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Most of these stories are listed on the Locus recommended reading List or on other hugo recommendation lists.


“You Pretend Like You Never Met Me and I’ll Pretend Like I Never Met You,” Maria Dahvava Headley; Lightspeed Magazine, September 2018.
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/you-pretend-like-you-never-met-me-and-ill-pretend-like-i-never-met-you/
Very good. Sometimes there’s just enough magic to do one thing right. Short story.


“Red Rain,” Adam-Troy Castro; Nightmare Magazine, June, 2018.
http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/red-rain/
Good, perhaps very good, but extremely unsettling. A meditation on the lemming effect. CN: Explicit descriptions of violent death, suicidal ideation. Short story.


“What Gentle Women Dare,” Kelly Robson; Uncanny Magazine, May-June 2018.
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/what-gentle-women-dare/
Very good. Takes the old question ‘what do women want?’ Perfectly seriously. Short story.


“Harry and Marlowe and the Secret of Ahomania,” Carrie Vaughan; Lightspeed magazine, September 2018.
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/harry-and-marlowe-and-the-secret-of-ahomana/
Very good. A steampunk lost world adventure, with extra added imperialist critique. Novelette.


“The Date,” R. K. Kakaw; Uncanny Magazine, January/February 2018.
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/the-date/
Good. Too much of the sex=danger, love=death vibe for me. Short story.


“A Priest of Vast and Distant Spaces,” Cassandra Khaw; Apex Magazine, March 13 2018.
https://www.apex-magazine.com/a-priest-of-vast-and-distant-places/
Very good. Bittersweet story about a priest caught between duty and family. Short story.


“Wild Ones,” Vanessa Fogg; Bracken Magazine, January 2018.
https://www.brackenmagazine.com/issue-v/fogg-wild-ones/
Excellent. Could you give up everything to take that second chance at the dream that never quite vanished? Short story.


“The Good Mothers’ Home for Wayward Girls,’ Izzy Wasserstein; Pseudopod, March 30 2018.
http://pseudopod.org/2018/03/30/pseudopod-588-artemis-rising-4-the-good-mothers-home-for-wayward-girls/
Very good. Creepy as hell, and the mysteries are never explained. Short story.


“What to do When It’s Nothing but Static,” Cassandra Khaw; Apex Magazine, April 24 2018.
https://www.apex-magazine.com/what-to-do-when-it/
Very good. Coming back after grief and loss. Short story.


“The Pine Arch Collection,” Michael Wehunt; The Dark Magazine, May 2018
http://thedarkmagazine.com/pine-arch-collection/
Excellent. An epistolatory horror story. Short story.


“Cuisine des Mèmoires,” N. K. Jemisen; How Long Til Black Future Month?, 2018.
Excellent. Would you rather have the memory of an old love, or a chance to make a new one? Short story.


“The Storyteller’s Replacement”, N.K. Jemisin; How Long Til Black Future Month?, 2018.
Very good. A cautionary tale about power, greed and assumptions. Short story.
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Most of these stories are from the Locus recommended reading list or other online recommendations lists.

“The Court Magician,” Sarah Pinsker; Lightspeed Magazine, January 2018
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-court-magician/
Excellent. Concerning actions desires and their costs. Short story.

“The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections,” Tina Connolly; Tor.com, July 11 2018.
https://www.tor.com/2018/07/11/the-last-banquet-of-temporal-confections-tina-connolly/
Excellent. Novelette.

“And Yet,” A.T. Greenblatt; Uncanny Magazine, March-April 2018.
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/and-yet/
Very good. A scientist must choose between her research and her brother’s life. Short story.

“She Still Loves the Dragon,” Elizabeth Bear; Uncanny Magazine, January-February 2018.
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/still-loves-dragon/
Very good. Short story.

“A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies,” Alex E. Harrow; Apex Magazine, February 6 2018.
https://www.apex-magazine.com/a-witchs-guide-to-escape-a-practical-compendium-of-portal-fantasies/
Excellent. Heart-breaking, but with a breath of hope. Short story.

“Snake Season,” Erin Roberts; The Dark Magazine, April 2018.
http://thedarkmagazine.com/snake-season/
Very good. A horrifying tale of love and madness. Short story. CN: infanticide, murder.

“Flow,” Marissa Lingen; Fireside Magazine, March 2018.
https://firesidefiction.com/flow
Very good. About disability, nature, knowing and healing. Short story.

“Pistol Grip,” Vina Jie-Min Prasad; Uncanny Magazine, March-April 2018
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/pistol-grip/
Good. Evocative, provocative. Short story. CN: Explicit violence, sex.

“Cast Off Tight,” Hal Y. Zhang; Fireside Magazine, June 2018.
https://firesidefiction.com/cast-off-tight
Very good. Memory, grief, and knitting. Short story.

“Blessings,” Naomi Novik; Uncanny Magazine, May-June 2018.
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/blessings/
Excellent. Be careful when asking fairies for blessings on your children. Shot story.

“A Study in Oils,” Kelly Robson; Clarksworld Magazine, September 2018.
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/robson_09_18/
Excellent. A study in remorse. Novelette.
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Kelly Robson’s novella Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach takes place partly in a post-apocalyptic future where humans live in habitats, some on the Earth’s surface, some beneath, and where those who survived climate disruption and plague, among other things, live through the benefit of advanced technologies - including the ability to travel into the past - but in often borderline existences. Some humans have been mutated by the plague; others are dependent on specialised prostheses to function; some appear to be what we would still thing of as fully human.

Minh, a private contractor and specialist in multiple fields, most having to do with water systems and ecologies, has won o competition for a unique and exciting project - to travel into the past to do a complete survey of the Tigris-Euphrates river valley. Her three person team - herself, Kiki, and Hamid, accompanied by Fabian, a ‘tactical historian’ supplied by the time travel organisation, will rely on the most advanced tech - satellites, probes, all manner of mobile monitoring devices, to collect the first wave of data.

Intercut with the narrative of the team’s preparations and journey back in time, and the beginning of their work, is a second narrative, the story of Shulgi, the king of the Mesopotamian state of Ur, who faces a political crisis when new stars appear in the sky, and strange flying creatures are seen across the land. At first the high priestess Susa, the only power that rivals his in the kingdom, names these an evil omen and calls for Shulgi’s death to appease the gods, but after a time she withdraws into the temple and begins to issue strange orders. Shulgi, meanwhile, prepares to face whatever the omens bring, for it is the role of a king to protect his people.

What happens when the inevitable interaction occurs is unexpected, and showcases both the best and the worst of human nature, past and future. A profoundly thought provoking work.
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"The Jewel and Her Lapidary," Fran Wilde; Tor.com, not available online.

Fran Wilde's novelette "The Jewel and Her Lapidary" is a seductive piece of worldbuilding that tells an otherwise straightforward (though inspiring) story about betrayal, invasion and resistance. What marks the story as something different is the setting. Ironically, just as an intricate and captivating setting can heighten the beauty of a relatively ordinary gem, the world that Wilde creates - one of rulers known as Jewels bound to, sustained and protected by Lapidaries, people with the gift of manipulating the magical energies of gems - enhances the narrative of two courageous young women, one of whom sacrifices everything to enable the other to survive and help their people resist a conquering enemy.


"A Burden Shared," Jo Walton; Tor.com, April 19, 2017
https://www.tor.com/2017/04/19/a-burden-shared/

The premise: in the future, technology will allow one person to take the pain felt by another, leaving the other without pain - though still with the underlying condition causing it. The story focuses on a mother and father, now divorced but still co-operating in bearing the pain of their adult daughter, born with a chronic degenerative disease. There are a great many levels and approaches to the story. As a person living with chronic pain, my first response was "this is so seductive, the thought of being able to spend even some of my time pain-free - but how could I ask another to take this pain, even if they wanted to?" In a way, it's a literalisation of the way that the burden of care for disabled family members is negotiated, even down to an exploration of the ways in which even a man devoted to helping with his daughter's care can't help but manipulate his ex-wife into accepting short-notice changes to the pain-sharing schedule that will help his career but make it difficult for her to manage commitments she's made in her professional life.

At first, one thinks there is something noble about the ways in which people in this society take on the burden of pain that others they care about would otherwise face. However, the more one dwells on this, the more it seems to be making obvious the potentials for dysfunctional and damaging interpersonal relations around the issue of care, especially privatised care where the disabled person must depend on love, loyalty, guilt, and sometimes the kindness - or financial need - of strangers in order to have any semblance of a life. And I wonder, where's the app that takes the pain and sends it instead to /dev/null?

I found this story very thought-provoking, but ultimately unsatisfying.


Peter S. Beagle, "The Story of Kao Yu," Tor.com, December 7, 2016
https://www.tor.com/2016/12/07/the-story-of-kao-yu/

Peter S. Beagle is a master craftsman when it comes to short fiction, and his metier is fantasy. It's hard to imagine sitting down to read a Beagle short story and not feel moved in sine way, if not always satisfied, at the end. This is a story set in medieval China, and tells the story of a travelling judge, a supernatural chi-rin, or unicorn, who is the essence of justice, and the unrepentant thief who changes his destiny. It is not a happy story, and it is not a comfortable story, because it looks closely at temptation and corruption as much as it does justice and honour. But it is a very moving story, and a thoughtful one.


Kelly Robson, "A Human Stain," Tor.com, January 4, 2017
https://www.tor.com/2017/01/04/a-human-stain/

Robson's novelette is a beautifully written Gothic horror story, set in a remote castle with all the requisite mysteries, from the taciturn servants and unnatural child to the crypt in the cellar and the curious creatures in the lake. The protagonist, an Englishwoman adrift in Europe - is a young woman of unconventional desires. She drinks, smokes, and chases pretty girls, and she has accumulated debts that she would prefer to avoid, being unable to pay. Her salvation would appear to lie in her friend's need for a governess to teach his orphaned nephew, but once Helen is left alone with the child, Peter, and the servants, the mysteries prove too much for Helen to ignore, and too dangerous for her to resist.

Well written, and it left me with a distinct feeling of dread at the end. My only criticism is that it's another one of those stories where the 'bad' girl - she smokes and drinks too much, and is a lesbian - is punished for her desires.


K. M. Szpara, "Small Changes over Long Periods of Time," Uncanny Magazine, May/June 2017
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/small-changes-long-periods-time/

I'm a sucker for vampire stories. So this novelette started out several points up on the 'do I like it' scale. It's well-written and entertaining. It also explores some things that are not often explored in vampire literature, such as the idea that being turned regenerates the body and what that might mean to a trans person whose body has been deliberately changed through surgery and hormones. The author is a trans man, and the story touches very realistically on multiple issues related to being trans, from dysphoria to transphobia to denial of medical service.

It also looks at issues of consent and the strange human connection between danger and lust which are fairly standard in a vampire story. As this is a society in which vampirism is acknowledged and vampiric behaviour strictly codified, it's also a story about assimilation, and regulating dangerous behaviours - i found myself wondering if the laws that exist in this novelette about registering as a vampire and only taking blood from a blood bank or from a known consenting donor were in some way a commentary on safer sex in this time of AIDS where HIV positive people have been charged with attempted manslaughter for having sex without informing their partners of the risk. Lots to think about as well as enjoy.

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In Kelly Robson's novella The Waters of Versailles, former soldier Sylvain de Guilherand has found a place for himself at the court of the Sun King through his skill in plumbing - providing fresh water and toilets to the court. But his expertise depends on an unequal - and possibly coerced - partnership that is fraying at the seams, as are the pipes that supply water to the toilets of the court.

Sylvain, we discover, has enticed a nixie away from her mountain streams and is using her power over water to ensure that the waters of Versailles flow smoothly and the pipes never leak. But when the old soldier he keeps to entertain and communicate his needs to the nixie dies, the orderly functioning of the palace plumbing begins to fail, and Sylvain must deal with the nixie - a childlike being who is eager to please, but who misses her friend - himself.

At the outset of the story, Sylvain has everything he ever thought he wanted - the favour of kings and nobles, and the favours of many of the ladies of the court. But he is also cynical, and callous toward those on whom his social-climbing success Really depends. Much of the charm of this waterpunk story lies in the depiction of a frivolous and status-obsessed court side by side with Sylvain's slow development of understanding and empathy for the nixie he formerly sought only to use for his own aims.

I was also rather amused at the frank - and quite historically accurate - discussions of toilets and their functions, and the public use of them. This was, we must recall, a time when the real Sun King would take a shit while holding court whenever it pleased him.

The novella can be found on the Tor website:
http://www.tor.com/2015/06/10/waters-of-versailles-kelly-robson/

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