In this mountain of mediocre I was completely unprepared for a tearjerker.
From the first lines I saw this as a Tim Burton movie, animated like A Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s a story about family, and using the time you have to be with the ones you love.
And now I’m crying harder and I have to go call my mom for no reason.
Read it for yourself: http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/carnival-nine/
A perfect short story! Not a snapshot, not a preview, not a taste - a full story. I haven’t read one of those since Ursula Vernon’s The Tomato Thief.
Due to programming obligations a robot is forced to help a murderer evade custody. But with a little guidance from a higher power she will turn the tables!
I’m a big fan of comeuppance stories. Great choice for a closer.
Read it for yourself:
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/zen-art-starship-maintenance/
Read The Tomato Thief:
https://apex-magazine.com/the-tomato-thief/
Only MD Headley could rewrite the story of Scheherazade; connecting wishes, bullets, love, and time.
But it was choppy. It either needed one less thread or ten more stitches.
The writing was lovely:
“The wishes in this story are wishes built the way wishes are always built, and the way bullets are built too, to keep going long after they’ve left the safety of silence.”
I hope the river people get their revenge.
Obviously, this was an allegory about climate change and the moral decay of colonialism.
But the beginning was confusing, is this Gaia speaking? Overall, a good story.
Read it for yourself:
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/rivers-run-free/
The best story thus far, if a bit long. Dying soldiers are offered a second chance by becoming “zombie” soldiers.
Their brains are hardwired with separation between conscious and unconscious, creating a fearless army of id - a pack of wolves.
There's an interesting exploration of battlefield morality, the limits of military bioscience, and our relationship with our own minds.
The gestalt villain was a nice touch too. Very creepy if you have never read one. My first was in Daniel O’Malley’s The Rook.
Read it for yourself:
https://www.tor.com/2017/10/11/reprints-zeros-peter-watts/
MD Headley and Theodora Goss have carved out this lovely niche for themselves; taking tired machismo stories and giving them fresh feminist revisions. Call me a fan.
Read it for yourself:
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-orange-tree/
That was a great derivation of the Swan Princess that could have fit neatly in Zoe Gilbert’s Folk. In fact, I thought it was from Folk for the first two pages.
African vampire story! This was a snapshot of the life cycle of a night hag/vampire. She came to America with the slaves and eventually had a child.
Read it for yourself:
https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/loneliness-is-in-your-blood/
Lonely superhero story.
As origins go, I like the idea of Casper-Williams Syndrome. It’s the greed of the city spirit I found off-putting.
A little bit of Murderbot, a teaspoon of Star Wars, and a dash of Firefly have made a surprisingly low key story about a sentient ship and her crew who decide to defy the Empire.
Read it for yourself:
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/brightened-star-ascending-dawn/
Snapshot look at a Roman/Game of Thrones-type dystopian fantasy world where thousands of lives are lost for the emperors love of wine.
The Greatest One-Star Restaurant in the Whole Quadrant by Rachel K. Jones ★★★☆☆
Escaped cyborg find they can’t escape their instincts to serve humans.
Read it for yourself:
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/greatest-one-star-restaurant-whole-quadrant/
Mrs. Lim begins receiving odd afterlife gifts from the daughter she liked least and considered giving away. When she goes to check on that daughter she is horrified the girl has dropped out of engineering school and is living as an artist in poverty.
The daughter tearfully constructs beautiful afterlife gifts for her mother. I think we are meant to believe there is resolution, but it didn’t feel that way.
Read it for yourself:
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/last-cheng-beng-gift/
95% introspection.
Our MC is an unnamed lesbian writer with issues. She is at a writers retreat writing a story about a crazy lesbian in the woods, or attic, or wherever.
The story ends asking you not to be judgy about the gothically weak lesbian with issues going nuts in the woods.
Don’t apologize, just write something better.
A murder awaiting sentencing dreams of different realities with different systems of justice and wonders if he would get a better deal there. Interesting but unenjoyable.
Read it for yourself:
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prell_01_17/
Steeped in Congolese folklore and magic, that I know nothing about, this was a painful story about a man who destroyed his family. Unenjoyable.
Read it for yourself:
http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/will-always-family-triptych/
A transgender person is kidnapped by the Love and Dignity for Everyone corporation. The person must fight to stay who they are.
This was less science fiction than total science nonsense.
Trepanation that drains and reanimated a corpse with your reprogrammed personality and memories?
I’ve seen made-for-TV Space Spider movies that try harder.
Just a snapshot of your basic end of the world desperation. It takes place in Alaska and that is the extent of its specialness.
A heavy-handed story about negative attitudes towards immigration.
The Hermit of Houston by Samuel R. Delany DNF
This was some kind of dystopia(?) about a sex switch future where you don’t talk about sex. Then there was lots of talk about sex.
I read 19/20 stories and the average was 3.184. While there were standouts, overall I was disappointed with the choices.
Awesome.
ReplyDeleteThe blog looks great Lena! Love the images you inserted on here! Keep up the great work! :)
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