Skip to main content

What I Read in June

Another tough month to whittle my favorite stories to five or so I prefer for this column. In particular Nightmare and Clarkesworld offered several fine stories.

  1. The Wanderer, in the Dark of the Year by Kris Millering (Clarkesworld) Now this is why I read Clarkesworld. Fantastically invasive story that reminds me of Michael Swanwick’s Passage through Earth last year. A kidnapped correspondent bonds with an alien taken in by anti-Roma terrorists. The alien described as a kind of mitochondrial mat and the unusual structure of the narrative: multiple beginnings and endings communicates effectively how much was lost and gained during the encounter. 
  2. Five Spikes by Nicholas Diehl (DSF) Excellent macabre story about a boy, a witch, and zombie spikes. The closest thing I’ve read to a Shirley Jackson story in a while.
  3. The Cellar Dweller by Maria Dahvana Headley (Nightmare) Another great story from Headley. This dark fantasy is a little bit Gaiman, a little bit Barker, and a whole lot of something very distinct and appalling. In an unspecified village, a girl grows up as a kind of exterminator for the hungry spirits in old homes.
  4. The One Mission by Patricia Russo (DSF) An example of what Daily Science Fiction does so well - giving a venue for tiny perfect stories. Russo’s central idea is that the various departments of a generation ship have devolved into a series of tribes keeping the functions of the ship going on the basis of interlocking oral traditions. There is so much here that cries out for more stories. Very, very good.
  5. The Hole in the Hole by Terry Bisson (Clarkesworld) An interesting character study about two friends who stumble on to a wormhole to the moon, hidden in a difficult-to-find junkyard. A very Rudy Rucker set-up becomes a Neal Stephenson-style tale of entrepreneurial mayhem. Of particular note is how Bisson uses urban fantasy motifs in telling a science fiction story.
My favorite reprint last month appeared in the Weird Fiction review, Mutation Planet by Barrington Bayley. A longer story detailing the weirdness pervading the universe and the uniqueness of the human preoccupation with exploration. I marked this as an older story even before I had it confirmed in the post-script. The language is somewhat clumsy, the dialogue rang false, and the politics of the piece are not encouraging. Even so, the sheer volume of ideas in the is piece and the refreshing Barlowe-style aliens are very interesting. One of the better pieces I’ve read this year on the basis of sheer weird ideas alone.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review of R. Scott Bakker's The Darkness That Comes Before

First, a word about how I came to pick up the first novel in R. Scott Bakker's The Prince of Nothing historical fantasy series. In short, after finishing "A Dance with Dragons," by George R.R. I googled what should I read next. This series came up. I mention this because it might serve as a usual gauge for what to expect from "The Darkness That Came Before;" people liking Martin's mix of history, in-depth characterization, dark subject matter, and world-building will probably like Bakker's work. People not fond of entire chapters devoted to the Byzantine political maneuvers, a dozen pages of appendices on characters, maps, and language trees, or character names with umlauts should avoid this book. Basically, the story of 'The Darkness That Comes Before," follows a warrior monk by the name of Anasürimbur Kellhus, who during a quest to find his father, becomes entwined with a Holy War against a nation of fanatical monotheists. The story is...
Post a Comment
Read more

Death's End by Liu Cixin

Having recently finished the last book in Liu Cixin's instant classic "The Remembrance of Earth's Past" series, Death's End, I can only report a feeling of total amazement and awe. There is so much about this novel that blew my mind, that offered different and better ways of viewing the universe. This novel did what I wish more novels would, serve up a new universe entire, evoking beauty and horror, nobility and disgust, in a timeless monument to unfettered speculation.  Obviously, in discussing the events of the last of a trilogy books, spoilers are to be expected. I am, however, going to try to avoid discussing much beyond the first 100 pages of the third novel. I read the translation of this novel, as ushered into being by the amazing talent of Ken Liu. Ken has written of a certain prickliness when it comes to translating work. He makes an effort not to anglicize the source material, not smudging away the occasional difficulties in bringing Cixin...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Reaction to Peter Watts' "Echopraxia"

Peter Watts’ Echopraxia  is a side-sequel to his previous hard sf horror novel  Blindsight . Daniel Bruks, a biologist in the Eastern Oregonian desert, gets stuck in the middle of a war between a fugitive vampire and a cult of rewired post-humans called Bicamerals, ultimately kidnapped by them as they head towards the sun. The goal of post-human and vampire alike is to investigate a possible alien intelligence gaining strength there, to determine if it poses a threat, or offers a weapon for the two sides as they struggle for advantage. Bruks' goal is simple survival. Reading Watts is a simultaneously bracing and discouraging experience. Bracing because his depiction of the future and the oddities who inhabit it continue to get better and better, his plots more complicated and more involving, his characters less like sock-puppets for his ideas and more like actual human beings (or whatevers). Discouraging because Watts uses his considerable gifts, artistic and academic, ...
Post a Comment
Read more