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

 

The art for this roundup includes a detail of the cover for Clarkesworld #206 by DOFRESH. More about the artist at https://www.artstation.com/dofresh. Read the issue at https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prior/issue_206/.

(No audio version right now, but hopefully I will be able to add it later.)

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How to Travel Safely In Faerieland by Vanessa Fogg, Fusion Fragment #15

“Everyone decide on their deposit yet?” Brad asks loudly. He has a drink in hand, and he’s grinning. “It’s okay, you have several hours!”

“It...it doesn’t hurt, right?” says a small voice. A lanky boy in a hooded sweatshirt, endearingly awkward. One of the youngest members of the group. He’s Asian like Jill, with attractively messy, lightened brown hair. She remembers that the night before, she’d heard him say that he was taking a break before grad school to travel. 

“Will we even feel what we’re missing? Will we know?”

“Oh, you’ll know.” Something in Monica’s voice holds everyone’s attention. But then her tone lightens and she smooths over the moment, saying reassuringly, “It’s fine, though; you’ll stop thinking about it soon. And you’ll get your deposit back.”

(Note: you can buy a copy of this magazine online, paying any price you wish to pay including getting it for free. Digital copies are available in PDF and epub format.)

This is a stunning, thoroughly gripping novelette about Jill, who is going on trip to Faerieland. It's a tour group kind of trip, organized by a Eldritch Adventure Tours, heading out from Halifax. Fogg does so much character and world building with such deft, skillful writing here, and takes us to a Faerieland that is decidedly unsafe, for good and ill, no matter how much the travel tour guides try to make it seem, and sound, safe. This novelette is a profoundly moving and quietly unsettling story, and such an awesome take on the world of the fae.

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Stitch by Kathleen Schaefer in Podcastle (narrated by Ant Bacon)

There’s something in Aden’s head. His daughter’s mind is in his head. Or rather, there’s a knot through which he slips in and out of his daughter’s thoughts.

“A mind stitch,” the nurse diagnoses by shining a flashlight in Aden’s eyes. His daughter’s pupils contract in response — a two-way bond, Dalia watching the world through his eyes.

This story about a special bond between parent and child absolutely tore me up with mixed emotions. Schaefer brilliantly captures the complexity and nuances of a fraught situation with both sharpness and subtlety and I love how the story doesn't condemn or glorify, but rather, makes us feel conflicted. Is Aden doing what's best for his child, or what makes him feel good and makes him feel as though he is a better parent? What would I do if there was the possibility of forming this kind of bond with my kids? I will be thinking about this story for a long time.

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The Retcon Man by Cameron Fischer in Escape Pod (narrated by Dave Robison)

Never look for evidence of your future self in the past. Doing so can close your mind to alternative plans if you think you see what you’re destined to do.

I do love a good time travel story, and this is a really entertaining one. Time travel as a business, where you can get things (or people) back from the past, though it comes at a cost. I love the noir-ish vibe of this tale and I love the straight-forward transactional nature of the venture. The rules for how the retcon business works are strict, because time travel is perilous and demanding, and hard enough to pull off without complications, even if you DO follow the rules. Terrific story with a nice hardboiled bite.

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Changeling, by Lindsay King-Miller in Baffling Magazine

“When you were a baby, you were stolen by the fairies,” my mother says over dinner.

I keep eating my salad. She tells this story a lot.

“They left a baby in your crib, and she looked exactly like you. Those same blonde curls, those pink cheeks. Those sparkling hazel eyes. You were such a pretty baby.” The past tense stings, as always.

I have a soft spot for changeling stories too, and this one twists the knife of changeling lore a little deeper. Here, the mother uses the story as emotional manipulation, hurting her child over and over. I really love the way King-Miller makes use of the theme here, turning this into such a powerful story.

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A Girl Bikes Home Alone at Night by Georgie Morvis in Cast of Wonders (narrated by Tara Kennedy)

Pina didn’t want to bike home that night from the party, she told the officers. Dad had texted 10 minutes before he was supposed to pick her up. No can make it. Had too many green bottles. He had been like this since the lung cancer spread through Ma’s body like wildfire.

This is one of the flash fiction winners in the latest Cast of Wonders flash contest, and it's a lovely, magical, and sharp story. Something terrible almost happens to Pina, but what she sees in the road is something she won't soon forget. 

Surrogate Parents by A A Ademola in Cast of Wonders (narrated by Scott Campbell)

You were told they’d act like real parents and adapt to many new things. But having androids put in the place of your late parents, sounded like a mockery of their death to your face.

Another story from the Cast of Wonders flash fiction contest. A beautifully fierce and subtle science fiction story about love and family, and what matters to a child when you lose your family and up in the care of the "system". I love the double-edged feelings here, and the quiet way Ademola makes you feel the vulnerability and complex emotions of this child, and how they react to the possibility of safety and love, even if it's not offered by human beings. 

Magic in the Hands by Carol Scheina in Cast of Wonders (narrated by Eleanor R. Wood)

Inside a dust-smeared jar on a dark shelf behind Professor Rhade’s desk, the Prophecy Hand looked like nothing more than a preserved appendage, with its crumpled wastepaper skin, bony fingers, and yellowed nails.

This is an excellent take on the magic school theme in fantasy fiction, and an especially great take on how it works to learn and use spells. How would magic incantations work for those who are deaf and/or can't speak? Scheina brings a really interesting twist to both the situation of the student, and the situation of the magical relic.

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Moonlight and Needle Teeth by K.S. Walker in Fiyah #28

It’s well past midnight by the time he shows up. At first, there’s just a flash– white moving through the underbrush. Eventually a long fat body scurries along the honeysuckle bushes towards the tray of fruit I left out. Grapes are a favorite of mine. Figured he might likey-like, too, far as bait goes.

Didn’t want to deal with this thing when I first scented him a week ago, down by the creek, along the fence line, under the back porch. Don’t really want to deal with it now. But I’m sitting in a tree branch anyway, waiting.

I lovely and strange tale about Birdie who is not quite human, not quite possum, but somewhere in between. Walker tells this story with an undertone of loneliness and a longing, including a longing for being truly seen (as frightening as that might be). When Birdie meets Nell, there is a glimpse of something new between them. I love the emotional depth of this story and how it makes us see and feel the weight of a whole life in the interactions between Nell and Birdie.

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Patsy Cline Sings Sweet Dreams to the Universe by Beston Barnett in Strange Horizons

i am a memory.

i am an METI carrying a memory.

i am an METI (Message to Extraterrestrial Intelligence) carrying a memory beaming through the vacuum of space.

A wonderfully strange and beautifully crafted science fiction story about a message containing memories, and about the process of trying to figure out what kind of message those memories are meant to convey: "there are discrepancies at the heart of the memory i carry, and until i can resolve them, i cannot formulate my message". The story weaves through time and space, memory and message, and it is profoundly moving.

Nextype by Sam Kyung Yoo in Strange Horizons

Mirae sits on her bed, parting her hair with one hand and feeling for the access port on the back of her head with the other. She finds the notched edges of the cap and twists counterclockwise until it comes loose. Her eye twitches as she slides the plug into her skull. The sensation isn’t strong enough for her to say it hurts, but she doesn’t know how else to describe it.

A beautiful, tender, and piercing story about Mirae who has a neural implant, paid for by her mother, that has made her one of the top students at university. It has also taken things from her. Some of those things Mirae is aware of, but there are also other things she doesn't even know she's lost. This is a quietly harrowing story about technology, adolescence, and very much about family and the kinds of guilt-laden expectations that can distort relationships and souls. Gorgeously written and with bits of light shining through the dark.

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Thirteen Ways of Not Looking at a Blackbird by Gordon B. White in PseudoPod (narrated by Elie Hirschman, first published in the 2023 anthology No Trouble at All)

I am a baby boy. In the bathtub, looking out, past my mother as she cries and holds the already wet washcloth to her eyes. Over her mouth. I am looking into the full-length mirror on the bathroom door.

I see no one.

I do not see my father.

A nightmarishly surreal story of a boy growing up in a house where something, nothing, terrible is happening. Something, nothing, he is not supposed to talk about. And someone, no one, who is doing something in that hidden room in the basement. White tells the story so tightly from the child's, the boy's, perspective that we understand how unmoored and lost he is in the world where he cannot see, should not see, is not allowed to see, himself or what is happening around him. Deeply unsettling, and emotionally devastating.

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Excerpts from a Scientist’s Notebook: Ancestral Memory in Europan Pseudocephalopods by David DeGraff in Lightspeed.

1. When I was five years old, my mother left for Europa as part of the expedition that discovered the Europan Pseudocephalopods, which have a superficial resemblance to squid. My mother wanted to call them Icypods but was overruled. Now I’m standing in front of a tank of live Icypod specimens, the very creatures that may have killed her.

Life on Europa? Yeah, that's my kind of science fiction thing and in this tale, we meet the strange creatures that live beneath the ice there. I love the subtle, quiet style of this story, and the way DeGraff makes great use of the notebook format.

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There Are Only Two Chairs, and the Skin Is Draped Over the Other by by Alexia Antoniou in Bourbon Penn

I don’t want to keep looking at the skin. So I just stay like that, on my back. I try to focus on the places where I am lying on a stick or on a rock, picturing, in my head, little blue exclamation points pinging above my body where it hurts. I try to focus on the sky, which is so white it makes behind my eyes feel fuzzy. But what I hear is Catherine, who won’t stop noticing things out loud.

Such an unsettling, surreal story that yet feels like the absolute truth of what it's like to be young and have a best friend, and find something strange, together. I love the way Antoniou captures the girls' close, yet fraught, friendship because it feels so real and familiar. I love the horror-tinged everyday vibe of this story, and the way the strange skin they find both drives the friends apart and brings them together.

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Hole World by J.S. Breukelaar in Apex Magazine

Justin doesn’t know why he’s been kept on. Why he isn’t already dead meat.

He’d read Nineteen-Eighty-Four a long time ago, in high school. He’d hated how the proles came to truly love Big Brother. In their hearts. He’d been bullied at school, and at that time, he couldn’t understand ever learning to love your tormentors. Now it is his greatest fear. He wakes up sometimes so hungry for love he thinks he’d eat anything.

Is that why they keep him on?

A terrible thing has happened to the world and to Justin. Something has come through the surface of the world, something with tentacles, it seems, and now there's not escaping it. Most people are dead, but those who remain, like Justin, have jobs to do and they are chained by a tendril, a tentacle, a manacle that is impossible to escape. And yet, when Justin thinks he is beyond hope, he finds hope. A dark, bleak, bloody, and terrifying tale by Breukelaar.

Homewrecker by E. Catherine Tobler in Apex Magazine

Episode 60

Transcription by @jbutler22

0:01

Murray: Hey there, I’m Dean Murray and this is a special episode of Homewrecker. We’re on the road this week, heading up to historic [garbled] where we’ll venture [garbled] outside the city to see the colonial mansion known as Cutter House. While you’re isolating, I will be too—undertaking this reno while the owners are away.

Oh my. If you like found-footage horror, and if you like haunted house stories, then this one is a must-read. Tobler's story is set during the early days of the pandemic, and tells the story of a reno-project that goes very, very wrong. It's told as a series of transcripts of episodes from a show called Homewrecker, and we soon feel the unsettling tremors of something dark and menacing creep into these transcripts. An attic remodel of a very old house where a violent crime took place many years ago? Yeah, that's definitely not a good idea... I love Tobler's use of the transcript format, and the use of a reddit style commentary on those transcripts. And the ending? Some real, true, chilling darkness. 

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The Parts That Make Me by Louise Hughes in Clarkesworld

When my awareness returned, I was lying on a table in the repair lab, and the oldest part of me was gone. The new part weighed different, tasted strange on the filaments of my sensory system.

Have I told you lately that I love robot stories? Well, I love robot stories, and this is a wonderful robot tale tinged with sadness and the weight of many years in space. Hughes tells us a lot about the universe, and the kind of world this robot inhabits, without using a lot of words. Beautifully done.

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All the Things I Know About Ghosts, By Ofelia, Age 10, by Isabel Cañas in The Deadlands

The frightening thing about Aunt Tae praying was that she never prayed, not anymore—not since Padilla flooded, she always said. Flooded. An absurd word. Flooded means that water moves, that it has to come from somewhere, and most unbelievably, that our town was once dry land. See, Padilla has been underwater for as long I’ve been alive, so that’s not the strangest thing about it.

The strangest thing is the ghosts.

A surreal and eerie story that is also heartbreakingly beautiful, and where we find ourselves in a flooded town. Under the water, everyone is still going about their lives as if nothing really happened or changed. The young girl who is our narrator doesn't remember what life or the world was like before the flood, but she thinks about it sometimes, and she also thinks about the ghosts she keeps seeing. But the strangeness of their "normal lives" is challenged when something terrible happens to her little brother.

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Sartor by Tanvir Ahmed in khōréō

They say (though God knows best) that long ago, in a country at once mountain and river and town and meadow, forty wandering dervishes stopped on the roadside for noon prayer and were slain by bandits. Or a foreign army. Or maybe infidels. Maybe even an army of foreign infidels. 

They say a great many things, and some of them might be true. 

Ahmed knows how to spin and weave a gorgeous tale, and in "Sartor" he does exactly that. This is a gorgeously wrought story of woe, death and ghosts, and Ahmed fits stories within the story, shifting the threads of the tale as the tale is told. Magic, curses, and blessings infuse every part of this strange tale of the forty beheaded dervishes and what happens when one of them, after death, is separated from the others. I love how this story feels ancient and new all at the same time, and the prose just sings. 

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Something That Has Never Touched the Ground by Marilyn Hope in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Rang aches with a different type of appetite. All day he has scaled slick eavestroughs and blade-thin ridge boards of the town’s houses, searching for a clear point of vantage. He has won it now, hidden high in the castle’s eroded parapets. Below him, the King is forcing a ring onto Sunder’s fourth finger. Rain lashes Rang’s face raw as he levels his arrow with the courtyard.

This is a love story, and a story of strange and powerful magic, and it's also a story about a king who tries to own and control the magic powers of a boy. What the king hasn't counted on, is that there is someone else who is willing to risk and lose everything in order to save that boy. Hope's story is dark and tragic, but the prose, oh the prose! Such prose. Beautiful and finely crafted, the words shine through the darkness.

The Dying Lover of Nogorod by R.K. Duncan in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Nogorod is built of black rock and dull iron and pale ivory, a city of high towers rising like petrified trees beside the rough grey seas. The common folk are whale-fishers, hunting with harpoons from their ships, but the nobles are all wizards, and they hunt dragons from bone chariots drawn by captive winds, slaying them with darts of ensorcelled ivory and poison spells. How this tradition began is lost to dishonorable history, but now the nobles hunt out of self-preservation, for dragons are wise and the wind that is their mother and their substance whispers the names of those who would slay them, so that they come to Nogorod to hunt in their own turn.

Another exquisitely wrought and profoundly tragic love story from this issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies. (Scott H. Andrews has a real knack for pairing stories for the issues of the magazine.) Here, we find ourselves in a haunting, strange city where dragons inhabit the skies above the buildings, but will not take corporeal shape until someone speaks their true names. Basalt grows up in the city, a good man who makes his own way through life with an innate goodness that makes an impression on all who know him. But Basalt hides a secret love and desire in his heart, a love and a desire that is finally revealed in a violent, tumultuous night. It's a wonderful, heart-piercing tale.

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

The art for this roundup includes a detail of the cover for Flash Fiction Online's October issue. Cover Design by Cat Sparks: https://catsparks.net/.

An audio version of this roundup is available on YouTube:

On the English Approach to the Study of History by E. Saxey in GigaNotoSaurus

“Why does it disturb Them?” Sophia asked. She was conscious, again, of how little she knew about Them, even after all her studies under Geoffrey. She imagined Them sleeping much of the time. What else could They do, in the dark? Very rarely, if she stood outside the chapel in summer, she could hear music, reed instruments in solemn harmonies. But she never heard voices.

What an amazing, and amazingly original, story. At the start of it, I felt a little puzzled, which I think was the intent of the writer, because what is going on here? There's an academic conference, and it's about the study of history, and there's a mysterious presence, Them, at the English college where it's all taking place. And then, the slow reveal: that Them is a royal court, magically preserved for centuries. The story involves the academic rivalries and the research that swirls around the access to this source of unimpeachable (?) historical information. It's about all that, and it's also a meet-cute love story in the making, and there's body horror, and there's an ever-growing sense of horror, and it's funny and it's strange and well, you better just read it for yourself.

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The Fate of Despair by Malena Salazar Maciá in Strange Horizons

The universe devoured you. Trapped in an escape pod of a stellar wreck, malfunctioning thrusters and molecular printer soon became heralds of a silent death, which might come in the blink of an eye, or the instant a comet’s fiery tail reflected in your dry eyes.

This is an utterly beautiful, utterly luminous story from Strange Horizons’ Caribbean SFF Special Issue. This story blends science fiction with something like magic and the results are devastatingly gorgeous.

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The Cello in the Cell by David Janisch in Nightmare

When I arrived at my cell there, there was the cello . . . waiting. You would think they would have issued me the cello when they issued me my one set of baggy prison clothes but if they had, it would have been less dramatic. There was no desk. No pillow. No books. No paper to write on. No shelves.

Only a simple chair, a brown-varnished, stained cello with its bow, a mattress, and a cement floor.

This is a surreal, dystopian story that feels like some kind of trippy Orwell or Kafka but with its own unique strangeness, darkness, and beauty in the midst of horror. It's set in a world where people who commit crimes are sentenced to learn how to play certain pieces of music. The story's narrator has been sentenced to learn how to play the prelude of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major. What happens during the incarceration, what happens as they try to learn how to play, and the slow realizations that set in, eventually... it is all tinged with a sadness that made this story linger.

The Sound of Children Screaming by Rachael K. Jones in Nightmare

You know the one about the Gun. The Gun goes where it wants to. On Thursday morning just after recess, the Gun will walk through the front doors of Thurman Elementary, and it won’t sign in at the front office or wear a visitor’s badge.

A haunting and absolutely devastating story that blends the reality of gun violence and school shootings with a dark and chilling portal fantasy. There's a shooter at a school, and a teacher hides with her students inside the Portal which is supposed to keep them safe. Once inside, the teacher and some of the children find themselves in a strange world that is both thrilling and menacing. I love how Jones blends the horrors of the real world and the fantasy world, and how the power gained in one terrible place might be used in another. 

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We Will Witness by Martin Cahill in The Sunday Morning Transport

Dee, Richie, Mom, Pop. Dee, Richie, Mom, Pop. Dee, Richie, Mom, Pop.

He says their names like a mantra; they’re the only thing keeping the pain from sweeping him away. That they exist far from here, worrying over the radio and the fuzzy television signal about if he’s alive or not . . . they’re alive. That’s what matters. It’s a shield from the truth that soon he won’t be counted among that number.

Heartbreaking, and quietly devastating story by Cahill about a fighter, dying on the battle field, and what happens when someone comes to see him there, to sit with him at the end. This story is not free to read, but you can get a free 7-day trial at Sunday Morning Transport and access it that way. 

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The Constellations of Daughter Death by Lyndsey Croal in Flash Fiction Online

When Death decided he wanted a child, he plucked a ghost orchid from the furthest edge of the world – the kind of flower that could survive in the dark indeterminate edges between life and death – and grew her from its roots.

Such a gorgeous and lyrical flash story by Croal. I love the prose, I love the imagery, and I love that this story about Death, and the realm of death, contains so much light.

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Tuesday, June 13, at the South Valley Time Loop Support Group by Heather Kamins at Escape Pod (narrated by Heather Thomas)

Each time, Jessica begins the meeting the same way. “Well, here we are again.” The same introduction, the same mild chuckles from the group in response. She is the leader of this support group for time loop survivors, a rare experience, yet there are a handful of us in the area. For this, we count our blessings as many of us once counted the days. It isn’t like there are guidebooks for this sort of thing. All we have is each other.

Such a wonderful story that takes a different approach to the weirdness of time loops. Here, many people end up in time loops, struggling to break free, and then dealing with the aftermath and trauma if they DO break free. That's what the support group is for, but the stories of those attending the group are very different from each other, because there is no one single cause for time loops, and no single solution to breaking free. I love the quiet, contemplative vibe of this story, and I ADORE the ending.

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Building by Marlee Jane Ward in IZ Digital

‘Yep,’ Elleen says. ‘It sounds simple. You go to the city, source your materials for the house and bring them back. Then you build. If can still stand each other afterwards, and your house is sound, you can hitch together.’ She pauses to roll her head around, her neck crack-crack-cracking. ‘The doing is the hard part. I hope you’re ready for this.’

This story is set in some kind of post-apocalyptic future, but what I love about it is that the apocalyptic events are not at all the focus of the story. Instead, it's a story about people in communities finding new ways to live and build communities and families. A young couple want to get married and according to the new custom, they must first show they can build a house together after scavenging for materials in a nearby abandoned and dilapidated city. Ward tells this story with such a stealthy sense of humour and such a gentle touch. Beautiful and powerful.

Out of Trauma - Martha Wells in conversation with Kelly Jennings at IZ Digital

I think it’s one of the most important uses of fiction, to try to engender empathy and understanding for people in situations that are not things the reader has ever encountered. To understand the power dynamics the reader might be part of, and how these dynamics affect other people who don’t have the same advantages, or who might be trapped in systems they can’t escape. I don’t know how much it helps, but creating a little bit of understanding and context through fiction is better than none.

This is not a short story, but a fantastic interview with author Martha Wells (maybe best known these days for her Murderbot series). She talks about her writing, about the origins of Murderbot, about trauma and compassion, and it's just a brilliant read through and through.

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Four Words Written on My Skin by Jenn Reese in Uncanny Magazine

When the Fae stole my wife, I followed them into the dark woods to win her back. Jess dropped breadcrumbs along the trail, except she had no bread, so she dropped other things instead. Not far from the house, I found

a blue sweater, embroidered with gold bees, still smelling of the night we cooked mussels on the grill and burnt the shells and she laughed, her fingers black with char

Reese gives us a different and incisive take on how and why the fae might lead your loved one astray. What if it's not really the fae's fault at all? What if your loss has more to do with the things you've done, or didn't do?

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Kryvoye Lake by Oksana Marafioti in Luna Station Quarterly

There once lived a young Romani man plagued by a love for two Romani women.

Every morning he would rise and think, Today, I will choose. The beautiful Darya or the industrious Marina. And every night, sated by Darya’s love and Marina’s cooking, he would go to bed undecided.

This story has the feel and texture of a folktale, and I love the flow and melody of the language, and the dark twists and turns of love and desire. I love the way the horror creeps closer through the telling of the tale, until it is revealed in all its tragedy. The prose is gorgeous, and the ending is just as chilling as it should be. 

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Glass Flies by Gwen C. Katz in Cast of Wonders (narrated by Alasdair Stuart)

“A glass fly is not a pet,” said his mother. Jonas didn’t listen. He placed the glass fly in a shoebox and offered it some Oreo crumbs.

“Jonas,” he said, pointing to himself.

“Jonas,” repeated the glass fly.

A lovely, and heartbreaking flash story about the glass flies who want to learn everything about the world and have so little time to do it. There's a gentle, bittersweet vibe to this story and I love it.

Midsummer Refrain by Wendy Nikel in Cast of Wonders (narrated by Katherine Inskip)

Beware the fae who tinker with the cables that wind through their tree-root burrows. With electricity in their digits, they meddle with human technology, manipulating impulses to set their trap. An invitation arrives on electric waves— no origin, no number or host to trace it back to. Party tonight. You know the place. You wouldn’t want to miss out. Come.

A story like a warning, Nikel's story is dark and full of hidden dangers. I love the way the world and wiles of the fae are entwined with the present day, and how chilling and powerful the whispered threats are. 

Both of these stories are part of a special Cast of Wonders episode of flash fiction on the theme of mortality.

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Zoraida la Zorra by Ana Hurtado in The Dark

The glutted river roars the names of all the drowned, from rainclouds en el cielo to the young women with hair down to their waist, the ones with tattoos on their wrists and hickies on their clavicles, the ones who keep their eyeliner wings sharp and their glasses smudged, the ones who texted it’s over, ya nada an hour ago.

Today the Machángara river opens its jaw and weeps Zoraida.

A gorgeous and lyrical story about Zoraida and Ari, best friends, and about the river that swallows so many lives. Love, lust, and sex, and the judgements meted out by other people on both Zoraida and Ari run through the story, tightening the noose around the two friends. Hurtado tells her story in prose that whispers and sings, slips and cuts. There's love here, between the lines, love in all the things left unsaid and undone.

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The Four Gifts of Empress Lessa by Myna Chang in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

I remember the night I became a ghost. My husband, the Emperor, served the tainted tea himself; my punishment for giving him yet another girl-child. I was not the first Empress to drink from this cup.

This story about the dead and very ghostly wife of an emperor, has a delicate and exquisite dark-fairytale vibe. There’s horror here, but Chang subverts the tropes you might expect, and gives us a story that finds cracks where the hope and the light can get in. It’s beautifully done as the story is spun out to its haunting end.

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In the Forest of Talking Animals, by Makena Onjerika in The Deadlands

The girl watches the forest taking over the street and changing buildings, people, and rubbish into trees, bushes, and animals. The world elongates, darkens, and gains shades of green, brown, and burnt orange. 

A deeply unsettling and thoroughly haunting story about a girl and her brother and the things that hunt them and haunt them, using their pain and their loss against them. There’s such a sharp and painful tilt to Onjerika’s prose as the girl does everything she can to save her brother from the danger he cannot see, does not want to see. Yeah, this story got right under my skin.

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The Sky, Imperceptibly Darker by Michael Kellichner in Kaleidotrope

A powerfully lyrical tale where everything feels like an edge of darkness cutting through the light. A hunter remembers hunting godbeasts: the thrill and horror of the hunt, and the feeling of emptiness and loss that followed:

Without their gods, the forests decay. This was what people heard, though they could not imagine it truly. Your partner probably imagines forests receding, the land slowly turning to desert. But it is much different to walk in a silent forest where trees stand as ashen monoliths to what had been there before. Seeing plants crumbling to dust, the soil purging up dead worms and insects that had been burrowed beneath the surface. Birds dropping out of trees and shattering bushes.

You stopped believing in the power of permanence after you watched a mountain crumble.

Hunters rarely revisited the places where they were successful.

Why did you do it?

It was what we did, you say.

Kellichner’s prose is exquisite, the flow and rhythm of it, and the ending, the final lines of this story are sheer perfection.

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Like Ladybugs, Bright Spots In Your Mailbox by Marie Croke in Diabolical Plots

Oh gosh, I do love a witchy story where magic and spells are used in innovative ways, and this is definitely such a story. Someone is using magic to spread good vibes and joy and just overall goodness. 

Then the goodwill witching spread. Not like California wildfires. Like ladybugs. Crawling into people’s houses via their mailboxes, with goodness hidden under their stamps and well-wishes printed out every fourth letter in the mundane notes.

But since our narrator is a witchery watcher, she goes to track down the witch, and what happens next is something you might not have expected. I love the twists and turns of this story, and the way I truly wasn’t sure where it was taking me, but I definitely wanted to be there for the ride.

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Recent short fiction award winners and nominees

The Hugo Award nominees for Best Short Story:

• WINNER: Rabbit Test - Samantha Mills (Uncanny Magazine) 
• D.I.Y.  - John Wiswell (Tor.com)
• On the Razor’s Edge - Jiang Bo (Science Fiction World)
• Resurrection - Ren Qing, translated by Blake Stone-Banks (Future Fiction/Science Fiction World) - available in the anthology Galaxy Awards 1: Chinese Science Fiction Anthology 
• The White Cliff - Lu Ban (Science Fiction World)
• Zhurong on Mars - Regina Kanyu Wang (Frontiers)

Unfortunately, three of these stories, all by Chinese writers, don't seem to be available in English right now. I can only hope they will be translated and available soon. 

The Ignyte Award finalists for Best Short Story:

• Girl Oil – Grace Fong (Tor.Com)
• WINNER: The Lady Of The Yellow Painted Library – Tobi Ogundiran (Tor.com) - Available in the anthology Africa Risen, and also read by LeVar Burton on his podcast LeVar Burton Reads.
• The Locked Pod – Malka Older (The Sunday Morning Transport)
• The Voice Of A Thousand Years – Fawaz Al-Matrouk (The Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction)
• Wanderlust – LP Kindred (Anathema: Spec From The Margins)

• Full list of Ignyte Awards 
• Full list of Hugo Awards 

 Another recent award winner:

Arboreality by Rebecca Campbell (Stelliform Press). This book was just awarded the 2023 Ursula K. Le Guin prize for fiction, and I love the selection panel's motivation for this choice:

“Arboreality is a eulogy for the world as we know it. Rebecca Campbell’s extraordinary, deeply felt book explores the difficulties of the long hard project of survival. There are no heroes or villains here—only people making brave, difficult choices, out of hope and love for their community, for art, knowledge, and beauty. Arboreality imagines things that we haven’t yet considered about what can and will go wrong with our gardens, libraries, and archives if we don’t act now (maybe even if we do). In her masterful and profoundly ethical stories, Campbell asks us what might be saved, what must be saved, and what it will take to do so. ”

Arboreality started out as a novelette in Clarkesworld, and I loved that version of the story too: An Important Failure by Rebecca Campbell in Clarkesworld.

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

 

The art for this roundup features a detail of the cover art for Fantasy Magazine #93, made by lumitar / Adobe Stock Image. More about the artist at https://www.etsy.com/shop/LumitarArt.

An audio version of this roundup is available on YouTube:

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Bozpo Witch-Bane by Simo Srinivas in Fantasy Magazine

Outside is the palace of slaughter. Under its gambrels of boiling sky, there is the cold unforgiving sea; there are mountains ready to cradle your bones. Along its corridors of singing grass, there are horseback warriors who will cut you to pieces. There are witches, and there are cats.

Quite simply, this is one of my favourite fantasy stories I've read this year. Gorgeous, rich, lush prose and a story that is full of adventure and danger, betrayal and companionship, death and vengeance. AND it has two cats as its main characters! I mean, what's not to love about that? All I can say is: read this story and revel in the glory of such a brilliant, uniquely crafted fantasy set in a world I immediately wanted more of. There are sentences and whole paragraphs here that I had to read and re-read again just to savour the beauty.

The Cursed Universe Inside Your Eye by Angela Liu in Fantasy Magazine

You fish the knife out of your canvas bag, and a lighter with just enough fluid for one more flash of fire. This is your first time—but you’ve seen your mother do the same thing countless times before. Before she made her first mistake. Before you were forced to take her place.

Dark magic and strange powers are at play in this evocative and unsettling, yet eerily beautiful, story by Angela Liu. There are layers of pain and deception and spell-craft here, in a story that involves a daughter, the strange world inside her, and the magic and knowledge passed down to her from her mother. 

NegativeTheology of the Child from 'The King of Tars' by Sonia Sulaiman in Fantasy Magazine

An intricately woven, strange and deeply thought-provoking story where the narrator (literally, in more ways than one) goes inside The King of Tars, a medieval romance. I love the way Sulaiman burrows inside the text, with a narrator that is seeking out the characters of the story, traveling through a “realm of allegory and myth, of device and symbiotics”. Present and past, fiction and history, everything is braided together here, and there’s an evocative, lyrical vibe to this whole story that I absolutely love. So many lines here shine and glow:

“They, too, will have to find a way on that path between the shafts of light and shadow that make up this cosmos. I have done what I can to let in some air, to leave a hole in the veil through which it is possible to glimpse the mysterious and real.”

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What It Means to Be a Car by James Patrick Kelly at TOR.com

🚘Welcome to Small Heaven, home of Jennet Harada. You are Ketrin Nanhola?

🗨Yes, that’s me.

🚘My name is Seishin Toyota and I am pleased to be your car for today’s tour. You may take the front or back seat as you wish, but please mind your head as you enter. I look forward to telling you about my experiences at Small Heaven during your visit. Seat belt, please. You may be interested to know that I was Ms. Harada’s personal automobile prior to her first death in 2368.

I absolutely LOVE this science fiction story about an AI-controlled car dealing with a rather difficult passenger, and also dealing with the "stranded cloud presence" of its sort-of-dead previous owner, Ms. Harada. The story plays out in dialogue between Seishin Toyota and the passenger, Ketrin Nanhola, and Kelly brilliantly uses this format to reveal the passenger's ulterior motive for the ride, and the increasing trouble the car finds itself in.

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Between Truth and Death on the Murmansk—Saint Petersburg Line by Zohar Jacobs in The Sunday Morning Transport

Two weeks of freedom from the rotten ice and the rotten food, from the frigid waters of the Kola Bay with their tang of salt and rust and oil and industrial effluent, from the barracks and the hazing and the bizarre alterity of navy life. Only the invincibly ignorant could claim that being one-eighth rusalka meant you were fated to be a frogman. Unfortunately, the invincibly ignorant were the vast majority of the military.

This is such gloriously mysterious and wonderful story. It is set in Russia and blends fantasy, history, and the present into a beautifully layered and complex weave. There's also strange time-skip/time-slip things happening throughout the story, where past and present, dream and reality, are layered one over top of the other, in a way that is both unsettling and dreamlike. Jacobs gives us a story full of sadness and war, and there is much here that is familiar from what we see happening after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I just love the gentle and profound blend of reality and fantasy here, and I truly wanted this story to keep going because I wanted more of this world, and more of these characters.

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The Magazine of Horror by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki in Apex

Good morning. I would like to allay your fears that what you have heard are rumours, but I cannot. We do take what we do here very seriously, as storytelling is a life and death matter. You saw our pay rates. We are committed to paying handsomely for the best horror story existing in the world at any moment. And should we fail to pay the funds, we pay in other ways.

This is darkly funny meta-story about something many writers might occasionally consider: what would you be willing to give in order to get published? And not only published, but paid very handsomely. In this story, publication comes at a steep price, but one the writer in the story is still willing to pay.

Gim of P by Benjamin DeHaan in Apex

Nothing ever happens in our world surrounded by P. P is what we call the material that makes up our world, and it’s what we call our world. PP, PET, PE, PS. So many Ps. We don’t know what it is or what it means. It’s a material between the living and dying. You can’t eat it, but it can be used for clothing, eating utensils, ropes, and among other things.

An ingenious science fiction story set in a cramped, dystopian world full of algae. I love the intricate details of everyday life in this strange world, and the way you feel that parts of this tiny universe are definitely familiar... 

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Shalom Aleichem by Y.M. Resnik in Diabolical Plots

Every Friday night the angels came, and every Friday night they freaked me the fuck out. Which is probably why I didn’t get a million-eyed, one-footed guardian of my own like the rest of my family. This was totally fine with me. I was in no way jealous that my siblings had angels to accompany them to college while I was stuck sitting alone in an empty dorm room. Who needed a creep-tastic companion whose face consisted of a bizarro series of interlocking cogs and wheels forever whirring?

Resnik's story made me smile. It's a story about being an awkward adolescent AND being able to see, or maybe hear, the angels that are everywhere in the world, though not everyone is aware of their presence. Resnik turns this into a meet-cute where two people get to know each other because of, and in spite of, the presence of their extremely impressive angels.

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Student Living by Ashley Deng in Nightmare

2. Basement n.

base·ment | \ ˈbās-mənt

1. A room underground, with the weight of a building or more bearing down upon its precarious ceiling.

2. The place where the shadows are overly familiar.

3. Home, though. Despite the things that lurk in the dark.

A horror story told in footnotes? Can you do that? After reading Deng's story, the answer is a resounding "hell yes". It's an impressive feat of subtle storytelling, and the author has this to say in the story notes at Nightmare:

“Student Living” is something of a love letter to the makeshift nature of living on a budget as a student. It’s bleary-eyed mornings and caffeine fueled nights with our faces slammed against readings and lecture notes. I wanted to write something that encompassed my love of that experience while also reflecting all the ways it felt, y’know, just a little off."

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The Greenhorn by Taylor Rae in Apparition Lit

In a village of dragon-slayers, you must be tough to survive. Our lives are carved into the rocky hide of the Boneback Mountains, where the clay earth refuses to be tamed into farmland. There’s only one path to greatness in a place like this: killing dragons.

The dragons feed on us, and we feed on them. Their hollow-boned wings become our beads; their teeth become knives; their scales become armor. As my father would say, the only good dragon is a dead dragon—and they taste best when the meat is young and soft.

This is a terrific slice of life fantasy set in a society that fears and kills dragons (kind of a "How To Train Your Dragon" vibe), and where one girl goes against everyone's accepted wisdom about the beasts. I love the way Rae depicts the dragons, but I also love the way the relationships, both good and bad, between the young people in the story are handled, and I especially love the way we get to see a new friendship take shape. And hey, a story about vegetarian dragons is definitely worth a look, am I right?

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A Scarcity of Sharks by Kelsey Yu in Reckoning

Bruce is seventeen feet long and would’ve weighed around two tons when he was murdered by a trophy hunter. Killing rare creatures for sport is supposed to be a relic of the past now that most of the world’s wild animals are some level of endangered. But for some, the desire to prove something runs deeper than the fear of punishment. Thanks to a bartender’s tip about a local bachelor party bragging about plans to go shark hunting, the Marine Conservation Enforcement Guard made it to the dock in time to confiscate the kill. A year in jail and ten thousand dollars later, Bruce’s murderer has apparently paid his debt to society, but it was too late for this white shark.

Oh wow, this story grabbed me from the first line and never let me go. A group of researchers have used the dead body of one of the world's last white sharks to make an underwater research vessel. But what happens when they take this robo-shark into the depths of the ocean will surpass their wildest dreams (and nightmares). It's wonderful science fiction, and I also really like how this story gives us a great group of scientists with a bit of workplace romance... Reckoning keeps publishing some really outstanding work, and if you're interested in more stories about environmental justice, this is definitely a zine for you.

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Quantum Love by Sylvia Heike in Flash Fiction Online

The nights without Natalie are classically long, and without a fresh challenge to chew on, the computer passes the hours by remembering all the things it loves about her. Her curious human brain and intellect; how passionate she’s about quarks and hadrons; the gentle touch of her anti-static gloves.

A wonderful, charming sci-fi flash about a computer, trying to work out all sorts of complex problems, while also trying to solve the problems of the human it loves. Queenie, the computer, is keeping a close eye on the humans around her, and Heike turns the small and keenly observed details into a crafty love story that is also a love triangle of sorts. 

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Holding Back the Darkness by Stephanie Burgis in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

The wolves are pacing outside my window again. Everard left them there to break my will. In the day they are men, rough and rude, slouching against the tree trunks and picking their teeth, and no power on God’s earth could draw me out amongst them, even to attempt escape. But at night... at night they are shadows and fangs, and even as I count the rosary for courage, the way the nuns taught me, I cannot keep the whimpers from rising up my throat.

I am always a sucker for wolves and girls, and in this werewolf tale with a twist, we meet a young woman trapped in a house by an unwanted suitor. The suitor, Everard, has hounded her for a long time, and now she has been imprisoned and is surrounded by wolf-men. I love how Burgis lays out the sharp and terrible predicament the woman finds herself in, and then twists the weave of the tale at the end.

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Instructions for the Broken Hearted by Jordan Kurella in Lightspeed

You Will Need:

– a Heart in a jar
– a Knife (sharp)
– a Tarp

Prep:

Lay down tarp on clean surface. Place prybar and knife within reach. Place self on tarp.

A gorgeous, dark, and devastatingly sharp story by Kurella that cuts deep into the pain and emptiness that can follow the end of a relationship, especially if that end came didn't just break your heart, but take it from you. I love the visceral, lyrical details, and I love the way Kurella finds hope in the devastation.

Eve’s Prayer by Victor Forna in Lightspeed

I just adore this short science fiction story structured as a space explorer’s prayer to the God that sent them forth in order to find new worlds. Forna’s prose wraps so many layers and so much depth of character- and world-building into less than 700 words. Beautifully done.

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The Five Remembrances, According To Ste-319 by R.L. Meza in Clarkesworld

Metal parts that survived fire and shrapnel are no match for the saltwater rushing through the gaps in my armor, spilling between gears and wires, tainting my battered shell with the inexorable creep of rust. Corrosion is a ruthless god. The waves surge inland to drink the mortal corpses littering the shore. The ocean embraces the empty husks, rolling them out to the depths to fill and be filled. I long to sink with them beyond the reach of light’s prying fingers.

I think I've mentioned before that I am an unabashed fan of stories about aging, and abandoned, robots. In this story, we follow the agonizing, slow demise of a robot used for war, and then abandoned by its own. The robot is trapped, decaying, and then finds a new, unexpected purpose. Meza fits an epic tale of destruction and redemption into this short story, and I just adore every bit of it.

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Sitting Shiva by Zachary Rosenberg in The Deadlands

His sister remains as he last saw her, with straight black hair, dark skin, and sundered skull. Her smile is hollow, her eyes windows to a vacant house. The wound in her head is dark as wine. The edges of her white skirt drip with tendrils of red that vanish like dew against the cream curls of the carpet.

A harrowing tale of death, grief, and life with Avram sitting Shiva for his sister Tamar. The problem is that Tamar is still there, clinging to the world of the living, as Avram clings to his own fear and pain. Avram fears the ghost of his sister, but he fears the outside world that took her from him even more. And while Rosenberg’s story is full of horrors – life, and light, is woven into its ending.

🙐  

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

The artwork for this roundup features a detail of Indicreates's cover art for Luna Station Quarterly 054. More about the artist at https://indicreates.com/.

An audio version of this roundup is available on YouTube:

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Always Be Returning by Eugenia Triantafyllou in Sunday Morning Transport

It’s August when Demeter’s daughter returns. Demeter is in a fishing boat, pulling at the heavy nets with her time-dotted hands alongside the young men and women. The people on the boat don’t see her for who she is. Terrible and divine, motherly and familiar. 

A gorgeously wrought retelling/reimagining of the myths surrounding Demeter and Persephone. The prose is pure beauty, and I particularly like how Triantafyllou’s story centers on the fraught and sometimes destructive relationship between a mother and a daughter. There is love there, profound love, but you can feel the weight of their past in every interaction. Triantafyllou deftly explores the raw edges and complexities of a relationship that has never, and will never, be easy. There is so much depth and power here in a story that finds new nuances and new shades and shadows in an ancient tale. A real tour de force by one of my favourite writers.

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Nubbins by Seán Padraic Birnie in IZ Digital

Ever since he’d been born, Frankie had seemed different.

He had never cried. Hardly moved. Kelly’s sister had not reserved her judgement. She did not bite her lip – never had. Your kid is creepy, Kel, she said. Your kid is weird. The way he just watches you and that.

It’s like he’s waiting, ain’t it?

I love stories about parenthood that let the darkness in and allow you to see the cracks and fissures that can be found in a parent’s relationship with their child. Here, we crawl inside the fear and terror Kelly feels in the presence of her baby boy, Frankie. Frankie is different though it’s hard for Kelly or anyone else to put into words what is so different, strange, and even disturbing about him. Kelly knows it, but she fears what she knows about her child and tries to hide it, to hide Frankie, from others and herself. The real brilliance of this story is in the way it delves into true darkness and horror (especially body horror!), and yet somehow keeps its heart intact. This is not an easy story, its full of terrible thoughts and actions, and frightening changes, and yet it is full of humanity rather monstrosities.

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A Change of Clothes by Derek Des Anges at Podcastle (narrated by Isaac Harwood)

Ivan picked up the bag with the fur coat, a packet of Doritos, a can of Coke, and one of the phones he’d lifted. It still had sixty percent battery.

He went into the master bedroom, the one that Darren technically took for himself, wrapped himself in the fur coat and got into the massive bed under two duvets.

“Smells of fucking fish,” he grumbled to no one, and opened the Doritos.

This is a rather unique and rather hilarious selkie story and I love it from beginning to end. Ivan finds a coat and he steals that coat. After that an odd man turns up outside his house and from there things only get weirder. What I really love about this story is the way it plays out once Ivan transforms. I mean, what are the pros and cons of turning into a seal?

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First in Fear and Then in Pain by Adam R. Shannon in Nightmare

I wouldn’t describe it as waking up. If you’ve been in a car accident, you know the violence. One moment, your life feels the size of your body, muscular years of loves and hurts wrapped around a thousand calcified tasks, a routine that bears you up even on the mornings when nothing makes sense. Then your days break open with the sound of rupturing metal. You splinter like a windshield. It’s an awakening, of sorts, but it’s not like waking up.

This is a haunted house story that turns and twists into something different than a story about horror and ghosts. There is horror, and there are ghosts, and there is a lot (a lot!) of screaming, but Shannon keeps the story going past all that into something else, into what happens after the horror, about how to find a way to live in the presence of pain and trauma. I love the way friendship finds its way into this story, too, and the reflections on what kind of support and help we might need to find a way to survive.

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The Ferryman by Fernanda Coutinho Teixeira in The Deadlands

You are the ferryman. You have no memory of being anything else. Your posture is molded by the whims of the river, your fingers made to curl around the handle of your oar.  You know only a certain number of shapes and colors—dark grey for the ground made of stone, black for the river colored with pale shadows. Always moving, the currents guiding you in the right direction. The river always takes you where you are meant to go.

This is a quiet, beautiful story about the ferryman and about how to be the ferryman, and about what happens when you might want to leave the work, the river, behind. I love this deeply personal version of the ferryman's task, and I also love how the landscape of the afterlife is tied so closely to the ferryman and their task. And then that landscape changes when the ferryman changes. It's a thoughtful and thought-provoking story with a unique take on the realm of death.

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Muna in Barish by Isha Karki in Lightspeed

The truth is that in sunlight Muna becomes too visible, the umber of her skin, the horns curving from her head, stark markers of difference. That first desperate night in Barish, sneaking in and bedding down in a livestock pen, she had desperately thought of ways to hide these markers. Could she cloak her skin and face? Wrap cloth around her horns? That bone-deep shame of entertaining those thoughts—Muna never wants to feel that again.

An absolutely lovely and wonderful fantasy story about Muna, an outsider in the city she has traveled to, who wants to learn the craft of writing, or rather: word-weaving. It's a story about finding and trusting yourself, about creativity and learning a craft, and it's also about friendship. I love how Muna's story isn't tied up neatly into some kind of big dramatic ending, but is more about how to try to find your own way in the world and not let others dim your light. 

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Probably Nothing, by Cameron Fischer in Translunar Travelers Lounge

I’m not going to ignore this, but I’m not going to call my doctor either. Not yet. The last time I made an appointment, it got scheduled weeks out, and the problem had cleared up by the time I arrived. I paid money just to look like a hypochondriac explaining what had been going on. Instead, I’ll keep an eye on it. I’ll even take some photos on my phone—document their progress.

OK, so I love shapeshifting stories, and this is a really funny and ingenious take on the genre. I mean, if you start changing a little bit is it really cause for concern or should you just wait and see what happens? I mean, how bad could it be? I really like how this story also hints at what is happening in the wider world and how understated (and darkly funny) the observations and reflections are. One of the many great stories in the latest issue of Translunar Travelers Lounge.

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The Ghasts by Lavie Tidhar in Uncanny Magazine

Mara remembered being afraid. So afraid you couldn’t move, knowing there was a monster in there with you, and there was nowhere to run, and no one to believe you. The closet door creaked open. Then it stopped.

The ghast was there.

Mara gets rid of ghasts. She goes into the rooms of children, spends the night, and rids them of the monsters lurking in their closets, or under the bed. But the truth is, Mara is haunted by her own monsters, as well as by the bills piling up at her door, by the money she owes, by the life she is leading that isn't working out the way she thought it would. Tidhar's story weaves together childhood fears and the monsters stalking us into adulthood, and there's a visual and sensory originality to this story that I absolutely love.

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Ashes and Buttercream by Malina Douglas in Cast of Wonders (narrated by Yelena Crane)

The domovoi is protecting them. Sofiya knows this, even as her mother’s dismissive remarks prod the fireplace like skewers.

When the flames burn to embers and the ashes in the fireplace thicken, she sees him. A miniature creature with short limbs and stubby toes, a round face and snub-nose, a burnt texture to his skin. He smells like crème brûlée just after the surface has been singed.

Magic, fairytale creatures, and the ragged reality of war and loss come together in this beautiful and heart-piercing story that starts in Lviv, Ukraine and ends up in Poland. I really love how Douglas blends reality and magic, fiction and present day reality here. There's a gentle touch to every facet of this story that makes it resonate and hit home.  The story notes at Cast of Wonders say, in part:

The author of this story is not Ukrainian herself, but has friends in the Ukraine and Lviv. She tells us that a close friend asked her to write stories about Ukraine, so she began to write stories set there. This story is part of a series of interconnected stories set in Ukraine and following characters from the Ukrainian diaspora.

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City Grown From Seed by Diana Dima in Strange Horizons

Long before you came along, I was myself just a seed in Raffa’s pocket, something she fumbled with as she stepped on the plane, her other hand clutching her mother’s. Small as I was, I sensed her fear. I tried to hum reassuringly. Above the ocean, I helped her fall asleep.

A brilliant, gorgeous story about Raffa, a girl coming to a new country, and about the city that grows from the seed she has brought with her. It's a story about how the city grows, listening to Raffa's stories through the years, and it's also a story about Raffa's life - about love and pain, and about hope. I love how Dima makes the city have a voice and will of its own, and how we see the way Raffa's words and life affect how it grows. It's such a deep, and wonderfully joyful story, even as it contains the darker pieces of Raffa's life.

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Resistant by Koji A. Dae in Clarkesworld

Examination rooms are safe. They stay what they are. The memories they drag to the surface make sense. You assume it’s because you’ve been in so many hospital rooms that your brain is packed with too much realism to have space for the random connections it usually throws at you.

In a future where most people have had their brains altered and augmented by nanobots, it is difficult to make a life when your brain rejected those alterations when you were still a small child. In this story, we follow the twin points of view of a scientist using a new form of bio-tech to help those without nanobots, and that of a woman with a brain that is not working the way most people think it should. Running through the story is the experience of synesthesia, AKA experiencing one of your senses through another. Examples are hearing music but seeing shapes, hearing a word and seeing a colour, reading a name and tasting a flavour or seeing a colour, and so on. I really like the way this story focuses on the personal experience of a phenomenon and predicament, while also hinting at the larger world and the wider implications for the people involved. Lovely, subtle science fiction.

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The Demon Lord of Broken Concrete by Alex Irvine in Bourbon Penn

Do you believe in God? Sometimes Zack and his friends ask each other this question. They all have different answers, and their answers are always changing. Zack believes that there is more than one god, and that different gods rule over different people. Kids like him, all of them worshipped the Demon Lord of Broken Concrete whether they knew it or not. That was the answer Zack never gave, but the truth of it was all around.

Oh wow, this story really grabbed me. It's horror lurking in everyday life. It's a coming-of-age tale, and the history of a place and its people followed in close detail so that you feel that neighbourhood, that time and place, the dread of walking those streets, and of trying to navigate that adolescence. Some short stories have the weight and heft of an entire novel, and you can feel the darkness and glimpses of light of one life through them. Zack's view of the world he lives in, of the demons and deities ruling the streets and people, is visceral and devastating. Sacrifices are made, blood and death are required, and there's such a real and haunting darkness running through every line of this tale.

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The Angel Azrael Battles a Dead God Among the Heretics by Peter Darbyshire in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

The angel Azrael rode the dead horse across the empty lifeless land for what seemed like an eternity, not encountering another living soul until he crossed paths with a mutilated preacher, who erupted from the a great rent in the earth as though Hell itself had spat her out.

This is the latest story in Darbyshire's series of stories about the angel Azrael, wandering through a post-apocalyptic, horror-western landscape ravaged by a devastating war between angels and humans. I love all of these stories, and in the latest one, Azrael's travels take him back to a place he knows only too well: a place of a great battle where he almost lost his soul and life. Turns out, there's another battle waiting for him there, though the enemy is not quite the same as it once was. If you like this story, check out all the other stories about Azrael in Beneath Ceaseless Skies here: https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/authors/peter-darbyshire/ 

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The Comma: With Her, Bear Is Savage by Rachel Rodman in Kaleidotrope

If a bee larva is raised on royal jelly, it will become a queen; if an alligator embryo is incubated at a low temperature, it will become female; if an Acrididae insect matures under crowded conditions, it will become a locust.

Otherwise, each will develop in another way, to become (respectively) a worker bee, a male, and a plain old grasshopper.

This is called developmental plasticity.

A group of scientists are trying to deal with a terrible, and terrifying, new mutation that seems to be occurring among the bears in certain areas. There's a factory involved, and mysterious emissions into the water, but I won't spoil it because this dark and humorous story is all about what's lurking in that river water. I love when writers commit whole-heartedly to a weird and wonderful story idea, and Rodman definitely goes all out here. 

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Misericorde by Mari Ness in Kaleidotrope

He has just started eating when she enters the tavern, bringing all conversation to a halt.

She is, he supposes, beautiful. But that’s not why he–and everyone else–is watching her. Nor is it the rich redness of her mouth against the absolute dead whiteness of her skin, or the shimmering fall of white hair framing her face and dancing in the light, or even her eyes, dark blue and glittering.

Oh, what a beautifully wound twist of a story this is. It starts out as fantasy, then takes a turn into science fiction, then comes back to fantasy, and all the threads are lovely and strong. I love Ness's gorgeous prose, and I love the idea of this tale, of those taken "under the hill".

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The Broken Princess by K.R. Segriff in Luna Station Quarterly

Somewhere between the melting mountaintops and simmering seas was a magical land called Polk County, Iowa. The people there worked tirelessly for almost no money, and what little they could save, they wagered on horses at the Altoona Raceway.

On the outskirts of Altoona sat a pittance of a farm, ironically named “Queen’s Acres.” Its owner was Juno, an ornery woman who had inherited the property “fair and fucking square” from her thankfully departed mother, Sybil.

Wow, this is a terrific tale that had me hooked from start to finish. I mean, what's not to love? Horses, a horse girl, a witch, a family of witches!, a race, and a family that is messed up in ways you might not even imagine. I just love the way Segriff weaves together present day and magic, fantasy and family into a ripping great story.

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Umeboshi by Rebecca Nakaba in khōréō

When I get the first email I think it’s some sort of role-play, a scavenger hunt set up by the conference organizers for participants between presentations. I had only arrived that morning, a day after everyone else, and had spent my time sleeping my way into a jet-lagged cage. Now it’s past midnight and I am wide awake.

At the beach at night, there is a red tide.

This story is both lyrical and visceral as it deals with family, ancestry, history, identity, purpose, relationships, self-knowledge, and so much more. There are intricate layers of emotion and history here, tied into the present and the past, and all of it haunted by the mysterious unknown presence that is sending the narrator chain-emails. And the imagery! There's such a vividly imagined and exquisitely crafted set of scenes here at the beach, in the water, in the dark... What do we carry with us from our ancestors? What shadows and what light? What might hold us back or shape us or help us forward? What happens when you hardly know the names or stories of anyone in your family that came before you? A brilliant, deeply moving read.

 

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

This month's roundup includes some amazing stories stories I read and loved in July. I'm posting it a bit later than usual because I was traveling in July and early August! For more story picks by me, check out my quarterly Short Fiction Treasures column in the July 24 issue of Strange Horizons at http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/short-fiction-treasures-quarterly-fiction-roundup-7/

The art for this roundup includes a detail of Sergio Rebolledo's cover art for Clarkesworld #202. The artwork is titled "Autumn Pond" and you can find out more about the artist at https://www.sergiodesign.ca/illustrations.

An audio  version of this roundup is available on YouTube:

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Blue by Margaret Jordan in Fantasy Magazine

The world ends with a press of bodies huddled together on the beach—

—electric with terror—

—the sky incandescent with smoke. It’s so dark. Black-orange-bloody-bruised. Flashlights throw long beams across the sand. Police lights flicker blue and red, blue and red, blue and red, and the Ferris wheel on the pier glows an obscene neon. No one thought to turn off the calliope. It echoes off the empty boardwalk, cheerfully macabre. The ocean groans.

A gorgeous and harrowing story about August who survives a blazing inferno by sinking, almost (surely) drowning, and who is fundamentally changed in the process. Disaster, and the magic that entered her as she sank into the ocean, haunts her and affects everything she is and does. Fear goes deep, but August also meets a new group of people who have been changed by the world too, and from there Jordan builds a story of fragile, strengthening hope and and a new way of life.

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Dave the Terrible by Brent Baldwin in Flash Fiction Online

Dave the Terrible never wanted the unholy scepter, but you couldn’t refuse your mother’s dying wish. He hefted the gilt scepter from his nightstand each morning and used it to gaze upon the past and the present and sometimes even the future. It had come with a mist-cloaked fortress in the mountains that had a stone fireplace and a cozy library, so things weren’t all bad.

All the stories in this issue of FFO are beautiful and piercing in their own way. This story, by Baldwin, is a gorgeously crafted tale that weaves together grief and fantasy. Dave has inherited the unholy scepter after his mother dies, and the things the scepter shows and says to him do not necessarily make it easier for Dave to find his way back into the world. It's a lovely piece in every way.

When the Forest Comes to You by E. M. Linden in Flash Fiction Online

Keith drops from the monkey bars. He stumbles, because it’s high for a five-year-old, but the ground is that soft bouncy stuff that doesn’t hurt. He runs past the bins into the scrappy copse behind the playground. The big kids come here sometimes. It’s small, bordered by two roads, and even right in the middle he can still see the bus stop through the trees. To him, it’s a forest.

A wrenching and quietly devastating story about childhood and parenthood, and about longing for something you can't have, and then finding it, under circumstances that are not what you first imagined. There's a tenderness to Linden's prose here, even when it turns darker, that broke my heart.

Patrice by Meredith Gordon in Flash Fiction Online

Before her spine lilted and twirled and began to spiral, before gym teachers and office ladies at school shook their heads, before doctor appointments, before she had to stand there naked in cold exam rooms, heat hissing from radiator ribs bolted to the floor, before her father died and her mother remarried a man who wanted his “own” child, Patrice had been happy.

Strangeness permeates the everyday in this story about Patrice, about children, about pregnancy and birth, and parenthood. There's a quiet weight to Gordon's prose that makes the story sink deep inside and stay with you.

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The Indigo Mantis by E. Catherine Tobler in Podcastle (narrated by Christiana Ellis)

“Your usual?”

Indi shook her head, leaning away from his touch. “You said you had a lead,” she said.

She rested a green forearm on the pine bar, studying him. He looked no different than he had at their prior meetings, always a cop and never just a friend. The way he held himself, he was ready for anything; she didn’t think the beetles stood a chance if they leapt for the pine’s trunk. This part of the tree wasn’t Joe’s regular beat; he’d come up from the understory two days before because he wanted to help her, said he had a lead and —

“You said you knew who killed my father.”

A noir-ish murder mystery with a mantis superhero at its heart, this story is so much fun, and also truly intriguing as we follow Indi's adventures among ants, bugs, and the memories of her father and his death. I love the world Tobler creates here, with all its perfectly drawn characters, milieus, and situations. And having a mantis as a secretive crime fighter, haunted by her own dark past and the memories of her mother, is brilliant.

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What Remains, the Echoes of a Flute Song by Alexandra Seidel in Clarkesworld

The city lay ahead in its bone ash sleep, but there was no need to pass through it. There was never a need to move forward. And yet.

The flutist pulled out their flute. It was old and had not always belonged to them. It was cut from palest ivory, the green thin as blades of spring grass. They found a tune.

Greetings, the tune said, greetings to the stone, the archways, the windows, and the lintels before me.

The skeletons of cities ever had such magnificent echoes.

A story by Alexandra Seidel is always a gift, and this one is an exquisitely wrought science fiction tale, set in a future where cities and technology remain, but where the inhabitants are long gone. A flute player walks through this world, carefully picking their way through the ruins and remains of the past, and then they find A Person. Seidel's story is suffused with both light and terrible sadness, and it is achingly beautiful.

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Death Is Better by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe in Lightspeed

Six minutes and a behemoth. That is all that stands between us and freedom.

I glance at Abiola’s face. The helmet she wears prevents me from seeing her expression, but I catch the steely determination in her dark eyes. She’s ready. There’s no backing out now. I resist the urge to look behind us. I don’t want to appear fidgety and unsure in my little sister’s presence. Besides, the real threats are not the guard bots behind us, deactivated for ten minutes by my crudely assembled EMP jammer.

A terrific science fiction story about two siblings, trying to flee those that have bought and imprisoned them. I love sibling stories with a passion, and the bond between sister and brother here gives the story added urgency and depth. Ajeigbe captures a world, and the terror and agony and determination of those trying to escape, with sharp and devastating clarity.

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No One Ever Finds Her by Matthew Keeley in Coffin Bell

The warmth of black fur against her spine and under her fingertips goes. Now, wetness on the back of one upturned hand and the cold of hard tile under the other. Soothing candle glow dissipates and she opens her eyelids to squint at white and shine. She has been spat out, starfished on the disabled cubicle floor.

I love love love this strange and winding story of magic and displacement, about being lost and finding yourself in new places and new bodies. Gorgeous.

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A World Unto Myself by P.A. Cornell in Apex

I’m one of the fortunate ones. Most decommissioned robots wind up recycled or squeezed into storage units with other obsolete models while their fate is decided—sometimes over decades. I don’t know why my owner brought me to the abandoned scrapyard rather than trade me in. Nor why instead of placing me next to the compactor with the other machines, he walked me over to an old, metal bench and told me to sit before leaving me.

A quiet, beautifully crafted science fiction story that has a wistful, thoughtful vibe I love. I love tales of old robots, of how they may find ways to change and exist in a world that is so different than the one they were made for.

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Interstate Mohinis by M.L. Krishnan in Diabolical Plots

In the way of Death runs the Vaitaraṇī river. We are flayed open to its woe. We are always aware of its currents in gurgling lungfuls of unease.

Time spun in recursive loops since I died in a scream of metal and flame and asphalt on the Parthibanur State Highway. There was no cremation. What could they consign to the flame? A scorched knob of my torso? My jawbone, still glued with tissue? A lone filling snugly hidden within a lone tooth?

The mystery of the afterlife, of existing as a monster, or at least something others perceive as monstrous... Krishnan captures it perfectly in this story. I love the voice of this story, the feeling of bewilderment and of being lost and searching for your identity and purpose even after death.

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Exquisite Corpses by A.M. Guay in Three-Lobed Burning Eye

Mariah came late to the woods, wobbling into the weak firelight on her newest legs. Bared by her jean shorts, each long tan thigh was ringed with a fine, crimped seam like an empanada. My parents always wanted me to be a model, she’d told me at orientation, her smile the wrong shade for her skin. They were thrilled. I was only five-two when I died.

Beauty and the expectations of others - how to behave, how to look - feature heavily in this story by Guay. There's a Frankenstein-esque kind of body horror here that is both darkly funny (in a painful way) and harrowing.

A Song For the Centipedes by Neal Auch in Three-Lobed Burning Eye

The crib filled up with centipedes.

They came at night — a great pilgrimage of arthropods. They poured in from faucets, electrical outlets, light fixtures. They squirmed through hairline fractures in the walls, making their way from the dark hidden places of the cottage and coming together, at last, finding one another, at last, in the crib. It was the place where, one after another, the babies had not slept.

I love this dark and twisting story where horror, despair, and anger creep ever deeper into the world of one woman, sitting by a crib. The past is full of death and grief and pain, haunted by sounds and memories from the forest, and we glimpse that past in terrifying flashes of dread. There's an aching, hollow sadness here, and Auch's language gives even the darkest, most horrible moments a deep and beautiful lustre.

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The Spirit of Bois by Karyn Díaz in Fiyah

Carnival again. It was one of Bois Man’s favourite times of year. He would come down from his forest repose to mingle with the revellers, imbibe Guinness, and engage in stick fighting. J’ouvert morning was a time of revelry but also of spirituality, making it the perfect time for his kind to walk among humans. This time of year, the veil grew thinner than a whisper. The revelry, the ecstatic energy, the sensuality, the intoxication, the thumping bass, and the rhythmic drums called the spirits to celebrate in the same way that it called the living denizens of the land, the people dem. 

The latest issue of Fiyah Magazine is Carnival-themed, and Díaz’s story is a terrific romp through a Carnival full of people and spirits. There is such great detail here, in the history and the revelry and the characters of the spirits gathering together with the human beings, and I especially love the way Díaz describes the connections –deep and ancient, new and fiery—between revelers and spirits. There’s such joy here, and the story captures both the mood of festive partying and the deeper layers of meaning and history beneath the feast. It’s a grand story with real depth and real heart.

Petunia by Lerato Mahlangu in Fiyah

Tamani loves his long baths, be it on the coldest day in winter or the hottest in summer. He lies in the tub allowing the bubbles to run over his skin and the water to warm his body, he thinks about how his art supplies need refilling, how far the craft will take him, the house and how lonely it tends to get, and he worries about his mama and his stagnant life. Sometimes he imagines farfetched possibilities of finding a suburban house of his own with an evergreen lawn, an abundance of petunias and a woman with whom to share love. But thinking excessively exhausts him, so he shuts his eyes and listens to the soothing sound of bubbles going pop, pop, pop.

Oh, this is such a gorgeous and powerful story about Tamani, who isn’t exactly like the other people in his town. His mother won’t let him attend the festivities because of past mishaps, and because he’s struggling with how to handle the visions, and the magic, that swirl through his life. And then Tamani sees something, and meets someone, who changes what he thought he knew about himself, and who gives him a task to complete ahead of the year’s carnival. It’s a quest that will transform Tamani and also transform his relationship with his mother and his community. It’s such a brilliant story, and I love the way it describes both Tamani’s outer world, and his inner world.

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