Over the past several months, I’ve been using this column to spotlight my favorite new short stories. In particular, I’ve been attempting to spotlight work by new writers and/or writers with marginal identities. This month, I’m going to try something slightly different. Rather than spotlight short stories, I’m going to spotlight publications. Why? I was able to read a lot of short fiction over the last month, and there’s a lot of good work that deserves attention. In particular, this last month, most of my favorite stories appeared in these three publications: Nightmare Magazine (for the horror addicts), Anathema: Spec from the Margins (for those of you who love superb worldbuilding), and Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of a City That Never Was, a new anthology of queer urban fantasy.
Nightmare Magazine
Nighmare Magazine features two original short stories each month. August brought us “Dead Air” by Nino Cipri and “Crook’s Landing, by Scaffold” by G.V. Anderson. Both pieces are standout work.
“Dead Air” by Nino Cipri experiments with form a little bit: it’s an audio transcript, featuring interesting, developed characters and a slow, haunting build. It’s fascinating, engaging, and deeply creepy. Nita’s working on a sociologically-influenced art project. “It’s an ethnography of the people I fuck.” That’s what Nita tells Maddie, her latest … interviewee. As Nita attempts to dig into Maddie’s history and life story, she discovers a mysterious secret in Maddie’s past. Maddie is from a small rural town in Washington State that she describes as, “Fairytale-ish. But not the nice kind of fairytale. Not something Disney would make into a movie.” And something in her hometown is pulling her back. “Dead Air” is a story about boundaries, permission, past lives, and people who ask questions. There’s a podcast version of the story you can listen to, and I recommend you do—it adds another savory layer to the story.
“Crook’s Landing, by Scaffold” falls into a subgenre that I adore: afterlife fiction. Honestly, the subgenre is just to die for, and this story is no exception. The narrator and his kid brother are crooks who got caught in the act and sentenced to death. After he’s hung, the narrator ends up in Crook’s Landing, the portion of the afterlife reserved for con artists, thieves, and other scoundrels. It’s no paradise, but it isn’t exactly the ninth circle of hell either. Since the narrator is a good big brother, he immediately starts looking for his little brother Charlie, but for some reason, Charlie is nowhere to be found. The story is creepy, imaginative, and pulls you right through to its strong ending. If you like afterlife fiction, read this.
And since I’m spotlighting publications rather than short stories this month, I also want to shout out Nadia Bulkin’s essay “Don’t Look Now,” in which Bulkin reflects on her own stressful responses to horror fiction—and why she loves and writes it anyway. Bulkin’s essay is part of “The H Word,” Nightmare Magazine‘s monthly column in which different writers reflect on their own experience with the genre of horror. This column is one of my favorite regular nonfiction features in a magazine, and Bulkin’s essay was no exception.
Anathema: Spec from the Margins
Anathema is a free, online tri-annual magazine that publishes work by queer POC/Indigenous/Aboriginal creators. The August issue features five stories with interweaving themes concerning magic and science, God and nature, technology and autonomy, family and fate. Despite these big themes, the stories all remain rooted in likable characters and strong worldbuilding. Really, I think each of Anathema‘s five stories pulls off this tripartite tour de force. I enjoyed every story in Anathema‘s August issue. That’s not something I can say for most magazines.
I was especially impressed with the worldbuilding on display in this issue. It’s clear that the writers paid careful, smart attention to the mechanics of their worlds, especially to questions of power, inclusion/exclusion, and class differentials. The stories took me to fascinating, believable places, and skillfully balanced infodumps, implication, and unanswered questions. The writers both created and conveyed their worlds with delightful skill.
My favorite story in Anathema‘s August issue is probably “Versions of the Sun” by A.J. Hammer. In this story, the high priestess reads Anatheria an ancient prophecy and tells her that she’s the chosen one. Anatheria doesn’t believe it and protests that “This is madness,” but the priestess merely responds, “You know your destiny now. Learn how to fulfill it.” The story is a fascinating, beautiful take on prophecy, destiny, and rebellion. If you like stories about religion or stories that interrogate the trope of “the chosen one,” I highly recommend “Versions of the Sun.”
I also loved “Control” by Davian Aw. It’s a gripping look at body-swapping technology and its applications for the exercise and diet industry, and it’s informed by a smart awareness of class differentials. (I do want to include a content warning for this story; it features some fairly traumatic abuse and violence that caught me off guard.)
Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of a City That Never Was
Broken Metropolis is a new anthology of queer urban fantasy edited by Dave Ring and published by Mason Jar Press, a small publisher based in Baltimore, MD. I admit that not every story in this anthology worked for me, but the stories I enjoyed were enjoyable light reads populated with really likable characters. It’s always a pleasure to read a themed anthology such as this one, an anthology where you know every story is going to center queer characters within a specific genre niche (urban fantasy in this case). In particular, I was impressed with the intersectional nature of the anthology. I expected to encounter lesbian, gay, and bisexual characters, but multiple stories also centered trans characters and people of color, and there was also some representation of disability and chronic illness as well.
My favorite story in Broken Metropolis is “The Plague-Eater” by Caspian Gray. It’s about two guys who fall in love while caring for Pills, their dying friend. When Miguel hears rumors about a plague-eater appearing at a local hospital, Miguel and Todd go to investigate the mythic creature that can heal their dying friend—for a cost. I loved spending time with Miguel, Todd, and Pills, and I was fascinated by the plague-eater. I also loved “Under Her White Stars” by Jacob Budenz, a fun romp (that’s also quite moving) about a witch and his non-magic fiancé who attempt to hunt down a devious soul-sucking bad guy. Some other stories I liked were “The City of Cats” by Victoria Zelvin (it’s about magic cats!), “Venus Conjunct Saturn” by Claire Rudy Foster (a trans romance!), and “Familiar” by kx carys (cute flash fiction).
The recommendation for this anthology is pretty easy: if you like urban fantasy, and you like anthologies where all the stories center queer folks, you’ll probably enjoy this.
