Short fiction recs! November--December 2022

Stories published near the end of the year sometimes miss out on deserved recognition, which is a shame. Here’s a sample of just some wonderful things I read toward the end of last year. 

“Rabbit Test” by Samantha Mills in Uncanny

It’s a glitch they’ve used before. An errant bit of update code that will block their apps for a day or two. Sal uses them to disable her blood alcohol test whenever her parents are out of town. They download patches every time, but she’s a whiz at writing new ones, and that’s all that Grace needs, just a day or two to corrupt the rabbit test.

 

A sweeping, epic story of the history of abortion rights in America and beyond. A story that moves back and forth in time, between a chilling surveillance state of the future (The Handmaid’s Tale with updated tech) to the development of the first urine-based pregnancy tests; a woman abandoned at the altar in 1817 America; the legendary “Jane” underground abortion group in pre-Roe-v-Wade Chicago, and a German abbess in 1150. A story that is often heartbreaking. A story with one of the best ending lines I’ve seen recently. A story that reminds us that the fight for reproductive freedom, for abortion rights, for control over our own childbearing capacities and bodies, is ever timely, ever relevant—now as much as ever.

“It is 2022 and it isn’t over.

It is 2022 and it is never over.”

 

“Sister, Selkie, Siren, Shark” by Ariel Marken Jack in Strange Horizons

We know your tricks,” they admonished. “You’ll not sing this crew into a stupor. You won’t escape that way.” It astonished us to understand that, in some way, the sailors feared us. No one had ever told us our voices had power.

 

The island is all Choriaster and her sisters have ever known. A barren rock in the sea. Once a year a ship comes, and the men of that ship bring the selkies clothes and crates of food—food they need to survive. In return, the men take daughters of the island away, and leave behind pregnant selkie-women without selkie-skins. This is a gorgeously sad story about a system of oppression, and the traditions and ignorance that keep Choriaster and her sisters trapped within it. There is deep sorrow here, regret for what has been lost. But in the end, there is also the hope for change. An affecting story with the rhythms of a fairy tale—evocative, aching, lyrical, and angry.

 

“Little Gardens Everywhere” by Avra Margariti in GigaNotoSaurus

How does one find two creatures such as Jerry and I?

First you have a child stolen, then a different child left behind. One baby replaced by another.

 

Eno and Jerry were never supposed to meet. Eno was the stolen human child, Jerry the fairy replacement. They were supposed to grow up in the worlds decided for them. But those worlds could not accept them as they were, and both Eno and Jerry suffered for it. Now they have a chance to help a similarly hurt child—a feral child raiding a pumpkin patch, a child who may be wild stolen fairy or stolen human. This is a beautiful story about trauma and healing, a gentle and generous tale. This is a story about abusive parents and people, but also a story about people striving to care for and heal one another, about kindness in the world. As Eno says toward the end: “We didn’t know kindness until then. But it exists. In little pockets of the world. Little gardens everywhere.”

 

“Babang Luksa” by Nicasio Reed in Reckoning

Salt had crept in while he was away, and now the freshwater wetlands of Gino’s childhood are a marsh, brackish and fickle. There is the soccer field where he’d stained his knees; it had been a low, dry rise of earth bracketed by mud and cordgrass, and today is impassable, a thicket of cattails in algae-skinned water, a humming choir of insects.

 

Gino hasn’t been home in years. During that time, nieces have grown, relatives have aged, and his old Philadelphia neighborhood has drowned under the ravages of climate change. And his father has passed away. Gino has come back for his father’s babang luksa, a Filipino tradition to mark the one-year anniversary of the death of a loved one. This is a slow, quiet tale of a family gathering, a beautifully written story of loss, grief, separation, and distance. And also of reunion, constancy in the face of change, and love .

 

“Don’t Make Me Come Down There” by Rajiv Mote at Translunar Travelers Lounge

For the god Brahma the Creator, the act of Creation was never a one-and-done affair. He understood that when releasing an unpredictable element like humanity in a newly designed world, it would take some cycles to work out the kinks. That was why Brahma believed in an iterative process: four Yugas to chart the inception, progress, decline, and collapse of the world under humanity, an honest post-mortem, followed by a new version of Creation, with an updated design informed by hard data.

 

The problem was Vishnu

 

A funny and wonderfully playful spin on old mythologies. A story in which Vishnu, driven by compassion, keeps descending to the human world to apply hotfixes to the system instead of standing back and dispassionately recording the data. A story about compassion and imperfection, about the messiness of creation (and humanity), but also about the joy and meaning in the imperfect process of trying to achieve perfection. A charming delight.

 

“They’re so Beautiful When They’re Sleeping” by L. Mari Harris at Flash Frog

He bumps the cruise control up to seventy-five. “You got it in you to drive all night? I do.” Both of his hands are back on the steering wheel. “I feel so alive. I want to keep going.”

 

A tiny flash piece with a chilling twist. A story about how adults sometimes just want to drive fast and escape—even adults with deep responsibilities. To say much more about this piece would be to spoil it, but I’ll add that there’s something of an ominous modern fairy tale vibe to this piece, which I love.

 

“Wok Hei St” by Guan Un in Strange Horizons

It’s like every wok has its own signature. It remembers the meal that it has made. Passes on some of that flavour to everything else that it makes, like a story. Over time, more and more flavour. More and more stories. And now she has used it for forty-three years. It is one of a kind.

 

Compass is a small-time magician, doing card tricks for tourists. He only has a few spells up his sleeves. When Aunty Ping asks him to help her find her stolen wok, he knows that he may run afoul of some dangerous characters, and his first instinct is to refuse. But then he remembers all the wonderful meals that she’s made him with her wok. What follow is a wonderful, fast-paced and clever caper story, as Compass must use all his wits and magic to get back Aunty’s wok from those who would do anything to win the Golden Wok Competition reality food show.

 

“Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold” by S.B. Divya in Uncanny

Once a day, my mother would pour water over my bare hands, then bandage each one down to the wrists, first with cloth of gold, then plain muslin. She had a technique for winding them in a way that left each finger separate but fully covered, and at no point would her skin come into contact with mine. When I was old enough, she taught me how to wrap them myself. By then, I also understood the danger that she had put herself in.

 

A baby boy is born in medieval India, and his parents ask the goddess Lakshmi to bless him with prosperity. But they soon realize that the goddess’ blessing is also a curse, for his ability to turn things to gold with his touch puts him in terrible danger from people who would exploit him. When tragedy befalls, the boy finds himself stranded far from home in Bavaria, where his life intersects in surprising ways with two sisters. This is a fresh, moving, lovely, and ultimately satisfying take on an old Brothers Grimm fairytale.

 

 

 

“Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness” by S.L. Huang in Clarkesworld

The day Harrison died, the stalker had sent over a dozen messages, including ones telling him he deserved his fate, that people would cartwheel on his grave, and, most saliently, a description of how he should kill himself because all that was in store for him was watching his creditors perform sexual acts with his belongings.

 

“Sylvie” has sent millions of harassing messages over the years. Messages to wealthy, successful men with dark secrets. Messages that succeeded in goading many to suicide. Is “Sylvie” a single dedicated vigilante? A network of anonymous hacker vigilantes? Or is Sylvie human at all? A truly thought-provoking piece on automated chatbots, healers, and trolls. And our own culpability in the birth of technology’s demons.

 

“The Difference Between Love and Time” by Catherynne M. Valente in Tor

We first met when I was six. Our fathers arranged a playdate. The space/time continuum looked like a boy my own age, with thick glasses in plastic Army camouflage-printed frames, a cute little baby afro, and a faded T-shirt with the old mascot for the poison control hotline on it. Mr. Yuk, grimacing on the chest of time and space, sticking out his admonishing green Yuk-tongue. POISON HELP! 1-800-222-1222.

 

It smelled like lavender and bread baking in a stone oven.

 

The narrator meets the space/time continuum as a child and loves/will love/has always loved him. The space-time continuum is a six-year old, a high school scene kid, a “manifold topology,” and “a quivering, boiling mass of all physio-psychological states that will/are likely to/have develop/ed across every extinct/extant/unborn species.” The space/time continuum and the narrator frequently have fights. They break up. The space-time continuum leaves. But it also comes back. A dizzying story of love that flits back and forth in time, that encompasses a lifetime. A story of loss as well as love. A high-concept tale, told in Valente’s richly extravagant prose. As someone else online said of this story (an account I can no longer find), I was initially dubious about this story, and then I found myself crying.