Short Fiction Review: February 2019
February saw the release of A People’s Future of the United States, an anthology of resistance and hope that’s edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams and features big names such as Charlie Jane Anders, Hugh Howey, N. K. Jemisin, Sam J. Miller, and Catherynne M. Valente. The anthology is filled with great work, and in particular I want to spotlight “Riverbed” by Omar El Akkad and “Harmony” by Seanan McGuire. I could easily rave about A People’s Future of the United States for the rest of this review, but I also want to spotlight some other great new stories by less well-known authors. In February, Nightmare Magazine published “58 Rules to Ensure Your Husband Loves You Forever” by Rafeeat Aliyu, a creative and disturbing take on zombies that powerfully comments on toxic social norms around marriage. This piece is dark and disturbing, so it won’t be for everyone, but if you like horror, I highly recommend it. I also enjoyed “This Wine-Dark Feeling That Isn’t The Blues” by José Pablo Iriarte, which appears in Escape Pod. It’s a short and surprising story about love, grief, and simulated realities. Lastly, I loved “Ti-Jean’s Last Adventure, as Told to Raccoon” by KT Bryski, which appears in Lightspeed Magazine. It’s a very Canadian story that’s equal parts fun folklore and serious cultural critique.
Shorty on Friday: Omenana
Omenana, a bimonthly speculative fiction magazine edited by Mazi Nwonwu and Chinelo Onwualu, includes short fiction, essays, and art by and about people from the African continent. Its debut issue appeared on November 30, and the stories within work very well together. Two are more traditional narratives, while two are more experimental; there are contemporary settings and futures near and far, nods to Nigeria’s literary legacy, and a love letter to Lagos. The essays are powerful and the art is lovely. The tl;dr of this column is that you should alter your weekend plans as necessary to read the first issue.
Women Destroy Reviewing!
…Fantasy is a genre that tends to destroy women — or if not destroy, then de-story. –Wendy N. Wagner I’ve been quite curious what Women Destroy Fantasy!, the October 2014 special issue of Lightspeed/Fantasy Magazine, would be all about. You don’t hear so much whiny dudebro noise about girl cooties in dragon lairs as you do in rocketships; fantasy seems to have far more female protagonists and memorable secondary characters in its canon than science fiction does; more people can at least name some female fantasy authors. Fantasy seems to be a genre that is at least less inhospitable to women than science fiction is. Well, the opening quotation from the editorial pretty much sums it up. Women are often erased from the genre: the authors are not talked about; their work is marketed differently and, well, less; they’re stricken from certain genre categories. Female characters are fridged and used as gross object-fantasies. And that’s to say nothing about how many potential female readers may be alienated from the genre by frightful covers and the overwhelming numbers of books titled something like “The Half-King of the Dude-Sword,” as I was for so many years. The fight for women in fantasy is not just to exist, but to have agency at all.
