No lengthy introduction this time around. It’s time for the monthly short story recommendations.
Ninety-Nine Percent Support by Filip Wiltgren (DSF):
I finally started catching up on my DSF backlog (well, I’ve had to skip a lot of it; it simple grew to monsterous). Lucky for me (and you, I guess), there was a story by Filip Wiltgren whose fiction has pretty much become as regular as anything in my recommendation posts.
This is a near-future story where politicians (or at least one politician) pays people to lie openly about their popularity in public, often. The idea being that if people here the lie often enough, they will believe it. As the author notes also states, it’s not hard to figure out where the inspiration came from.
Plot and character-wise there’s not much to the story. It is very much the science fiction element and the novel premise that carries the story, but that alone made it story reading.
Burn or The Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super by A.T. Greenblatt (Uncanny):
Yet another Uncanny story that really impressed me. For once, it wasn’t the premise that made this one shine. It’s a realistic take on superhero stories, which has been done a million times before. A.T. Greenblatt does it better than most, though.
In this story, the superhero’s don’t necessesarily have cool powers; often, they’re pretty useless if not a direct threat to the people around them since they can be difficult to control. This is especially the case for the protagonist, Sam Wells, whose power is being able to set himself on fire, or rather, involuntarily setting himself on fire. Naturally, this leads to all sorts of conflicts with people who doesn’t have super powers, and it provides a good reason for why people would fear superheroes rather than love them and a good reason for superhero groups to exists, as they combine their forces to try to change the view of the non-supers.
What made the story work so well, I think, is just how real it all felt. Grenblatt actually managed to make superheroes and their struggles feel realistic. On top of that, it’s a powerful story about being different, trying to fit in, and learning to accept who you are. If you read nothing else this month, this should be it.
And All the Trees of the Forest Shall Clap Their Hands by Sharon Hsu (Uncanny):
Narnia (or any such similar portal fantasy) told through the lens of the people whose world is visited by humans for the first time.
I loved the concept for this story; even though the plot was a bit predictable and felt slow at times, I can easily forgive it, because of the concept alone. Hsu uses the Narnia-like story world to show just how destructive colonialism is, how lasting an effect it has, how it ruins people and their culture. On top of that, she tells a story that is an original take on the portal fantasy.
A dryad saves and helps nuture a human child in need, befriending said human, and establishing a connection between their two worlds. The child and their offspring turn out to be anything but the Jesus-like kids of Narnia, though, and they exploit and ruin the Dryad’s world.
The story isn’t perfect, but it was a great read.
How the Trick is Done by A.C. Wise (Uncanny):
I almost skipped this story when I reached it in the Uncanny podcast archives, because I’d read it before and found it okay but nothing more than that. Somehow, the second read/listen through changed my mind.
It’s a story about a magician that feels very much like the move, The Prestige. It’s not the magician who can actually perform magic, but his girlfriend who brings him back to life every night.
The focus isn’t so much on the magic, though, as on the magician and the people who falls in love with him: first his manager, then his assistant, then his girlfriend, all of whom are destroyed in one way or another by the magacian.
It made for a slowly paced, character-centric story that wasn’t exactly my cup of tea to begin with, but I’m glad I read it and re-read it, because something in just made it a pure joy the second time around.
Toby Backman 