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.

“Three (Dancing Princes)” by Hache Pueyo from Iridium Magazine Issue #1

Our first story might be the least “on point” to the theme I refer too above, but don’t blame the story, I just found it a little earlier in the week, when my mind was less in the place it is now. It’s still a good story for the roundup, because it’s a good story for anytime. It’s themes about friendship, found family, lost family, coming of age and the tragedies that are the loss of the magic of childhood and childhood friendships are universal ones. One particular thing I enjoyed about this story, perhaps strangely, is what wasn’t in it. I don’t want to give spoilers so I’ll only give one example: when I learned the story was taking place in a group foster home/orphanage I expected abuse and terrible adults, and while both of those things exist “off-screen” in some of the characters’ pasts it does not happen in casa-lar. It’s nice to have expectations subverted in positive ways sometimes.

Of note, not to this story, but perhaps to your own reading: I came across this story on the LATIN AMERICANS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE SPECULATIVE LITERATURE LIST 2018 that is maintained by Silvia Moreno-Garcia at her website. You might want to give it a perusal to find other interesting stories to read.

“Children of The Endless Sea” by Suvi Kauppila from Samovar/Strange Horizons’ September 24th Issue

Our second story of the week is the first of two stories this week that were not only originally written in a language other than English, but were translated by their own authors. Coincidences, huh? Funny things sometimes. In this case “Children of the Endless Sea” is not a reprint but was originally written in Finnish and has been published in English⁷And Finnish, and as audio podcasts in both languages. Samovar is pretty damn cool. as part of Strange Horizons’ quarterly publication of all-translated works, Samovar.

You will be told at one point, while you read or listen to this story that “This is not a good story.” And for some senses of the word “good” it’s telling the truth. Good things do not happen in it. It is not, at all, a happy story. But of course it is a good story, or I wouldn’t be recommending it.

If the question of the week is: how do we live in the face of a crumbling society and dying world this post-environmental-apocalypse story, with a world that is almost entirely ocean, and in which a second apocalypse also occurs, does not have an answer to offer other than perhaps: sometimes survival is the best you can hope for.

It’s not a nice message, I’ll grant you, but in the face of general endings maybe survival is a victory in itself. The story also has value as warning. It has been said that science fiction is never really about the future, but always about the time when it is written, and I generally believe it. There are parallels aplenty to find in this story, from the thing elevated to godhood, that cares nothing for the people who put it on it’s pedestal⁸Which personally, I could see an argument for it being a good allegory for unfettered capitalism and it’s avatar The Market. For have we not elevated this force to level of benevolent god-hood ourselves and is it not crushing us as we speak?, to “the Right People” who this Canadian can’t help but see parallels to as his country struggles with it’s mostly continued failure to face the past crimes of its Residential School system.

And if none of that interests you, well there’s still a good, if grim, story here of a weird flooded future of either our own or another world’s future.

“For Southern Girls When The Zodiac Ain’t Near Enough” by Eden Royce from Apex Magazine Issue 111

If we have to accept that sometimes surviving, even if it’s just surviving and nothing else, is the best we can hope for when facing such a sometimes ugly world then perhaps the key to surviving is being seen, being acknowledged, being known for who we are, and knowing how to accept ourselves. Our third story of the roundup feels like a love letter from one Southern Girl to all the others, no matter how far they may have traveled from home. It’s also a love letter, though not an uncritical one, to the South itself. It’s a reminder that it’s ok to embrace who you are and where you’re from and to take strength from your roots. It says maybe you don’t see yourself, you don’t see a way through the pain, but I see you, and there are things in you that you can embrace to make it. The message is made all the stronger, especially for it’s most intended audience, with it’s second person point of view. It’s one of those stories that I grow ever more fond and appreciative of with each time I recall it and go over it again, which is about the best one could ask of any story, I think.

Oh, and as a little aside, in going over my notes for The Roundup in general I realized that this is the third Eden Royce story I’ve highlighted making her the only author to appear more than twice so far.⁹The other two stories were in Roundup 2 and Rounup 8. I certainly didn’t set out to do that, the fact is I just keep running into Eden Royce stories I love.¹⁰Heck, I just realized that there is another Eden Royce story, “Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone” from Strange Horizons July 30th issue that I was sure I’d rec’d in one of these, but apparently I haven’t. Must have just raved about it on Twitter during the Roundup’s hiatus. Which means, by rights, she should probably be a 4-peat author here. I guess I’m a big fan, is what I’m saying.

“How to Identify an Alien Shark” by Beth Goder from Fireside Magazine

Sometimes the way to survive is just to find something to laugh about once in awhile. Yes, just surviving can be a win, in the face of terrible odds and circumstances, but what is the point of surviving if there’s no room for joy and a nice laugh once in awhile, at the very least.¹¹I’m actually thinking about writing a piece talking exclusively about this idea and how much I’m coming to cherish and appreciate books that make room for joy, even in the face of awful things. This flash piece from Fireside Fiction will hit that spot. Author Beth Goder tells us of a world where “alien sharks” have infested the oceans, bringing with them an incredibly advanced knowledge of economics, that you’d probably be best off just listening to and taking notes.

Wacky sounding? Sure, but it’s the best sort of weird wacky. It’ll even have you thinking. Are the alien sharks bad? good? Just really smart? Sure they want to privatize the oceans, but they apparently also want everyone to have economic education. Is it there fault if they just have the best sense of good economics to pass along? This story won’t take much of your time, but I think it’ll put a smile on your face, and I think we all need that nowadays. And maybe also a reminder that yes, it is ok to smile, and read, and do your job and pay your bills and live. So go have a chuckle.

“Cosmic Spring” by Ken Liu from Lightspeed Issue 94

I was so very happy to see a recent Ken Liu story I could highlight for the Roundup. Last week I talked about Genevieve Valentine’s book MECHANIQUE being one of my first big personal hits when I started my “third era of reading” around the time I started considering writing. Well, in the realm of short fiction the stories that were really hitting and obsessing me first and foremost were Ken Liu stories.

They seemed like they were everywhere and they were full of beauty and elegance, both in their ideas and their prose. If I had been writing this Roundup between 2011 and 2014 I’d have probably felt compelled to include a Ken Liu story every week. Though he has continued writing since then the output of short fiction has been smaller and more likely to appear in anthologies than magazines, largely due, as I understand it, to his shifting his primary focus to novels and to translating the work of other others.¹²In both short and long fiction, and including the fantastic Hugo Winning Cixin Liu novel THE THREE BODY PROBLEM.

So this was a very nice treat to find: A new Ken Liu story that is also a new translated Ken Liu story as it was originally written in Chinese for the Future Affairs Administration on Weibo and WeChat as part of their “Spring Festival Gala” celebration in February 2018. It was also nice to be able to highlight here on the Roundup because it is very much a “Ken Liu story”. The ideas are big, the prose elegant. If you like this you’ll probably like a lot of his other work. If you love it I recommend seeking out his other stories ASAP. Perhaps starting with his collection: THE PAPER MENAGERIE AND OTHER STORIES.

Here we close out our makeshift theme of survival in the face of the potential end of everything with a story very much on point, but also with a hopeful message. In this story set very far in the future it is posited that not only do we, as a species, survive, but thrive. Not only that, but we are given a beautiful wondrous universe to believe in. Entropy though, really will catch up with everything, eventually. And ends will come, and even doing whatever it takes to survive won’t always be enough. But that does not have to be an end to hope. And perhaps, if we try really, really hard, we can at least leave something worthwhile behind and be worthy of remembering and having stories told about us. Both as persons and a people. Maybe just surviving is ok sometimes, but maybe, whenever possible, we should be striving for more too. And even if and when the end comes, maybe that striving will have been worth it.

After a week and months and even years like we’ve had lately, I’ll take that idea, thank you. And I’ll cherish it.

And that is it for another great Roundup. As always, you can find a page with links to all of my Roundups here. Also, as always, if you find something you really like: share it with others!

And one more thing: be kind to yourself, be kind to others, and if the only thing you did today was survive that’s OK. That’s important. I’m glad you did.