I’ve had so few accomplishments in 2018, but one thing I’m proud of is successfully incepting myself into the world of short fiction. Last year I read like, three short stories. This year I read close to three hundred, and I got so into it that I commissioned a logo about it.
It’s rare in a month of short story reading that I’ll have a clear best-of, but in December I did. Zen Cho writes deceptively gentle and adorable stories that draw from Asian mythology — deceptively gentle because they pack a hell of an emotional punch. “If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again” (8400 words, B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog) is about an imugi named Byam who’s working towards becoming a dragon, until it gets derailed by an academic named Leslie Han.
It was the human’s job that had given Byam the idea. Leslie Han was an academic, which appeared to be a type of monk. Monks were the most relatable kind of human, for like imugi, they desired one thing most in life: to ascend to a higher plane of existence.
“If at First You Don’t Succeed” is the second romance I’ve read this year between a lady and a dragon (the first being Aliette de Bodard’s In the Vanishers’ Palace), and I have to say that I love it. Byam and Leslie have such a dear romance. I felt all the feelings about it.
As yet, I haven’t read any of Karen Lord’s novels, but if they’re anything like “The Counsellor Crow” (1970 words, reprint, Lightspeed) I’m going to need to rectify that in the New Year. An effective piece of short fiction under 2000 words is hard to come by, but “The Counsellor Crow” is an atmospheric knockout from paragraph one, and its plot gave me the shivers. A renowned Counsellor of Ildcrest dies in an apparent suicide, leaving behind a journal full of observations about a particular species of carrion bird.
(I like carrion birds, sue me.)
As we’ve learned, I also enjoy a nontraditional narrative format. “The Counsellor Crow” is in the format of a zoological report, with a letter of introduction appended. The story describes not just the appearance and behavior of the counsellor crow, but the kingdoms that have formed its habitat, and their histories of war and weaponry. Shit gets ominous. The ending is ambiguous. My Patronus would be a corvid and I’m not sorry.
While I’m on the subject of very short stories, I must recommend two pieces from Uncanny Magazine‘s December issue. Sarah Goslee’s “There and Back Again” (1461 words) is a reflection on the Hobbits’ journey into Mordor. Because it’s rewarding to go into this story without much more context than that, I won’t say much more about it, except that it’s a beautiful treatment of both its subject and Tolkien.
Cassandra Khaw’s “Monologue by an unnamed mage, recorded at the brink of the end” is just above 1000 words, which leaves a lot of gaps for the reader’s imagination to fill. It’s wonderfully evocative, a story about fighting a doomed fight and realizing that you are approaching the end of what you’re able to do. Or actually, it’s a story about the power of love, which stays more important than destruction even at times when destruction wins. A quote:
This is a kind of magic too, you know? The Bard told me this. Resurrection by way of oration, every retelling a species of necromancy, and if some of it fails to be beautiful, if some of it crooks from the truth, that doesn’t matter. Stories are meant to adapt.
“Monologue by an unnamed mage, recorded at the brink of the end,” Cassandra Khaw
It’s a story about the end of the world, but it nevertheless filled me with hope.
Closing out the month is Shaenon Garrity’s “Grandma Novak’s Famous Nut Roll” (2670 words, Lightspeed), which is Slovenian monster mythology by way of the “Hey Ladies” column at The Toast. The conceit is that two women are working with their grandmother to preserve her traditional recipes. But as the story goes along, you begin to realize there’s more to this family than meets the eye. I love the coupling of magic with baking, the comfort of a traditionally feminine art rubbing up against bloody monster murder. Plus, the recipes are all real! (It’s anyone’s guess if the monsters are, too.)
And that’s it for 2018! My main sources of stories this year were Uncanny, Lightspeed, Apex, Clarkesworld, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, but I’d like to branch out a bit in the New Year. Any recommendations?