'Nathan Burgoine's Blog, page 50

Short Stories 366:99 — “T-Bone, Medium Rare,” by Jerry L. Wheeler

[image error]We’re back with Strawberries and Other Erotic Fruits from Jerry L. Wheeler, and we’re going on a blind date and I cannot even begin to tell you how happy this makes me, because this blind date is… unforgettable.

The shifts in tone of Strawberries are one of the strengths of the collection. “Waafrneeaasuu!!” which is laugh-out-loud funny, and “Templeton’s in Love” which is one of the singular most moving pieces of short fiction I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. There’s bittersweet (“The Fireside Bright”) alongside regeneration (“Changing Planes”). Just when you think you’ve got a handle on the direction of where Wheeler goes, he zags instead of zigging, and you’re somewhere new again.

Jerry released a revised edition (hence the gorgeous Inkspiral Design and Lammy Finalist for Gay Erotica logo) of this book, which boasts four new tales, and so today we’re hitting up the aforementioned blind date that makes up the third new tale I haven’t talked about before, “T-Bone, Medium Rare.”

NB: Okay, “T-Bone” had nothing to do with me.

JLW: It’s a true story.

NB: I remember the first time you told me that, and I’m still amazed you got through the meal.

JLW: It was exquisitely mortifying, and a cautionary tale about never knowing what you get when you go on a blind date.

NB: And I assume no second date?

JLW: No, we never exchanged recipes because he never called back.

“T-Bone, Medium Rare” is a true story of blind dates, shallow judgements, and missed opportunities, and it’s told so chuckingly tongue-in-cheek (finger-in-food?) that you can’t help but be charmed, even while your eyebrows creep all the way up your forehead. (Oh, and recently, as part of #LivingRoomReadings, Jerry recorded himself reading this one if you want to check it out!)

You can find Jerry online via Twitter, at his ongoing brilliant review blog Out in Print: Queer Book Reviews, and if you’re in need of a fantastic editor, definitely hit him up over at Write & Shine.

 

Short Stories 366:98 — “The Concubine’s Heart,” by Matthew Bright

[image error]The notion of being sealed up in a tomb, buried alive as part of the funeral of a powerful person, is rarely done as well as it’s done here. That Matthew Bright also adds a steampunk lens, puts the tomb in question in space, and places it all on an empress-and-her-concubines world building foundation is where the story really garners its shine.

We meet Qiaolian when the finality of things is already underway: she and her fellow concubines are already on the spaceship-tomb, aimed at a star, tasked with praying at the side of the Empress’s tomb until they fly into the star, or, more likely, dehydrate or starve to death first. They hear the death of the engineers, and then settle in to pray and die.

Or, the others do. Qiaolian has a slightly different agenda, by virtue of having had a different path than the others—a fault in her heart left her unsuited to the full role of concubine, and the Empress instead allowed her to learn from others, and so Qiaolian has something none of the rest have: an understanding of the ship-tomb.

And a fighting chance.

What follows is often dark (there is no food, after all, and the solution is, well… yeah) and certainly Bright doesn’t shy away from the cruelty and harsh reality of their situation, but ultimately there’s something in “The Concubine’s Heart”‘s destination that has one last reveal, and one last little stab at hope.

Also, Matthew was kind enough to stop by and let me in on where this particular tale came from, too.

From the Author:

Oddly enough, after Croak Toad, this is the other story of mine that adheres to the strict pattern of 200 words per section. The extra complication was absolutely necessary you see, because the call for submissions I wrote it for was looking for steampunk, with marginalised characters, in a non-western setting, with ‘differently abled’ characters and that didn’t seem like enough caveats. Restriction breeds ingenuity, and my surefire way to get around writers block is to impose some difficult stylistic flourish to write around. As for the actual idea of the cannibal handmaidens, I can no longer recall where the idea came from, but no doubt from some useful titbit of historical info that was circulating the internet that month.

You can read “Concubine’s Heart” in its entirety at Lightspeed Magazine.

You can find Matthew Bright online at his website.

Short Stories 366:97 — “By Degrees and Dilatory Time,” by SL Huang

[image error]In case it’s not clear by this point, I have adored my journey through Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction, and really suggest you pick up a copy if you haven’t already. This short story, the first of two reprints in the collection, is a perfect example of why.

We meet a man as he faces down terrifying news: he has a rare, aggressive cancer, in his eyes. They must go, much like a ruined knee had to go back when he was a skater, replaced by something better (but removed him from being allowed to compete professionally). We follow him along this journey: being “lucky” to have caught the cancer early enough that removing his eyes is enough; getting to “choose” his prosthetics to some degree; facing his own, now altered, reflection; navigating what it means when others look at him, and what they assume. There’s a lot packed into Huang’s story, including some brilliantly written ambiguity on the part of the narrative voice and his own feelings about his prosthetics.

I love this story so much, and so much of that is very much rooted in the ambiguity Huang writes. This man spends ages trying to decide how to feel, how to adjust, how to change as his life moves forward whether or not he’s ready for it. The result of the story, a tale of choices (and non-choices), and the fallout of “replacements” and a society that views them as somehow equal equivalents is… well. It’s a fantastic story, and I’m so glad I got to read it.

Short Stories 366:96 — “Find Me Unafraid,” by Shanaé Brown

[image error]Charlotte, Carolina in 1905 is the setting of this next story from Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, and given that it starts with an attack from the KKK, I was braced for impact. Brown doesn’t pull punches with the aftereffects, nor the ongoing impact of the looming fear that is the reality for Charlotte and her family and friends. Charlotte is with her friend (and potential love) Booker when this attack comes, and at the height, when the KKK are setting buildings alight, there is something that passes between Booker and Charlotte and the door of her home.

She wakes up unharmed, Booker gone, and fresh sorrows of the burned (and murdered) to deal with. She gathers with her remaining family and they mourn and try to continue. That, I think, was the harshest feeling in the story for me, that there were no options other than to continue, as it’s so clearly pointed out the very people they were to rely on for protection, the police, were just as likely to be under those white hoods.

But Charlotte also wants to know what happened that night, since she can’t quite recall, and once she tracks down Booker, he lets her in on a secret: she, like he, might very well have a gift to affect the world in some way. She scoffs of course, but later when it does come time to flee ahead of certain death, she risks everything on believing in Booker’s words, and it pays off in a really, really satisfying way. The further denouement of the story is charming, and leaves things on as hopeful a note as the time and place might allow.

Short Stories 366:95 — “The Future Looks Good,” by Lesley Nneka Arimah

[image error]Holy flying crap this story. Okay. First off, I bumped into this anthology thanks to the LeVar Burton Reads podcast reading of the titular story from the collection last month, and so I went out of my way to find the book—even better, it was available on audio—and snapped up a copy for myself. What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky has twelve tales, and this first one, “The Future Looks Good,” knocked me reeling.

I don’t think I’ll be able to do the story justice in describing it narratively, but my weak effort will be this: in the space of a story, we begin with someone at a door who doesn’t know what is about to happen, and then we step back, shift away to some other people and learn about them: these lay a foundation that leads up to the moment we return to at the end of the tale, with this woman at the door, fumbling with keys unfamiliar to her, and completes the tale.

The journey, though. Turning points in the lives of parents-and-children, cruelties withstood, or loves found in the midst of horrible circumstances, and wisdom hard-won by the suffering that comes from the collapse of governments, and wars, and learning about true need through having to exist while needful… it’s all deftly spun into a single narrative with this funnel-like pattern: narrowing down person by person to where the tale ends. I already knew I was going to be captivated by this collection thanks to having been blown away by the titular story, but this opening tale cemented that impression.

Short Stories 366:94 — “Chivalry,” by Neil Gaiman

[image error]Sometimes, the touch of humour to a tale is so deftly added that it’s like an aftertaste. I enjoy stories like those, ones that don’t necessarily make me laugh out loud while I’m reading them, but instead leave me smiling when I’m done, ever-so-gently amused (but also charmed). “Chivalry,” from Neil Gaiman, is one of those stories.

Even better? Thanks to LeVar Burton Reads, I got to listen to it, and as always the performance was wonderful. The story is originally published in Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions, which I own but—as always—haven’t read yet.

“Chivalry” is a little tale about a woman who visits an Oxfam shop and ends up purchasing the holy grail, and a series of visits to her little house by Galahad, who’d really like to end his quest, and is willing to swap her something for the grail, if she wouldn’t mind? But she does mind, since the grail looks so nice there on the mantle between a dog sculpture and the photo of her dead husband, and so things get… well, charming.

This isn’t as dark or as twisty as many of Gaiman’s tales, but instead is a character piece. Both the knight and the elderly widow are done with lovely little touches (his turns of phrase, her requests to have the strapping man move some of the old luggage from her attic) and the dialog sparkles with a gentle humour throughout in a lovely way. It’s not an earth-shattering story, it’s just warm and lovely, and there are two moments: one, where the widow considers something that could change her life, and two, the final moment of the story, that really made the whole.

Short Stories 366:93 — “The Wild Ride of the Untamed Stars,” by A.J. Fitzwater

[image error]When I first bumped into the character of Cinrak, the capybara pirate in Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space), she was on a voyage to replace a gem she’d kinda/sorta broken that belonged to her lover, the rat queen (and was a part of her crown). That story delighted me, and gave me a sense of “when we last met our heroes” that I love in short fictions, where you feel like there’s a whole world already underway all around the characters, and you’re just along for a short ride.

The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper is like being invited for all the rides, and I am so happy to be aboard. This latest story, “The Wild Ride of the Untamed Stars,” is the tale of exactly how that gem in the rat queen’s crown got broken in the first place, and oh, it’s freaking adorable. It’s full of A.J. Fitzwater’s wonderful, joyful magics, and begins with the literal riding of shooting stars in a contest to win the queen’s hand in marriage (and even that gets shifted a wee bit in Fitzwater’s hands).

That Cinrak’s lover, the opera singing marmot Loquolchi, also enters the race, for the same prize, is a genuine delight, and the ongoing one-upmanship between them throughout is freaking adorable. It’s hard to explain why I’m so captivated by these anthropomorphized creatures and their tales of dapper derring-do, but I am. They’re so very uplifting, and so genuinely queerly inclusive on so many levels, that I think it feels a bit like time-travel: these were the tales I wish I’d had when I was reading Toad, or the Fantastic Mr. Fox, or the like: they’ve got that same whimsy, but they invite me, a queer reader, to join in the fun.

And, once again, here’s A.J. to let us in on the secret of where the story comes from!

From the author:

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The story that began it all! Wild Ride was originally written for a competition where one of the characters had to be a rat. Ridiculous fun is not usually my writing wheelhouse, but I figured if I’m going silly, turn it up to 11! That mantra carried over into writing the rest of the stories; silly enough? No? Needs more cowbell!

Wild Ride is also the shortest story, and I had to work quickly to do a lot of world building and pace. I’m especially enamoured with the sapient moons, and Cinrak’s Alice pocket; what else has she got stashed in there? I also wanted to play up the old trope of “winner gets the queen’s hand in marriage,” so I made it a joke of giving the literal hand! The original version had a pretty gruesome cutting off of the paws and growing back magical styles. Plus Orvillia’s relief at no one actually wanting to get married is hilarious – everyone’s too busy for the everyday ridiculousness of mawwiage. 

Find The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper at Queen of Swords Press, or Books2Read.

Find A.J. Fitzwater on Twitter, or at pickledthink.blogspot.com.

 

Short Stories 366:92 — “Wings,” by Jerry L. Wheeler

[image error]Today we’re delving back into Strawberries and Other Erotic Fruits from Jerry L. Wheeler, who is both my editor and friend. In his introduction, Wheeler tells us of his love affair with Poe, and how much impact Poe’s tales had on him. The desire to tell that kind of story, or to be that kind of storyteller, is the ultimate goal. Short fiction with power like Poe’s is aiming at a high goal, and I give a lot of credit to Wheeler for admitting this was the target.

Does he succeed? In a word? Yes. In more words? Well, I already talked about “Necessary Elvis” last week, and today we’re moving onward.

Now, if you feel like you’ve heard me talk about Strawberries before, that’s because this is a case of “what’s old is new again,” as recently, Jerry did a revised edition and a re-release (hence the gorgeous Inkspiral Design and Lammy Finalist for Gay Erotica logo). This revised collection boasts four new tales, and so today I’m going to talk about another part of Strawberries I haven’t talked about before, “Wings.”

Also, Jerry and I had a chat about this one, again.

NB: Wait. “Wings” was because of me, too?

JLW: It was the flash challenge you posted.

NB: Ah! The random draw thing?

JLW: Yes. The one that had to involve jail, tattoos, and a castle.

NB: Right, the tattoo machine! You went to a kinda Poe-esque imprisoned place.

JLW: Naturally. A man imprisoned for a crime he can’t recall, is finally judged. And remembers.

NB: That totally sounds like something a narrator should say in a deep voice in a movie trailer, by the way.

“Wings” drops us into a prison cell with a man who, as Jerry said, can’t recall his crime. The way he weaves in the tattoos, and the sort of drip-drip-drip of the growing darkness into the story, and does it all with a flash-fiction word count limit, is shiver-worthy. It probably shouldn’t surprise me that out of the whole Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, Jerry wrote the one that could have been a Poe tale.

You can find Jerry online via Twitter, at his ongoing brilliant review blog Out in Print: Queer Book Reviews, and if you’re in need of a fantastic editor, definitely hit him up over at Write & Shine.

 

Village Fool (or, The Joke Is On Me)

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So, funny thing. Well, not funny ha-ha so much as perhaps-I-shall-laugh-instead-of-cry, but it turns out I have an announcement today that I was hoping would be one thing and is instead another.

First—I swear this isn’t a joke. April Fools Day is kind of a terrible day to make any sort of serious statement, but that was kind of going to be the fun of it. The thing I wanted to announce? I have a gay romance novelette to release: “Village Fool.” It’s set in my fictional queer Village alongside Of Echoes Born, “Handmade Holidays,” “Saving the Date,” and “Faux Ho Ho,” and involves two of the fellas you met in “Faux Ho Ho,” Owen and Toma.

Except, of course, I don’t have a gay romance novelette to release.

The extra level of funny (not ha-ha, the other kind) comes from the plot and my life deciding to intersect. See, in “Village Fool,” Owen and Toma meet because Owen has to do some physiotherapy after an accident wrecks the tendons on his right arm (he’s lucky he’s left handed), and Ru suggests he check out Body Positive for a physiotherapist, which is where me meets Toma. Then there’s me: A couple of months ago, I wrecked the tendons in my left arm (I’m lucky I’m right handed) and I can barely type. My physiotherapist is really nice (though I haven’t crushed out on her) and thanks to this whole, y’know, pandemic thing, my physiotherapy is progressing at a snail’s pace over video-chats and at-home exercises so the book about the guy who has to do physiotherapy so he can recover the full use of his arm isn’t getting written because the author has to do physiotherapy to recover the full use of his arm.

Are you seeing the funny?

I’m trying to. Because honestly? It is kind of funny. It sucks and I’m annoyed I couldn’t get this done for an actual April Fools release, but it is what it is.

Oh, that brings me to the plot again.

Owen is only confident when he’s sitting around a gaming table playing the role of his smooth and charming bard, Kallax, which is why he’s never considered acting on the crush he’s had on his physiotherapist Toma since the day they met. Even though they’re not patient and client any more, and Owen’s crush hasn’t dialled down in the slightest, he just doesn’t have it in him to do anything about it.

When a friend decides to play an April Fools day prank involving Owen’s contact list, Owen spends most of his morning on April Fools Day inadvertently texting smooth and charming thoughts about Toma… to Toma himself.

By the time Owen discovers the April Fools prank, things are completely out of control. Discussions of thighs and awards for the World’s Best Chest have been handed out—not to mention they’ve set an accidental coffee date—and there’s no taking that sort of thing back, no matter how smooth or charming he might pretend to be. When this joke finally gets told, Owen’s convinced he’s going to be the punchline, but with a little luck and some help from his friends, the last laugh might be worth it yet.

So there you have it. Or, I guess, there you don’t have it. Not yet. But I swear, once I can type for more than fifteen minutes at a time without pain, it will happen. It’s so close. And I cannot wait to show you the cover Inkspiral Design did for this little fella, though if you saw the cover for “Faux Ho Ho” you know exactly the kind of magic Inkspiral does.

In the meantime, well… I guess we all wait for the joke.

 

Short Stories 366:91 — “Stiletto,” by Anne Shade

[image error]There are some character qualities which just nab me from the start, and I have to admit one of the ways you can do that is to show me someone dealing with any sort of chronic headache situation, and so Cass Phillips starting this story fighting off a migraine had me ready to take a bullet for her. I get that doesn’t make sense, but it’s a migraine sufferer thing. Anyway! Cass is awesome. She’s the CEO of the music label we met through the previous two novellas in Femme Tales, and she is so beyond overworking herself, let alone even considering putting aside time for a relationship.

Then she has a NYC subway meet-cute (or, well, spot-cute) with a gorgeous woman in amazing heels—and misses her chance to meet her—and she maybe realizes that having no time for relationships isn’t a great life plan. Enter some co-workers who bamboozle her into taking a real vacation and then Shade’s magic kicks in: who else happens to be at the resort where Cass is resting than the NYC subway beauty herself, Faith Shaw (who designs awesome footwear).

Both characters really rocked in this third and final novella from Anne Shade’s collection, and I think it was my favourite of the trio in part because of the cameos from the previous two novellas; by this point the reader knows the previous women so well, and the new characters are stronger for the network they have. I really liked the wee bit of comeuppance for the villains of the tale (and also enjoyed how they weren’t centre-stage), loved the play on Cinderella (red stiletto boots for the win) and by the time the story was drawing to a close, I was ready for the fairy tale finish. Standing alone, these three novellas would have been solid, but as a trio, they build on what came before and the end result is a fantastic trio of stories about black women finding happy-ever-afters. I can’t wait for more from Anne Shade (and selfishly, I want more novellas specifically, but that’s my shorter fiction loving heart).

I’ve you’ve been following along, you know I was lucky enough to have been able to touch base with Anne Shade about the stories, so here’s some behind-the-scenes for “Stiletto” to round out the book:

From the Author:

“Cinderella,” the premise of “Stiletto,” had been re-imagined so many times that I loved the challenge of having to come up with an idea that was completely out of the box. My version of “Cinderella,” Faith, wasn’t going to be the downtrodden dreamer the other stories made her. She would still have to deal with the “evil” step-parent and siblings, but they would not be beating her down like the traditional stories and most remakes told it. I also didn’t want to have her being saved from their toxicity but rather saved from spending her life without love.

Those are just my takes on the fairy tales I enjoy. I hope people reading the stories enjoy them as much as I did writing them.

You can find Anne on Facebook and Twitter, and you can find Femme Tales at the Bold Strokes Books Webstore or wherever quality queer books are sold!