Tag Archives: Strange Horizons

2022 Short Fiction Round Up 4

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Welcome back it’s time for more great short fiction! This week I’ve got another 5 stories I enjoyed, and think are great and worthy of your time! No single theme happening this week though we do have two stories of revenge, and there is definitely a lot of significant death and tragedy to be had here. It’s not all Doom and Gloom, but there is at least some of that to be sure. I promise though that there are also a lot of moments of human kindness and beauty and helping each other survive the things life can throw at us here too.

One thing I’ve don this week that I’ve never done before is feature two stories from the same magazine. It wasn’t on purpose at first, I was just going through my notes and realized I’d picked out two stories from Strange Horizons. I normally deliberately avoid doing this as I like to spread the recommendations around, but if there was ever a time to highlight two great stories from Strange Horizons now is the time as they are currently in the midst of their annual fund drive. Strange Horizons is a wonderful magazine that provides not only great international short speculative fiction, but poetry, reviews, and critical essays as well. They’re always pushing the envelope and are near-unique in the field. Well worth your support if you’re able.

But now, let’s get to the stories!

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2021 Short Fiction Round Up 4

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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.

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2020 Short Fiction Roundup 2

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Welcome again to a Short Fiction Roundup of some stories I’ve enjoyed reading in the last week or so and hope you might too. If you do enjoy any of these stories consider sharing them and giving them a shout out yourself. It’s a great way to support short fiction. We’ve been in a short speculative fiction golden age for awhile now let’s keep it going.

“When Hope is Lost, Touch Remains” by Nin Harris from PodCastle 620

A story I would call lovely, though perhaps that might put me in a strange light to some. Maria moves through her life trying to grapple with a strange discovery she makes about herself: the fact that she can literally draw out men’s souls, a feat usually performed, unnoticed by the men, during sex. She can, thankfully, also return them and this power becomes a central fact of her life as she moves through it trying to figure out who she is and wants to be while unraveling a complicated family heritage. Serious bonus points for this being a story of a middle-aged woman, it feels both rare and nice to have a story acknowledging that figuring out who you are isn’t exclusively the realm of the young.

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Weekly Fiction Rec Roundup 12

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I swear I don’t set out to find themes for these roundups. I guess it’s no surprise they happen though.

My process for making these lists is pretty simple: I pick a story and read it, if I like it enough to share it goes on the list. I try and get a story every day, but I’m most often hitting 5 a week.

Reading though, is, of course, a very subjective experience. Stories are not the static things we so often think of them as, but are more like conversations between the author and reader1Or creator and audience if we want to be inclusive of all kinds of stories.. Sure, only one person (the author) gets to do the talking in this conversation, but as readers we bring our own thoughts, feelings, current mood and other baggage to the experience. It’s why one person can love something another hates and why we can have evolving2Or devolving in some cases. relationships with stories we engage with years after our first experience of them: I rewatched the Matrix the other day and was able, for the first time, to see some of what it was saying, what it had always been saying, but I never understood when I watched it3Many, many times. years ago, about the trans experience. I rewatched some Seinfeld episodes today and cringed at the explicit rape culture jokes.

So, yes, it should come as no surprise that in a week that has had me4And, many, many others. wondering about how we live in a society, and indeed world, that seems doomed, possibly within our children’s lifetimes, that I might “click” most often with a certain kind of story. This is…a dark place to find oneself, a dark conversation to be having, but I feel like most of these stories fit in this conversation and while I won’t say they have answers5I’m not sure there are definite answers to the questions these conversations raise, only ideas and choices. I do think they’re good conversational partners for the week6Oh if only it were really just this week though, eh? so many are having. Continue reading →

Weekly Fiction Rec Roundup 8

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It’s time for another Weekly Fiction Rec Roundup! I came across a two new online magazines in my reading-wandering this week, and one of them is all flash length fiction. Now, as I’m very much into flash and micro fiction this got my attention, so I’m recommending two of their stories this week (a Roundup first!). I think there’s a nice broad group of stories this week. As usual, I hope you’ll find something you enjoy. And if you do, I hope you’ll share it with others! Continue reading →

Weekly Fiction Rec Roundup 5

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I’m coming in a day later than usual and with only 5 stories this time, but it is time for another roundup of fiction I’ve recently read and liked enough to share on my Mastodon feed. I think there’s an interesting selection here with a series of styles that range from feeling like they could have come from a different era (the 2nd and last story) to the thoroughly modern (like the first story). As usual there’s a fair bit of weird and creepy and unsettling, but not only that. And, as usual I think there’s hope to be found here too.

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