'Nathan Burgoine's Blog, page 41

Short Stories 366:186 — “Little Enigmatic Monster,” by Wayne Carey

[image error]One of the great things about a shared-world anthology for me as a reader is how you get to see slice-of-life stories from characters who aren’t the protagonists, and how easily that lends itself to various other kinds of stories, even within science fiction. Case in point? “Little Enigmatic Monster,” by Wayne Carey, which puts Lydis Bowman at the helm of an investigation and offers up a murder mystery set on board the interstellar market place where all the tales intersect in The Clan Chronicles: Tales from Plexis.

Bowman is a character we see in Julie E. Czerneda’s series, and often she’s seen as a hard edge, unflinching and aimed at justice, and often as much a roadblock for the protagonists as sometimes support. Here we see her investigating a death which has been written off as a simple heart attack, but the person who died is important to the Trade Pact, and so Bowman is investigating. And doesn’t buy the “otherwise healthy man just drops dead” narrative at all.

Another tale that could one-hundred percent stand alone by itself with zero knowledge of The Clan Chronicles at large, “Little Enigmatic Monster” is a charming little whodunnit, and Bowman is a great character. More, while the use of alien creatures, the setting, and the eventual showdown are all absolutely science fiction, the motives and actions of everyone involved are so completely human, which grounds the tale in an emotional way that really helps drive it home. That getting into Bowman’s head is such a joy for a reader of Czerneda’s series? That’s just added joy.

Short Stories 366:185 — “The Fourteenth Floor,” by Adam Meyer

[image error]Ah, Crime Travel. This anthology of crime stories with the added theme of time-travel continues to deliver fun and clever little knots of mystery and science fiction, and “The Fourteenth Floor” is no exception. Even better? This one features a character in his sixties, which I always appreciate, in the form of Frank Russo, a security guard in a building who has worked there for decades, and who—if he’s honest with himself—hasn’t done a whole lot else with his life beyond reading books and working his job. He comes off as a bit of a sad sack, but then he catches a glimpse of a young woman on the fourteenth floor who is there-and-gone-again, and definitely looks like she doesn’t belong, and he decides to see what’s going on.

That’s where the time travel kicks in: the elevator doesn’t just drop him off on the fourteenth floor, it drops him off in the past version of the fourteenth floor, and he realizes pretty quickly since he can remember when the building looked like this. His security uniform and his knowledge of who’s-who from the time keeps things from getting out of hand, but then he notices the woman again, and gets the impression she’s in real trouble.

What follows is Frank stepping up in a time and place where he shouldn’t be, which has ripples that follow him when he heads back into the elevator with the woman to try and figure out how to get himself home. Their brief encounter before he finds himself back where he belongs leaves Frank wondering about possibility and chances, and then the past catches up with him in a new way, and the ultimate resolution? Well, the consequences of altering the past are always a gamble, but the payoff of this one had me smiling from ear-to-ear.

Short Stories 366:184 — “The Blood is the Life,” by Jess Faraday

[image error]When we last left Simon Pearce, our hero the gay constable in the late 1800’s, he’d gone back to London, leaving an amazing opportunity—well, two of them, really—behind, thanks to his own temper and jealous nature. I’m not going to lie, I gave Shadow of Justice a good long glare for a moment, as I was enjoying Simon’s journey to potentially allowing himself some happiness, but I trusted Jess Faraday to keep at least a spark of hope going, and with “The Blood is the Life,” there was… well, there was definitely some further worry about said spark.

Don’t get me wrong, every step of this story (which is darker in tone than most of the tales and a shade more erotic, too) lands well, and Simon himself is in a bad place given the events of “The Star-Crossed Lovers,” but I want this man to be happy and as such, watching his self-destructive behaviour and his regressing to getting in his own way was painful. Totally believable, but painful. In this case, Simon ends up in over his head with a group of men who are more powerful and connected than he is, and most of higher birth, and he discovers a conspiracy that goes very high indeed.

Then he has to choose between his own survival and justice, and for the first time, Simon realizes he can’t completely win. There’s no version of events where the terrible are punished and he is still standing, career and life intact. He makes his choice, and I appreciated how in-line it felt with everything that came before. It’s a bold turn to the stories thus far, and I’ll admit that I immediately struck into the next of the collection, if only to discover whether or not Simon would be okay (he was). This is one of the rare stories in the book where justice isn’t served, but don’t fret: this is a collection of linked tales, and there’s closure to be had in the next tale.

Short Stories 366:183 — “Knit One, Purl Two,” by Carolyn Charron

[image error]I love tales that juggle tones. Or, I suppose in keeping with the narrative I’m going to discuss, I should say knitting tones. In “Knit One, Purl Two,” we meet Maggie, a woman who knits as therapy (arthritis), has a keen wit, is mourning a major loss, and has just realized the fellow she rented her basement to—and has been inviting to her bed—is a vampire.

It’s because of the wooden knitting needles (easier on her hands) and the man’s reaction to them (horror at the sight of wood sharp pokey things) that she realizes exactly what’s going on, and from there, the story shifts back and forth between two tones: the serious reality facing Maggie and her mourning state, and the tongue-in-cheek and honestly quite charming and fun dilemma of facing down the vampire fellow about his nondisclosure about the whole, y’know, blood-sucking thing.

Like all the tales in Nothing Without Us, the representation of Maggie as someone with a chronic condition just is. The story is about her, and her predicament of intimacy with a vampire, and Charron centres the tale accordingly. Moreover, what Charron decides to do with the vampiric lore is clever and fresh, and the ultimate destination is smile-inducing (and, once again, knits the serious-and-cheeky tone into a nice whole).

Short Stories 366:182 — “Né Łe!” by Darcie Little Badger

[image error]Ahhh! Puppies in space! Huskies in space! Okay, sorry. First, it’s one husky (and a lot of little dogs, too). And second, that’s technically not what the story is about, but I mean, come on. Ahem. Sorry again. Found in Love Beyond Body, Space, & Time, “Né Łe!” by Darcie Little Badger, is flipping adorable beyond the puppy thing. We meet Dottie King, a woman who is off to be a veterinarian on Mars, leaving Earth for the first time and also not really all that ready to do the whole space travel thing, despite being in a travel-induced stasis coma for the whole trip. Things can go wrong, right? And if the ship blows up or something, she’ll never even know. She’ll be asleep, and then dead. Not optimal. Even less so when she’s honest about the only reason she took this trip: she got dumped (by VR no less), and basically chose the first thing that would get her somewhere else.

The pod closes, she drifts off, and then she’s being woken because something has, indeed, gone wrong. Only it’s not an explosion, it’s puppies. The pods containing the dogs for Mars have malfunctioned, and so the crew need someone to take care of a lot of dogs. What follows is a slowly unfurling romance between our narrator and one of the crew, a far more adventurous and gregarious woman. The delicate dance between the two is gentle and lovely, and we learn a few pieces about where their Indigenous cultures are now in this future (and how wonderful to read spec-fic where Indigenous cultures aren’t some sort of amalgamated single force, but as diverse and different as they are in the current day), and their own different personal histories, reasons for being in space, and what they want out of life.

As potentially ridiculous as this may sound, I also really appreciated the tiny little moment in the story that revolved around disability (in the husky, no less) and how it painted such an instant, clear picture of what Mars had come to represent, and how that altered Dottie’s course as much as the feelings she’s developed for the other woman, and another option she hadn’t truly considered as a place to go. It’s such a great little swoop at the end of what’s already a lovely and romantic spec-fic piece.

A note: I found this story in Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time: An LGBT and Two-Spirit Sci-Fi Anthology, but I need to point out this is one of those anthologies I’ve had in my collection for, well, years. It’s been sitting on my iPad, and it was only when someone asked me if I’d read it that I went to look and found out the publisher is defunct due to the publisher, Bedside Press, being shuttered when the editor confessed to sexual misconduct and sexual assault. After I went looking online and hit that roadblock, I was looking through my digital library to see what other anthologies I had and found my copy. Accordingly, I’m going to suggest you check out anything by Darcie Little Badger via her web-page, as I can find no information about where support for this anthology goes.

Short Stories 366:181 — “Great Reckonings, Little Rooms,” by Catherine Lundoff

[image error]Part of my university education included English Literature and it’s safe to say that most of those classes systematically managed to eradicate most of my love of reading of so-called lit-ruh-chur. So you’d think I’d bump into a story centred around Shakespeare and Marlowe would have me sighing and exiting, stage left. But, no, because “Great Reckonings, Little Rooms,” is an alternate-history, queered-to-the-nth take on said literary figures, and is, instead, about the Bard’s sister, and unfolds an alternate take on who wrote what, when, and—most importantly—paves a perfectly reasonable answer to why the “truth” of her writing wouldn’t/didn’t come to light.

It’s just the sort of historical fiction I love the most: putting us queer (or other marginalized) people right there in the thick of things, finding our ways around the rules and power structures in play, and—ultimately—coming out on top in a not insignificant way, even when it’s not a complete victory. Lundoff’s characters are different takes on the people I was forced to study, and craftily builds a “what-if?” around all of them that holds up easily through the lens of “of course we wouldn’t know that, people wouldn’t want to know that. Misogyny and homophobia buried so many of our tales, so a speculative exhumation sounds just about perfect to me.

I won’t spoil the narrative in this one beyond the basic set-up: Shakespeare’s sister is doing her absolute level best to continue to hold onto her ability to write, and is swept up alongside other key figures when she realizes their truths as queer people and women are about to be exposed: all of which would be punishable in truly horrifying ways. It fast becomes a race for her to try and save her friends and her brother, and I was completely swept away. As the opening tale for Out of this World: Queer Speculative Fiction, this story launched me into the collection whole-heartedly.

(Oh, and I was lucky enough to touch base with the author and asked her to share the sparks for these tales. Here’s what she’s got to say about “Great Reckonings, Little Rooms.”)

From the Author:

This one is a favorite of mine! I had a lot of fun writing it. It was inspired by reading a mix of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” (“What if Shakespeare had a sister?”) and A Dead Man in Deptford by Anthony Burgess right around the time that editor Connie Wilkins/Sacchi Green asked me to write an alternate history tale for her anthology Time Well Bent. Add a dose of the Bard himself and voila! It is full of references to the plays, Marlowe’s own work, the Dark Lady sonnets and the history around Marlowe’s murder in Deptford.

Short Stories 366:180 — “Early to Rise,” by Ana Mardoll

[image error]Okay, I know I keep saying this of the stories in No Man of Woman Born, but “Early to Rise” is so freaking good and I think it’s my new favourite of the collection (at least until I read the next story, which seems to be the pattern of the tales thus far). This is a retelling of “Sleeping Beauty,” (I think I’m on my fourth retelling of this fairy tale since I started this short fiction project, come to think of it) and, like all the stories in the collection it turns things sideways by including transgender and nonbinary leads, in this case, that Claude has girl-days and boy-days, shifting from she-to-they-to-he, and as the curse approaches, Claude wonders if true love is something real, let alone something that can be found in time.

The wrinkle of this story is another dash of cleverness from the author, as the fairy blessings (and the fairy curse), were all worded in a specific way about the daughter of the King and Queen, as a princess, as she. When Claude does indeed prick her finger and fall into the deep slumber, no one is as confused as Claude himself when he wakes up on a boy-day thereafter, and finds the whole kingdom asleep around him.

Trying to solve a curse when everyone who cares about you is locked in magical slumber and you’ll only be awake on days where you are male leaves Claude fighting an uphill battle, but he doesn’t give up and his thought processes as he hunts for solutions are grand. More, the ultimate realization of a way out of the curse had me grinning from ear-to-ear, especially in how grounded it was in the very magics and situation that spawned the whole curse in the first place. So, yeah, my new favourite of the collection, and I daresay my new favourite version of “Sleeping Beauty” as a whole.

Short Stories 366:179 — “Bug Hunt,” by Joanna Marsh

[image error]Okay, I love me a sci-fi story, and I love me a gritty sci-fi story about the doomed group of comrades who know they’re going up against something way, way tougher than them, and when you take all of that and add the Nothing Without Us layer on top? Oh, this was so good. Mech pilots ordered to take down Anna Hyde—a notoriously talented mech pilot who makes her own mech fight in ways barely imaginable to others—are given, well, standard out-of-date models to do the deed, and they basically gather for their briefing under a cloud of “we’re boned.”

These pilots, though, aren’t just in over their heads, they’re in under an Empire that listens to everything, ferrets out anything that shows a hint of traitorous thought, and they’re all on the margins in some way—be it wheelchair or neurotype—and they know full well that turning down this mission isn’t even an option. So, off they go to… well, not to die, but to put in a good showing at least? Under the leadership of the main voice of the tale, Mina, who is so delightfully realistic about their chances and enjoying her own apparent numbness-before-the-panic, the lens of the story caught me right off the bat, and I couldn’t wait to see where it went.

And where it goes was such a brilliant place, frankly. Where these soldiers-with-no-choices end up, and the decision they’re presented with? It made me grin. It’s a great example of the ways science fiction can talk about so many parts of contemporary society and do justice to the concepts, alongside characters we so rarely get to see piloting the giant tank-robot-guns. I don’t know if Marsh has more stories about these soldiers lined up, but I’d love to read more.

Short Stories 366:178 — “Sapling,” by Craig Laurance Gidney

[image error]Oh wow, this story. We have a young woman raised by a suddenly-religious mother who believes prayer is the reason the daughter came out of a coma, and the young woman trying to navigate her city world to include some forms of freedom outside her mother’s demands. And then the magic comes. “Sapling,” like all the stories in Skin Deep Magic: Short Fiction from Craig Laurance Gidney, has this lovely sense of wonder lurking beneath the world, but also doesn’t shy away from showing the world as clearly toxic as it is—in this case, somewhat literally, as the young woman’s gifts progress and she starts to realize that her powers to slip from notice or to stop people from seeing things are very much natural, but the unnatural things in the world: pollution, concrete, plastic—are potentially affecting her, too.

There’s a small mystery also unfolding in “Sapling,” and that’s a mix of two things: the girl’s powers, but also a man she has seen once or twice entering the park/forest nearby, and a sense she has of him being in danger. We shift to his view from hers and back again in the story, and it’s not long before we start to realize the two are very much linked, and the “man” is no such thing, or at least, not always such a thing, and certainly “man” is not his natural form. As the two stories collide, the characters realize the consequences of choices (and some non-choices).

I loved the ending of this tale, built on a foundation of longing, love, and a sense of wanting to be free counterbalanced with limitations and the reality of the world Gidney crafted. I loved the unique take on the magic/mythical lore of the creatures involved, too. The “magic alongside the rough, dirty city” vibe was so strong in this one I could smell it, with Gidney’s descriptive “through magical senses” prose leading the way almost effortlessly.

Short Stories 366:177 — “Shepherd,” by Bryan Washington

[image error]The notion of a singular “coming out” is something I try to push back against whenever I see it happen, and I kept thinking about that while I was reading “Shepherd.” Found in Bryan Washington’s Lot: Stories, “Shepherd” is very much a story about a young man figuring out his own desires, and the ways in which some of us queer people can so easily project onto others, or deny ourselves, or any number of a hundred other things we sometimes do to try and hold on to “not knowing” one moment longer.

The narrative itself is surrounded in a framework of a visiting cousin, Gloria, who is there to relax and recover, and the young boy is aware of the gossip of this cousin’s past, where sex work was one of the paths she took to getting out of a slowly collapsing Kingston. Jamaica-that-was and Kingston-that-was kind of loom over the story, affecting the mother, the cousin, and even the young man himself, and their interactions shift and weave with a sense of “we’re here now, we’re okay” alongside the young man’s building awareness of his own otherness. His family has made it to a more affluent area of Houston (though he honestly can’t tell much difference in the homes), and you get the sense from the mother that she does not trust their situation. Gloria becomes a focal point, a woman who reads voraciously, who seems to just be with an effortlessness that alternately infuriates or befuddles those around her—mother, sister, father all have oddly out-of-character reactions to her. And for the young man, she is so much more: someone who might know about him. Might understand. Even if he doesn’t.

The way this story ended had me catching my breath. The boy turns on Gloria at one point, tries to push her away with the worst he can offer, but she knows and leaves him a message that might help him later. What happens with that message felt both like a gut-punch and an inevitability, a literal example of how understanding yourself never actually ends (much like coming out), and as much as I so often talk about wanting and needing hopeful endings in stories, this one left me with something different without it feeling like a loss, if that makes sense.