163 posts tagged with shortstories by brainwane.
Displaying 51 through 100 of 163.
loneliness, crows, prophecy, lost things, and courage
What if there's an ache you've been denying, and you've gone solitary to see to your own quiet needs, and someone tries to pull you back into the world? “The End of the World in Five Dates” by Claire Humphrey (previously) is a short fantasy story told in vignettes (text and audio available): “Happy Rapture,” she said, and kissed my cheek, although we had never met before. "Tell the Crows I’m Home" by Laurel Beckley, published this year and available in audio as well, is an atmospheric fantasy story: Nicole finds them all, save for the crows, who do not appear to be bound to the rules of the farm, and come and go as they please. Like Nicole, a crow is never lost. She used to have quite a few human visitors, back when the world was only half broken.
"I can help." "Maybe he expects that."
"Everybody knows about Thrull. Thrull like legend among us folk—biggest, greenest, meanest, nastiest, and dirtiest of all—with one big difference: legends false, Thrull true." "Big Thrull and the Askin’ Man" by Max Gladstone is a short fantasy story, told as a tall tale or fairy tale, in which a straightforward host learns to respond to manipulative questions from a seemingly weak guest.
"At work I am composed and civil and do not break anything"
Two short speculative stories about coping and related struggles. "Dragons" by Teresa Milbrodt (published this year) has a hard-to-quit video game: “I've thought about getting glasses,” the dragon said as we sat on rocks with mugs in our hands and the tin of butter cookies on another rock between us. The dragon even had cloth napkins, which hid the gaping wound in my abdomen. “How to Remember to Forget to Remember the Old War” by R.B. Lemberg (content note for self-harm): "I am luckier than most. Numbers come easy to me, and I look grave and presentable in my heavy jackets that are not armor." The Lemberg story is also available in audio.
"My best friend is a dolphin and sometimes it’s weird."
"In your first conversations with them, you’ll probably want to refer to all you’ve learned in the past year’s intensive study of dolphin history, culture, and ritual. Maybe you want to put them at ease, or maybe you kind of want to show off. I’m telling you not to do that, because you know nothing." The science fiction short story "Share Your Flavor" by Jenifer K. Leigh has a fun friendship between a human and a dolphin who commiserate about their relationship issues. [more inside]
"Sixteen Earth years. Not quite nine, Martian."
Wanna read action-y scifi about girls solving problems by hacking electronics? (Previously.) "Power to the People" by Kiera Lesley is shorter: “Sorry, print took longer than I expected.” Sarah said, fishing in her pockets for her offerings, all in white because that was the only colour filament she had. But "A Thousand Ways" by Beth McCabe takes place on Mars: Riley began moving the rows of panels from angled to vertical, a kluge Liam's team had fixed up to keep the sticky dust from accumulating during a storm. While she worked, her gaze travelled over the landscape of her childhood, littered with the debris of the Consortium's failures.
"The obvious target for any attempt at communication is one's peers."
"The Case for Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant" by Slant is a 4-part fanfic responding to "Expert judgment on markers to deter inadvertent human intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant" (the "this place is not a place of honor" report). [more inside]
"with a red pen, she writes in the margins all the names she can recall"
In a short-story excerpt from his novel The Overstory, Richard Powers describes a scientist, her forestry research, and her vindication: "The Woman Redeemed by Trees". (Suzanne Simard, the real-life inspiration for the fictional character here, got a Ted Lasso shout-out.) For a fantastical tale about a woman battling conventional wisdom, "Makeisha in Time" by Rachael K. Jones (also available in Spanish) travels through time: "Each time she returns from the past, she carries another lifetime nestled within her like the shell of a matryoshka doll."
"But then her tiny nostrils flared, and I knew I was dead."
"The Woman With the Long Black Hair" by Zach Shephard -- "The string-dolls and paintings puzzled her. So much reverence . . ." -- and "We Love Deena" by Alice Sola Kim (previously) -- "I don't remember which attempt it was, how many people I had been so far." -- are odd, complicated fantasy stories in which people get the wrong idea about a woman who brings death.
"she is lonely, and skeptical of my ability to ease her loneliness"
"Unit Two Does Her Makeup" by Laura Duerr (published this year): "She is smiling, but I see and catalog and evaluate thousands of smiles every day. Hers is tentative." "Maslow's Howitzer" by Miriam Oudin (previously): "I shipped from the factory with several hundred variations of the offer I was about to make." Two fun scifi stories about robots figuring out how to fulfill their needs -- in caring for themselves and for others.
Mech suits, an aristocrat, talking dinosaurs who race motocross
Two science fiction stories that use over-the-top characters and situations, plus crankiness, to get laughs -- and both available in audio and in text. "Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs" by Leonard Richardson (audio, illustrated): "Why would a dinosaur need a gun?" asked the shop owner. "Self-defense." "Texts from the Ghost War" by Alex Yuschik: While I realize driving that mech likely takes all of your limited resources, please take care not to step on the roses. (Audio uses a cool trick to sound right in stereo!) [more inside]
"observed the hunter’s nephew, with severely limited enthusiasm"
Light fantasy stories with some silly bits. "The Family Business" by Andrea Tang is a modern fairy tale about a Korean-American teen. "Janet and I Try to Get Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts at the Gilbert Rd Super Target. It's the One in Scottsdale. No, the Other One. The One on Gilbert." by Saul Lemerond basically never leaves the checkout lane.
Paper and ink, lemons and a bike
Small, kind, domestic scifi stories in a climate-changed US. "When she pressed the county seal into the page, embossing an eagle rampant and ivy wreath, the diploma-shaped ache in her chest eased almost to nothing. It should have been hers anyway." "The Notary of No Republic" by J. Byrd (published this year): a self-appointed public servant gets a complicated request. "'Hope is a habit, Dix.' A bad habit, yes, a dangerous one. Hope had shaped this foundering world into what it was." "A Luxury Like Hope" by Aimee Ogden, also published this year: despite everything, an aunt tries to use lemons.
"Most of us weren’t ready for it. Some of us still aren’t."
Two science fiction stories in which mysteries about changes in human behavior and capability feel uncanny. "Sidewalks" by Maureen McHugh: "She offers me the pen and says something in a language that sounds liquid, like it’s been poured through a straw." "Clouds" by Brian Francis Slattery: "Roy was one of the people who couldn’t get the idea of an invasion out of his head. Everything the aliens did seemed to him to have an ulterior motive. When they did nothing, they were just biding their time, making us complacent."
bamboo, beetles, gardening, and power balances
"The first time I tried to regreen our town, I was sixteen. I got sentenced to 150 hours of community service..." "Choose Your Battleground" by Andrew Leon Hudson is a short, light, triumphant science fiction story about urban ecology. "A bee man came by a few months ago. I don’t like bees much, but I took some." "The Restoration" by Karen Heuler is a little longer and slower and more unsettling, as humans reckon with our discomfort with real ecological balance.
“They been talking to you too?” he asked in a whisper.
"The Bronx’s First Spiritual Hip Hop Party" by Sarah A. Macklin is a short, sweet fantasy story about a southern girl visiting New York City and making unexpected friends through the power of music.
scars, cracks, blood, and video games
"That Story Isn’t the Story" by John Wiswell (previously) is a fantasy story about escape and recovery from abuse (author interview). "Everything Anton owns goes in one black trash bag. His ratty yellow sketchpad, which he bought to draw the other familiars when he moved here, and only ever used three pages of. The few shirts and khakis that he paid for with his own money, before Mr. Bird took control of his finances." "The Breaks" by Scott King (also available in Spanish) is a fantasy story in which people help each other heal. "When the clerk at the convenience store takes my twenty for the frozen mac and cheese and the cheap wine, I barely notice the fractal pattern of cracks running across his face."
Looking back and looking over your shoulder
Two short speculative stories by Marissa Lingen. "The most important thing" is a fictional survey: "What's the most important thing that happened in 2048?" "The Swarm of Giant Gnats I Sent After Kent, My Assistant Manager" is pretty light: "Gnats gave a certain air of plausibility when you’re sitting in the chair of someone with an official nameplate talking about what exactly has happened to Kent and how you personally were not there." Lingen also recommends recent stories she's enjoyed. [more inside]
Consciousness simulacra and a dusty mirror
The science fiction story "Proof by
Induction" by José Pablo Iriarte and the fantasy story “Basilisk
and Sons” by Timothy Mudie both center men trying to deal with
complicated emotions while grieving and carrying on their fathers' work.
The former found via Aimee
Picchi's November short story readathon (aka #NaShoStoMo) on
Twitter, recommending one short sf/f story per day.
in which the reader learns horses' likelihood of colic in microgravity
"Love Unflinching, at Low- to Zero-G" by M. L. Clark is an engaging, reasonably happy sci-fi novelette starring a veterinarian on a space station who treats horses, dogs, and more while attempting to prevent a diplomatic crisis. Content note for mention of the accidental death of a dog.
"Hazelnuts were from before."
Vivid imagery about the future of our relationship with ecological surroundings in these three melancholy speculative stories. "The Wild Inside" by Angela Penrose: "We had to close up another building that day—bolt the doors shut, board over the windows, stop up the chimney and all the vents with concrete". "Packing" by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon): "Today is not the day I wanted to do this, but we aren’t always given choices. It’s time to pack for the new seasons." And "The Last Ride of the Polaris" by Carmen Peters, in the Apocalpyse issue of Black Cat Magazine (download the PDF), has interiority, two guys, and a waterslide. [Content note: includes a homophobic slur.] "That’s how you needed to talk nowadays, in the past tense."
"And then tomorrow I’ll open my next manila folder and do it again."
Gods, demons, angels, etc. deal with bureaucracy and support groups in some short fantasy stories. "Magicians at Law" by Grace Seybold has arbitration and a kitty-cat: “Hm. I’m assuming, given the smell, this was a standard demonic service contract?” "Broken Idols, Guarded Hearts" by Elizabeth Loupe has an old, possibly obsolete rivalry: "We’d expected death, but they said we’d been punished enough. That was true." "Mr. Death" by Alix E. Harrow [content note: child death] has a lot of grief: "Every new reaper is shielded, at least a little."
"he might wake up one morning to find his writing done"
Two long, mysterious fictional stories about death, art, and family, both with ambiguous endings. "The Drowned Father" by Pamela Sargent: "Old memories were coming back to him, of sitting in other buses and expounding on his own fictitious accomplishments." "Darkroom" by Geoff Manaugh: "The documentary was vital, and, though Jay didn’t want to admit it, a film about his mom’s sisters‚ his dead aunts, was his only idea."
5 short Diwali stories
By Iona Datt Sharma (previously
on Diwali): "Light
and fire: five stories for Diwali (2018)", a collection of miniature
stories for the festival.
"All that alchemy of tree and climate, genius and history."
Rebecca Campbell (previously) has won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short science fiction of 2020 for "An Important Failure". It's a novelette "full of longing & fear for the woods" and "about creation in the face of climate change". Campbell's surveillance-focused "Such Thoughts are Unproductive" similarly resonates with fear and longing. Many of the other nominees are also available to read free online.
"the now-expected upwelling of frustration tinged with hysteria"
Two short scifi stories about accommodating disability. "Metal and Flesh" by Marie Vibbert is darker: "Five stitched the cloth with a single thread in the human way." "Fractured" by Aimee Kuzenski is more triumphant eventually, but starts: "Since the shuttle accident that broke my brain, getting out of bed is like marshalling a poorly-trained and easily-distracted army. Turns out I’m not a good general."
"The music, at least, did not make me feel like an outsider."
Three short speculative stories about love, yearning, and relationships beyond the human boundary. "Cold Wind" by Nicola Griffith: "From the park on Puget Sound I watched the sun go down on the shortest day of the year." "Traveling Mercies" by Rachael K. Jones: "Sometimes you have to let people take care of you. That's the contract, the covenant of friendship." "First Dates" by Elizabeth Kestrel Rogers: "In retrospect, 'I’m dying' was a bad pick-up line."
"She settles on a diner in a small human town"
Three speculative stories about the logistical and emotional side effects of time travel and related phenomena. "Paradox" by Naomi Kritzer is heavier: "If you need to know you matter, don’t ask history, ask the people you matter to." "Cyclical" by Tanya Breshears (previously) is bittersweet and domestic: "A human's life is a rushing river: a moment, once lived, is rendered forever inaccessible, except by the poor substitute of human memory." "The Theory and Practice of Time Travel: A Syllabus" by David DeGraff is humorous: "Students will devise and perform experiments to test the nature of reality as long as there is minimal chance the experiment will destroy the universe. And no one dies. 3 credits."
low orbit and a salmon run
Two speculative stories about young people escaping bad situations (bullying, homophobia, sizeism, etc.). "How to Make Friends in Seventh Grade" by Nick Poniatowski: "But the worst thing about it was that I didn't help him." "Riparian" by Seanan McGuire: "Molly begged her mother to let her start mermaid lessons for five years before she finally received her starter tail, a glorious confection of silicon and spandex..."
"They left the sukkah standing when they fled."
Two speculative stories in which girls and women disagree about how to cope with change, both published this year. "A Stone’s Throw from You" by Jenn Reese in Mermaids Monthly: "And then I told you I was leaving. That I’d been called to the sea." "For Future Generations" by Rachel Gutin in khōréō ("a quarterly magazine of speculative fiction and migration"): "Of all the Jewish holidays, Sukkot was the hardest to celebrate in space."
Word-portals between worlds
Two scifi stories about literary professions in uncertain futures. "The Bookstore at the End of America" by Charlie Jane Anders, about a bookseller at the border between California and America: "Some of those screaming people were old enough to have grown up in the United States of America, but they acted as though these two lands had always been enemies." "Apologia" by Vajra Chandrasekera, about a poet visiting "the committee’s carefully Chosen Moments of history": "This guilty poet, this raging poet, he could retroactively make the apologies that we had never made the first time around. It was, or would be, never too late for the big sorry."
Escape, lineage, oppressed labor, and underdog revenge
Two scifi stories of underdog revenge in an unfair future. "The Last of the Redmond Billionaires" by Peter Watts is a very dark vignette in a climate refugee future. "The Stillness of the Stars" by Jessica Snell (formerly McAdams) is a happier space thriller on a generation ship, about escaping past the steerage-class wall.
innovation, death, sorcery and meaning
Two short, triumphant fantasy stories about well-worn prophecies and magical customs that take a left turn. "Another End of the Empire" by Tim Pratt (audio version): "The probability witches hit an impasse." A short story by Dyce (a.k.a. Sarah Blackwell): "No, I was resigned to death. I was only angry that my death would be so meaningless."
Bear, hot spring waterfall, horse, rowan, river, alder
Three short, eerie fantasy stories about water and beasts. "Hokkaido Green" by by Aidan Doyle (2010) is bittersweet fantasy about emotions, grief, and tradeoffs. "Talisman" by Tracina Jackson-Adams (2002): Horses, a family feud, dark ceremonies in the wood, high stakes and slow-burn reveals. "Riverine" by Danielle Jorgensen Murray (March 2021): the river man, his bride, permission, respect and care. [more inside]
languages, customs, avatars, and nasty safeguards
"But no matter: you can be made perfect; you can put on the immerser and become someone else, someone pale-skinned and tall and beautiful." "Immersion" is a short science fiction story by French-Vietnamese author Aliette de Bodard that won the 2012 Nebula Award and Locus Award for Best Short Story. It never explicitly uses the word "assimilation," or "immigrant."
"The quiet of the aftermath pressed down on us"
Two scifi stories about people finding tendrils of human connection while confronting modern grief. "A Glut of Nothing, and Yet… Something" by Monte Lin: ""The Singularity had come, but not the one people wanted.... the Glut: a grayed-out area that evaded vision, comprehension, and perception..." "Love at the End" by Deborah Germaine Augustin: "I woke up hungover the day after Kuala Lumpur was supposed to end.... Eddie poured water from our last six-litre bottle into the kettle." Both published this year.
"the flavors you teach them to desire"
"A perfect egg is a slash of light on a gray day." "The War of Light and Shadow, in Five Dishes" by Siobhan Carroll is a bittersweet short fantasy story about cooking, grief, beauty in the midst of war, and teaching the next generation. (Previously.) "On the Feeding Habits of Humans: A Firsthand Account" by Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali and Rachael K. Jones is a short and bittersweet, but mostly hopeful, science fiction story about foodways: Feeder TikTik approaches the [human] Feeder with their haustellums extended and extrudes the greeting-scent. Also available as a one-hour audio recording. [more inside]
Ecologies, empathy, parenting, robots, and unanticipated consequences
Two scifi stories about tech inventions that don't work out as their designers planned. Ken Liu's "Quality Time" (from last year) looks into "unsolved problems in home automation" and a friendship at a startup. "Nobel Prize Speech Draft of Paul Winterhoeven, with Personal Notes" by Jane Espenson (published this month) is an epistolary piece by an unreliable narrator: "My problem was the subjectivity of pain." (Yes, this is the Jane Espenson who wrote the "I Was Made to Love You" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the "Dirty Hands" episode of Battlestar Galactica.)
sign read: "PERMANENTLY CLOSED." The lock on the door was busted.
Two short, bittersweet scifi stories about people changing their journeys. "Personal Trainer" by Meg Elison has a new way to exercise and a new kind of hammock to relax in. "Wait Calculation" by Derrick Boden has political intrigue aboard a generation ship.
"I am here on business and my accountant's a real wizard."
Alexandra Erin (previously) posts short speculative fiction stories on her Patreon, including a one-sided conversation about dead people posting status updates on Facebook, a fairy tale about a healer's price, a political horror story about scars that don't go away, and a card game in space (part of a series). (Disclaimer: a friend.)
"they were persuaded by the immediacy of suffering"
"Byzantine Empathy" is a novelette by Ken Liu about virtual reality, moral reasoning, atrocities, institutional philanthropy, geopolitics, and two very determined women at odds with each other. Content note: violence, including harm to children.
"People like him love standard procedure"
Two short scifi/fantasy stories in which customer service folks get to reward customers who treat them well, or punish those who treat them badly. Dyce writes about an isolated refueling station: "Out-of-hours fuelling requires a prior appointment." Aimee Ogden writes about a coffeeshop: "his coffee comes with a nice cantrip that'll help him send all his emails for the next week with zero typos and exactly the right number of exclamation marks."
moments of rest and ease from unexpected corners
John Wiswell has written a few short fantasy stories about domestic settings that turn eerily comfortable or appealing: "Open House on Haunted Hill" and "For Lack of a Bed".
retail, disability, zombies, etc.
A few short scifi/fantasy stories about dark situations that turn out surprisingly well. The day nearly everyone at Evil-Mart called in sick, and the sequel. One person who gets bitten by a zombie.... yet never turns. And some survivors of the robot apocalypse getting an unexpected invitation from their new overlords.
"None of this is going as planned."
"I hate Original Diana immediately, or at least I want to hate her." "The Failed Dianas" is a short, emotional science fiction story by Monique Laban (Clarkesworld, February 2021) in which our Asian-American protagonist struggles with whether it is possible to make her parents happy. It was P H Lee's favorite story of the month.
Daycare worker, waitress, mountain guide, paramedic
A few short fantasy stories about serving other people during times of death and peril. A daycare worker at the end of the world, and a restaurant server at a different end. A mountain guide who always finds what is lost. And the funniest one: a necromancer who doesn't realize they're a necromancer, and thinks they're just a really good paramedic.
a few short happy-ending sf/f stories
Short, optimistic scifi/fantasy fiction stories: "It’s not a bad boarding house, as these things go." "If your suit watch is correct, you should have ran out of air… three weeks ago?" "The first time the humans told us they sang their way through subspace, we thought it a translation error." "A human. On Captain Diii’s ship." "'May you have a life of safety and peace', said the witch, cursing the bloodthirsty warrior." "What is the harm in one more lie?" All self-published by the authors on Tumblr.
"'Is this everything you will be trading in?' I ask. "
"Retriever" by Stephen Kearse is a short science fiction story about an employee of the United States Federal Gun Retrieval Agency: "I’m an agent of the 28th Amendment, the abolition of the 2nd." Published October 2020.
Grieving, loss, futility, diaspora, and broken connections
Two melancholy short scifi and fantasy stories, new this year, about grieving the loss of parents. "Comments on Your Provisional Patent Application for an Eternal Spirit Core" is by Wole Talabi: "So you’ve been using the money they left us to develop this thing?" "All Worlds Left Behind" is by Iona Datt Sharma: "I, uh, used to come here with my dad? I don't speak the language as well as he did."
"an empty crib and a raven with a scroll in its beak"
"I am concerned that you did not receive my previous missive, although my raven reports that you took the letter and appeared to read it." "The Ransom of Miss Coraline Connelly" by Alix E. Harrow, an epistolary short story published last year in Fireside. Content note [spoiler, so, in extended description]. [more inside]
"I needed a better excuse than glory."
"A Non-Hero’s Guide to The Road of Monsters" by A.T. Greenblatt (previously mentioned in a list of recommended sf/f from 2017) is a light adventure tale of a sidekick-turned-blogger/entrepreneur. "So why do I bother running a business like this? Because monsters are remarkable, unexpected, and totally worth the wait." [more inside]