'Nathan Burgoine's Blog, page 54

Short Stories 366:62 — “Abigail Dreams of Weather,” by Stu West

[image error]I can sometimes struggle with limited point of view when it’s from the perspective of characters who aren’t exposed to the larger story of what’s going on, but in this case, Stu West’s “Abigail Dreams of Weather,” from Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction, I found it really worked. We join a group of kids in a hospital who are very ill, and who are noticing the medical staff numbers dwindling. The adults all seem, well, busy. By the time they’re down to having no one but a janitor watching them (and he takes off to the bathroom and doesn’t come back), you know something is definitely not right in their space-station world, but not what, exactly.

The answer here is potentially told. That said, given the technology in play, I found it potentially suspect, too—it could very well be what they kids end up deciding it is, but my mind wondered if there was even more going on, and the kids being ill, the adults decided they were simply too frail to know. That their frailness is a major part of the plot in the sense that they decide getting out of the sick room, out of their endless “nothing ever changes” routine, and struggle their way to catch a glimpse of something different despite how much it might cost them only makes the idea stronger to my mind.

Kids. Always underestimated. And the ill? Even more so. Abigail’s arc—a girl who misses living on a planet and wants open spaces, any open spaces— might be the spark of the story, but the surrounding cast of other kids are given a heck of a lot of character for the brief space of the tale (and even a wee romance is tucked in there of sorts). I loved this little story all the more for ending it wondering if things were as they seemed, and being okay with not really having a way to find out.

Short Stories 366:61 — “The Heart and the Feather,” by Christina Lynch

[image error]I think one of the things I enjoyed the most about the tales in Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History is how often the speculative part of the story exists outside of the marginalized voice characters. This isn’t a book where the othered is the magic, but rather the othered exists—as it always has—alongside magic. It’s not always the case, but “The Heart and the Feather” is an excellent example of what I mean.

The story is told through the voice of a young woman with congenital hypertrichosis, which she has inherited from her father, and who lives in Innsbruck, Austria in 1589 on the largesse of an Archduke who more-or-less keeps her family as a sort of “clever oddity.” Her father’s past (and her own) are explored to explain how and where they came to be, and then the real problem is presented: something is killing children, and the common folk have decided it is a werewolf.

The daughter takes it upon herself to act, for she knows full well that her father and siblings are an easy scapegoat, and therein unfolds the tale. She is a girl who has been forced to take the role of as elegant a woman as possible in her situation to avoid exactly the sort of association now passing around as rumour, and yet she is trying for the first time in her life to be beastly enough to track down the real creature killing children. The dichotomy is delicately delivered, and realities of being “different” are drawn clearly.

Short Stories 366:60 — “The Effluent Engine,” by N.K. Jemisin

[image error]How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? is fast becoming my favourite collection of this whole Short Story project. The sheer range of spec-fic Jemisin has on hand in this book is phenomenal. We’ve already seen contemporary urban fantasy and far future SF, and now we’re in an alternate history steampunk and dirigible story and wow, does “The Effluent Engine” deliver a great ride.

The story is centred through Jessaline, a woman on a very specific—and incredibly important—mission in New Orleans. She’s here on pretense, to make contact with a man who might have the key to granting her people freedom, but this man isn’t exactly like her, and New Orleans is a dangerous enough place to be for any free black woman—but Jessaline is far, far more than that.

She’s a spy.

What unfolds is a wonderful series of moves and countermoves as Jessaline hits a wall, figures out what might be a potentially better solution, survives multiple attempts on her life, admits the truth to the one person who might truly be able to help, and risks everything for a shot at love. That this story includes all of that (and queer love, to boot) and sacrifices not a jot to pacing, world-building, or characterization is flipping amazing. This story was freaking fantastic, and I would happily dive back into this world to learn more.

Bring on the dirigible battles for continued freedom, please, as well as a story of love between a clever Créole chemist and a spy.

I should note this audio collection continues to be performed to superb standards.

Short Stories 366:59 — “Heads of the Colored People,” by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

[image error]I went into “Heads of the Colored People” (both the titular story and the collection of the same same) completely blind. I’ll often head on over to Overdrive and arrange short story collections or anthologies by most recent and see if there are new things that spark an interest, and that was where I found Nafissa Thompson-Spires’s collection.

This story—a self-referencing meta-fiction piece that speaks directly to the reader—speaks first of a man named Riley (a black man who is currently wearing cosplay on his way to a convention), and then of another black man, “Brother-Man,” trying to sell some of his own works outside the convention itself, and then of an altercation between them, and then—though more meta-fiction character pieces told with a present author and comments often directed at the reader—ties everything together into an all-too-clear whole.

Frankly? It was brilliantly done. Broad strokes made with specifics, character asides that created an immediate depth of characterization, empathy (and more than a little anger and frustration) sharpened with the discourse directly aimed out at the reader (especially the ending)… Everything in “Heads of the Colored People” is incredibly effective, and I found myself pausing the audiobook after this first story to just walk on a few more blocks, letting it settle around me both as a reader and as a writer.

I don’t think I’ve encountered a meta-fiction this strong before in my life, really.

Short Stories 366:58 — “Let Us Dream,” by Alyssa Cole

[image error]It’s probably obvious by now I’ve completely fallen in love with Alyssa Cole novellas, what with this being the fourth one I’ve talked about this month, but yeah. I’ve fallen in love with Alyssa Cole’s novellas. Be they contemporary or historical, they’re amazing, but the audio historical novella quartet available on Audible is so well performed by Karen Chilton it needs to be said again.

So, yeah. I said it again. Amazingly good.

With “Let Us Dream,” we’ve moved into 1917 Harlem, and our heroine is a brilliant woman working the angles during the suffragette movement. Now, Bertha isn’t a polite quiet women working the patient, endless angle of soft discourse, no, she’s a cabaret owner walking the finest of lines between legalities and doing whatever she can to keep her women safe, as well as performing both on stage and in her day-to-day life to keep everyone at arms length and her life completely in her own control. Or as completely as a black woman in Harlem in 1917 might accomplish.

She hires a dishwasher, Amir, and initially they get off on the wrong foot, but Bertha’s used to that from men—what she’s not used to is Amir’s apology, nor learning he’s not at all what she thought he was at first glance, and falling for a man at all. Amir has major troubles of his own (not the least of which being he’s an illegal alien in the eyes of the law), leaving the two with the odds not just stacked against them, but pretty much trying to bury them alive.

Cole moves these two through their arcs with deft touches of characterization, growth, and with such a brilliant processing of their emotions that they felt like people I knew by the tipping point. And, again, the historical world-building here is top-notch and these glimpses of a foreign country and time I don’t exactly encounter much in Canadian discourse was as educational as it was engrossing.

Short Stories 366:57 — “South End: 1955,” by Jewelle Gomez

[image error]Every story in The Gilda Stories is just so brilliantly set in its point of time. Gilda, Gomez’s vampire who has now been so for just over a hundred years, continues to grow and change, but also to remain so connected in some really key ways. I love that at this point she’s got a beauty salon—especially working with the hair of other black women—and is still connected with sex workers, and how those touch-points are such a key, grounding piece of her.

This story also brings back Bird, who we haven’t seen in a long time, and then doubles down by introducing another vampire of a violent and controlling nature who knows of Gilda and who wants someone she is protecting and thinks nothing of killing her to get what he wants.

In many ways, “South End: 1955” reads like a thriller. Finding the one being targeted, followed by a flight scene, planning for an impending battle, the shoring of the defences… and the final battle. That’s another thing I love about The Gilda Stories: they’re as varied as their time periods, while still maintaining that core thematic (and character) thread. Gilda has fast become my favourite vampire character, I believe.

Short Stories 366:56 — “The Baboon War,” by Nnedi Okorafor

[image error]LeVar Burton Reads is a freaking treasure. When I’m heading out on a long walk with Max, I cue up a story or two, and then off I go. I always enjoy the stories he picks, and quite often end up finding out about new-to-me authors or anthologies I’d somehow missed being released. When the story was “The Baboon War,” by Nnedi Okorafor, I was excited since she wasn’t new-to-me and I’d loved her Binti stories, but then I got to be even more excited because I learned she had an anthology available, Kabu-Kabu.

So I stopped walking the dog, paused LeVar, bought Kabu-Kabu on my phone, hit play, and kept walking.

“The Baboon War,” is this perfect mix of a grounded, simple narrative about three smart (and brave) girls walking to school, alongside a beautifully understated piece of magical realism (or science fiction, or something other, anyway, but pleasantly undefined beyond a few hints). These three girls find a shortcut to school that seems impossibly able to get them there earlier than it should, but find it guarded or patrolled by baboons. They have to decide if this path is worth fighting for.

“The Baboon War” is also told in a style I love: an older sister is shocked when her younger sister comes home bedraggled, wet, cut, bleeding, and somehow triumphant, and then that younger sister tells her the story of what’s been going on over the last little while. That one-step-removed adds a lovely fuzzy aura over the tale, and allows that magic to seep a little bit deeper.

Nnedi Okorafor is brilliant, and as a storyteller, her ability to weave place and character and that otherness with so few words is at a skill level I can only sit back and admire for the sheer amount of time and effort it must have taken to achieve. I’m so freaking glad her stories exist, and if you’ve never checked her out, I implore you to do so.

 

 

Short Stories 366:55 — “Goat,” by James McBride

[image error]Oh wow. First off, I love LeVar Burton Reads, mostly as it exposes me to short fiction from genres I’m not likely to pick up. I’m pretty much a reader of queer short fiction and spec-fic or romance (or the wonderful intersections thereof), but I nabbed a subscription to the podcast and I’ve been happily wandering in and out of my comfort zones of short fiction ever since.

So. “Goat.” Printed in Five-Carat Soul, “Goat,” by James McBride, makes you think it’s going to zig, and then zags. At its heart, it’s about a tween boy and his feelings for his teacher, even though the main narrative (and the title of the story) are about his friend, who everyone calls “Goat,” who can run like nobodies business. The boys are from a very, very poor area, and are very country (to use their own vernacular), black kids with prospects that look to be more-or-less limited to following in the footsteps of their parents with the hope of finding jobs to help pay the bills.

But Goat is fast. And the well-meaning teach the narrator boy has a crush on realizes this can be an out. Goat could get a scholarship if he wins medals in track, but to win he has to compete, and to compete he needs his birth certificate to prove his age, and for that, the teacher has to get involved with Goat’s family, and that’s where everything goes askew, as the teacher might have crossed some lines (accidentally or not, well-meaning or not), and the boy is about to learn more than he wanted to know. It’s a brilliant tale that manages to speak of such stark cultural realities of poorness with total respect. This story stuck with me for quite a while after I finished listening to it.

Short Stories 366:54 — “It’s War,” by Nnedi Okorafor

[image error]Today’s trip through time and place from Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History lands us solidly on a specific date, April 21, 1929, in Aba, Nigeria—the day the Aba’s Women’s Riots began (it was to protest an exploitative tax the British were trying to introduce after a census). Here, we meet Arro-yo, who has a gift she’s keeping secret from everyone as she (literally) flies from rooftop to rooftop listening in on what the women are planning and wondering about it all.

On the morning, Arro-yo doesn’t go to the protest (she sleeps in), but is quickly made aware of what’s going on, and she and a friend head to see what’s happening, arriving at the worst possible moment and leaving Arro-yo to witness murder and brutality—and leaving everyone else to see Arro-yo reveal herself and what she can do.

What I love so much about Okorafor’s fiction is how quickly I’m immersed into her characters. I find myself rooting for her champions within moments, and viscerally angry on their behalf when things go awry. “It’s War” was no different—and in fact, doubly so since I know the framework of the tale is built upon a real, historical moment where women bled and died and suffered at the hands of white British colonizers and the drunk-on-small-power local bosses who would use them for their own gain.

Short Stories 366:53 — “L’Alchemista,” by N.K. Jemisin

[image error]Okay, food as magic was such a clever notion, but who knew roasted firebird could sound so mouth-watering? Roast phoenix anyone? I’m serious, if you’re going to read this story—or, as in my case, listen to it—make sure you’ve already eaten, because I was walking the dog and by the time I got home I was freaking ravenous.

So! “L’Alchemista.” This story, from the How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? audiobook, drops us alongside a chef—formerly a head chef at Parliament, “before

that bastard Berlusconi, anyhow”—who, after firing her assistants and closing the restaurant where she works for the night has a strange visitor. He seems old and potentially homeless, but she offers him a meal and his response to her cooking makes it clear he has a brilliant palate and understanding of fine food.

And then he issues her a challenge. He will leave her ingredients—truly rare ingredients—if she agrees to follow a recipe perfectly and make something for him. She can’t resist (in part because she is so frustrated and stymied by her current life) and agrees, and then sees these ingredients aren’t all things she’s even heard of before.

What follows is a brilliant little story about creativity, freedom, magic, food, passion, and so many other intersections of culture and strength and what it’s like to be shut off from something you are truly gifted at. And I freaking loved it.

Just, again, fair warning: the descriptions of even the completely fictional food will make your mouth water. Eat something first.