Short Fiction Review: May 2019
My favorite stories from May all happened to be about resistance. They all had good and satisfying endings, although none of them had a clean ending where everything was wrapped up neatly with a bow. Then again, I don’t think resistance often works that way. First, I loved “Everything is Closed Today” by Sarah Pinsker. It’s delightful tale about skater girls, activism, and building community, and it appears in Do Not Go Quietly: An Anthology of Victory in Defiance edited by Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conner. Next, I recommend Joe Ponce’s “Raices (Roots),” which appears in Issue 7 of Anathema: Spec from the Margins. It’s a powerful and important story about immigration, border justice, and political consciousness. Lastly, if you love academic scholarship and theory — or, for that matter, if you hate those things — you must check out “Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island” by Nibedita Sen in Issue 80 of Nightmare Magazine. Now, on to the reviews!
Short Fiction Review: June 2018
My favorite story last month was “In the End, It Always Turns Out the Same” by A.C. Wise, which appears in The Dark Issue 37. It’s a smart, dark take on the Scooby Doo formula that pauses and asks, “Aren’t they too young for this?” Like poetry and space opera? Go read “I Sing Against the Silent Sun” by A. Merc Rustad and Ada Hoffmann, which appears in Lightspeed Magazine Issue 97. In this harrowing yet hopeful story, a poet-revolutionary is hunted by a god of silence. (Also, this story makes me happy because of its genderfluid and nonbinary representation.) I also enjoyed “The Sweetness of Honey and Rot” by A. Merc Rustad, which appears in Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue 254 (21 June 2018). It’s a story about the costs of resistance, and it features original, inventive worldbuilding and gorgeous, detailed prose.
