Fiction

And we are back

Miscreants and gentlebeings here we go againI may not have blogged anything in the month of November itself but I can still do my fiction nuggets

With these roundups I have decided not to stick to a strict number of 10 stories a month 10 in fact is going to be my upper limit Going forward I will be featuring fewer stories per month but the ones I really really liked

A running theme of family in this months picks of parenthood and obligation and loss My sister got married over the weekend and my brain is still a barren wasteland of scorched earth from the proceedings so this roundup shall be written as starkly and shortly as possible

A Whisper In The Weld by Alix E Harrow Shimmer Three paragraphs into Shimmers latest cover story I thought This one is going into my fiction picks of the month I cried actual tears reading it no lie Set during the Second World War this is all at once a ghost story a tale about motherhood and a critique of the image of Rosie the Riveter as a middle class white woman The prose glows on the page and then sticks to you like furnace dust One of the best stories I have read this year

The Stagmans Song by Ginger Weil Apex Dip your canteen deep into this heavy atmospheric piece and drink up Taste cold and forestdamp and raw dirt Susans family is bound to the mountain hunting stagmen for the alchemists from the city often with fatal consequences A slowwalking parable of how poverty traps people in their circumstances An incredible debut work from the author

She Commands Me And I Obey by Ann Leckie Strange Horizons This story revolves around a game of sportsball I generally have no appreciation for sportsball of any sort whatsoever unless it involves pointlessly being a secret Scouser and pointing and laughing at Mancs online Even so not really But the rich tapestry of this world the religion and the intrigue kept me glued to the story It reminded me of why I used to love space opera yarns as a child What is not to love about a world in which the fate of political succession is left to a fighttothedeath game of sportsball with religious undertones Seriously just read it

Presence by Ken Liu Uncanny This quiet little piece stood out to me and remained in the tide of Uncannys strong debut issue The speculative element in this piece is pretty slight balanced as it is on the premise of telepresence robots which I consider to be science fact not fiction The hook of the story is emotional it is the a story of a man a Chinese migrant to America coping with his mothers terminal illness on the other side of the world The small poignant observations are what makes the story

You think about how strange it is to describe what happened as losing someone when the real loss happened years ago so gradually that you were not even aware when it happened You cannot remember the moment you decided you would not go back You cannot remember the moment you accepted that she would not come to join you You cannot remember when you became American You think about how a thousand small decisions add up to irrevocable changes how not deciding is the same as deciding

Stone And Bone From Earth And Sky by AC Wise Giganotosaurus A coyote A woman half born of the mud A tale of sex and revenge and deceit set in a carnival unfolding in retold narratives named after the major arcana of the tarot It may be a longer read but it is riveting all the way to the end There is so much to love here so much to unpack This is a story I could read over and over again

Touch by Debbie Urbanski Interfictions Bearing shades of Atwood and Orwell the story charts the story of an asexual protagonist in a world where sexuality is compulsory The story is compellingly told in the way tumbling down a hill is a compelling experience

People have asked me When did you know They figure there was a particular moment when the sky darkened or all the pines in front of me fell down and I realized that I was different But it is not like that It is more a series of moments like picking up the broken pieces of something and you do not know what it is that you have broken so you never bother to put the pieces together until it is towards the end until it is obvious to a lot of people including yourself

Stalemate by Rose Lemberg Lackingtons A tightly choreographed gem of a story that unfolds before you like a puzzle box with its imaginedspaceworld setting and its forgetful protagonist and their longing for what they have lost Also chess It is like Monument Valley in story form except less quiet and you guys know how much I love Monument Valley No I am never going to shut up about this game deal with it I am not going to spoil it for you because you should read it It is beautiful

My favourite footyrelated activity is actually watching fans of rival clubs fling mud at each other in the comments section of Grauniad stories I do not even watch the bloody matches who has the time they are ninety minutes and change each Says she who will happily sit down and watch 22 cars go around the same track fifty times over the course of three hours