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.)
“In That Place She Grows a Garden” by Del Sandeen from Uncanny Magazine #38
One thing I enjoy about Uncanny Magazine is that I’d say it’s currently perhaps the number one home for the kind of quiet and weird speculative fiction that doesn’t feel a need to explain it’s weirdness, often because that is not the point at all. This story is one I’d put in that category. It’s about a Black girl who is forced by her school to cut her hair and the strange thing that happens when she does: her head starts growing flowers. I have to tell you, dress codes and teachers who prioritize their idea of “order” over all other considerations are pretty hot-button issues for me. I get very angry when I consider the sorts of folks who are put in positions of trust and stewardship over children and abuse that power to beat down their spirits. Given that it’s something of an anger-trigger for me I wasn’t sure I was going to like this story as I started in on it. I just didn’t want to read about that awful sort of trauma being inflicted on the main character, Rayven James. Of course, I should have been more trusting in author Del Sandeen. Yes, Rayven is beset by the worst sort of milquetoast racist and obedience-first educators, but her spirit is very much not crushed , though there is bruising, and I quite enjoyed the moments of confidence and self-surety she found. It’s a bittersweet story in the end as we know there is no final victory to be had for Rayven against a system rooted in racism, but there is also hope too that it will also not have it’s victory over her.
“Gray Skies, Red Wings, Blue Lips, Black Hearts” by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor from Apex Magazine #121
Wow this story. That’s just how I have to start the recommendation. Of course your mileage may vary and largely that will have to do with whether or not you enjoy this kind of gorgeous lush stylized prose that is full of striking imagery and emotion. The story takes place in The City, which is filled with the half-dead, and grief eaters and lost souls and loomed over by the Prosperous Above. It has characters like our hero, the fallen Redcap Kestrel, and their ex-lover, the dangerous and powerful Windchime Owl who can never lie. There are passions and tragic pasts and darkness and so many old wounds but also hope and potential in found families and forging your pain into strengths. I loved losing myself in these gorgeous sentences and epic imagery and if that’s at all your thing I’m betting you will too.
“The Yoke of the Aspens” by Kay Chronister from The Dark #69
As is usually the case, this story lives up to the darkness promised by the name on the front of the magazine. Here is a twisted tale of sisters and a lost and broken father. As the story builds and we come to understand the things this father has done in the name of normalcy and/or misplaced grief it skews our understanding of everything that has happened. A horror rooted in abelism (which it does repudiate) this story, like many of this week’s tales I’m recommending, has body horror and weirdness to spare. Kay Chronister turns that weird horror into a kind of beauty and haunting images that will stay with you.
“Rocket Science” by Effie Seiberg from The Drabblecast #439
The final story I’m recommending for this round up is something quite different and very fun. Teeny is the most advanced missile AI ever created. So advanced it can stalk it’s target, hide, gather intel and plan it’s attack. Our narrator was part of the final testing team that put it through various VR simulations to ensure it could do what it was supposed to do. When it turns out the AI is actually capable of doing even better than expected, and starts displaying capabilities it wasn’t even supposed to have things start getting complicated. The story is really well done, taking the form of one side of an interview our narrator is giving ten years after Teeny’s final testing. It’s a great twist on the trope of the AI weapon that starts getting ideas of it’s own on how to interpret it’s mission. I think what I love most about it is that unlike so many versions of this trope Teeny becomes something hopeful. I read this story twice because there are plenty of subtle little bits I didn’t fully grasp the importance of on the first read through until the end and I wanted to go back and enjoy it again with that perspective in mind. Particularly fun to realize is that our narrator is not the hero of this tale, they aren’t even the best human in it. It’s a really neat package, this story, and it’s bringing some pointed commentary with it wrapped in it’s fun.
That’s it for this week and as always if you’d like to see the full list of previous Roundups and the authors included in each you can find that here. I hope to be back in a week with another roundup. If you find something you enjoy reading in my recommendations I hope you’ll shout that story out to people you know.