And we’re back! Time again for another round up of stories I’ve read recently and liked so much I just had to share them with you all and shout them out to the best of my ability. There’s no real theme this week other than my genuinely enjoying all of these stories and wanting to encourage others to give them a try too and I’m afraid I find myself without the mental energy to say much more than that in this intro. I’ve been up since 4am as I right this because I had to get my kid to his school for his grade 8 grad trip by 5. So the brain is not at it’s best! There’s plenty more capable thought below though talking about the actual stories. Please, read on, check them out, see if something grabs your attention.
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2021 Short Fiction Round Up 6
A couple days later than I originally planned but the 6th Round Up of Short SFF Fiction of the year is here! Quite a bit of darkness in these stories this week but also a lot of hope. There is also a lot of gorgeous writing and striking imagery and I think there are plenty of little pieces of these stories that will haunt you in the best way. A lot of stories on the longer side than much of what I’ve been featuring here lately, including the longest story of the year for the round up so far: our first novelette of the year!
“A Remembered Kind of Dream” by Rei Rosenquist from GigaNotoSaurus
Take a Mad Max post-apocalypse vibe and mix in your favorite mind-and-or-memory bending story (Inception, Vanilla Sky, or Memento for example) and you’ll have a pretty good comparable for this intriguing novelette. The setting is a really good (and terrifyingly creative) take on a nearish-to-medium future post-apocalypse, one where the world has been largely abandoned to being an ecological horror wasteland and those who remain scrounge and scavenge to get by as best they can. The story starts in a way that feels pretty familiar for such a style – with the go-it-alone nomad finding themselves throwing in with a small group of survivors against their better judgement. As it goes on though, author Rei Rosenquist adds layer after layer of complexity and intrigue (or perhaps I should say they reveal those layers) until we are left with a great blending of genres and something more hopeful than I expected.
(Note: while the story does not have a lot of the nastier things that post-apocalypse stories can go in for, there is a scene of gruesomeness and eventual death that is not malicious, but definitely potentially stomach churning and disturbing all the same.)
Continue reading2021 Short Fiction Round Up 1
Welcome to the first Round Up of short fiction recommendations for 2021. And it’s happening in the first week of 2021 even! Happy New Year. Welcome. I hope it’s a great year for everyone.
Now, a bit of a strange thing happened when I put this round up together. In attempt to be proactive and organized I started diving into some of the magazines I subscribe to that had new issues available for stories to read this week. Start the new year off ahead of the game for once, right? Well I ended up very ahead of the game as none of the stories I read and recommend below are currently available for free. Most magazines release their full issue to subscribers first and then release the content online slowly over the course of the month. That is one of the perks of subscribing. So, four of these five stories will be available for free eventually. But if you want to read them right now you’ll have to buy the relevant issue or subscribe (assuming you don’t already).
I felt a little worried about that when I realized what I’d done, but, on the other hand magazines need support to survive and I don’t feel it’s wrong to point that out sometimes. So, for now each link takes you to the website for each magazine where you can purchase a copy of the issue. As the stories are released online I will update my links to take readers directly to each story.
“Delete Your First Memory For Free” by Kel Coleman from FIYAH Magazine #17
There many different ways a story can surprise you. Some are great, like cleverly subverting and playing with tropes. Some are not great at all, like the “shocking twist” ending that is only a surprise because it was completely unearned.1These can work, especially in flash fiction, but often just feel lazy at best. This story surprised me by simply not going where I thought it would. In a story about a character dealing with anxiety and the technology for deleting memories (such as an embarrassingly bad joke told the first time you met your crush) I expected something in the sci-fi horror realm to develop. In some, perhaps many, writers’ hands I think it would have. Instead we get something sweeter. Something kinder. With more understanding of just how awful and very real it can be to kick yourself months or even years later for that awkward thing you said when you were trying to be anything but. It is also a wonderfully real take on just how things probably would play out if a nascent memory deletion technology were to become available.
Continue reading2020 Short Fiction Round Up 5
Back with a new selection of short stories I’ve read recently and am happy to recommend to others. I think there is a fairly good mix of stories this week, though there are a lot of looking to the future in them, and quite a bit about dealing with childhood and friendships.
“All of Us” by Kathleen Naytia from Speculative City
Here is an interesting, short, alternative history and horror story. In this world the American Civil War did not end in a victory for the North but a stalemate and truce. One where the South’s slaves would be freed…slowly. Very slowly. 100 years later Laura and her family are some of the last slaves to be freed and trying to make their way to The United States of America. There is only one safe reliable transportation for the journey: The Miracle Bus, but Laura and her father have to survive the first part of their trip just to get on the bus and to the relative safety of community.
“To Look Forward” by Osahon Ize-Iyamu from Fantasy Magazine
Here we have a story about friendship and entering the liminal phase of childhood where adults expect you begin not being a child, but a person preparing to become an adult. It is a story about figuring out who you are and how to embrace that. Mariam, Ebuka, and Funke seem to know who they are and who they want to be, whether their parents like it or not. They have confidence in the story of themselves they create and share out on the swings as they look to the future. Our protagonist and narrator isn’t so sure. Not sure of being ready for the future, not sure of who she is, what she wants to do or indeed, if she is even enough to do anything. More comfortable listening to others stories than taking a spotlight to tell her own. Even that story of who she is though, the unsure, unknowing, unready child is perhaps not completely accurate. The story really hits me in the feels and nostalgia. I see so much of my past and even present in the narrator. What a strange thing to be sure of oneself. What a truth that we are often afraid to embrace ourselves even when we know the truth, but won’t admit it. And what a very accurate look at what growing up and trying to deal with the pressures, both internal and external, to know yourself can sometimes feel like.
Continue reading2020 Short Fiction Roundup 2
Welcome again to a Short Fiction Roundup of some stories I’ve enjoyed reading in the last week or so and hope you might too. If you do enjoy any of these stories consider sharing them and giving them a shout out yourself. It’s a great way to support short fiction. We’ve been in a short speculative fiction golden age for awhile now let’s keep it going.
“When Hope is Lost, Touch Remains” by Nin Harris from PodCastle 620
A story I would call lovely, though perhaps that might put me in a strange light to some. Maria moves through her life trying to grapple with a strange discovery she makes about herself: the fact that she can literally draw out men’s souls, a feat usually performed, unnoticed by the men, during sex. She can, thankfully, also return them and this power becomes a central fact of her life as she moves through it trying to figure out who she is and wants to be while unraveling a complicated family heritage. Serious bonus points for this being a story of a middle-aged woman, it feels both rare and nice to have a story acknowledging that figuring out who you are isn’t exclusively the realm of the young.
Continue reading2019 Short Fiction Roundup 1
It’s been awhile, but the short fiction roundup is back! I’ve been mulling over this one for awhile and finally realized I needed to just pull the trigger and put it out there. Only four stories this time, but it’s better to share four good stories with you than none. And to start rebuilding that momentum so 2019 can be a great year of reading and sharing short fiction. So take a look below, and enjoy!
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