I'm hoping to read more short fiction this year, so I decided to start with the current Hugo-nominated short stories. This was actually a lot of fun and I found some great stories, so I might do some more of these reviews. Most of these stories are free so you can read them at any time!
"The City Born Great" by N.K. Jemisin (Tor.com, September 2016)
This won the 2016 Stabby for short stories! Here's the blurb:
In this standalone short story by N. K. Jemisin, author of The Fifth Season, the winner of this year’s Hugo Award for Best Novel, New York City is about to go through a few changes. Like all great metropolises before it, when a city gets big enough, old enough, it must be born; but there are ancient enemies who cannot tolerate new life. Thus New York will live or die by the efforts of a reluctant midwife… and how well he can learn to sing the city’s mighty song.
This is the story of a homeless, gay, black man who fights the supernatural for the survival of New York City. Jemisin has some incredible prose and writes a compelling story to boot.
I thought this was a great read, and yet it was not my cup of joe. What do I mean? The writing was excellent and I can recognize how valuable this type of story is, it just wasn't really my type of story. I'm honestly not completely sure why, but it might have to do with how abstract parts of the story were.
"A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers" by Alyssa Wong (Tor.com, March 2016)
This is an absolute whirlwind of emotions. I had to reread is before I had a good grasp on what was going on. It's powerful, and the blurb doesn't really do it justice:
Hannah and Melanie: sisters, apart and together. Weather workers. Time benders. When two people so determined have opposing desires, it’s hard to say who will win—or even what victory might look like. This stunning, haunting short story from rising star Alyssa Wong explores the depth and fierceness of love and the trauma of family.
Hannah and Melanie both have extraordinary powers, but their problems aren't the type that can be solved with the supernatural. If you couldn't tell from the blurb, things get trippy. Like time-traveling, end-of-the-world trippy. Even so, this is a story that will leave an emotional impact and leave you thinking about it for a while after.
"Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies" by Brooke Bolander (Uncanny Magazine, November 2016)
Read for free at Uncanny Magazine
This story manages to pack a revenge story and unique worldbuilding into the span of a mere ~1000 words, all while offering a harsh criticism of the "women in refrigerators" trope. It's told in an interesting format, literally using a bulleted list, but still manages to pack a punch. I'd say more but this is so short it's hard to review without giving the story away. It's a quick read that should only take a couple minutes to finish.
"Seasons of Glass and Iron" by Amal El-Mohtar (The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales, Saga Press)
Read for free at Uncanny Magazine
Sometimes the worst punishments are those we choose for ourselves.
In this story, two women are each suffering through decisions they made, but are not necessarily their fault. Tabitha must walk until she wears out her shoes and Amira must not move from her glass throne atop a glass hill. Imagine the classic story of gallant knights trying to win a fair maiden's hand in marriage, and turn it around to show just how messed up it can be. When women are victimized by men, how can they stand up for themselves?
This was a delight to read. I quickly went from being confused about what was happening to rooting for the main characters to overcome their difficulties. It's a story of duty, love, and friendship, and it asks us to take a step back and consider what each of these mean.
"That Game We Played During the War" by Carrie Vaughn (Tor.com, March 2016)
Just...wow. That was truly a beautiful story.
The people of Gaant are telepaths. The people of Enith are not. The two countries have been at war for decades, but now peace has fallen, and Calla of Enith seeks to renew an unlikely friendship with Gaantish officer Valk over an even more unlikely game of chess.
What would war be like against a species that could see and hear your every thought? In the aftermath of such a war, an Enith nurse and a Gaantish army officer renew an old friendship over a game of chess. You get to see flashbacks of how their friendship formed and there are interesting parallels between chess and war. The whole story is both an interesting thought experiment and emotional story of two very different people finding common ground.
"An Unimaginable Light" by John C. Wright (God, Robot, Castalia House)
The basic premise of this short story can be summed up in its opening lines:
An artificial human and a natural one were in the same, small, bright, glass-walled chamber. Both were intelligent; there was a difference of learned opinion on the question of whether both were alive.
This is one of ten loosely-connected short stories telling the tale of the theobots, a race of robots designed to love God and humans more perfectly than humanity ever could. The robots follow Asimov's three laws, and the story is the interrogation of a robot to determine if she is too "heretical" to be allowed to exist. It's an interesting thought experiment and is more metaphysical and philosophical than science fiction in feel.
I really enjoyed this story, though it is up to you to decide if the $5 purchase price is worth it to read this Hugo nominee.
Submitted April 10, 2017 at 05:39PM by CoffeeArchives http://ift.tt/2nTS1Es Fantasy
No comments:
Post a Comment