Week 4! I honestly wasn’t sure I’d get four weeks of roundups in a row without a stumble, that certainly hasn’t been the case the last couple years! My goal this year has simply been to take it one week at a time, no big hopes or plans. Just make time to read a bit each day and collect some favorites. It’s been working ok so far I’d say. 5 more stories this week including two from magazines that I haven’t featured in the roundup before. Apparition Literary Magazine (or Apparition Lit) is a quarterly magazine that published themed issues. This month’s issue’s theme was justice. Mermaids Monthly is a brand new magazine that funded through a kickstarter late last year (one I was happy to support) and it intends to bring, as the name implies, art, poetry, short stories and more all centered around mermaids (defined as any cool aquatic chimeras you can think of). I’d say with issue one it’s off to a great start!

As is usually the case we have a pretty wide selection of story settings, tone, and styles this week and hopefully you’ll find something (hopefully several somethings) to love.

“Commodities” by Zebib K.A. from Apparition Lit #13

This is an interesting story of a near and in many ways scarily too possible future. One that echoes obviously strongly with the terrors that have been amplified by the previous four years of American reactionary far-right politics. Here we have an America that has dissolved and has border walls to keep people out and in. What is really interesting is that the story takes place in California where many of the oppressed originally fled to. It’s supposed to be the “good” place. Indeed some patrolling officers even say so out loud. All while they look for people who had illegally crossed the border fleeing the bad of the other side of the wall. It’s a detail that resonated particularly with me as a Canadian, we who often paint ourselves as so much better than our southern neighbors, yet who refused to make practical moves to be a safe place for those persecuted by growing official American xenophobia. Our protagonist, Miriam only wants the private quiet life she has eked out for herself. Turning away from those in need is harder than she might like though and rugged individualism on its own is not much of a a solution to oppression.

“From Witch to Queen and God” by L. D. Lewis from Mermaids Monthly #1

What could be better for a story in a new magazine that’s all about mermaids than for it’s main character to be an homage to the best character from the most famous mermaid story there is? This excellent story of revenge and liberation places our complicated protagonist, a sea witch named Ursla, as both hero and villain, savior and manipulator. She sparks and fuels a revolution but has personal goals to achieve a position far greater than ruler. With both epic displays of power and the most important battles ones of wills I couldn’t help but wish I could see *this* story and it’s fantastic visuals brought to life. (Luckily we do get some visual magic to go with the story in Mermaids Monthly #1’s cover. Definitely something to check out as well.)

“Secrets of the Kath” by Fatima Taqvi from Strange Horizons

This is quite a story. A story with masterful, magical puppet shows and the stories and secrets known to the wood and trees the puppets come from. A story with punishment and arrogance and greed. It is beautifully told and it mirrors the puppet show that takes place within it: the beauty becomes unsettling when horrible secrets are brought to light by the tale. This story is so easy to picture and to lose oneself in and there is some satisfaction (in the sense of justice – there is plenty of satisfaction in reading it) to be found in it but I feel I must point out that it has a lot of content warnings included with it and the most awful parts of the story happen to a young girl and it doesn’t need to be graphic to still be very upsetting. It is unsettling. Definitely take heed of that. The story really is (and the stories within the stories (and within them) really are) very well done and it reveals itself slowly, like an unfolding flower. It drops little important bits of information at just the right time, a masterclass in pacing, and when the worst rot in the characters’ lives is shown it knocks everything just off-kilter in a very realistic feeling way. Again, I feel I must say proceed with caution, but if you do I think you’ll find something memorable here.

“The Engineer of The Undersea Railways” by Varsha Dinesh from Pod Castle 661

A steampunk India and a fantastic Railway that travels under the sea on routes such as Bombay to Fujairah and Bombay-Madagascar-Mogadishu is the setting for this story. Persis Makhanwala is the genius engineer who creates the wonders of the railway but is plagued by a public and gossip media that would rather tear her down or hold her up as spectacle and speculate about her private life. In particular are the attacks on her woman-ness and her ‘failure’ to be a mother. Are her incredible creations replacements for children? Refusing to be reduced and defined by others in such ways she beats them into submission with an overwhelming output of the amazing. Your head will spin with images of the world Persis forges. Does she perhaps have private trauma and uncertainty? Does she work through things through work? That, as she says, is her own business.

“Hellhound, House Broken” by Gerri Leen from Abyss & Apex #77

A short short story this quick read was a lot of fun with some delightful humor, a ghost, and a very good boy, even if he would really rather not be. I found this a really nice way to cap off a week that has been personally much less happy than I would have liked. It made me smile and think of kindness and I hope it will do the same for others.

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.