Sunday Shorts: Transgender Day of Visibility

March 31st is this year’s Transgender Day of Visibility. Rather than just review a story or two, I thought I’d list just a few of the many wonderful transgender, non-binary, and genderfluid short story and novella writers whose work I have enjoyed over the years (in no particular order) and give some links to where you can find their work or more about them. (Also, apologies in advance to anyone I leave off. It’s not purposeful, and this is not meant to be a complete list. I’m working under a little bit of a deadline.

Everett Maroon. I loved Everett’s memoir (Bumbling into Body Hair) and his novel (The Unintentional Time Traveler, which I’m hoping we’ll get a sequel to). His short stories have appeared in a number of anthologies as well as one collection (Spinning Around a Sun).  https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/5759590.Everett_Maroon

Charlie Jane Anders. Charlie Jane has written YA novels (the Unstoppable trilogy), writing advice books (Never Say You Can’t Survive), novels (All the Birds in the Sky among them), and a good number of short stories (many collected in Even Greater Mistakes).  https://www.charliejaneanders.com/

Lee Mandelo. Lee wrote one of my favorite novels of 2021 (Summer Sons), one of my favorite novellas of 2023 (Feed Them Silence) and has another novella out this month (The Woods All Black, sitting atop my TBR pile right now), and his short stories can be found in places like Uncanny Magazine.  https://leemandelo.com/

K.M. Szpara. Novelist (First Become Ashes and Docile) and short story writer (appearances in Uncanny, Lightspeed, and elsewhere), K.M. also edited Transcendent: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction 2016, published  by Lethe Press. https://www.kmszpara.com/

Jordan L. Hawk. Jordan mixes gay romance and sex with Lovecraftian horror (the Whyborne & Griffin series), supernatural detective stories (the Spirits series), shapeshifters (the Hexworld and Pride books) and more.  https://jordanlhawk.com/

Nino Cipri. Nino Cipri’s short stories have appeared in Fireside Fiction, Nightmare, and elsewhere and collected in Homesick: Stories. They have also written novellas (Finna and Defekt) and the upcoming YA novel Dead Girls Don’t Dream. https://ninocipri.com/

Bogi Takacs.  Bogi’s short stories have been collected in The Trans Space Octopus Congregation (2019) and Power to Yield (2024). E also edited the 2017 – 2019 editions of Transcendent: The Year’s Transgender Speculative Fiction. Check out eir Patreon as well. https://www.patreon.com/bogiperson/posts

S.A. Hunt. Samara Hunt is the author of the Malus Domestica horror series along with some short stories. She also has a Patreon. http://www.sahuntbooks.com/about.html https://www.patreon.com/sahuntbooks/posts?filters%5Btag%5D=space

A.M. Dellamonica. Author of the Indigo Springs and Hidden Sea Tales series, Dellamonica’s short stories have appeared in Lightspeed Magazine and Uncanny Magazine among other places.  https://alyxdellamonica.com/

Nisi Shawl. Novelist (Everfair and the recently-released Kinning) and non-fiction writer (including co-authoring Writing the Other with Cynthia Ward), Shawl’s short stories have appeared in Apex Magazine and  Nightmare Magazine among many others, as well as in too many anthologies to list.  http://www.nisishawl.com/Index.html

Neon Yang. The author of one of my favorite on-going novella series, the Tensorate series, as well as a novel (The Genesis of Misery), Yang’s short fiction has appeared in magazine like Clarkesworld, anthologies like The Book of Dragons, and on Tor.com (now called Reactor). https://neonyang.com/

Sunday Shorts: Two by Sharang Biswas

Sharang Biswas is a game designer, writer, and artist based in New York City whose stories and poetry have appeared in Nightmare Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, Baffling Magazine, Sana Stories, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. Look him up on his website. Today, I’m going to look at his two most recent stories that appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, edited by John Joseph Adams. Lightspeed Magazine contents are free to read on the website and e-book subscriptions are also available.

“Real Magic” (Lightspeed Magazine #153, February 2023)

Three townspeople visit the Witch in the Woods to ask for help with their problems. She extracts a different price from each, something either cherished or endemic to the person’s sense of self. Each visitor ultimately finds what they are searching for (or searching for relief from), but not in the way they or the reader expects. The witch uses their ingredients to do real magic. This is a beautifully told story, a fairy tale in style but cloaked in Biswas’ beautiful sense of character and community. Biswas uses the needs of the visitors (and their resolutions) to show that every individual action has an effect outside the moment in which that action is taken or that choice is made. Nothing happens in a vacuum, no one person’s fate is theirs alone. What one person discards (willingly or not) may be picked up by another (who may or may not benefit from it). I also loved how Biswas doesn’t spoon-fed the connections between the villagers’ stories but lets them come out organically and not all at once.

“Season of Weddings” (Lightspeed Magazine #166, March 2024, story goes live on the website March 28th)

Nate receives seven wedding invitations in one year. Okay, two of them are for his job, which is maybe a little less fun than attending as a guest. Especially because it quickly becomes apparent to the reader that Nate is Thanatos, god of death. Sometimes, people die at weddings. Still reeling from his most recent relationship break-up (with Thor, who has moved on to loving a mortal woman), Nate must navigate these weddings, new singlehood, his job, his perhaps too-pushy best friend, and a cute guy he keeps bumping into at the weddings. This story is so sweet, so romantic and wistful. I recognized some of myself in Nate’s self-esteem issues around romance and relationships, which made me connect to the work even more. The world-building is also wonderful, bringing together characters from all sorts of world mythologies and religions but tweaking them in new and interesting ways (for instance, the Thor is this story is neither the “drunken jock” we often see nor the blond-tressed super-hero). I won’t spoil who all shows up, because part of the fun of the story is the reveals of Nate’s friends’ circle. I’m a sucker for “deities and personifications of human concepts walk among us and act like every-day people” types of stories (think the classic issue number eight of Neil Gaiman’s the Sandman, illustrated by Mike Dringenberg, among others), and this one fits the description very well. It also fits very well as a paranormal romance, and I love it when authors blend and blur genres.

I love short fiction, and Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it. I’ve considered promising to review a short story every day, but that’s a lot of pressure. And while no one will fault me if I miss days, I’ll feel guilty, which will lead to not posting at all. So better to stick to a weekly post highlighting a couple/three stories, as I’ve done in the past. Click on the Sunday Shorts tab at the bottom of this post to find earlier entries in the series!

Sunday Shorts: Two by Dane Kuttler

I love short fiction, and Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it. I’ve considered promising to review a short story every day, but that’s a lot of pressure. And while no one will fault me if I miss days, I’ll feel guilty, which will lead to not posting at all. So better to stick to a weekly post highlighting a couple/three stories, as I’ve done in the past.

TWO BY DANE KUTTLER

Dane Kuttler is a wonderful poet (https://www.danepoetry.com/about.html), who has also had two science fiction short stories published in the past year in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Sheree Renee Thomas. The two stories are quite different in tone and topic but are equally engaging.

“The Interspatial Accessibility Compact’s Guidelines for Cross-Cultural Engagement” (Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Winter, 2024)

On a multi-species space station where sound carries very well and certain species have a harder time communicating, a florist helps an Earthman express his affection for a coworker is from a sound-sensitive species. This far-future, outer-space story is so sweet, so endearing, so romantic and so recognizable in the awkwardness on the part of all three of the main characters. It’s not easy expressing your affection for someone who essentially speaks a different language, with completely distinct cultural landmarks and social cues. It’s also not easy being the one trying to help two people who clearly care for each other but who aren’t navigating how to communicate with each other. I’ve been in both positions and felt all of the awkwardness. But also felt all of the happily-ever-after (or at least, the happy for now). In other hands, the drama of the situation might have been drawn out into a longer piece with more roadblocks for the protagonists, but Kuttler keeps the story to a tight, fast-moving but still emotionally investing seven pages.

“Off the Map” (Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan-Feb 2023)

Ava is in danger of losing her children to the system after a second “neglect” infraction that any rational person would consider unwarranted. Then she receives an offer to relocate to a new town in Florida under the auspices of Better Days, an organization that will give her full-time work, a home, a school that works with students’ learning disabilities and alternative learning styles, and access to therapy and guidance counselors. But is it all too good to be true, especially in a post-climate change, high scarcity of resources world? This story is an incisive and biting look at corporate involvement in social issues, and how the most vulnerable are mistreated and used to further other ends. I’ve read this one multiple times since it was published a year ago, and each time I reread it the injustice and abuse the characters experience (both the abuse they know of, and the stuff they are unaware of) hits hard.

SUNDAY SHORTS: Two from The Deadlands

I love short fiction, and Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it. Posts will range from flash to novellas. At some point, I might delve into individual stories/episodes of anthology formats in other media, like television and comics, but for the time being, I’m sticking to prose in print and audio.

I don’t think I’ve yet done a Sunday Shorts about The Deadlands, a relatively new (just a year old) online speculative fiction magazine focused on the Afterlife – or afterlives, more accurately. Stories, poems, and non-fiction about grieving, about ghosts, about what happens after, or sometimes as, we are shuffling off this mortal coil, plane of existence, etc. The Deadlands is published by Sean Markey and E. Catherine Tobler is the editor-in-chief. Here are my thoughts on the two fiction pieces in the latest issue.

In KT Bryski’s “This is I,” Elaine, the Lady of Shalott, crosses paths via a magic mirror with a woman she comes to know as “Gug,” but who is really poet/artist Elizabeth Siddal, wife of Dante Gabriel Rosetti. In a story that blurs not only the lines of reality but also of narrative voice (with sections alternating between first, second, and third person points-of-view), Bryski delves into the ways in which men control women and alter the courses of their lives. Elaine has the curse on her that if she stops weaving in her high tower and looks out over Camelot, Camelot will fall, and she will be cursed. “Gug” has been used as a muse, been manipulated into marriage, and told her womanly nature means she can’t create art the same way a man can. Bryski also plays with the various versions of “The Lady of Shalott” that Tennyson wrote, plus interpretations by others. It took me a page or so to understand what the author was doing with the alternating POVs, but then I settled in, and the story flowed towards a perfect ending.

Maria Haskins’ “The Morthouse” focuses on a mother who has lost her teenage son to a horrific winter illness and who is so distraught she cannot do anything but haunt the village “morthouse,” where the bodies of those who die during winter are held until the ground is soft enough to dig graves, with occasional trips to the church she might no longer believe in, and the fields around the village. She regrets not asking the midwife who brought her child into the world during a problematic birth for help in keeping him alive, and eventually goes to ask for help in bringing him back to life. The midwife sets the grieving mother three tasks to gather items that might help. The mother’s grief is palpable throughout, as is her estrangement from her church and from her husband. The author also nicely explicates the traditional distrust in religious communities for anyone who works with nature to cure illness instead of just relying on God, without going the traditional route of showing the midwife (in this case) being abused by other members of the community. The story takes its time before coming to a satisfying, emotional, conclusion.

SUNDAY SHORTS: Three From Giving The Devil His Due

I love short fiction, and Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it. I’ve considered promising to review a short story every day, but that’s a lot of pressure. And while no one will fault me if I miss days, I’ll feel guilty, which will lead to not posting at all. So better to stick to a weekly post highlighting a couple/three stories, as I’ve done in the past.

Three From GIVING THE DEVIL HIS DUE

Giving The Devil His Due, edited by Rebecca Brewer, is a charity anthology published by the Pixel Project comprised of stories in which the men who abuse and kill women and girls get their just desserts, usually through supernatural means. There are 16 stories in the anthology. Here are my thoughts on a few of them:

Nisi Shawl’s “The Tawny Bitch” is an epistolary story with endnotes, one of my favorite types of stories to read. Belle is imprisoned by her paternal cousin John after she has “inappropriate liaisons” with a female classmate at school. She writes letters she knows her lost lover may never see, telling of her abuse, neglect, and sexual assault by her cousin and the married couple he hires to mind her. A tawny-colored female dog plays a key role in the story. The “end-notes” are those of a later historian trying to piece together the true identities of the people Belle mentions. This is a classically Gothic story: lost love, a woman locked in a dark tower room, a slight supernatural vibe. Shawl pulls all those elements together with a narratorial voice that is warm and inviting and which never makes us doubt the experiences the narrator is relating. (I also enjoyed the mention of a visiting doctor named Hesselius and the implication that someone is impersonating the “real” man by that name whose adventures were made famous by author Sheridan Le Fanu.)

In Kelley Armstrong’s “Happy Birthday Baby,” Lisette meets her friend Roger for dinner to celebrate the birthday of Lisette’s late sister. The sister has been dead for three years and the police have not been able to prove that her estranged abusive husband was the one who killed her. Lisette tells Reggie she’s hired a private investigator, has uncovered the truth of that night, and is ready to murder her sister’s killer since the police can’t seem to catch him. Of course, there are more twists to the story – and it’s a fair-play type of story in that the clues to what’s really going on are well planted from the very beginning. The story is wonderfully paced, moves very fast, and hits all the right “revenge on the killer who got away” vibes and notes. It’s one of the few stories in the anthology in which the supernatural element is almost non-existent until the key moment, which also makes it stand out from the crowd.

“The Moon Goddess’s Daughter” by Lee Murray is described by the author as a “prose poem.” The language used is poetic; I’m inclined to describe it as ethereal. Even concrete details are given a certain weightlessness, or perhaps dreaminess is a better descriptor, by the way the words are used. This makes this story of a young woman in an abusive marriage different from the more direct and detailed looks at surviving abuse that surround it in the anthology – but no less, and perhaps even more, powerful. Stories that are ethereal/dream-like are not necessarily lacking in impact, as this story clearly demonstrates. Also interesting is the structure of the story, using the phases of the moon as a chart for the protagonist’s journey. The story is based on a legend of the Chinese moon goddess Princess Chang’e, and thus leans more into the fantasy side of the supernatural than the horror side that the previous two stories dwell in.

Giving The Devil His Due is still available as an e-book. Other authors featured in the anthology include Kaaron Warren, Stephen Graham Jones, Angela Yuriko Smith, Jason Sanford, Linda D. Addison, and Christina Henry.

Sunday Shorts: Two By Octavia E. Butler

I love short fiction, and Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it. I’ve considered promising to review a short story every day, but that’s a lot of pressure. And while no one will fault me if I miss days, I’ll feel guilty, which will lead to not posting at all. So better to stick to a weekly post highlighting a couple/three stories, as I’ve done in the past.

First released in e-book form in 2014, Unexpected Stories collects two previously unpublished Octavia E. Butler stories discovered among her papers after her untimely passing in 2006. I finally read the book, in the beautiful hardcover edition released by Subterranean Press, in February of this year.

“A Necessary Being” takes place in an alien culture that is based on societal caste and skin coloration. The Hao are revered and installed as rulers of each tribe/village, often whether they like it or not. If a tribe is lacking a Hao, they are willing to kidnap one from someplace else and torture/mutilate them to keep them from escaping, which is what happened to Tahneh’s father, the Hao of the Rohkahn. Tahneh has been unable to produce a Hao heir, so when a Hao named Duit and his companions stumble into their drought-ruined domain, a plan is put in place to keep this Hao from returning to his own people. Butler’s deft interplay of the conflicting wants and needs of Tahneh, Duit, and the people who surround them is absolutely wonderful and thought-provoking. There are no absolute good guys or bad guys here – the antagonist is the moral conflict, if that makes sense. In other hands the reader might be guided to take Tahneh’s side over Duit’s, simply because we are introduced to her and get a feel for her quandry first, but Butler makes sure that we understand and feel for Duit’s situation just as much as Tahneh’s. The story really touches on how societal blinders (“this is the way it’s always been,” “these are the things we need and our needs come first,” etc.) can sometimes keep us from seeing a path forward out of danger and into relative safety. Sometimes complacency is deadly and the ability to change is what enables us to survive.

The author herself described “Childfinder,” the second and much shorter story in Unexpected Stories, as pessimistic, and I can’t really disagree with her. Set in a bleak near future on Earth where The Organization recruits kids with potential for psionic ability, main character Barbara has left the Organization to find the pre-psionic kids The Organization doesn’t want – which means low-income kids of color. The story starts with her encounter with one such kid, and we can see that she really cares about their development and that they don’t get lost or chewed up by a system weighted against them. Of course, The Organization comes looking for her, understanding what their former employee is up to – and Barbara has to make a hard, one might even say brutal, decision. We see the immediate effect of that decision, but never get to see the long-term results. However, the quotes that bookend the story do imply that it doesn’t go as well as Barbara hopes. This is a much darker story than “A Necessary Being,” and yes, it feels pessimistic. It also leaves me hoping for more “Barbaras” (regardless of gender) helping low-income and other marginalized youth in our own world.

Unexpected Stories is available in e-book. Subterranean Press’s limited edition hardcover is currently sold out.

2022 Sunday Shorts Intro Post

As mentioned in a few recent posts, or at least hinted at, I hit a wall somewhere in the middle of 2021 and stopped posting to my blog. I felt guilty about it, of course, but the motivation just wasn’t there. That means it’s been six months or more since any of my intended regular features appeared. So I thought I’d use the first post of 2022 for each feature to re-introduce them.

Welcome to the first Sunday Shorts of 2022.

I love short fiction, and Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it. I’ve considered promising to review a short story every day, like ‘Nathan Burgoine did a while back on his blog, but that’s a lot of pressure. And while no one will fault me if I miss days, I’ll feel guilty, which will lead to not posting at all. So better to stick to a weekly post highlighting a couple/three stories, as I’ve done in the past.

The stories featured will range in length from flash fiction to novellas, because I love all the lengths. And this seems like the right time to mention what those lengths are, at least according to The Hugo Awards:

·       Novella: 17,500 – 40,000 words (roughly 58 – 133 pages at 300 words/page)

·       Novelette: 7,500 – 17,500 words (roughly 25 – 58 pages)

·       Short Story: less than 7,500 words (roughly 25 pages or less)

In addition, many organizations/websites break “Short Stories” down into smaller categories, such as:

·       Flash Fiction: 1,000 words or less (some sites say 1,500 or less and some say 750)

·       Micro-fiction: 500 words or less

·       Drabble: precisely 100 words

although there seems to be a lot of disagreement out there when you get down to these finer categories.

My rule of thumb regarding novellas is that they’re eligible to be featured in this column if they appear in a larger book (say, as part of an author’s collection, or a collection of several novellas, or as an addition at the back of a novel) or if they’re published on an author’s Patreon. Novellas published for sale as single volumes (regardless of who the publisher is) count as “books” and usually get reviewed that way. (Otherwise, the constant stream of excellent novellas from TorDotCom would take over this column!)

For the time being, I’m focused on short fiction in print/digital formats. At some point, I might delve into individual stories/episodes of anthology formats in other media, like television and comics. I consider it every year and haven’t made that jump yet. Maybe that should be a separate regular feature. Feel free to weigh in in the comments.

The stories I’ll talk about come from a variety of print and online sources. I tend to read a fair number of anthologies and single-author collections, and occasionally will focus on stories from those even if I’m publishing a review of the entire book. Favorite anthology editors include Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling, John Joseph Adams, dave ring, Paula Guran, and Rhonda Parrish to name a few. (I could go on and on … that’s also probably the subject of a separate post.)

I am also subscribed to a bunch of magazines that I try to read at least semi-regularly, and some of those are even free to read online. When I do my monthly “Reading Round-Up,” you are likely to see stories from the following venues listed on a regular basis:

·       Lightspeed Magazine

·       Fantasy Magazine

·       Nightmare Magazine

·       The Dark

·       Uncanny Magazine

·       The Deadlands

·       Kaleidotrope

·       Apex Magazine

·       Fireside Magazine

·       Bachelors

Future Science Fiction Digest

·       The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

·       Tor.com

·       Mermaids Monthly (now defunct, but I have several issues to catch up on)

That said, I do try to vary the sources for the stories I review in-depth for this column, so you shouldn’t see any one of the above magazines appearing any more regularly than the others.

(In the interests of full disclosure: I’m the proofreader for the e-book editions of Lightspeed and Fantasy, and so they account for 12 of the short stories I read each month. I tend to feature them in this column less often to avoid accusations of “favoritism.” I am NOT the proofreader for Nightmare, from the same publisher.)

I also enjoy reading short fiction on authors’ websites/Patreons. Seanan McGuire is an example. For $1/month, you get access to every short story she’s published on her Patreon – all original works when they first appear. ‘Nathan Burgoine has also posted some great short fiction on his blog, including annual queer retellings/reinventions of classic Christmas carols and stories. Lucy Snyder occasionally posts short stories on her Patreon as well. Again, I could go on and on and on…

Have a favorite anthology, collection, magazine, or other online venue for short fiction that I haven’t mentioned above? Again, feel free to weigh in in the comments. I’m always looking for new places to read short fiction (as if I don’t have enough to read already!).

And of course, let me know who your favorite short fiction authors and editors are!

Sunday Shorts: Three from Uncanny #41

I love short fiction, and Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it. Posts will range from flash to novellas. At some point, I might delve into individual stories/episodes of anthology formats in other media, like television and comics, but for the time being, I’m sticking to prose in print and audio.

Today I’m taking a look at three stories from the chock-full-of-greatness Uncanny Magazine #41, their July/August 2021 issue, edited as always by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas. Seriously, there’s a ton of great stuff in this (and every) issue of Uncanny. Go back their current Kickstarter to fund year 8 of the magazine.

“From the Archives of the Museum of Eerie Skins: An Account” by C.S.E. Cooney

Sometimes when reading a story narrated in first person, I find myself wondering to whom the narrator is speaking. C.S.E. Cooney neatly addresses the issue by positing this whole story as a transcript of an interview with Firi Kanaphar, former wolfcaster in the city of Doornwald, as she relates how the loss of her wolfskin resulted in a societal shift in the relationship between wolfcasters (and other shifters) and witches. This is a wonderful slow-burn story, told conversationally, that builds to a horrific climax where revenge is achieved but the narrator’s life has already been irrevocably changed. The loss of Firi’s wolf-skin is a potent metaphor for rape or dismemberment, and the treatment of wolfcasters by witches is an equally obvious metaphor for racial prejudice. The story also addresses power dynamics – the abuser’s ability to continue to harm the abused even from a distance – and the ability of art to foment social justice and social change when the structures that are supposed to do so fail. It’s a powerful story that I am sure will reveal more layers and inspire deeper thinking each time I re-read it. (Side note: fans of Cooney’s “The Witch in the Almond Tree” and “The Bone-Swans of Amandale” will notice some familiar names in cameo appearances as well as place names.)

“The Wishing Pool” by Tananarive Due

“The Wishing Pool” is about the power and costs of wishes, in the finest fairy tale tradition. Joy ventures out to her family’s remote cabin to check on her ailing father, who is not doing well since his wife’s passing. The sights and sounds remind Joy of a brief childhood friendship centered around a “wishing pool” located between their cabins, and how their few wishes came true but went wrong (as is expected in this kind of story). Joy is desperate for her father to be happy and healthy again – but is she desperate enough to risk wishing on the pool and savvy enough to craft the wish in such a way to avoid it going wrong? Due imbues the story with all of the modern frustrations of dealing with an ailing parent who will not seek out the medical attention they so clearly need: carving out time from regular life and work to travel a great distance to check in on them, the realization that their health has deteriorated far more than suspected (in this case, lung disease and cognitive/memory decline), shouldering the decision-making burden when other siblings fail to step up. All of this adds great depth to Joy as a character and to the memories that bring her to her ultimate decision. I also appreciated Due including what ‘Nathan Burgoine sometimes refers to “that slight nod to reality that makes some people uncomfortable.” In this case, it’s a mention of how the family came to have this remote cabin: built by her grandfather to “hide from lynch mobs roused by their envy that a negro businessman could afford a shiny new Ford Model T.” It’s a throw-away line, but a reminder of history and a moment that ties this story with fantastical elements to our reality.

“Immortal Coil” by Ellen Kushner

Students of drama have been as fascinated by what we don’t know about the life of William Shakespeare as what we do know of his work, and it’s always fun reading genre stories that investigate that life. I personally also tend to be a little obsessed with genre stories about writers that explore their relationship with craft, process, and legacy (see, for instance, my “Top Ten-ish Stephen King Books”). Ellen Kushner brings both of those interests together in “Immortal Coil,” which gives us a mid-career(ish) William Shakespeare seeing what seems to be the ghost of his deceased friend and fellow playwright Christopher Marlowe. The figure leads Will on a merry chase across town using book titles as clues to where to go next, and when they finally are face-to-face, the truth of the situation is laid out and Will is made an offer. Kushner beautifully addresses the question every creative person asks themselves eventually: is it preferable to walk away/retire/die at the height of your career or to stay in the game/live a longer life and watch your skills, and reputation, deteriorate? I won’t spoil Will’s choice, nor the delightful coda Kushner gives the story. But I will say that I wonder if, given the opportunity, I would make the same choice.

Sunday Shorts: Two by Francesca Forrest

I love short fiction, and Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it. Posts will range from flash to novellas. At some point, I might delve into individual stories/episodes of anthology formats in other media, like television and comics, but for the time being, I’m sticking to prose in print and audio.

I get a lot of book recommendations from a variety of sources, including, of course, close friends. Every now and then, one of those recommendations leads to an author becoming a “favorite”/ “must-read everything.” For instance, it is Jim Savenkoff’s fault that you all now get inundated with so many Seanan McGuire reviews, interviews, and social media comments from me. I suspect, based on my enjoyment of the novelette and novella I’m about to talk about, that in the future you’ll be able to blame Claire Cooney for all the Francesca Forrest posts I’ll be making. Fair warning. (Claire’s first recommendation was Forrest’s The Gown of Harmonies, which I listened to as an audiobook last year and loved and briefly reviewed HERE. But me being me, it wasn’t until Claire recommended these two stories that I remembered I wanted to read more by the author.)

In The Inconvenient God, we are introduced to the world of the Polity through the first-person narration of Decommissioner Thirty-Seven, who occasionally allows people to call her by her childhood nickname of “Sweeting” rather than her job title or her real name. Thirty-Seven is a decommissioner of deities for the Polity’s Ministry of Divinity. The Polity is slowly migrating its citizens from worship of local gods to worship of universal Abstractions (like Justice, Peace, Mischief, etc.); when the time comes, fading gods are decommissioned – that is, their divinity is removed and they become mortal. They remember their divine existences but now age and die as mortals do. In this introductory novelette, Thirty-Seven has been called to distant Nando University to decommission a troublemaking minor local deity named Ohin, who is worshipped nowhere else but this campus and who is kept from fading because he’s basically the patron god of failing students. What should be a straightforward decommissioning takes several interesting turns as Thirty-Seven learns that the Ministry was not provided enough information about Ohin for her to do her job properly. I don’t want to spoil what the information is or how it affects the outcome of Thirty-Seven’s mission, but I will say that the twists and reveals flow logically from each other, expand our understanding of how decommissionings work, and lead to a great conclusion to the story. In fifty-five pages, Forrest gives us a chance to really get to know Thirty-Seven/Sweeting: her focus on doing her job well, her insecurities based on previous cases that were shall we say less-than-smooth, her aggravation when incomplete or inaccurate information hampers her efforts, her emotional ties to the now-decommissioned gods of the Sweet Harbor district where she grew up. I was as intrigued by what Thirty-Seven tells us about herself as what she doesn’t (her real name, for instance). Forrest also weaves in some hints about what kind of society the Polity is: world (or at least, continent) wide, pushing towards a state religion over the freedom to worship whatever gods a person chooses to (a move not everyone is happy about).

Both Thirty-Seven’s personal history and the Polity’s dystopian nature are revealed in the novella Lagoonfire. It turns out that one of Thirty-Seven’s earliest decommissionings was of the last still-deified Sweet Harbor god, Laloran-morna, and she botched the job. Laloran-morna is mortal but when he gets upset saltwater rushes from and through him, usually leaving unsightly puddles wherever he’s been. So naturally, when an unusual incursion of seawater threatens the stability of a land development project over the former Lotus Estuary section of the Sweet Harbor District of the Capitol, Laloran-morna is suspected and Thirty-Seven is sent to investigate. Neither Thirty-Seven nor the reader is surprised when the case turns out to be more complicated (involving a former lover of Laloran-morna’s as well as a human college professor of history and archaeology) and Thirty-Seven’s unorthodox problem-solving skills (so well displayed in The Inconvenient God) are needed, despite the preferences of her boss and other officials. Those other officials are the Civil Order – the state police. It’s through Thirty-Seven’s encounters with the professor and the Civil Order that we come to understand just how much of a dystopia this society is: “Big Brother” in a fantasy setting, out to subsume and overwrite local culture and even history itself – whatever it takes to solidify control and eliminate resistance. Everyone is watched and monitored via communications devices called “unicoms” and anyone suspected of questioning the Polity or working against its mandates is arrested and questioned. Thirty-Seven’s family history gives her plenty of reasons to avoid contact with the Civil Order and also explains her focus on just doing her job well and not being noticed. We get to see a great deal more of Thirty-Seven’s interactions with her co-workers (mostly her immediate superior, Decommissioner Five, and her closest peers, Decommissioners Thirty-Three (whose name is Tailin) and Thirty-Six (Feshi). We also learn Thirty-Seven’s real name and that her nickname of “Sweeting” comes from the decommissioned gods of Sweet Harbor, who treat her like a niece or daughter. The novella length allows Forrest to tease out these personal and world-building details slowly, allowing each reveal to breath a bit before the next one comes along. The slow build of tension is wonderfully paced until the action of the final act where it all comes together, and I had several “ohmygod, did that really just happen” moments along the way.

Each of these books wraps up its own major storyline, so there are no cliffhangers to entice you into the next book. That enticement comes through the wonderful character voice of Thirty-Seven and the world Forrest reveals through her. You could really read these books out of publication order and not feel lost in the world-building. The good news is, there’s a third Polity book in the works, and I cannot wait to see how Forrest builds on some of the sub-plots of Lagoonfire especially. In the meantime, I’ll be reading all the other short stories and novel (PenPal) by Francesca Forrest that I bought and downloaded before writing this column.

Sunday Shorts: Three Gay Romance novellas

I love short fiction, and Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it. Posts will range from flash to novellas. At some point, I might delve into individual stories/episodes of anthology formats in other media, like television and comics, but for the time being, I’m sticking to prose in print and audio.

In the past month I’ve read a trio of m/m romance novellas that really warmed my heart, so with Valentine’s Day coming up, I thought this Sunday would be a good time to tell you a little bit about them.

The Christmas Accomplice by Hank Edwards

The set-up: Welton Monroe, notedly not a winter sports enthusiast, ends up on vacation at a ski lodge after his break-up with former boyfriend Dean leaves them having to decide who gets to keep the vacation. On his arrival at the resort, Welton has an awkward meet-cute with Reece Donaghy, a front desk employee in the process of vying for a promotion to assistant activities director. Of course, Dean shows up even though he’s not supposed to, throwing a wrench in Welton and Reece’s attempts to get to know each other better. This novella clicks on all cylinders: likeable and relatable lead characters who you really want to see get together for either a HFN or HEA (look, guys, I’m learning romance fiction acronyms!), just enough stumbling blocks in the path of the couple we’re rooting for to cause complications (the ex-boyfriend’s presence, the workplace promotion tests) without slowing the story down or adding too many layers of angst, and just enough sub-plot for the equally likeable (except for that one guy, because there’s always one – and this time it’s not the trope-y ex-boyfriend!) supporting cast. Bonus points for the “week before Christmas” time frame (we all know that I’m a sucker for stories set at Christmas and New Year’s).

By the Way, I Love You by Seth King

Speaking of New Year’s Eve…  The set-up: college student Evan Ruiz is waiting for his roommate Tom to return from a holiday visit to family so that Evan can reveal a secret that’s been torturing him almost since they were assigned to live together: that Evan, despite thinking himself straight all his life, has fallen for Tom. Most of the story is narrated by Evan, revealing the history of their relationship while at the same time ratcheting up the drama of how Tom will react. I found Evan’s self-awareness regarding his history of little moments that might have indicated he wasn’t as straight as he thought he was to be pretty realistic as the heart of the story. This is not one of those “I’m gay but only for you” type stories (which I find pretty offensive; bi/demi/pan-sexual erasure is a real thing and I don’t tolerate it). Most of what we learn about Tom is through Evan’s perceptions of him, but we do get a little bit of Tom first-person narrative eventually, fleshing out his personality and his own insecurities. The New Year’s Eve setting works mostly as metaphor (new beginnings and all that), since most of the book takes place in flashback.

Defensive Play by Jamie Deacon

The set-up: Seventeen-year-old British soccer player Davey is deeply in the closet, aware that while his family would support him there’s a very real possibility his teammates would not. Then, at a multi-school tournament, he lays eyes on Adam and is captivated and terrified in even measure – especially when he hears his teammates talking about the “poofter” on the other team. Of course, since Davey is a defenseman and Adam is a striker, they end up face to face on the pitch, with disastrous results. But that’s just the start of the story. I seem to have developed a “thing” for m/m sports romances, and this one scratched that itch very well. Both Evan’s fear of coming out and losing the one steady thing in his high school career (saddled with crippling social anxiety, he doesn’t have many friends outside of the team) and Adam’s hurt when that closet door locks him out at a key moment were both recognizable. Deacon’s writing in those moments is emotional without being manipulative. Because this is a coming out story, there is of course at least one homophobic team-mate to put that outside stumbling block in the way of Evan and Adam’s relationship developing. I also thought Deacon’s descriptions of Evan’s social anxiety and Adam’s experiences with coming out were touching.