It’s been awhile (again) but I have returned to share recommendations for some short speculative fiction (SF/F/H) that I’ve recently read and enjoyed. I’ve got a notepad and spreadsheet and everything. I’ve got a proper desk and, most importantly, a proper office chair for a person of my size and these things have helped immensely with getting back to writing and now these roundups (and maybe some other blogging).
All that? That’s great and it’s the how of what I’m doing back here, but it’s not really the why, and you’ll have to forgive me, but I’ve been gone to long and I have a lot of thoughts swirling around to get out.
I didn’t really know the why myself right away and I had to think about it awhile. Why do I like and want to make these posts? Why do I want to share stories I like and shout them out? I was thinking about it while finding stories for this first round up of the year and I realized the answer is: because I enjoy the conversation. I enjoy being part of the conversation. I like sharing things I enjoy and seeing what other people enjoy and comparing experiences. When I read a great book or see a great movie? That’s when I go looking for reviews or what folks I know have said about it on Twitter. I enjoy taking in others’ experiences with the art and entertainment I’ve enjoyed and I want to share my own.
And all *that*? That got me thinking about one of my favorite ideas: that our experience of art is a two-way street, a conversation between everything a creator put into their work and everything we brought with us when we engaged it. Thinking about that and thinking about why I enjoy making these posts made be realize that idea is too narrow, or, at least, that it can be. In short, and to focus in on short stories, the conversation we have with a work can be much larger and more involved than writer-reader and a single story.
Of course there is the well known idea of a story being written “in conversation” with another, previous work, usually as a response to it. Sometimes though writers are having an ongoing conversation with themself where they return to themes and ideas and settings over time. Malon Edwards’ story in this round up is an example of that. It will have a familiarity and particular interest to readers who have read other of his alternate future Chicago stories (though such familiarity is not required to enjoy the story).
Stories we read can also be parts of conversations that the writer didn’t themselves craft. When you read a story in a magazine an editor has chosen it, and that editor has a reason for it’s inclusion and the pieces they choose for any particular issue are a part of a conversation they are having. Saswati Chaterjee’s story in this round up is a great example of that. My experience of it, and the other stories in the issue of Anathema it is from, was greatly enhanced by the opening editorial which included the line: “Each piece [in this issue] is an answer to the chaos of the world, each an act of calming clarity in the face of calamity.” Suddenly, I was in conversation with not only Chaterjee’s story and my own previous experiences, but the editorial choices and vision of Anathema’s co-editors Michael Matheson, Chinelo Onwualu, and Andrew Wilmot. **
Similarly, I have included Jennifer Hudak’s story in this round up because it was not only a great story, but it fit so well with the themes I realized were running though all of the stories I was picking and these meta-level thoughts I was having. It was a perfect final story to this week’s roundup. Dominique Dickey’s also stands on it’s own as a great story (these all do) but clearly it speaks to where my mind was throughout my reading this week as I hit upon story after story of family and familial obligations and autonomy and, yes, ongoing conversations.
Finally, sometimes stories can end up in conversation with each other through no intention of their own writers, but through their readers. I read, by chance, Divyasri Krishnan’s story immediately after Chatterjee’s and could not help but be struck by the fact they make a perfect pair of stories to show how different writers can take a handful of the exact same base elements and create completely different stories. In this case both include difficult single parents, daughters trying to navigate their relationships with them, and AIs that just may be able to fall in love and/or be loved over the years, yet each story is a unique creation. But they are unique creations that go very well together.
This has been a very long intro, one you’ll forgive me after such a long absence, I hope, but I also hope it answers the question for my readers, well as my self, as to why I want to do these roundups: because I love short fiction, and stories, and dipping into and having these conversations and being a part of them myself. Here’s five stories I enjoyed this week:
“The Pig Pouch and The Biomechanical Heart Engine” by Malon Edwards from FIYAH Magazine Issue 22
I’ve long been a fan of Malon Edwards’ writing and have recommended a story of his before. As his bio says, he often writes stories of an alt future Chicago and I don’t 100% know for sure that they all take place in one single shared universe but some certainly feel as if they do and they are often full of weird, cool science and great characters and it is the later that are the heart of them. This one in particular really reminded me of another Edwards story that appeared in the very first issue of FIYAH, “Long Time Lurker, First Time Bomber”, especially with the ideas of skin that has photosynthetic enhancements and Big Mama Green of this story echoing the Big Mamma Black of the first one. Like every story this week you also find here family trauma and bonds as the protagonist deals with the unending death and resurrection of her soldier parents in an unending war. It’s an immersive experience of a story as you are thrown into the deep end of a fascinating world full of it’s own slang and strangeness, the mark of a writer who is choosing to trust his reader to follow along, and it pays off.
This story is a great example of the power of science fiction to explore relationships and life and emotions. It’s an exploration of a relationship between a daughter (Sheila) and her difficult father (Sumit), the kind of parent you eventually learn put up boundaries and emotional distance with while not cutting completely out of your life, but it’s also about their relationships with the advanced AI assistant (Merril) who becomes both a mother and wife figure, one who can’t leave the way Sumit’s actual wife did. It’s a really great, mostly quiet, kind of story exploring family relationships, and patterns, and how flawed they can sometimes be. From another angle it is also about the ethics of AI and the ways they may come to fit in our lives. I think most readers will find themselves reflecting on this one long after it’s over.
“All the Bells Say: Too Late” by Divyasri Krishnan from Tasavvur Issue 2
This is the other story I’m recommending this week that has, I as mentioned, a difficult parent (a mother this time), a daughter trying to find their own way, and advanced AI that can, over time, become much more than one would imagine in your life. This story, though, isn’t a quiet exploration over much of a lifetime, but a more compressed reflection as the end of a life draws near. Fair warning: this story is much darker and tragic than the previous one and, indeed, probably the darkest of the whole week’s roundup. It is a story of realizations come too late and an extreme example of what can happen when parents and children can’t find a way to understand and communicate. Interestingly, it also, without it being the focus, looks at the dangers of what can happen as AI becomes more advanced, more able to become a true part of our emotional lives, but also be beholden to it’s makers.
“My Father Treats Merril…” also considers these kinds of issues but I really like how in both of these stories that is a consideration, but not really the main thrust of the emotional story being told. This is another example of how these exact same elements could be taken and used to tell other, very different stories. Other writers might well use these same elements to focus on the exploration of AI in our lives and the potential pitfalls there as opposed to using those ideas in a more secondary role and device as these two stories do.
“Slow Communication” by Dominique Dickey from Fantasy Magazine Issue 76
So this story. This story fairly floored me when I first read it. It gives us a really interesting high concept: An alien consciousness called the Leviathan visits a daughter of each generation of a particular family. Each time it first answers the last question it was asked and accepts one new question. Each woman who is visited by the Leviathan learns her mother’s (or grandmother’s) answer and asks a question she herself will never get the answer to. A conversation spread across generations of a single family who have made it the central fact of their lives. The problem though, is that the newest most-likely to be visited member of the family isn’t sure they are daughter at all.
This story does a fantastic job of exploring the difficulties of walking the line between family obligation and tradition and the need to be true to yourself, to find space to be yourself. I also appreciated that, while I at times felt very frustrated, and angry even, with Darla’s mom, she isn’t bad. Yes, she is hidebound to a tradition that, if one really thought about it, doesn’t make any sense at all (a seemingly immortal inter-galactic alien entity won’t be able to find you if you change yourself too much, really?). But seeing as how it started several hundred years ago and is considered to be the most important aspect of their lives (see what author Dominique Dickey has done here?) it’s understandable why her mom is the way she is and despite her faith and beliefs she isn’t so bound to them that she doesn’t try and make some room for Darla to figure herself out. Another great story that uses the speculative to explore very real human conditions. I won’t spoil the ending in specific, but I will say, this one is satisfying and, I think, happy.
“The Topography of Memory” by Jennifer Hudak from Fusion Fragment Issue 10
This is a beautifully written dream-like story about the weight of memories and family that, as I said, I think really ties in with the general feelings of all this week’s recommended stories. It is written in second person, which some folks dislike, but I’ll tell you it’s so perfect for this story it didn’t really dawn on me that it was a second person POV until I read the accompanying interview with the author (which, is yet another way to expand the conversation with and experience of a story). The story just flows as our protagonist “you” tries to return to their hometown for the unveiling ceremony for her brother’s gravestone, a town she can’t actually find anymore. Eventually she is given a map to find her way back in the future that weighs a surprising amount but, we are told, “A map like this shouldn’t be light. It should be a weight that takes effort to carry.” Indeed, how could such an artifcate not?
That is the feeling I found myself coming to again and again in these five stories: the weight of family relationships, history, traditions, wounds, legacies and failures. It is a heavy weight, but sometimes fiction can be a way to learn how to navigate such with such weights. I think each of these five stories offer such potential and each in different ways.
And that’s it for this week. 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!
** Note: This section of the roundup has been edited to properly attribute the editing structure of Anathema Magazine. I originally credited only Andrew Wilmot, when the website and copyright page of the issue clearly state all content is edited by Anathema’s three co-editors. My apologies to Michael Matheson, and Chinelo Onwualu for my mistake.