Don’t cry, people, but there’s only one more issue of Shimmer after this. Okay, go ahead and cry. I’m right there with you. For this penultimate issue, though, the publication pulled out an extra story, so I’m looking at three today that, perhaps appropriately, all revolve around death and loss. So yeah, might want to cover your feels in bubble wrap at this point, because these are stories that very much deal with violence and violation, with hope and with despair. They feature characters who have lost something. Someone. Who have lost lives, really, and where they go from there really comes from what kind of story it is. But there’s a palpable loneliness to many of the stories, and a sense change, and transformation, and entering into a new state. Which can be full of denial and acceptance, rebellion or ignorance. It’s a wonderful batch of stories, so let’s get to the reviews.
The October issue of Clarkesworld Magazine is all about survival. Or, I should say, about finding out what’s more important than survival. These stories take settings that are, well, grim. Where war and other disasters have created a situation where just holding onto life is difficult. Where for many it would seem obvious that it’s time to tighten one’s belt and get down to the serious business of surviving. And yet the stories show that surviving isn’t enough, especially if it means sacrificing people. That, without justice and hope beyond just making it to another day, surviving might not be worth it. But that, with an eye toward progress, and hope for something better (not just the prevention of something worse), people and peoples can begin to heal the damage that’s been caused and maybe reach a place where they can heal and find a better way to live. To the reviews!
October brings a fittingly creepy fantasy novelette to GigaNotoSaurus—one that blends magic and mundane, horror and memory. It looks at identity, and what it can mean to be effectively cut off from what’s supposed to define you, what’s supposed to give you meaning and depth. And instead having to find that yourself, build it up in the place of what might have been. It’s a slow and strange and often painful journey that the story describes, and it definitely keeps the month focused on the dark and wrenchingly hopeful. To the review!
The anniversary offerings continue with a second special double issue from Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Again, for the sake of my sanity, I’m going to break this out into two parts. The first features a novelette and short story that for me deal very much with narratives and with learning. They both have the feel of engaging with fable, with magic, and with characters learning lessons that they weren’t really expecting to. Whether that lesson is about the nature of growing up or of becoming a better person, in both there’s a focus on people seeking something that will give them power and answers and then, ultimately, wondering if that’s what they really want. Both carry a sense of strangeness and wonder, as well, and are warm and cozy at the same time. Before I give too much away, though, let’s get to the reviews!
Okay, so I always appreciate the hell out of the serial projects that The Book Smugglers come out with. Two years ago it was the Spindle City stories, and last year it was Hurricane Heels, and now there’s the serial novella, Between the Firmaments. And it lives up to the fragile beauty and persistent will that drove the previous worlds. Here a planet has been subjugated and stripped of almost all of its gods, their divinity used for the wealth and comfort and grandeur of the alien invaders. And one god, laid low but uncaptured, must walk the line between annihilation and lust, between hope and despair. Through a gauntlet that seems impossible to survive he has to run and hope to fate and luck and the strength of the bonds he’s built between those he loves that when the smoke clears there’s still something left to salvage. So yeah, let’s get to the review!
Four poems close out Uncanny Magazine’s Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction! And most of the poems share a theme of expectations and recovery. Featuring characters who are being pushed in certain directions because of their bodies, because of their injuries, because of what other people want. And who, in defiance, decide to embrace what they want. And they do show the rather revolutionary act that self care and affirmation can be for disabled characters, when everyone wants to control the narrative of what being disabled is, to make it into something broken and wrong in need of fixing. These are some wonderful pieces, and I’ll just get right to the reviews!
It’s the second month of Uncanny Magazine’s Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction! As before, I’m breaking October’s offerings into two parts, the fiction and the poetry, and starting out with the six new stories exploring futures near and far. This month’s pieces definitely focus on some grim realities—hospitals and universities and families and cities where disabled people are not exactly the priority, or at least not in the ways they want. The stories look at characters trapped by circumstance and (largely) by tragedy, brought to a crisis because their situation is getting worse and worse. And in each case, they must make decisions either to sit down and be quiet or to fight back, to try to follow their own hearts. The works are often dark, often difficult, but ultimately I feel reaching for healing and for peace, for a space that the characters can have as their own, which is much more about freedom than confinement. To the reviews!
