Memorial Day weekend allowed me to read more this month than last month, despite losing several of my lunch breaks at the office. This month is also marked by friends throwing stories at me. I always appreciate being made to branch out, even when their recs are really freakin’ weird.
Short fiction
“Eight laws I wound up breaking while attempting to restore the timeline” by P. A. Cornell
A listicle style short story about a time travel adventure featuring continuous mishap.
“The Body Remembers” by P.A. Cornell
A story about an experimental military program that can regenerate physical trauma, but doesn’t seem to care much about the mental trauma that remains.
A reality where people can randomly split into different versions of themselves at different ages, and how they feel when a way to undo the process is invented.
“A Dry, Quiet War” by Tony Daniel
An inventive and disturbing story about a veteran from the war at the end of the universe returning home. Unfortunately, the ghosts that arrive shortly thereafter draw him back into the fight. As of one week into the month, this is my favorite.
“Look, you’re a person in possession of a flying head, and all you can think to do with it is to spy on your girlfriend from twenty years ago? No wonder you’re alone.”
“The H Word: My Father, My Private Monster” by Haralambi Markov
A powerful nonfiction essay about the relationship between the author, his abusive father, and horror movies:
“What’s your favorite scary movie?” This question is a trap in the Scream movies, but it’s liberation for me.
“All of them,” I answer. “I have lived through them all. They are my home.”
“The Passing of the Dragon” by Ken Liu
A story about a painter who tries to capture a magical experience and a world that just doesn’t get it. Ultimately an examination of art as a medium for communicating personal truths. The story makes the point that audience interpretation can be an uncontrollable storm, but takes its time getting there.
All of Radon Journal Issue 7.
I hadn’t heard of this journal until recently. Its specialties are anarchism, transhumanism, and dystopia. This works out to a heaping dollop of cyberpunk. There’s poetry in there too, but I’m going to talk about the short fiction:
“Where’s Reba?” By Alex T. Singer
A gripping near-future story where talent scouts can scoop people off the streets and force them to live as celebrity personas. It’s by the author of the webcomic Sfeer Theory, which I’ve missed. The story does a great job nailing the anxiety of being under constant surveillance, combined with the pressure of cultivating a public persona. Having corporations kidnap people into this lifestyle is maybe too thick a layer of icing for the cake, though most characters other than the MC are hoping they’ll be the next mannequin star. There’s enough here to sustain a novel, imo. Kind of reminds me of Scott Westerfeld’s Pretties.
“Tonight We’re Wearing Waste Bags” by Elena Sirchrovsky
A visceral story about an alien trapped in a human body. Very much on-brand for an author who describes herself as fascinated with body horror, identity, grief, and rebellion.
“Choose Your Own Future: Fascism Series 8” by Jenna Hanchey
Oh god, a Choose Your Own Adventure that’s basically about being a teacher in Florida. Author did a great job. I hate this story format, unfortunately, but I skimmed around enough to get depressed. I’m gonna start linking international friends this instead of explaining what “Moms for Liberty” are.
“And3” by David Serafino
An influencer buys an android. The android is perfect, programmable, multicultural, talented, and rich with recorded experiences. It can be anyone the influencer or fans want. It can help the influencer be who they want to be. They follow the android’s ideas, making content out of everything the world has to offer. Their popularity skyrockets. The android helps them become a better person. They tell it they want to be perfect. There’s an operation for that. They buy the android that can perform the operation. They get the implant that gives them all of an android’s strengths. They evangelize their followers. They pay for millions to join their network. They become something greater than themselves until their body fails from neglect. Their infirmity forces them back into their skin. They don’t like it.
I was reminded of what Blindsight had to say about transhumanism and cognition. That’s a good thing. Ended up rereading the book.
“Dream Eater” by Christine Lucas
A telepathic, disembodied brain serves a cult leader by pruning the minds of the settlers he’s taking to a colony across the stars. He’s her father, and he’s promised to make her a real girl, just as he’s promised his flock that they will achieve paradise under his guidance.
You already know where this is going. The tropes are well-executed here. I enjoy them; I’ve got a “generation ship captured by a cult leader” story in me, for later.
“Decorative” by P. A. Cornell
I picked up this anthology on Patty’s recommendation. Her story is about an android who’s effectively a person. ‘Annie’ is purchased as a shiny new toy by a man who initially treats her like family. But when his attention wanders, her total dependence on him has somber consequences.
“Tank Baby” by Ashlee Lhamon
Think of the least responsible fish owner you know. Now imagine a human baby in the tank.
“Still” by Jordon Hirsch
A moment of reunion between a woman and her son, newly installed in an android body.
“My Ship Remains” by Akis Linardos
Another story about mechanical life and parentage. Explores class stratification among robots by drawing from the cyberpunk genre’s well: “Wouldn’t it be fucked up if you had to pay corporations for your body parts?” Also about love, sacrifice, and dreaming.
“Cardamom and Other Such Forbidden Thoughts” by Pooja Joshi
A story about deprivation and lethal poverty in a frozen version of Mumbai. Also, about the transportive power of kindness, unconquerable grief, and the memories we store in objects.
“A Junkyard Full of Stardust” by Keira Perkins
A story about an android who picks through a junkyard, resurrects their dead kin from talking heads, and occasionally kills humans. The themes didn’t come together for me. There’s quite a bit of the macabre, plus a foray into souls, immortality, and transhumanism.
And that’s the last of the Radon Journal, issue 7. Androids were definitely the main running theme, followed by artificial life.
“Haint Blue Sky” by Stephen Granade
An otherworldly ghost story steeped in the mundanity of southern poverty. Stephen nailed the combo.
“Between Home and a House on Fire” by A. T. Greenblatt
A story about a dangerous place between worlds made for the desolate and the lonely, and the woman who found refuge there, before growing out of that life.
I swear I’m not actually on a Watts kick. (I like to sleep at night.) It’s just that I did reread Blindsight, and one of my critique partners is writing a book inspired by The Thing. Absolutely no way do I watch a movie, so I read this fanfic instead about the alien’s perspective instead.
“Other Kelly” by Genevieve Valentine
Your buddy Kelly is a wreck. Unrelated, she’s being followed around by a duplicate who wants to consume her life and kill her. Your disaster of a friends group isn’t sure how to react to this, but Kelly’s still invited to game night, if she’ll show up.
Honestly, I could not get a bead on what this story was trying to do. Though the dialogue was interesting, coming out of the mouths of variably dysfunctional characters. Mostly this story is about a big friends group that I’m glad isn’t mine.
“Hello Operator, Please Give me Number Nine” by Starlingthefool
This is Calvin & Hobbes fanfic. And also one of the most resonant things I’ve ever read, reread, and reread. It’s about Susie playing Calvinball with Death.
Childhood was always a foreign country for me, and I never had a visa, but I love to browse everyone else’s travel diaries.
“Sivad’s Question” by gazemaize
A good buddy recommended I read this strange, existential story about a staging ground for the afterlife. It’s a limbo for 1/7 of all humans who have ever lived, and they will remain stuck unless they can agree on an answer to a question with a binary choice: “yes” or “no.”
The question is whether Jon Arbuckle drank dog semen on the 30th of May, 1990.
Yes, Garfield’s Jon Arbuckle. Told you it was “strange” and “existential.” The only nonfantastical thing about this story is that the dog semen comic strip actually exists.
“Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch”, “Jeeves and the Chump Cyril”, “Comrade Bingo”, and “The Great Sermon Handicap” by P. G. Wodehouse
More light comedy. Everyone talks about Jeeves, but it’s Wodehouse’s character voice for Bertie Wooster that keeps me entertained:
“Ah, there he is,” I said. “There’s the old egg.”
“There’s who?”
“Young Bingo Little. Great pal of mine. He’s tutoring your brother, you know.”
“Good gracious! Is he a friend of yours?”
“Rather! Known him all my life.”
“Then tell me, Bertie, is he at all weak in the head?”
“Weak in the head?”
“I don’t mean simply because he’s a friend of yours. But he’s so strange in his manner.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, he keeps looking at me so oddly.”
“Oddly? How? Give an imitation.”
“I can’t in front of all these people.”
“Yes, you can. I’ll hold my napkin up.”
“All right, then. Quick. There!”
Considering that she had only about a second and a half to do it in, I must say it was a jolly fine exhibition. She opened her mouth and eyes pretty wide and let her jaw drop sideways, and managed to look so like a dyspeptic calf that I recognised the symptoms immediately.
“Oh, that’s all right,” I said. “No need to be alarmed. He’s simply in love with you.”
“Gift of the Emperor” by E. W. Hornung
This marks the turning point in the Bunny and Raffles stories, where they’re exposed for thieves and Bunny is arrested. In a sense, this is the last Raffles story, as his ‘gentleman thief’ character changes dramatically by his next appearance.
“No Sinecure” by E. W. Hornung
The next AJ Raffles story, taking place after Bunny’s reputation has been ruined by a stint in jail. Raffles, for his part, has had his health ruined by adventures in the meantime, and has aged 20 years prematurely. It’s clear from their reunion that they’ll shortly go back to their old tricks, but this story is just catching the reader up with them as they catch up with each other.
Novels
This was a reread. My thoughts on this book could fill up multiple blog posts. It’s essential reading for any fan of hard sci-fi. It’s entertainingly well-researched. I immensely enjoy disagreeing with the central thesis. Where Blindsight shines, it really shines, but then there are great big black holes in its assertions. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether those originate from its 1st person POV character or the author himself. At any rate, the book is extremely worthwhile. It’s guaranteed to teach you something you didn’t know. Here’s a pretty good article + interview about it.