Sunday Shorts: Three from Autumn Cthulhu

Editor Mike Davis takes a line from H.P. Lovecraft’s story “Polaris” (“And in the autumn of the year, when the winds from the north curse and whine, and the red-leaved trees of the swamp mutter things to one another in the small hours of the morning under the horned waning moon…”) and uses it as the core principal of the anthology Autumn Cthulhu (Lovecraft ezine Press, 2016). Here are my thoughts on a few of the stories contained therein:

cover image by andreiuc88

 

“In the Spaces Where You Once Lived” by Damien Angelica Walters

Helena and Jack, a couple in their retirement years, live in a house that backs up onto a beautiful forest. Jack is falling victim to dementia/Alzheimer’s and Helen is struggling to accept the slow loss of her husband and to cope with the changes in his personality. Jack is convinced this house is not his home, that his home is elsewhere: perhaps somewhere in the woods. Walters’ story balances a very real fear (Jack’s health and eventual full loss of memory and cognitive function) with a slow-growing dread that something is very wrong in the woods. Of course, something is, or this wouldn’t be a Lovecraftian story. The relationship between Helena and Jack is drawn so indelibly by Walters, it is easy to see the love that underpins the strangeness and discomfort; scenes with their child and grandchild add to both the poignancy of Jack’s situation and the tension of the mystery of the woods. Helena does eventually learn what’s lurking just out of sight and why it is affecting Jack – but thankfully the author does not use it as an explanation for Jack’s declining mental acuity. That would have been a bit too precious for an otherwise realistic look at the horror of Alzheimer’s and similar diseases.

 

“The Black Azalea” by Wendy N. Wagner

The protagonist of Wagner’s story is Candace, a recent widow whose marriage to Graham was not a happy one especially in the later years. Before he passed, Graham had planted an azalea bush in the shadow of an elm tree that succumbed to Dutch elm disease, leaving room for sunlight to kill the azalea. The dead azalea blocks Candace’s view of her garden, so she decides on the last nice day of autumn to dig the bush out. Which is when she discovers strange rot at the bush’s core … strange rot that seems to be incredibly contagious to all the other plant life on Candace’s property. And eventually to more than just the plants. Wagner is an expert at moving a story from subtle unease to full out horror, and “The Black Azalea” is yet another example of that skill. The story also does not skimp on characterization in favor of horror; Candace’s life as a widow, and her life before becoming a widow, are just as central to the story as the rot is (and, in fact, I began to consider that this (supernatural? extraterrestrial?) rot is something of a metaphor for the course of Candace and Graham’s marriage.

 

“A Shadow Passing” by Daniel Mills

“A Shadow Passing” is one of the most fever dream-like short stories I have read in recent memory. A young boy’s mother leaves their house each day, dressed in widow’s black, to track down “them” – winged batlike shadows that speak to her, taunt her, are leading her to something. Something the boy seems tied to, with his strange fevers. Something the boy’s aunts and grandfather don’t seem to want him to be a part of, seeking medical assistance for him while his mother is away. Mills’ prose is perfect for the story’s overall sense of disconnection from logical reality, of a sick child’s inability to understand why the adults in his life seem to be at odds, of the way fevers especially steal time from us and cause us to hallucinate. I might have been reading too much into the story, but it also feels like an investigation of how adults who get caught up in cults will sacrifice everything, potentially even their own children, for the sake of their new beliefs – and how difficult it is for family members outside the cult to save the ones who have been sucked in.

 

I love short fiction in all its forms: from novellas to novelettes, short stories, flash fiction, and drabbles. Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it.

Sunday Shorts: Two From Women in Practical Armor

In 2016, Ed Greenwood and Gabrielle Harbowy edited Women in Practical Armor, an anthology of fantasy short stories focused on female warriors while avoiding the trope of skimpy armor. Here are my thoughts on a couple of the stories contained therein.

cover image by Nneirda, design by Eloise Knapp

 

“No Better Armor, No Heavier Burden” by Wunji Lau

Rose, an older woman with a mysterious past, has settled quietly in a small town in the shadow of a mountain with strange properties called the Blacktooth, where weather does not work the way it does in the rest of Ara. Only one person in town knows anything of her past at all, including that she has two estranged adult sons. The story begins with Rose running towards the town Inn because she’s heard there’s trouble, and only upon arrival does she discover one of her sons, Zaian, being held at swordpoint by Leian (a nearby country) soldiers. From there, the story gains complexity as an excellently written fight scene reveals what Rose and her opponents are capable of along with some of Rose’s secrets (and her son’s). But it’s not all non-stop fighting; the conflict between Rose and the people who want to take Zaian in for a crime he possibly didn’t commit also becomes something of a battle of personality and will. I loved Rose’s personality (take charge, take no bullshit, take chances). Her first-person narrative voice is personable and irascible; her relationship with Zaian is not smooth but still loving as she struggles with why he’s been estranged and why he’s lying to her now. The world building surrounding the characters is really great: the Blacktooth is home to weird energy fluctuations that affect not just the weather but the way magic works. I really want to know more about Rose, Zaian, and the countries of Ara and Lei and the religion of the Steersman.

 

“The Bound Man” by Mary Robinette Kowal

In Li Reiko’s society, women are the warriors and leaders, while men are the homemakers and scribes. Li Reiko herself is a noted leader and warrior, with two young children: a daughter who will someday be a warrior as well, and a son whose interest in martial arts needs to be dissuaded because it distracts him from honing the skills he’ll need to keep the Histories. Despite her society’s dictates, Li Reiko plays a version of hide-and-seek with her kids that fosters both children’s abilities and awareness. Elsewhere, Halldór, a warrior-priest, struggles to bring the sword of the Chooser of the Slain back to his people’s Parliament while his Duke and the rest of the party that found the legendary sword fall to a bandit raiding party. Halldór chants a rune of power that will bring the Chooser of the Slain from the realm of the gods to the world of men … and Li Reiko is torn from her children and thrust into a world she doesn’t recognize. “The Bound Man” explores the ideological conflict of matriarchal versus patriarchal societies alongside the notion of destiny. Li Reiko is stuck living out a legend/prophecy she had no hand in creating, and the story explores the effects of that on her children and on Halldór’s society. There are moments of this story that are so heartbreaking, and Kowal doesn’t give her characters an uncomplicated way out (no rewriting history, for example). The heart of the story is Li Reiko’s relationship with her kids (the hide-and-seek scene is genuinely heartwarming) and Halldór’s unerring belief in the legend of the Chooser of the Slain and her ability to rescue his country from the Troll King.

 

I love short fiction in all its forms: from novellas to novelettes, short stories, flash fiction, and drabbles. Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it.

Sunday Shorts: Two from Cthulhu's Daughters

In 2015, Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles co-edited Cthulhu’s Daughters: Stories of Lovecraftian Horror, in an effort to put paid to the rumor that “women don’t write Lovecraftian Horror / Weird Fiction.” No matter how many anthologies like this come out, there will be some people who still make that claim (heck, there are some who would claim women don’t write horror at all, or that women writing horror is a relatively recent development. Clueless, those people are.)

Here are my thoughts on a few of the 25 stories Moreno-Garcia and Stiles brought together.

 

Lockbox by E. Catherine Tobler

My opinion is that it takes a certain type of talent to write good serious “footnoted fiction.” (The type of story where as much is revealed in footnotes from the narrator as in the main text itself, that is. I thought about being cutesy and making this parenthetical aside a footnote, but I’m not sure I can get the formatting to work on my blog, and would it really be worth it?) I’ve read a fair number of such stories over the years, and in most of them I find the footnotes an affectation, often a distraction, rather than an enhancement. Not so here. Tobler’s story of two modern college students’ discovery of a long-buried but legendary Priory drips with atmosphere and foreboding from the very first sentence (“If nothing else, remember this: Edgar always knew.1”) and the footnotes enhance those feelings (“ 1 We may debate exactly when Edgar knew at length, but I am not convinced there was ever a single, discernable point one can reference; as the notions herein are circular,20 I feel so to was Edgar’s knowledge.” Yes, there’s a footnote to the footnote, which plays out very effectively later in the story). The narrator reveals the bloody history of the Priory and the history of his relationship with Edgar in just enough detail for the reader to understand how much isn’t be said … either because the narrator isn’t ready or is physically unable to share such details. It’s a fantastic counterpoint to Lovecraft, whose narrators often fell into what we call “purple prose” and shared too much detail; Tobler is as effective, or more so, in ramping up the creeping horror and dread with much less flowery language. And in the female protagonist, Tobler has created a character I find as horrifying as any of Lovecraft’s cosmic horrors.

 

Queen of a New America by Wendy N. Wagner

What is it about Nitocris, possible last queen of Egypt’s Sixth Dynasty, which draws so many writers of Lovecraftian horror to use her? Maybe it’s simply that Lovecraft himself mentions her in passing in two of his stories, making her a usable hook to expand on Lovecraft’s universe. Maybe it’s that so little is known about the historical Nitocris (including some debate over whether she actually existed at all), which makes her rife for use in all manner of genres from historical fiction to horror. Whatever it is, my experience is that usually in Lovecraftian horror, Nitocris is the Big Bad of the story/novel. Wendy N. Wagner turns that tradition upside down by showing a Nitocris who is far from the height of her power, her influence shrunk to being able to occasionally take control of a young girl’s body. Wagner explores the psychological effect of a drop from such lofty heights as well as revealing how it happened and draws comparisons between an Egypt where magic was commonplace and an America where logic and science have pushed magic to the background. Just when I thought I knew where the story was going, Wagner reveals a detail I hadn’t even noticed was missing and spins the story into a commentary about society we currently live in and where and how structures of power might be found in a world so different from the one Nitrocris knew. I enjoyed the claustrophobic feel of the story and the twist.

 

 

 

I love short fiction in all its forms: from novellas to novelettes, short stories, flash fiction, and drabbles. Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it.

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.