What I Read in August

Neil Clarke’s post on Clarkesworld explaining why his magazine doesn’t have a short fiction review column struck me. Not having access to his web traffic logs I can’t argue with the facts he brings to bear, namely that short fiction reviews don’t drive readers to the site. I would say on a pure anecdotal level, however, that I have read many short stories on the basis of review columns and, more importantly, also discovered markets where such stories appear. These “What I Read” posts also tend to attract the most traffic on my site.

That said, I agree with him on one level - this blog, which really is just a list of the stories I like - is probably not going to be moving anyone to read a particular story. I do hope that in assembling these lists every month a casual short story reader might come across a title that does seem worth interesting or a magazine that they had not heard of. Really, if the year so far has taught me anything, it’s that there is an incredible wealth of quality fiction available, most of it free, for any one willing to follow a few links.

Okay, stepping down from the soap box, let me once more offer a few stories I think worth your time. Seriously, please read one of these stories. They’re amazing.

Hani's: Purveyor of Rusks, Biscuits, and Sweat Teas by Sara Saab. (The Dark) I like my fairy tales dark and perfectly understandable within the context of that world. This work is a succinct and cogent story reworking of the “House of Candy” trope, creating a pastry shop and it’s not-so-sweet proprietor. A dark long con played upon hungry children, with sweet caramelized dollops of body horror.
It Was Educational by J. B. Park (Clarkesworld) I clicked open this story humming that old Pixie song, not sure of what I’d find. Essentially this story plays with an idea I’ve always found stimulating - history as a simulation for the edification of the future. Beautiful and full of ideas.
Ships and Stars and Childhood Things by Gwendolyn Kiste (Flash Fiction Online) A bitter sweet tale of a love grown into through magic of time dilation and then outgrown in turn. Kiste writes about terrible things with a rare clarity and precision. I also recommended one of her stories from February “Once Lost, Gone Forever."
Mustard World by James Victor (Apex and Abyss) This is a horror story - essentially a fairy tale - swapping out princes and fairies for chlorine drenched hellscapes and astronauts. Raiding old stories is a tactic I whole-heartedly endorse, especially when done with vivid and knowing skill. The chummy, unaware attitude demeanor of the narrator makes this story worm beneath your skin.
Milagroso by Isabel Yap (Tor.com) I loved this story - a vibrant and riotous exploration of the future and significance of real food. Even as the narrator - a food engineer himself - recognizes the obvious benefits genetically tailored food provides, he longs for the simple imperfections of the past. In a world where artificial miracle food feeds the poor and prevents disease, true luxury is clutching onto the fragile and already rotting artifacts of the past.

Reading Response to "A Good Man is Hard to Find."

Reader Response to “A Good Man is Hard to Find” Morgan Crooks I once heard Flannery O’Connor’s work introduced as a project to describe a world denied God’s grace. This critic of O’Connor’s work meant the Christian idea that a person’s misdeeds, mistakes, and sins could be sponged away by the power of Jesus’ sacrifice at Crucifixion. The setting of her stories often seem to be monstrous distortions of the real world. These are stories where con men steal prosthetic limbs, hired labor abandons mute brides in rest stops, and bizarre, often disastrous advice is imparted. O’Connor herself said of this reputation for writing ‘grotesque’ stories that ‘anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.’ This is both a witty observation and a piece of advice while reading O’Connor’s work. These are stories about pain and lies and ugliness. The brutality that ha...

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...

With the title World War Z

Early on in the mostly disappointing zombie epidemic thriller World War Z, UN Investigator Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) hides out in a Newark apartment, trying to convince a family living there to flee with him from the hordes of sprinting, chomping maniacs infesting the city. The phrase he uses, drawing from years of experience in the world's troubled war-zones is "movement is life." Ultimately he's unsuccessful, the family barricades their door behind him and they join the ever-swelling ranks of the undead. As far as a guiding philosophy goes for a pop-action thriller like World War Z, 'movement is life,' isn't bad. And for the first half of the movie or so, it follows its own advice. Similar to other recent zombie movies (Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead) the warning signs of what the rest of the movie will bring are subtle and buried until all hell is ready to break through. The television mentions 'martial law,' Philadelphia traffic snarl...

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