Short fiction recs! Oct-Nov 2023

Some stories that I read and loved, from October through November.   

Fantasy

“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.

 

A short but achingly sharp and lovely piece about finding what’s been lost. The Fae stole the narrator’s wife, but the narrator has been losing Jess for a long time, before the Fae ever appeared. What follows is a confrontation with the narrator’s own responsibility for that loss, for the distance that’s grown between them. And, at the end, a glimmer of hope—the decision to choose to love. Beautifully told.  

 

“Six Versions of my Brother Found Under the Bridge,” by Eugenia Triantafyllou in Uncanny Magazine

Technically it was built on top of a river that had been dredged and filled in some fifty years ago which made the ground under the bridge degraded and pretty dangerous. But rumor had it—and by rumor Olga meant Maria’s oldest cousin who had been making up stories about this place since third grade—that the bridge was built upon one of the gateways to Hell. If you walked on the bridge at the right time, when everything was still and quiet, and if you teetered a bit too close to the edge, the Devil’s own hand would stretch from the bottoms of Hell and drag you under the bridge, and that would be the last anybody saw of you.

 

But nobody said what would happen if you cut out the middleman and just went straight under the bridge.

 

Olga has inadvertently—or so she thinks--made a deal with the Devil. Because every time she returns to the spot under the Devil’s bridge, she finds her brother—the same brother who she lost five years ago. And there he is, in his yellow pajamas and holding his favorite Lego toy, forever six years-old. But each time, he’s also subtly different. Writer Eugenia Triantafyllou is absolutely on fire this year, and this particular story may be her best. It’s a deeply moving, surprising, richly observed (and in places snarkily funny) story about family, grief, love, and deals struck with the devil. In the end. various pieces come together (in more than on sense) for a richly satisfying conclusion.

  

“The Four Gifts of Empress Lessa” by Myna Chang at Beneath Ceaseless Skies

/ 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.

 

Gorgeously told, this is a fierce and intense tale of a murdered Empress, revenge, and a mother’s love.

“Salt Girl” by Angela Liu at Uncharted Magazine

The sand garden glowed eeriest during the hour right after sundown, like the earth itself was churning out its last breath.

 

For as long as Rika could remember, her father dragged a wooden rake across the reddish sand every morning as the sun rose and again in that uncanny twilight before he prepared dinner. 

 

“Why do you do it?” she asked once as she watched him peel potatoes for a thick chicken stew, his rake resting against the front door like a loyal guard. Outside, the moon slipped behind a gauze of clouds, casting shadows over the patterns in the sand.

 

“Because if I don’t, you will turn to salt,” her father said, scraping the potato skins into the garbage bin.

 

A strange, enigmatic story, with the rhythms of a fairy tale and images that linger.

 

“The Ng Yut Queen” by Eliza Chan in Worlds of Possibility

Ada fell off the bed with a yell, grabbing one of her flip-flops as defence against the intruder. The goddess had perfectly styled black hair in intricate loops and a red dot on her forehead. But it was the ethereal glow from her skin and the fact her white robes floated like they were being held by tiny invisible birds, that really gave the game away.

 

The absolutely delightful tale of a young woman whose wishes finally start to be granted by the goddess Guanyin. . . decades after she first prayed for them. Once upon a time Ada wished to have blonde curls and to be crowned the May Queen of her town. But now she’s grown-up—no longer a child—and her wishes are all out-of-date. As she deals with the chaos of belatedly-granted wishes (manifesting in cherry petals in her toilet bowl and more) as well as hosting and entertaining a curious goddess, Ada has to decide: what does she want in her adult life, now?

 

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

When the sky opens, phosphorescence bounces off the muddy water of a disturbed pothole nearby, and a bush grows. The girl’s eyes blur; she is evaporating. She has been evaporating since Saturday morning, when she saw her Daddy for the first time in almost three years, on the front page of the Nation Newspaper, standing under the headline “Doctors Strike Again!”

 

A phenomenally strange, surreal story. Two children have been abandoned by their father. In her grief and carelessness, the girl plays a riddle-game with a dangerous Trickster and loses a part of herself. Now she must find her way home and save her brother. I love the way this story glides between reality and fantasy, between talking animals and a magical forest and a little girl’s very real grief. A darkly wonderful story, beautifully done.

 

From the Caribbean Special Issue of Strange Horizons Magazine

On October 30 of this year, Strange Horizons released a special Caribbean-themed issue, featuring Caribbean speculative fiction, poetry, and articles, all written by authors who either reside in the Caribbean or are part of the Caribbean diaspora. The entire issue is worth reading—of the poetry, I particularly recommend Brandon O’Brien’s powerful “The Creature from the Black Lagoon is Your Father.” Of the stories, I spotlight the two below, but again recommend reading the entire beautiful, powerful issue. 

 

“On Fallow Fields Where Flames Once Bloomed,” by N.A. Blair

When you fall for the second time, you expect to die.

 

As you close your eyes and hang suspended between living and unliving, you imagine the crack and pop of your skull scattering crimson regret across the checkered kitchen tiles. You’ll never see your children fly back from foreign, you think. Never gyaff with the Mothers’ Guild ladies on Sunday afternoons over cups of Ovaltine and coconut buns. Never steal awed glances at Sister Lavern throwing her head back in she big dutty laugh as the sunset gilds her silver afro.

 

An absolutely gorgeous flash story of love and longing and repression, of skins that talk and desire, of the irrepressible Sister Lavern and the woman who loves her.

“Brincando Charcos (Jumping Puddles)” by Ben Francisco

I tell Mateo to meet me at a wine bar. It’s a quiet, low-key spot—ideal for first dates, because it’s easy to make a speedy exit in case the red flags start flying—or worse, if the men in blue come knocking.

 

It’s been over an hour, and we’re on our second glass of wine when I realize there are no red flags. He’s not just monologuing, he’s asking me questions too. This is actually a good first date—and when was the last time that ever happened for me? But I can’t help but worry that the puddles from this afternoon’s shower may have dried up. Any time there’s a pause in the conversation, my head swivels to the exit to check for the men in blue.

 

Another story of queer love and longing. Javier has met what seems the perfect man. Mateo can even jump through rain puddles like Javier, using them as portals to appear in distant cities. Mateo knows about the blue men, too. But despite their compatibilities and joy, Javier finds himself always watching over his shoulder for the men in blue, always afraid, never able to wholly relax. A story about how some of the worst monsters are the ones that live only in your head. A story about having the courage to accept happiness and love, despite risk. A lovely story, brimming with both joy and tenderness.

 

Science Fiction and Horror

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

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

Because i am an METI, i presume my purpose is to communicate with extraterrestrials, should i find them. However, either because i was made in haste or because my makers were themselves undecided, i am not sure what it is i am to communicate. i could simply play my memory for the extraterrestrials, but they will almost certainly not understand it. For this reason, i also wish to prepare them a greeting, a proper message from humanity. But there are discrepancies at the heart of the memory i carry, and until i can resolve them, i cannot formulate my message.

 

An artificial intelligence beams through space, trying to understand the human memory it bears. That attempt encompasses a look at Patsy Cline’s music, rock climbing, family history, and seemingly endless cycles of human violence, genocide, and diaspora. And love. A beautiful, ambitious piece, beautifully woven together. The last line chocked me up.

 

“Window Boy” by Thomas Ha at Clarkesworld

The window boy crawled through the garden and up the steps. He gave Jakey a wary look before touching the hatch.

 

“You can grab anything in the outer chamber. Won’t hurt you if you don’t press the far side and try to bust through to where the incoming packages and stuff get pulled in,” Jakey reassured him.

 

So the window boy unlatched the outer seal, and Jakey barely saw the first half of the sandwich leave the chamber with how fast the window boy snapped it up, shivering while he ate. They’d never talked much about what went on outside, but the boy’s bony wrists and hollow cheeks told Jakey enough.

 

Science fiction blends with horror in this disquieting story where nothing is what it seems. For weeks, Jakey has been breaking the rules: he’s been talking to the “window boy,” a boy from the world outside Jakey’s house, a boy who appears at Jakey’s window. Jakey is safe in his protected house, but the window boy isn’t. The outside world is filled with dangers, dangers that are filtered out of Jakey’s vision. And the window boy just might be one of those dangers. . . The slow build-up of tension in this story, the slow reveal of Jakey’s reality, is remarkable. A thought-provoking tale about a world that resembles our own in discomfiting ways.

 

“Thirteen Ways of Not Looking at a Blackbird” by Gordon B. White in Pseudopod (originally 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 severed hand floats in the air. Drops of blood fall to the floor, splattering out on both sides of the border between the linoleum and carpet.

 

No one says, “I’ve sinned again,” as my mother cries.

 

Another story about filtering out reality, of choosing not to see, in this horrific, extremely disquieting tale. Horror lives behind a hidden door in a little boy’s house; horror is at the base of his family life—a horror that he is not allowed to see, nor to talk about. And in the end, the act of not seeing is so ingrained into him that he literally can’t see. He can’t see himself when he looks in a mirror. He can’t know what he, or his family, or anything truly is. A truly horrific tale, revolving around a black hole of what can’t be said or seen.

 

“The Air Will Catch Us” by Rajiv Mote in Reckoning

My granddaughter Nisha bounces on the tips of her toes, with flutter kicks in between, a hummingbird barely touching the sidewalk. I adjust the rebreather plugged into my nostrils and push myself forward. Keeping up with her has gotten harder, not just because of my age. Walking is different now. The air resists my habitual gait. Little hops lift me into the thickened atmosphere that slows my return to Earth. It’s undignified, but it’s past time I got used to this. I’m not that old. I bob along after her.

 

From horror we turn to a science fiction tale that finds hope and resilience amid change. The world has changed completely from the one that the protagonist once knew. Like many, the protagonist has difficulty accepting many of these changes, and of entrusting a precious grandchild to the world’s new miracles. Of believing that a precious granddaughter can be safe doing what was once impossible. While portraying new fictional wonders, this story is its own tiny wonder—tender, hopeful, and, in the end, quietly joyous.