Tag: short story glory

I’m not opposed to awards per se–they’re a formalized pat on the back, a “good job, well done,” and when I disagree, well, I’m allowed to. I’m allowed to wander off and pat someone else’s back instead. But when I’ve been talking about short fiction in 2015, it’s not for that purpose. It’s for the purpose of–and follow me here, this is going to get complicated–talking about short fiction. Because I think talking about short fiction is inherently a good thing. Specifically, pointing out things that are nifty is inherently a good thing.

So narrowing down to 5 or 10 or some other number–8 is my favorite number, it’s the smallest cube, yay 8!–but why should I like 8 things and not 7 or 9 or more? Turns out it’s more. I’m putting them here now because short stories have a tendency to flit past if no one jumps up and down and points at them. Because even the people most invested in them forget titles. Because I like to talk about short stories. Some of you are really into the awards thing. That’s fine; you do you. What I did in 2015–what I will continue to do in 2016–is point at the short fiction I like, and hope that some of you like some of it too. I make no pretense of reading everything. That’s a trap. I just read some stuff. And then jump up and down and point when I like it.

I think that one of the least enlightening discussions possible about a story is: “Is this the best story of this calendar year?” I would rather do: what does this remind me of? What is this story doing that I would like to see more of? What is special, what is familiar, what made me laugh or cry or write to someone I love? Best is flat and unidirectional and boring. I want stories to be stories and send out roots and runners and blossoms in all sorts of directions in my heart and mind, not send the little meter up to ring the bell. So okay: stories you can get to online:

Soteriology and Stephen Greenwood by Julia August (Journal of Unlikely Academia).

Fire Rises, by Alec Austin (Beneath Ceaseless Skies).

Monkey King, Faerie Queen, by Zen Cho (Kaleidotrope).

Further North, by Kay Chronister (Clarkesworld).

Hold-Time Violations by John Chu (Tor.com).

Wild Things Go to Go Free, by Heather Clitheroe (BCS).

20/20, by Arie Coleman (Strange Horizons).

The Coup in Elfland, by Michael J. DeLuca (Mythic Delirium).

The Half Dark Promise, by Malon Edwards (Shimmer).

The Deepest Rift, by Ruthanna Emrys (Tor.com).

Sun’s East, Moon’s West, by Merrie Haskell (Lightspeed).

Solder and Seam by Maria Dahvana Headley (Lightspeed)

The Lamps Thereof are Fire and Flames, by Rosamund Hodge (Uncanny).

By Degrees and Dilatory Time, by S.L. Huang (Strange Horizons).

A Photograph of Bones, by Robin Husen (Daily SF).

Here Is My Thinking on a Situation That Affects Us All, by Rahul Kanakia (Lightspeed).

Midnight Hour, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Uncanny).

Cat Pictures Please, by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld).

So Much Cooking, by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld).

Meshed, by Rich Larson (Clarkesworld).

Court Bindings, by Karalynn Lee (BCS).

The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn, by Usman Malik (Tor.com).

City of Salt, by Arkady Martine (Strange Horizons).

Ginga, by Daniel Jose Older (Tor.com).

A Beautiful Memory, by Shannon Peavey (Apex).

The Snake-Oil Salesman and the Prophet’s Head, by Shannon Peavey (BCS).

Remembery Day, by Sarah Pinsker (Apex).

Glaciers Made You, by Gabby Reed (Strange Horizons).

Spider’s Ink, by Jason S. Ridler (BCS).

The Closest Thing to Animals by Sofia Samatar (Fireside).

Those by Sofia Samatar (Uncanny).

The Girl With Golden Hair, by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (BCS).

Crazy Rhythm, by Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed).

The Ways of Walls and Words, by Sabrina Vourvoulias (Tor.com).

Bent the Wing, Dark the Cloud, by Fran Wilde (BCS).

Find Me, by Isabel Yap (Apex).

So that was more than five, and wow am I glad I’m not awards-focused. That was friends and acquaintances and total strangers, science fiction and fantasy and interstitialish things. That was just the stuff I can link to. And you know what? I’m pretty sure I missed stuff. Tell me what I missed. Tell me what you loved this year in short fiction. Because wow, guys. Look at the work going on in this field, just the stuff that I managed to get to and read and swoon over. Look at what we can do. For all that I’ve occasionally joked that it would be hard to pick a collection of the Year’s Best Sofia Samatar–for all the people I know in this field, some on this list–look at the people I’d never read before up there and the cool stuff they knocked me over with.

Let’s do more. More of us, more ideas, more awesome stories. We can. C’mon. Let’s.

Another in a semi-regular series of posts. Here are some stories I liked!  Please feel free to talk about them in the comments and/or leave links to additional stories you’ve liked. Stories are easier to transport for Mikulas morning and nobody will forget that it’s Mikulas and put their stinky feet on the nice stories you have left them. No one gets eaten by Krampus in these stories. That’s not really my style.

So Much Cooking, by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld).  Feeding a family in the face of a science fictional pandemic, food blogger style. This is so compassionate and humane. It is also so, so, so very Minneapolitan.

The Coup in Elfland, by Michael J. DeLuca (Mythic Delirium). I am a sucker for revolutions, especially for revolutions that do not have a simple happy ending. Blood is once again compulsory, you see.

Here Is My Thinking on a Situation That Affects Us All, by Rahul Kanakia (Lightspeed). Spaceship-perspective story on a gloopy people and their gloopy priorities vs. its own.

A Photograph of Bones, by Robin Husen (Daily SF). A completely different story but also about perspectives. Seeing the world differently is beautiful.

The Girl With Golden Hair, by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (Beneath Ceaseless Skies). Great expectations, terrible queens, centaurs. And implication.

Spider’s Ink, by Jason S. Ridler (Beneath Ceaseless Skies). Rarely do I really like a story that I have to warn people might gross them out a little, but this is one: there’s some quite vivid visceral stuff here. That’s not the point, though, the point is much deeper, so if you can get through the initial bit, this is another story full of rebellion and politics, unreliability and non-simple endings.

It seems like a good time to compile some more new/recent short stories I have read and liked.  One weird thing that happened is that I read a paper magazine I was not in, and I’m not entirely sure how to handle that, because I liked several things in it, but it’s so unusual that I don’t have a protocol for it.  It was Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet Issue 33, and what I particularly liked was:  “I Bury Myself” by Carmen Maria Machado; “Starling Road” by Alena McNamara; “For Me, Seek the Sun” by Michelle Vider; and “Request for an Extension on the Clarity” by Sofia Samatar (all stories) and “Child Without Summer” by Kelda Crich (a poem).  Elsewhere, more easily gotten to:

The Closest Thing to Animals by Sofia Samatar (Fireside)

Those by Sofia Samatar (Uncanny) (Yeah, I didn’t mean to make it Sofia Samatar month, it just happened that way.)

Solder and Seam by Maria Dahvana Headley (Lightspeed)

Hold-Time Violations by John Chu (Tor.com)

Soteriology and Stephen Greenwood by Julia August (Journal of Unlikely Academia)

Here are some short stories I’ve liked since the last time I posted about short stories I’ve liked! Please feel free to share some of yours in the comments, or your thoughts about these.

Cat Pictures Please, by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld)

Crazy Rhythm, by Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed)

Midnight Hour, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Uncanny)

The Lamps Thereof are Fire and Flames, by Rosamund Hodge (Uncanny)

(this one is the poem) Apologies for Breaking the Glass Slipper, by Isabel Yap (Uncanny)