I’m late. I’m busy. Disgustingly, stupidly busy. My dayjob’s down four people, my evening job’s been high maintenance, and the current administration is taking a messy shit all over federal agencies. This causes problems for me (and everyone else). No clue how the next four years will go, but signs point to bad.
I think I’ve taken my lunch all of five times this month. That’s reflected in how few things I read.
Short stories
“In the Moon’s House” by Mary Robinette Kowal
A lady astronaut gets ready to go to space.
“Her Tune, In Truth” by Marissa Lingen
A selkie makes contact with her captive cousin.
“First, Last, Oldest, True” by E. Catherine Tobler
An accident happens during a sled dog race on Mars.
“Fairest of All” by Ada Hoffmann
A shifting POV tale of two autistic people, stolen away by cruel fairy lovers, and the sentient, flying giant otter who helps save them.
“That Small, Hard Thing on the Back of Your Neck” by Vanessa Fogg
The second story I’ve read from The Future Fire, and the second one with themes of neurodivergence. It’s about a woman who learns to mask all her strangeness so she can lead the perfect life, all while wondering why her lovers can’t seem to see the real her— Or the zipper tab on the back of her neck.
“The Days of Flaming Motorcycles” by Catherynne M. Valente
The zombies of Augusta, Maine have their cathedral, and Caitlin Zielinski has her journal, her Java Shack, and her routine.
“Lesser Demons of the North Shore” by Juan Martinez
About demons, animal sacrifices, and hamsters.
A mother, faced with the consequences of almost committing murder, must decide a future for her son, while her father’s ear bends towards fortunetelling AI.
“There Is Music After This” by Martin Cahill
Eurydice watches other people make it out of the underworld.
“Ghost Rock Posers F**k Off” by Margaret Ronald.
This one was a heck of a lot of fun. Two wannabes crash a concert for restless souls.
Classic-flavored sci-fi. Space station, Space Satan. Basically, it’s a Crayak versus Ellimist set-up: futuristic deities personifying evil and good, at war with each other. What annoyed me is that the evil god’s plot centers on a “natural psychopath” with access to a black hole button. The evil god reverts the corrective treatment he had as a kid, so he turns evil and blows up the galaxy. Okayyyy then. This story walks face first into overplayed, ableist tropes several times.
Books
Superb concept: In a far-future, post-post-apocalyptic world, a doctor arrives to tend to a perpetually-dying cyborg baron who rules an icy mining town.
The doctor’s chief concern, however, is the fate of their predecessor— Another body belonging to the parasitic superorganism that has colonized the entirety of the medical profession for generations. Every doctor alive has one of these leeches in their head. So the baron’s previous doctor really should not have been able to secretly commit suicide. The hivemind discards many human bodies, but it didn’t mean to lose that one, and can’t even remember what happened… Except that the dead doctor was involved in an accident in the mines. An accident that unearthed something exactly as vile as the parasite controlling him.
Leech is gothic sci-fi through and through. You’ve got an opulent chateau falling into decay, a corrupted family with vile secrets, phenomena so far removed from explanation that they become supernatural, a narrator losing their mind, and that classically ambiguous, “terrible things that defy clear explanation” kind of atmosphere…
…Until the last thirty-ish pages of denouement, where the author seemed to want to make certain that the plot elements concerning the deuteragonist were totally, completely clear. We go poking around in that corner with a high beam flashlight, which kind of upended the tone for me. It felt like the author got excited to set up a new dynamic (not romantic) between the POV protagonist and the deuteragonist at the eleventh hour. So the ending was like the beginning of another book, and simultaneously dragged and hit a wall too soon. Maybe the emotions just didn’t land for me. Still, overall, I’d say this book is very worth reading.
Comics
Like Wind on a Dry Branch by Dalsaeowl and Hwaeum
A romantasy where the hero isn’t creepy. Originally a webnovel finished in 2023. The comic adaptation just concluded. The story’s about the widowed Rieta Tristi, whose life sucks, and kicks off with her getting rescued by an exiled prince. Obviously he’s the love interest. This was a fun, relaxing read. The dialogue translation was pretty darn good; it captured a medieval feeling without relying on stereotypes. The story also has an interesting take on divine and demonic power within the setting, with Rieta and various priest characters having access to both.