And we’re back! Time again for another round up of stories I’ve read recently and liked so much I just had to share them with you all and shout them out to the best of my ability. There’s no real theme this week other than my genuinely enjoying all of these stories and wanting to encourage others to give them a try too and I’m afraid I find myself without the mental energy to say much more than that in this intro. I’ve been up since 4am as I right this because I had to get my kid to his school for his grade 8 grad trip by 5. So the brain is not at it’s best! There’s plenty more capable thought below though talking about the actual stories. Please, read on, check them out, see if something grabs your attention.
“Bonsai Starships” by Yoon Ha Lee from Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue 349
Without a doubt one of my favorite authors, Yoon Ha Lee’s books provide some of the most imaginative settings and compelling characters whether they be fantasy or science fantasy/fiction. This short story continues that tradition by giving us a planet dedicated to a shrine of priests and novices who grow and tend the sentient bonsai trees that power every starship in the Empress’ fleet and a novice, Kei, who knows it is not right that her trees will be taken to become machines of and sacrifices to war. A dazzling story of a wondrous universe, politics and an act of rebellion from a master writer. I suspect you’ll find this one fun and it’ll likely leave you wanting more! I know I wouldn’t be opposed to more stories in the universe of bonsai starships.
“It Rises and Falls and Rises Again” by RJ Taylor from Apex Magazine 130
I just love reading a story that knocks my socks off and then find out it’s a debut publication. It’s always fun to see that mental list of authors you can’t wait to read more from grow and, indeed, I can’t wait to read more of RJ Taylor’s fiction after finding myself pondering this one for days. The fact that I am pondering it days later shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as I find that is exactly the kind of story Apex Magazine specializes in: stories to sit with and come back to and reflect on. They have a tendency to linger.
“It Rises and Falls and Rises Again” has lingered with me. It is weird and fascinating and leaves a lot of questions. Here we have a community of villages that live on the sides of a mountain with a summit shrouded in mystery: Why does everyone who feels compelled to go there fall off to their death…multiple times? After seeing the love of her life fall screaming a record 14 or 21 times (depending on if the things that fell screaming with his voice were him as much as the 14 times his own screaming body fell past the town) Lori decides that she too must go to the summit to see, and to understand. Lori does find answers at the top, and it is not quite all as tragic as things first seem, but it does leave a lot of questions. Such as, what is this existence the people in the cliff towns are living? Is this some kind of limbo or purgatory? And, as so many great short stories will often leave you wondering: what happens next? Some folks like to be given all the answers in a story, some enjoy a bit of the unknown with plenty of metaphor and room for interpretation. If you’re in the later group I suspect you to will find yourself pondering this one long after you’ve read it.
“The Heroine Kokofe” by Ife J. Ibitayo from Escape Pod 833
Let’s have some more adventure and another professional publication debut! Here we have a sci-fi story that blends in religion and traditions. Kokofe is a part of a community that originated on earth but now lives on an alien planet. The community has brought it’s traditions with them, adapting their coming of age hunting quests to the new environment and incorporating the AI of their colony ship as one of God’s ori’s. The ceremony though is not only ceremonial. The community’s Agba ceremony involves going on a hunt and the hunted creature represents the demon the young person must slay to slay their own demons within before being accepted as an adult. Much to Kokofe and her father’s horror though, she is chosen to hunt what might be the closest thing to an actual demon on this planet: the akata, a ferocious beast that killed Kokofe’s sister during her own Agba. With only a single companion willing to join her Kokofe must contend with a trying journey across the alien plains to kill what may be unkillable, die trying, or be ostracized from the community forever. A story of community, religion, family, adventure, loss and triumph (at a cost) this is an excellent tale.
Something that easily gets my interest is when artists embrace and explore the potential in the specific formats they are working in. As a longstanding fan and writer of flash fiction I am always interested to see when people get really interesting with a format that is so limited in word count. One thousand words or less, what can you tell me with that? Just how creative and powerful can you get?
In this story author and poet John Guzlowski goes so far as to give us chapters in a piece of flash (And yes, the chapter titles are part of the word count.) and an entire little mini-novel that is full of emotion and introspection. Beyond being just really interesting I can say that these somewhat sad glimpses of the life and thoughts of the Last Man on Earth really worked for me. The writing is superb the way good flash’s writing needs to be. I reread it a couple times and then I went and read a couple more ‘Last Man on Earth’ mini-novels of Guzlowski’s that Flash Fiction Online has also published over the years.
Though I would not call this poetry (if for no other reason than to respect the choice to title it a mini-novel) it certainly benefits from being written by a poet and the skill with words in condensed space that implies. Indeed, I could not help but think of a collection I have that is poetry that is currently sitting beside my bed: Incarnate: The Collected Dead Man Poems by Marvin Bell. That book is a huge collection of poems that, like the Last Man on Earth stories, are all also about a singular character (the Dead Man) and that all fit a certain unique framework created by Bell but that explore so many aspects of life. After reading this and the other mini-novels of The Last Man on Earth I would certainly love to one day have a collection full of Guzlowski mini-novels about the character sitting there beside my bed too.
“The Coward Who Stole God’s Name” by John Wiswell in Uncanny Magazine 46
John Wiswell is an award winning author and one whose writing I am fairly certain is quite beloved by the majority my twitter timeline and yet somehow I have never had the pleasure of shouting out one of his stories in one of my roundups, an oversight most likely due to bad luck and my sporadic bursts of output with these followed by too much silence. I am thrilled to finally get to correct that by telling you this story is very good, the kind with the potential to really knock you on your butt. Here we have a journalist who is given the opportunity to interview the most beloved man on earth, Gavin Davenport. Indeed, he is literally beloved by everyone on earth. Which makes it a little strange that he would specifically request our MC to come interview him because he liked a piece he wrote that was a pull-no-punches takedown of a powerful “tech asshole”, but Davenport doesn’t want a puff piece. He wants to pull back the curtain and get a taste of what it’s like to not be beloved by every human alive.
It’s hard to talk more about this story without getting spoiler-y in ways you may not like so feel free to stop reading here. For those carrying on I’ll tell you this: this story lures you in. It feels like it’s supposed to be something fun and maybe funny at first. Light-hearted. It is not. It has teeth. In fact, I’d say this is a horror story. I’m not sure how it couldn’t be with the most powerful man in existence toying with and effectively torturing our innocent MC simply because he had the misfortune of drawing his notice and looking like a good plaything, or perhaps a tasty chew toy.
What really makes the story extra chilling and effective is just how much the world Wiswell is presenting us is the world we already have, just, dialed up to 11. For do we not already live in a world with powerful rich men of vast unearned privileged already beloved by mobs who will happily tear apart any who dare gainsay their perfection? (One particular scalpel-sharp bit to this is when we are told that despite being considered a great philanthropist Davenport gives almost nothing to charity at all). There are many ways someone could have written this story. I loved that Wiswell chose a path of pulling no punches. Gavin Davenport could have been someone with a power they didn’t appreciate or understand the consequences of, an uncareful giant among people he didn’t realize he was hurting, or even someone who wanted to stop hurting people and become genuinely helpful, but instead we get a character who knows damn well the power he wields, and wields it because he likes it with no interest in anything but his own self. That might be the most true to life part of it all.
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!