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Short Fiction: December 5, 2017
Dec. 5th, 2017 06:06 amJohn Chu, "Making the Magic Lightning Strike Me"; Uncanny Magazine, May/June 2017
http://uncannymagazine.com/article/making-magic-lightning-strike/
What prices are we prepared to pay to become what we most want to be - or think we want to be? This science-fictional story of the proverbial 98-pound weakling who wants to be a muscle man explores this question with sensitivity and compassion. The protagonist has made a heavy bargain - taking a dangerous underground job in return fir extensive alterations that turn his body into the muscular machine he longs to be, but even with all the external changes, it isn't quite enough.
Nicole Kornher-Stace, "Last Chance"; Clarkesworld, July 2017
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kornher-stace_07_17/
A post-apocalyptic story about a young girl who is captured by scavengers and used as a labourer to search for 'Before' treasures in a dangerous ruin. The protagonist's voice is well-developed and consistent, the story interesting, and the ending holds out some hope that taking the proverbial last chance nay bring something good. A good read.
Vina Jie-Min Prasad, "Fandom for Robots"; Uncanny Magazine, September/October 2017
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/fandom-for-robots/
Computron is the only sentient robot ever created, by accident, by a scientist who was never able to recreate his achievement. Computron 'lives' in a museum devoted to the history of robotics; it displays its sentience to museum visitors by answering their random questions. One day, a young visitor asks Computron if it has ever watched a particular anime series about a human and a sentient robot seeking revenge for the destruction of the human's family. Computron watches the anime, and discovers fandom. It's a charming story with sone spot-on observations about fandom, shipping, and fanfic. It's also a bit of a parable, about the way that the most unlikely of outsiders can find acceptance and friendship in the online world of fandom.
Rebecca Roanhorse, "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience (TM)"; Apex Magazine, August 8, 2017
https://www.apex-magazine.com/welcome-to-your-authentic-indian-experience/
Jesse Turnblatt, like most of his co-workers at Sedona Sweats, is a 'real Indian' who sells VR fantasy experiences to white tourists who "don’t want a real Indian experience. They want what they see in the movies." So he gives them fantasies about Indians who never were, until one day he meets a client who wants so much more.
This is half science fiction, half horror, and all about the real Indian experiences of cultural appropriation, the intersection of racism and sexism, theft of land, culture and even identity, and ultimately, genocide. The ending floored me with its parallels to the history of white appropriation of everything Indigenous. Read it.
Malinda Lo, "Ghost Town"; Uncanny Magazine, September/October, 2017 (originally published in Defy the Dark, ed. Saundra Mitchell, 2013)
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/ghost-town/
It's Halloween in Pinnacle, a small town in Colorado with a history of mining prosperity during the 'Old West' and a tradition of celebrating its ghosts. Ty is a young butch transplanted from San Francisco with her family to a place where she doesn't fit in, where there's no real place for a young lesbian among all the Beckys and Chads. When popular girl at school McKenzie invites her to go ghost hunting on Halloween, Ty accepts.
This is a ghost story. A good one. It's also a story about bullying and anti-queer bigotry and the history of violence against transgressive women - and a sisterhood that transcends the grave. It's told in layers, peeling back the events of the evening until the reader finally understands everything, and the impact is all the more because of this. I liked it a lot.
Lavie Tidhar, "The Old Dispensation"; Tor.com, February 8, 2017
https://www.tor.com/2017/02/08/the-old-dispensation/
The short story is framed as the observations of a telepathic ruler (or rulers, or some intermediate being with multiple consciousness) known as the Exilarch torturing one of its trained assassins to determine just what happened on his latest mission, from which he returned somehow changed. It is set in an interstellar theocratic empire based on Jewish tradition and culture, but it's a nasty place indeed, where heresy merits death and the Treif - races outside the rules of acceptability - are freely warred on to the point of extermination. Lavie leaves quite a lot to the reader to work out, including the nature of the Exilarch, the origin of the Empire, and the consequences of what happened to the assassin during his mission. Interesting reading, but I found it unsatisfying despite the suggestion at the end that the Exilarch's reign of terror might be nearing its end.
Yoon Ha Lee, "Extracurricular Activities"; Tor.com, February 15, 2017
https://www.tor.com/2017/02/15/extracurricular-activities/
Lee's novelette is set in the same universe as his novels Ninefox Gambit and Raven Stratagem, and features one of the protagonists from that series, but is more accessible to the casual reader. It is set early in Shuos Jedao's career, and demonstrates the combination of skill, daring and foresight that will make Jedao legendary. The narrative has a light, at tines almost comedic tone, but there are hints of what is to come, particularly in Jedao's consciousness of the number of kills he makes. Yet at the sane time it's clear that he is dangerous, and thinks in terms of threat and violence. For readers of the novels, it's an interesting glimpse into one of Lee's most interesting characters. For those who don't already know Shuos Jedao, it's a finely crafted sf spy story.
