vividly drawn world, that is seen through a child's perspective: what is real and what isn't, what is dangerous and what is not, are not always easy to determine. And there's a dream/nightmare sequence in this story that is absolute terrifying perfection, and that scene is going to haunt me for a while.

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Root Canticle by Natasha King in Nightmare

Oh, dear. Don’t bother going back up the stairs. Yes, they exist still, but the door at the top will no longer take you anywhere you would wish to go. Look—the vines, if that is what we want to call them, have made some room. Sit.

I love this unsettling, hallucinogenic, twisting tale that goes into the past and into the earth, and into bodies as well. There's an old magic at work here, old stories and tales that have taken root, and King spins a beautifully mesmerizing tale from all of it.

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Victory Condition by Eliot Peper in Anthropocene

Yes, the Golden Gate Bridge still stands—one of the few historical artifactchs outside the city’s gleaming walls. Of course, the bridge no longer serves the purpose for which it was built: to offer vehicles efficient passage up and down the California coast. Now, it’s primarily a wildlife crossing for wolves, grizzlies, antelope, jaguars, coyotes, and elk. People visit too.

A thought-provoking future tale by Peper about a world, and a city, that has changed fundamentally and where human beings are finding new ways to live. Peper has some interesting thoughts on this future SF, but what I loved the most about this story is the way it interweaves the history of old San Francisco with the future of the new, and the way both nature and city feature so prominently in the telling.

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Our Exquisite Delights by Megan Chee in Lightspeed

Almost everyone has, at some point in their lives, encountered a door that was not there before.

A little girl sits up in bed, staring at the two identical closets in her bedroom. She feels certain there had been only one when she fell asleep.

Oh, this is a great twist on portal fantasies, and all those fantasy tales about doors, leading people to other places. Here, we see these doorways from the other side, from the perspective of whatever lives beyond those doors. There's slow-burning twist to this tale and the point of view of the narrator that makes it even more satisfying.

Construction Sacrifice by Bogi Takács in Lightspeed

There’s dysphoria, and then there’s turning into a mid-size city. But sometimes you try male, you try female, you try different kinds of nonbinary and it only makes you realize that something still doesn’t quite fit, something fundamental. There is a mismatch.

What an absolutely enthralling story this is. It’s told from two points of view: one is the city of Fejértorony, a city that has a mind of its own quite literally; the other is Mihue, a scholar called a clairvoyant who comes to the city to study it and gain a deeper understanding. What follows is a connection between these two that has unexpected and life-altering consequences for them both. Takács calls it a “a secondary-world science fantasy story about trans love in difficult circumstances.” And for more about the inspiration for the story, read the excellent interview in Lightspeed: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-bogi-takacs-2/

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Locavore by Kim Harbridge in Strange Horizons

It forced itself to take that last step onto the ferry. Every step further from land felt like falling. Through space, through time, through every place it had ever been. It kept its eyes open, its features arranged in what it hoped was a neutral expression. Somehow, it walked itself up to the small covered passenger deck and took a seat on a plastic bench. The boat began to move.

This is such an excellent and fresh take on a horror story of shapeshifting monsters. Being a shapeshifter and a monster, isn't always easy as this story points out. You have to be careful, you have to consider your options, in order not to get caught, not to get found out and still survive. Harbridge's story is both quiet and powerful, and I love the intimate, under-the-skin view we get of the kind of being that is usually only glimpsed in the shadows.

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The Air Will Catch Us by Rajiv Moté in Reckoning

Walking is different now. The air resists my habitual gait. Little hops lift me into the thickened atmosphere that slows my return to Earth. It’s undignified, but it’s past time I got used to this. I’m not that old. I bob along after her.

A quiet, contemplative science fiction story set in a future where humanity has had to make some drastic changes in order to survive. These changes are the new reality for the children growing up in it, but for those who still remember the world, and the air, as it once was, it's a different story. There's a bitter-sweetness and wistfulness to this story that really got to me.

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The Dark House by A.C. Wise in TOR.com

It didn’t help that darkness crowded the edges of the photograph, smudged, like thousands of fingerprints marring the picture over the years. I would have blamed the quality of the reproduction, except the shadows gathered in the windows too. They didn’t reflect light so much as hold it at bay.

A profoundly unsettling and increasingly harrowing story by A.C. Wise about a house, about the ghosts that haunt that house, and about the lives that seem tied to the photos left behind in that house. There's a terrifying inevitability to the horror here: everything has happened before and will happen again. Wise has a terrific ability to crank up the intensity of horror with masterful precision, and that skill is on full display in this story.

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The Lone Drummer by A.G. Lamar in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

I love stories that tie together music and magic, and in A.G. Lamar’s story, we find ourselves in world where songs and drumming can be used for peaceful purpose, like making crops grow, and for war, as a weapon to defeat your enemy on the battlefield. Kamu is a young boy with a great gift for drum magic. At a young age, his father sent him off to hone his skills and become part of the royal army. Lamar’s story is a multi-layered and fascinating look at a society that wields magic for a variety of purposes, and at the heart of the story is Kamu, who is so very good at magic and drumming, but who is also deeply conflicted by going to war, and who still carries the pain of being sent away from his family when he was only 10 years old. It makes for a riveting and thoroughly compelling read set in a fascinating world.

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We, the Ones Who Raised Sam Gowers from the Dead by Cynthia Zhang in PseudoPod (narrated by Serah Eley)

There’s a profound fierceness and anger fueling this story, making it intensely powerful and affecting.

Yes, to answer your questions, we were the ones who did it; we were the ones who dabbled into the forbidden arts, who so casually threw away the good Christian values of our country for a flash of bloody vengeance. We are the ones you want, the ones who raised Sam Gowers from the dead.

The voice of the story is so strong and bold, and I love how it never shies away from telling us the truths we already know but sometimes try not to face: the injustice, the cruelty, the bigotry, the violence faced by Sam Gowers and others like him. Oh yes, I love the sharp teeth of this story, the raw emotion that runs through it, and I love how powerlessness is turned into unexpected, unimaginable power when necromancy is used.

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A Thousand Echoes in One Voice by Deborah L. Davitt in Podcastle (narrated by Dave Robison)

At first, you didn’t really commit to it. You only explored on weekends. Then it became an all-consuming obsession. You took your instructions from the hidden graffiti. Your only guide, the only proof that there were others like you. Your sole consolation.

The others exist. Some of them must go home again. And some of them never can. Caught, perhaps, when a reality blinks out of existence.

Oh, my kind of story: a messed up timetravel tale, where different choices make new timelines, where worlds diverge and join, and where the paths to the past and the future and the other worlds are difficult to find and understand. Davitt’s story is haunting and evocative, with a deep and dark heart. That ending gave me bone-deep chills.

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Sounds for Crustaceans by Addison Smith in Fantasy Magazine

OK, so a while back I was talking on Twitter about crabs and how easily lifeforms through the eons seem to turn into crabs (it’s a thing!), and then someone recommended I read this story by Addison Smith. It’s from 2021, so I’m obviously way late in covering it here, but wow, what a story it is! Here, someone is turning into a crustacean, but it’s not an easy process and it’s not easy to know what other people are going to think about such a transformation. Will they even believe it? Will they mock it? There’s a surreal vibe here, and a tenderness beneath the chitin, that is an absolute delight.

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BEHIND THE ZINES with Stephen Hunt, editor and publisher at INKLINGS PRESS

For this month’s Behind the Zines interview I am thrilled to be talking to the fabulous Stephen Hunt from Inklings Press. 

 

More about Stephen Hunt:

Stephen Hunt is a journalist, author, and editor, having worked in the newspaper industry for nearly 20 years. He is presently working in The Bahamas at The Tribune national newspaper. He is also one of the people behind Inklings Press.

More about Inklings Press:

Inklings Press is an indie publisher of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and other fiction by new writers. Their purpose is to provide new fantasy, science fiction, mystery and alternative history tales.

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Q. Tell us a bit about yourself. What’s your background, where did you grow up, where are you now, and what do you do outside the world of speculative fiction?

Hi Maria, thanks for inviting me to take part! I’m a bit of driftwood. I was born in Northern Ireland, but we left there when I was a kid, right in the heart of The Troubles. So I grew up as a bit of an outsider in North-East England, a boy with a funny accent and a funny hair colour. Then a little over a decade ago, I drifted across the Atlantic to where I live and work in The Bahamas. I edit a newspaper here, and the rest of my time is spent chasing round two kids and wondering with my wife where all the time in the day went.

Q. Most people who are into speculative fiction seem to have caught that bug early in their lives. What got you hooked on the speculative fiction genre? What stories, books, movies, TV-shows, or something else, lured you into that world?

I blame my mum! Or maybe my grandmother. My granny used to take my mum with her to the cinema when she was a kid to go see horror movies – which got my mum hooked. I grew up in a house full of books by James Herbert, Stephen King, Alan Garner and more. And my mum did the same to me, but with the small screen – keeping me up at night to watch Hammer Horror movies or Salem’s Lot so she wasn’t left to watch them on her own. A nice line of maternal terror passed along!

But the house was also filled with fantasy and sci-fi books – I’m the youngest of five kids, so my eldest brother had lots of Anne McCaffrey and Katherine Kurtz books, another brother got into D&D and Runequest and brought me along for the ride, there were shelves with Asimov and Clarke, Tolkien and Le Guin, and TV screens with Kirk and Spock, The Doctor and Quatermass, Space 1999 and Buck Rogers.

I fell in, and I fell hard. I remember making my parents walk me back out of the cinema backwards so I could see as many of the credits as possible for the first Star Wars movie. I was that kind of nerdy fan. These days, of course, the movie companies stick a scene at the end to get you to stay…

Q. You’re one of the people behind Inklings Press, an indie publisher that has published several anthologies (I’ve had stories in two of them!). How did Inklings Press get started and what’s your goal or mission statement?

We gotta get you back for a third! Submissions open now, y’know…

Inklings started out as a bunch of friends on the internet chatting about books. No, wait, let’s go a step further back. Back in the day in the UK, there was a competitive gaming scene for a tabletop collectible figures game called Heroclix. We’re talking little figures of Wolverine and Batman, Superman and Thor, and the mightiest hero of all, Hawkeye. Over the years, a bunch of us met up at tournaments, battled it out over the table, did the whole “hey, let me add you on Facebook” thing, and had beers after the gaming sessions.

Fast forward a few years and a whole lot of us have moved on to different parts of the world – but still kept in touch on Facebook, and chatted about various things, including for a few of us a mutual love of writing. That became an encouragement to one another to do something with that – and so we cheered each other on as we set about writing stories, shared critiques and so on. Somewhere along the way we thought we should do something with that – and so we decided to try self-publishing a book featuring the work of some of the members of that group, which had extended to friends of friends too. And that’s how the first book, Tales From The Tavern, a short, five-story anthology of fantasy fiction, came about. We just figured, let’s try it and see. And then we went back again for more. And more.

As time went on, we broadened out to accept submissions from people who weren’t part of that group to the point where it’s now open to all.

As to our goal? Well, we just want to find good stories and share them with readers who might enjoy them. We’ve done far better than we might have expected at the start – we’ve published Sidewise Award winners twice over for alternate history! And we’ve had authors want to join us in our anthologies who we would never have thought would have been interested in little old us when we started out.

It’s also been a genuine pleasure to offer a stepping stone for new voices, including from some diverse backgrounds. It’s a real joy to see how people have gone on to other things and we love to shout about others’ successes. Back when we first started, we kind of felt that there was no place for us so we would make our own. We hope we have given a place for others along the way.

Q. If you look back on your hopes and dreams when you started out and compare it to where you’re at today… what are your thoughts on that journey? What are some of the big, and maybe small, things you’ve learned? What are some of your proudest accomplishments?

I think for me the biggest part of the journey has been seeing fellow authors who didn’t feel they might ever get anything published now be in a place where they have one, two, three, more books out there and plans for further to come. It’s seeing that transition from asking “Could I do this?” to “I am doing this.”

That’s been remarkable to see. I’m lagging behind compared to others in that regard, but I absolutely cheer them on in everything they do.

I think we’ve learned to try and simplify the process over time, because there’s only so much time in our days. We switched to payment on publication, for example, so that’s resolved and done at the outset, and then there’s deciding not to constantly chase down rabbit holes for the many, many ways of promotion that are constantly pushed at you, many of which are not terribly effective. That learning process of what does and what does not work takes a bit of time when you’re new to it all. I think the biggest thing to learn is just to be genuine. It’s easy to get swallowed up in the marketing push all the time, but the biggest benefits come from genuine interactions with people. And it’s nicer too.

As for accomplishments, I should absolutely hail the Sidewise Awards. And I do. And I should absolutely sing out about getting reviewed in Amazing Science Fiction. And I do. But my proudest accomplishment is honestly any time we publish an author’s debut. That’s where I see the heart of Inklings, particularly when it’s people from different countries or backgrounds, saying hey, we hear your voice and we’d love to help it be heard elsewhere.

Q. What are some of the best and some of the hardest things about your work in publishing for Inklings Press? How does your team work together? I think you’re all spread out all over the world, do you find that to be a challenge or is the Internet enough to keep it all together?

The main crew consists of four of us – an Englishman in Finland, an American in Japan, an Irishman (me) in The Bahamas and a Mexican who is the only one in his home country these days. We’ve certainly shifted around a lot. The internet has kept us together though my word it would be nice for us to have a meet-up in person at some point. Last year we took the year off as we had various life events happening, but now we’re stepping back into the ring.

In terms of how it works, we chat on an almost daily basis about all kinds of things – and then when we decide to go with a project, we come up with a theme, set a deadline, and divide up tasks. Ricardo is our graphic artist and cover designer, Brent and Rob tend to handle submissions and first passes at edits. Then I hop in at the end and do final edits plus compiling the book itself before hitting the big ol’ publish button. We also divide up social media promotion. The biggest task though is mutual encouragement, lifting one another up on hard days in life and in publishing, and cheering on our successes.

Q. I know there’s a recurring discussion in the field about the viability of speculative fiction zines and publishing houses, with a lot of great venues disappearing and new ones starting up. What are your thoughts on the viability of this as a business.

If your game plan is to make money, then there’s certainly easier ways to make it! People will go buy a cup of coffee every day but ask them to pay the same for a book and some will recoil at the idea.

We are lucky enough that we have between us the skills to put together what we do, and don’t have to take on particularly large costs to do so. That’s very much a privileged position to be in, and I’m very conscious that not all people are as fortunate to be in that situation.

It’s hard to keep a venue running long-term. It’s a big-time commitment from anyone in the process – from reading through the slush pile to editing to marketing to publishing to to to… you know, it just keeps going. And the price of the product at the end of that often is not enough to sustain everyone through that process. So I completely understand the burnout that comes with that, and the challenge to keep things afloat year on year, sometimes with the marketplace doing the most unhelpful of things along the way, such as Amazon recently changing the way it deals with subscriptions for some long-running magazines, or concerns over Kickstarter as a platform for fundraising, or Twitter becoming a place that I for one have stepped away from as much as possible after its ownership change.

Of course, the ones most affected by this are the ones who aren’t in a privileged position to begin with – and so that continues to count against marginalised voices.

I will say there is a greater opportunity these days for those voices to be initially heard thanks to the breadth of self-publishing and small presses now – but sustaining those platforms I think is as difficult as ever. Perhaps even more difficult. I salute those who keep a solid schedule of publications coming month after month, year after year.

Q. You also run Altered Instinct, publishing a newsletter / zine. The first issue came out late last year, featuring interviews and fiction. What has that experience been like for you and can we expect more issues in the future?

That’s… a work in progress. Yes. More in the future. But a job change kind of put things on hold while I work out where my free time fits in around the new role. But yes. Yes yes yes.

Q. You’re also a fiction writer in your own right, and you’re a journalist, working as managing editor of The Tribune in Nassau. Do you feel like your various writing endeavors clash or do they inspire each other? Is there something the fiction writer can learn from the journalist, and vice versa?

I like to think that in the day job I tell truth to expose lies, and in the night job I tell lies to expose truth. People can probably make their own mind up which is which. I think there is a lot each side can learn from the other. As a writer, I’m so used to having stories changed around and edited in the news business that I’ve long lost my brittle edges about being too precious perhaps about my words. I know things need to change around to work better sometimes, and it’s not a slight upon my earlier drafts to do so. As a journalist, you can get caught up in the rush to deadline sometimes – and I can learn from the writing side to sometimes just take a step back and let a story breathe so you know what to do with it better. In general, though, I write about different things. My day job is full of horrible stories sometimes, and so my writing lets my mind take flight to other places.

Q. How has your views of the business side of the speculative fiction publishing industry changed since you’ve become more involved behind the scenes vs. when you were “just” a writer? Have you gained any insights you didn’t previously have?

I’ll steer clear of talking about traditional publishing as I don’t really have any expertise there but when it comes to self-publishing and small presses, I think I’d say always remember that one size never fits all, and there are different ways of marketing that suit different styles of publication. What works to market an eight-book series produced at speed may not work at all for a single 120,000-word fantasy epic. There are many services – and some publishers – who look to get money out of the hands of authors, so being cautious and figuring out what works for you is always wise.

Q. For others who might be thinking about getting involved with speculative fiction publishing in any capacity, what would you say to them? Do you have any tips, advice, and/or warnings for new publishers?

I think I’d say do what you can and don’t overreach. Be aware that things crop up in life and you need to have the room to deal with those things – so if you stretch yourself to capacity, those life issues will push you over the top. So pace yourself. Enjoy it. Love it. Adore the words you work with. Immerse yourself in those dreams. But always have time to pack them away and live.

In more practical terms, spend your money where it gets you the best results. Avoid scammers – and keep an eye on outlets such as Author Beware so you’re know what to watch out for. Make sure your covers look professional. Make sure you know what looking professional means. Don’t be afraid of criticism, it helps sharpen your focus. In the same vein, don’t publicly criticise reviewers – it’s not a good look. Show respect and a professional manner, and people will react to you accordingly. Show your whole ass in public, however, and don’t be surprised if people point at it. There are frustrating days, and that’s what your closest friends’ DMs are for.

But to backtrack to what I said earlier, just be genuine. Do it because you love it, and love it because you do it.

Q. Like me, you’re one of those people who have moved across the world, living quite far away from where you were born and grew up. How has that experience influenced you as a writer, and as a publisher?

Honestly, it can be hard. I was three when I first moved to a country that wasn’t my own – England is close to Ireland, but I was reminded every day that it was not. Particularly in the 70s, when I would be called Paddy rather than my real name, or have people shout “IRA” at me, call me stupid because of being Irish, or be punched or kicked for where I came from. So I’ve been an outsider since I can remember existing.

On occasions we’d go back to Ireland, it wasn’t home either by then – I was the boy coming back from England. So uprooting from the UK and coming to The Bahamas a dozen years ago now was not the major upheaval it might have been – but only because I was often left to feel as if I didn’t belong in the first place. Like I say, I’m driftwood, and I’ve washed up on these shores now.

How that affects me as a writer? Well, it’s hard to say what culture is my own. I’m not Irish enough to be an Irish writer. I’m not Bahamian so I can’t claim that either. Regularly being told I didn’t belong as I grew up suggests that for many I can’t count on being an English writer. So where am I? What are the stories that belong to me? So I gather the driftwood around me and tell the tales that find their way to me.

As a publisher, I’m very conscious there are large sections of the world whose tales are not given a chance to be told. I love when those tales come our way. I would love that to be more the case. But I’m also conscious that for some of those I shouldn’t be involved in the process of the telling.

Q. As I mentioned before, you’re also a writer. What’s up next for you as a fiction writer? And what’s up next for Inklings Press?

I’ll start with Inklings Press as that’s more imminent – we have submissions open right now for an anthology of mystery stories, but in other genres. Only Murders in the Genre as we’ve nicknamed it, but think sleuths in spacesuits, wizards and wiseguys, whatdunnits instead of whodunnits and more. That’s our comeback anthology after our year off. We’re also talking other plans, including maybe novellas. Maybe.

As for me, I so very much need to catch up with Inklings writers who have gone before me and get a novel out there. But will start with my own collection of short stories gathering up tales that have landed here, there and elsewhere over the years. The very first thing I published was a collection called Quartet to test out the publishing process on Amazon, and this feels like a return to that moment to draw a line over what I’ve done so far, ready to make the leap to the next part of the journey.

Just, y’know, give me some of that elusive time in the day…

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Huge thanks to Stephen for this interview! 

• Stephen Hunt at Altered Instinct 
• Inklings Press 

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About Behind the Zines:

In this interview series, I talk to people working behind the scenes at various speculative fiction publications. My goal is to highlight the work that goes into keeping these publications alive, and to share insights from the people doing that work. Each interview is available exclusively on my Patreon for one week, and is then posted here at Maria's Reading.

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If you want to support my work, check out my Patreon or Ko-Fi.