Reading Round-Up: June 2021

Not quite as belatedly, the monthly summary of what I read and listened to in June 2021!

BOOKS

I read 8 books in June: 3 in print, 5 in e-book format, and 0 in audio format. They were:

1.       Lightspeed Magazine #133 (June 2021 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams. The usual fine assortment of sf and fantasy short stories. This month’s favorites for me were Sam J. Miller’s “The Nation of the Sick,” Nalo Hopkinson’s “Inselberg,” Adam R. Shannon’s “When You Die on the Radio,” and Theodora Goss’s “How to Become a Witch Queen.”

2.       Lumberjanes Vol 18: Horticultural Horizons by Shannon Watters, Kat Leyh, Kanesha C. Bryant, Julia Madrigal, others. Collects issues 69-72 of the monthly comic run, in which the ‘Janes follow camp director Rosie into the woods and discover a creeping killer vine and Rosie’s former best friend Abigail. A really solid storyline this time out spotlights each of the ‘Janes and gives us more background/movement with Rosie and Abigail.

3.       All We Ever Wanted by Seth King. Near the end of his life, a grandfather writes down the story of his lost true love, another man. King charts their hidden love affair across the decades, starting with their first meeting in the 1950s. It’s full of love, but also heart-breaking and angering.

4.       The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag. A new original graphic novel from the creator of the “Witch Boy” series that I love so much. This one takes place on a coastal Island community and focuses on a teen girl who is hiding her sexuality until she can leave – but the selkie she meets might alter those plans. Heartfelt and lovely.

5.       May the Best Man Win by ZR Ellor. A transgender boy who is already class president and a head cheerleader decides to compete with his ex-boyfriend for the Homecoming King crown. Their battle threatens to hurt each other and people they love. I got so invested in this I was yelling at the characters for being so single-minded and selfish.

6.       Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller. In a post-climate change future, various denizens of the titular city find their lives intertwining when a mysterious woman on a mission comes to town. A great ensemble story with lots of characters to root for, and rich assholes to root against.

7.       A Writer Prepares by Lawrence Block. Block’s memoir of his early days working for a literary agency in New York, writing crime fiction and erotica for paperback publishers and paying his dues to build a career.

8.       Fair Youth by M. Dalto and Laynie Bynum. A modern-day, gender-flipped take on the oft-speculated relationship between Elizabethan playwrights William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, only here they’re budding scriptwriters in Hollywood.

STORIES

I have a goal of reading 365 short stories (1 per day, essentially, although it doesn’t always work out that way) this year. Here’s what I read this month and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too. If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it.

1.       “The Nation of the Sick” by Sam J. Miller, from Lightspeed Magazine #133 (June 2021 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams

2.       “Different People” by Timothy Mudie

3.       “Inselberg” by Nalo Hopkinson

4.       “Do Nothing” by Indria Isa Richardson

5.       “A Tableau of Things That Are” by Adam-Troy Castro

6.       “Wolf Tones” by Sofia Samatar

7.       “When You Die on the Radio” by Adam R. Shannon

8.       “How to Become a Witch Queen” by Theodora Goss

9.       “Dos Coyotes” by Catherine J. Cole, from Fantasy Magazine #68 (June 2021), edited by Christie Yant and Arley Sorg

10.   “Your Ticket to Hell” by Rajan Khanna

11.   “The Port of Le Havre, Night Effect, 1873” by Christine Tyler

12.   “A Gift from the Queen of Fairie to the King of Hell” by Cara Masten DiGirolamo

13.    “To Build a Better” by Seanan McGuire, on the author’s Patreon page.

So that’s 13 short stories in June, possible the fewest I’ve ever read in a calendar month since I started tracking my short story reading. Fewer than “1 per day” and I’m behind again for the year. (June 30th was the 181st day of 2021.)

Summary of Reading Challenges:

“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 0 read; YTD: 6 of 24 main titles read. (0 of 4 alternate titles read)

365 Short Stories Challenge: This month: 13 read; YTD: 176 of 365 read.

Graphic Novels Challenge:  This month: 2 read; YTD: 15 of 52 read.

Goodreads Challenge: This month: 8 read; YTD: 67 of 125 read.

Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 1 read; YTD: 9 of 24 read.

Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 0 read/watched.

Complete the Series Challenge: This month: 0 book read; YTD: 0 of 14 read.

                                                          Series fully completed: 0 of 4 planned

Monthly Special Challenge:   June’s mini-challenge was to read some works by LGBTQIA+ authors for Pride Month. I did well, as the majority of the books read were by queer-identifying creators (apart from the Block memoir), and several of the short stories were as well.

I decided not to set a mini challenge for July and to use the month to catch up on some of the on-going challenges. We’ll see how that goes…

SHORT FICTION OBSESSION - Anthony R Cardno

I have an obsession with the short story form. I might even have an addiction. Or a mania. Whatever you want to call it — I can’t get enough short stories in my life.

It doesn’t matter whether the work is flash fiction of less than a thousand words, average length short stories in the several thousand range, or what Stephen King famously called “the banana republic of the novella.”  If it’s a shorter-than-standard-novel-length piece of fiction, chances are good it will interest me. Genre doesn’t matter, either. I’m as apt to read the latest “literary” short story in The New Yorker or Tin House or Glimmer Train Stories or Zoetrope All-Story as I am to read the latest sf/horror in the great online Apex Magazine and Subterranean Magazine, the latest fantasy in Realms of Fantasy, the latest mystery in The Strand.

And of course, outside of the magazines, there are the anthologies. Anthologies seem to be taking up more and more of my shelf-space. Single author anthologies by writers ranging from Joyce Carol Oates to William Trevor, Michael Chabon to Karen Russell, Orson Scott Card, Stephen King, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Jhumpa Lahiri. “Best of” Anthologies from The Best American series and the O. Henry Awards. Themed genre anthologies edited by the great Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, John Joseph Adams, P.N. Elrod, Jennifer Brozek, Maurice Broaddus.

I could go on for pages. My obsession/mania/addiction is such that three years ago I created a community on livejournal called “365shortstories,” where I review stories as I read them (or reread them) and invite others to do so as well. I can’t say there’s a huge amount of participation, but people do seem to enjoy “watching” the community and occasionally authors and editors will chime in to comment on my comments.

What is it about the form that sparks my interest so?  I’ve tried to describe it, and anything I say comes out trite and cliched. Yes I do love the fact that most short stories are “done in one,”  but I also love the interconnected short stories that form a larger picture (think Robert Silverberg’s TO OPEN THE SKY, Ray Bradbury’s THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, Daniyal Mueenuddin’s IN OTHER ROOMS, OTHER WONDERS).  I like the economy of words that allows a story to be  easily consumed during a meal or even a bathroom break, but I also love those wordy novellas that require longer to digest.  There is no single aspect of the short story form that I can point to and say “that’s why I love them,” just as I can’t point at one aspect of my nieces and nephews personalities and say that’s why I love them.  The plain fact is, I just do.

As for my own writing, there was a period where short stories were all I was writing. That was shortly after moving to New Jersey in 1996. I suddenly had a spate of small inspirations, none of which felt like they should be stage plays or novels. All of them are more than 1,000 words (some barely so) and I would say none more than about 5,000. One of them, a tale called “Invisible Me,” has been published in print form in a literary magazine called Willard & Maple. I have one copy; my other comp copy disappeared a while ago in the hands of some friend or another who borrowed it to read the story and has probably forgotten it (as I have forgotten who has it).  I have been, in the past two years, pretty remiss about sending those stories back out into the world. I’ve taken to editing them (in at least one case almost completely recasting the nature of the story), and recently other short form ideas have been popping into my head.

It might be time, in addition to reading and reviewing short stories, to really start writing them again.

(In conjunction with this post, you can find my thoughts on the latest P.N. Elrod-edited urban fantasy anthology, Dark And Stormy Knights, in the next post.)