October came and with it another set of short story recommendations. This month also marks the end of my Uncanny podcast listening spree (there might still be some spillover into November). In the next few months, I will probably focus on Daily Science Fiction since they are, sadly, delivering their last stories before going on indefinite hiatus.
Also this month, the recommendations include two stories about authors, even though I generally hate this kind of… well, worst case I’d call it lazy self-insert (not in the stories recommended below, though). I guess it just shows that if the author knows their craft well enough, they can pull off almost anything.
The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny):
If you didn’t know already, Sarah Pinsker is one of my absolute favorite short story authors (I just bought her collection “Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea, and I can’t wait to read it), so of course she is the first of the two authors who managed to pull of a story about an author.
In The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye, we follow Zanna, an author on a countryside writer’s retreat along with her assistant. Not long after having arrived, Zanna finds the landlord of the cabin she is renting dead and then even stranger things happen.
I can’t reveal much more without spoiling the ending, but there is definitely more to the landlord’s death than the police think, and it is left to Zanna and her assistant to figure out what.
This was a solid speculative story, but unlike many other of Pinsker’s stories, it was not the originality of the speculative element that carried the weight of the story. Instead, the murder mystery, the eerie tone, and the strange things the MC experience throughout the story made this the intriguing read that it was. That, and Pinsker just knows how to structure and write a story to get the most out of it.
Homecoming is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld):
This story was a strange and interesting take on the doppelganger trope where people split into two as they leave their home behind to become expats, determined to settle somewhere else. This happens to the protagonist whose live, prior to the start of the story, has split into two lanes: she moved to the US with her mother while her other self remained back in Korea.
It’s a pretty cool concept in itself, but Isabel J. Kim manages to take it much further and creates what was the most memorable story I’ve read this month. In story, it’s possible for the doppelgangers to merge again and become one person if they touch. This adds innate tension to the story as the MC goes back to Korea to a funeral
The MC’s interactions with her doppelganger and her lack of relationship with the family in Korea also turns the story into an intersting discussion about identity, belonging, and the burden of family obligation. And as if all this wasn’t enough, Kim intersperse the core scenes of the story with small segments showing how the doppelganger element has affected history and literature as we know it, turning the story a cool piece of alternate history as well.
At first, I found these short segments annoying infodumps, but they grew on me as the story progressed. At the end, they had added another layer of cool to a story that was already brilliant.
The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society by T. Kingfisher (Uncanny):
Yet another T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon story that made the list. This one was a hilarious story about fairy folk pining over Rose MacGregor, a rather promiscuous girl who does not fall in love with fairies as easily as they’re used to.
There’s not much to the story plot or theme-wise, but as most of Ursula Vernon’s stories, it was simply great fun to read and had an interesting and unique premise.
I will also highly recommend listening to the Uncanny podcast audio version of The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society (if that’s your sort of thing). There’s an interview with the author at the end, where she explains where she got the inspiration for the story, revealing some family history that sounds almost as fantastic and entertaining as the published story.
Henosis by N.K. Jemisin (Uncanny):
As much as I absolutely loved Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy and am currently enjoying her The City We Became, her short fiction generally hasn’t appealed to me. It often comes off as a little too unstructured and ill-paced compared to her novels. Henosis was really something different, though.
While ending could have been stronger, it was still an excellent story. Partly, it struck me on a personal level. Partly, it was a short read that really played to Jemisin’s strengths: her brilliant prose, her amazing worldbuilding, and her mindblowingly unique story premises.
Henosis is about a writer who’s been nominated for the Opus Award. It’s a great honor, but winning the award also means that they will forfeit their lives, since the jury has determined that the author has produced their opus magnum and should be kept from producing inferior work.
As an aspiring author trying to achieve financial and critical acclaim, you can probably guess how the theme and the characters’ thoughts might have struck something within me. But even if that is not the case for you, this is still a story well worth reading and example of Jemisin showing off just how great a writer she is.
That’s it for October. I hope to see you November. And as always, don’t hesitate to leave story recommendations in the comments.
Toby Backman 