'Nathan Burgoine's Blog, page 56

Short Stories 366:42 — “Loneliness Is in Your Blood,” by Cadwell Turnbull

[image error]I’m so not Mr. Horror, and so when I work my way through The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 and see the “Nightmare Magazine” listed as the source of the story, I wait until it’s full on daylight to keep going. I’m not kidding. Me reading horror just before bed is a recipe for no sleep, so I’ve learned my lesson.

And I’m glad I learned my lesson because “Loneliness Is in Your Blood” is so freaking disturbing on so many levels, and has the sort of imagery that stuck with me all day despite having read it post-breakfast, and it still snuck into my dreams. So, Cadwell Turnbull, consider this as praise: you did, indeed, cause a nightmare.

The narrative here—written in second person, for extra creep factor—is of an immortal creature whose immortality comes from temporarily peeling off its skin and being disturbingly alluring and feeding on the blood of those driven by this allure. The descriptiveness about the skinless body is high on the squick factor, but the allure is absolutely there, hence the way the story really socks that imagery home for later nightmare inducement.

The pivot of the story comes with the narrative realization of something changing, and it’s a pretty damn important something, and the shift from immortal allure to this other place is also shudder worthy, and slides some deft world-building into the mix before it’s all done.

Again, I’m not Mr. Horror. I always feel like a complete sham when I try to talk about horror fiction, but this story managed to turn a predator into something more, and something borderline sympathetic in places, which is a pretty darn impressive accomplishment for a non-horror reader like me.

Short Stories 366:41 — “What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky,” by Lesley Nneka Arimah

[image error]Oh wow, this was so good, folks. A story I found through LeVar Burton Reads (you should also check that out, by the way), Lesley Nneka Arimah’s “What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky” has so many balls up in the air for one story it’s incredible, and she doesn’t drop a single one.

This is a cli-fi short in setting—things have gone about as badly as they possibly could in the world, with oceans rising and flooding having hit most of the continents. North America is a mess, the UK is, too, and Europe is described as a bunch of seas. The continents with less flooding are Australia and Africa, and the end result was a wave of refugees, aslyum seekers, and—of course—violence as those who have not try to take from those who have. This is in the (recent) past of the story, and provides a stirring (and disturbing) backdrop from which we view the tale.

The main character is a woman capable of taking the pain of others. This isn’t magic, per sé, but rather a new form of ability uncovered by an understanding of a mathematical formula that has been discovered that more or less explains, well, everything. In many ways, this formula arose and took the place of faith in general—after all, if it’s possible to understand everything in the universe, what need is there for faith?—and as a result mathematicians like the main character make their (very privileged) living sort of “editing” those who can afford the process.

The main character, Nneoma, isn’t a particularly likeable character. Her ex, Kioni, has the same gifts she does, but often volunteers amongst refugees to help those in the worst pain of grief without real recompense, which puts Nneoma’s lack-of-selflessness into a rather harsh light. (Also, hey, random queer rep, huzzah!) But as the story progresses and we learn of the griefs Nneoma hasn’t removed, and then see her face-to-face with a truly awful loss she’s not supposed to help, things become clearer.

And then the ending, where everything twists on the last few lines. Wow. So good. What a phenomenal story. This is the title story of a collection, too, which I need to track down.

 

Short Stories 366:40 — “A Score of Roses,” by Troy L. Wiggins

[image error]The more I read my way through Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, the more I’m annoyed I left it on my shelf of “to be read” anthologies for so long. The stories are so good, and so varied, and the chorus of voices are so fantastically drawn that I just… Well, I shake my head at my past self, but at least I finally continued. “A Score of Roses” is a perfect example of the kind of story I love so very much: drawn from character and magic and telling a thematic story of love and triumph even from within pain and loss.

We meet two people, Sunshine and Baby, who are obviously more-than-human, but the details of which aren’t ever spelled out for the reader. This gives the overall effect of immersion and nuance, and put beside the absolutely brilliant way the dialog is handled, we watch them fall in love despite knowing that they are both different from each other in fundamental ways.

They have a child, and it is through her we learn both of what happened to the parents (in a sense, as again it’s not spelled out why one of them…left?…faded?…something), but again, this loss never feels anything other than loving and ultimately giving and triumphant, and for that, I’m so glad I found this story (and the anthology as a whole). The daughter is such a brilliant mix of her parents, and her story, one feels, will be just as amazing as those who came before her. That feeling of forward motion lingers, even after the last line of the story.

Short Stories 366:39 — “The City Born Great,” by N.K. Jemisin

[image error]Sometimes, you bump into an audiobook that’s performed so well you have to hit pause to check out who the performer is so you can check out the other books they’ve performed. In the case of How Long ‘Til Black Future Month?, that turns out to be four different performers—but in the case of this particular story, “The City Born Great,” it’s Shayna Small, and I bookmarked her mid-way through the story.

Jemisin says in the introduction of this collection that sometimes her short fiction is a way to explore proof of concept, and oh wow did I love this concept. We meet a young man in New York who is living right on the edge—he’s hungry, homeless, street-smart, saavy, and more than aware that mistakes can be fatal. He’s willing to turn tricks and look beyond the cigarettes a particular man smokes in exchange for a warm bed and a hot meal, but this particular trick doesn’t seem to be interested in more than talk.

And the talk is full of impossibilities: of cities becoming somehow more than cities, and how they need help to make it happen, and how he might very well be just that person for New York, which would be the first city to reach this new level of existence in America. The kid writes this off, at first, but then he starts to hear and feel things, and an encounter with something shadowy and deadly nudges him to understand this is a truth—he’s here to help New York attain… something. And New York will help him fight off the infection of the dark things, if he figures out how.

I cannot tell you how captivated I was in this, in the voice, the performance, the character, and the particular twist of spec-fic used in setting. Gah. Amazing.

Short Stories 366:38 — “Like Daughter,” by Tananarive Due

[image error]The audio performances of Women Destroy Science Fiction have been pretty on point, but the performer for “Like Daughter” was freaking incredible. Since I’m listening to this collection, it seemed worthwhile to point that out for anyone else looking for incredibly well performed audiobooks. The character voices and the pacing and the emotionality here were pitch perfect.

The story itself has such a simple idea to it: before it was struck down as illegal by the government, something that read like more than cloning was discovered—it was possible to give birth to a baby who was absolutely a copy of an original human being, and this piece, told from the point of view of a Paige, a friend of Denise (who has chosen to have a baby that is also herself, Neecy), and the winding way their pasts began, intwined, separated, and left both in a position at the start of the story to face down a kind of horrible, no-win choice.

Denise’s life was, in a word, awful. Though she has survived, at no point did I get the sense that she was thriving, but had instead put all her hope on giving Neecy—a literal second chance Denise—a life that she could never have had herself. Something, however, has gone wrong and that’s where the story beings, really: with her calling Paige to demand she come and take Neecy away. Forever. What follows is an incredibly emotional story that more-or-less happens in shades of “awful and less awful.” How could anyone possibly do well in this scenario? How can anyone possibly make the right choice? What can Paige possibly do? There are no real answers, but the questions and this moment in time are put together into this story in such a clever way I just sort of leaned back and let the impossible wash over me, knowing I’d be thinking about this one a long time after.

Short Stories 366:37 — “Can’t Escape Love,” by Alyssa Cole

[image error]Okay, Alyssa Cole is fast becoming an audiobook go-to. After listening to Duke By Default, I was curious if Portia’s nerdy-and-geeky sister Reggie would get a story of her own, and was super-pleased when “Can’t Escape Love” showed up on Audible. We all know I love shorter fictions, and I honestly feel like novellas are the Goldilocks zone for romance—the pacing, the major conflict, and the resolution more often feel “just right” to me in novellas.

But on to “Can’t Escape Love”! Reggie has a problem: insomnia. Reggie also has a solution that she already knows works: the sound of a particular man’s voice, which she used to have access to thanks to a streaming service online, but the archived files are now gone, and she can’t sleep. So she asks her sister to track down the voice, and she sends what she knows is a weird-ass e-mail offering to buy recordings of the man’s voice. He replies with a counter-offer: we can talk on the phone while you fall asleep. No recordings.

As a fellow sufferer of insomnia, I get Reggie agreeing to pretty much anything, but I want to give super-props here to Cole’s description of Gustav’s voice, and also the audio performer, Karen Chilton, for performing both characters to air-kiss perfection. What follows is both learning they have something important in common, learning they really like talking to each other, and learning that maybe there’s a way to work together on a project that will be a feather in both their caps. Oh, and also kickass sparks are flying and did I mention they’re really into each other? I could go on and on, but suffice it to say this is my favourite of the Reluctant Royals series to date, and all the more so because of the representation of Reggie and Gustav’s disabilities and neurotypes, including Reggie’s awareness of the impact of her family wealth. Nab this. Listen to it, if you at all enjoy audiobooks, and buckle in for a great (and super nerdy) ride.

Short Stories 366:36 — “Louisiana: 1850,” by Jewelle Gomez

[image error]Last year, during a trip to San Francisco, I was lucky enough to stop by three bookstores in the city. When I saw a copy of The Gilda Stories, I nabbed it—I’ve bumped into a few of the Gilda stories here and there, but I’d never read the original book of tales in which we meet Gilda for the first time, though events from that piece are mentioned in the others. I also got to hear Gomez speak one year at Saints & Sinners in New Orleans, and she was incredible. Because I came into the Gilda tales sideways, though “Storyville” first, I hadn’t realized the book was a mosaic novel, but since the stories do self-contain and I can make up my own rules for this project to talk about short stories every day, I’m reading them that way.

I’m not sure I can do this story justice, especially not in explaining the scope of what it accomplishes in its path. This is an origin story, yes, but it’s so much more than that. There is a circle, or a passing of a baton, and it feels both prophetic and familial. These are women in a time and place of slavery and the barest of options even for free women, and in Gomez’s hands there’s this incredible sense of power and compassion to the characters.

Starting her life as an escaped slave at the start of this piece, the woman who will become Gilda is raised in a brothel, taught things of language and the world, educated to the point where she can make an informed choice about the decision she is being asked to make. The chosen family theme is so strong here it practically hums on the page, and the ultimate end of this first story/chapter is so full of potential it left me more than a little bit tempted to just devour the rest of the book in as short a reading session as possible.

Short Stories 366:35 — “You Will Always Have Family: A Triptych,” by Kathleen Kayembe

[image error]Quite a few of the stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 are pulled from horror/dark fiction magazines, and “You Will Always Have Family: A Triptych” came from Nightmare Magazine, and I can certainly see why. Horror and dark stories aren’t usually a place I like to go—I admit it, I’ve got a sponge of a subconscious, and when I read dark/disturbing imagery I tend to end up with nightmares—but this story, while indeed dark and disturbing, ultimately left me in a positive frame of mind, or at least somewhere adjacent to hopeful.

The triptych in the title is the shift through three point-of-views in the story. There’s Izzy, who begins the story spending time with her “uncle” a professor and collector of folk tales (especially about witchcraft and superstition from his native Kinshasa). She grew up with his son, Mbuyi, when she was younger and her uncle and Mbuyi first arrived in the states, and she is happy to spend time with him now, though he talks of a dog locked in Mbuyi’s old room that she must never visit, and—of course—when she does, she realizes something evil is going on. Mbuyi vanished, by all accounts, but there’s something else in play.

The other two POVs would be spoilers, but as the story passes from one to the next, the story is made clear, revealing dark history, tragedy, failures of family and love, and a malevolent force determined to right a horrible wrong with vengeance rather than justice. It’s creepy, and in parts squishy-gross (my least favourite kind of horror is the squishy kind), but overall the seed of the horror is more in the sense of “what people will do to one another when they believe in evil,” and that bears fruit in an overall disturbing (but engrossing) tale.

Short Stores 366:34 — “The Things I Miss the Most” by Nisi Shawl

[image error]The sheer number of angles at which the authors are coming at disability and sci-fi in Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction is just slaying me. It is so good, everyone. So good. Nisi Shawl’s “The Things I Miss the Most” is an excellent example of this, about a young woman who grew up with seizures that pretty much derailed most aspects of her life throughout her childhood and young adulthood, until a new implant came into play that bridges the two hemispheres of her brain and stops the seizures from happening. There is a side-effect, however, and that side-effect is her friend, companion, and lover.

This other person is real to her in every way—touch and taste and scent and everything else—and since it’s a known side effect, everyone around her (including her mothers) also treats this “being” as a fact of life, rather than something to be scorned or ignored—right up until the implanted device has done its job and they can turn it off and let her now-balanced brain take over without help. Switching it off will make someone who has been a part of her life for years just… vanish.

That’s the point at which we hit the story and the levels and angles touched upon within this tale had me just leaning back in my chair. There’s so much here dealt with in that brilliant Sci-Fi way. I think of my own brain chemistry, and what it would mean if I were “fixed,” and what I would lose (or gain) in return. This story takes that impossible decision, and runs with it to fantastic result. I can’t wait to dive into New Suns, and see what Shawl has curated.

Short Stories 366:33 — “Nine,” by Kima Jones

[image error]If you’re looking for a pick-me-up of a story, something to leave you with a smile? This… is not it. It’s an amazing story. It’s so well written and I freaking loved it, but it’s also just a wee bit soul-crushing. Know that going in. It’s actually not that unusual among the tales of Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History. I’ve found the scales definitely tip to the “this is not a happy ending” side in this anthology.

Kima Jones brings us to Phoenix Arizona in 1902, to a hotel/weekly-dance-hall run by some awesome black women as a way point to better places. It starts softly enough, with the the three women (and the son of one of them) preparing the hotel for another week, and setting up the evening entertainment for when they turn the place into a dance hall for a kind of bar night, and then…

Well. Then magic and curses and the dead sent to exact revenge happen, and the whole is completely engrossing and totally had me from the first glimmers of something other starting to happen. I loved the set-up, the idea of the limitations the women (and boy) were working under, and the fallout of what was done—and the ending? Well, it will certainly stay with me a long, long time. A time I shall also be shuddering.