Welcome to the 2023 Februrary short story recommendations. This month’s recommendation are based on what I managed to read/listen to by the awesome science fiction and fantasy publishers of Apex, Podcastle, Analog, Lightspeed, StarShipSofa, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Uncanny Magazine.
There is no magazine in particular who caught my attention this month. However, there is one author who did.
Isabel J. Kim is an author who really seems to have broken through in 2022 where she had a number of excellent stories published in several of the big magazines. I’m far from the first to note this. I’ve seen several authors and editors take note of the high quality of Kim’s publications. And if the start of 2023 is any indicator, Kim will keep spoiling us this year. She is, at the very least, off to a strong start with an appearance in Apex Magazine, my favorite story of the month.
The Big Glass Box and the Boys Inside by Isabel J. Kim (Apex, issue 135, Jan. 2023):
This story takes place in a world, where big corporations lure potential employees in by promising to fulfil their heart’s desire as long as they remain with the company. Inn exchange, the employee will gradualy change into “one of them”.
That probably seems familiar to most of us corporate mules, but in this story, it is all quite literary. The companies do grant one big wish to new employees who again undergoes a literal physical and mental transformation to become similar to the rock-like, emotionless partners in charge of said companies.
The writing is okay; the plot, a romance between the emotionally stunted MC and one of his coworkers, works well enough; but the speculative element is simply amazing. It feels like the sort of common modern workplace allegory you would see in the slush pile every month at every magazine, yet the idea is not actually something I have seen before. And I absolutely loved how it worked as an allegory on what working in a modern corporate environment feels like but is at the same time a very cool fantasy idea.
The Dragon Killer’s Daughter by MacKenzie R. Sneid (Podcastle, episode 770):
Maybe Sneid is the next author two break through in the world of SF/F short fiction. Who know? At the very least he entered with a strong debut with “The Dragon Killer’s Daughter”.
The title is very telling as the story centers around the daughter of the last dragon slayer. She is bringing her agining and mostly senile father on a sort of pilgrimage to the shrine of the last great dragon.
From the very start, the story is ripe with mystery and tension as the MC and her father are clearly not welcome in the land they are travelling through and the questions quickly arise: why is the MC taking her father to a dragons shrine, and why do dragons have shrines if people hunt and kill them?
I’ll spoil the answers, because they are even more interesting than the questions themselves.
The answer to the last question turns out to be a very cool and original speculative element. What if the traditional European depiction of dragons as foul monster met the traditional East Asian depiction of dragons as intelligent god-like creatures met and clashed?
In the story, the MC’s people have long hunted and slayin the old dragons, and now their land is suffering droughts and devestation. In contrast, the country where people worship the last dragon prosper. Seeing this, the MC is forced to confront everything she was taught, everything she was brought up to be, the fact that her father’s life may have been one big lie.
If I had to point to one small weak point in the story, it would be the ending which could have been more impactful. However, “The Dragon Killer’s Daughter” is a very entertaining story and from a debut author none the less. It is well worth reading.
Proof by Induction by José Pablo Iriarte (StarShipSofa, episode 703; originally published in Uncanny Magazine issue 40):
Admittedly, I wasn’t a big fan of this story by the get go. In “Proof by Induction”, the big idea is that people have the ability to make a electronic replica of dying loved ones, keeping a clear memory of them as they were before passing away. It’s an idea that has become a common trope in science fiction and has been used a lot in recent years.
Usually, these stories focus on characters clinging on to the people they lost, being stuck in the past and ruining their lives until they finally learn to let go. “Proof by Induction” is not deviating much from this plot. What the story lacks in originality, though, Iriarte more than makes up for in craft.
While the story does stick to the tried and true plot for this kind of premise, the focus of the story is elsewhere. For large parts of the story, the MC at least, is convinced that he isn’t clinging to his father for emotional reasons. Rather, he keeps contact for professional reasons, as he and his father were working on a mathematical theorem which might ensure that the MC gets tenure at the university he’s employed with.
This means that Iriarte keeps the story from becoming sappy and dwelling in the MC’s loss. While there is a lot of math involved, he somehow also manages to keep it from bogging down the story, and you won’t need a science degree to enjoy this one.
In the end, it does turn out to be a story about letting go of the past and moving on in the world of the living. However, it is just as much a story about the importance of communicating our feelings and prioritizing our loved ones over our passions.
Constant Ivan and Clever Natalya by M.A. Carrick (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, issue 373):
This is a fairy tale with all that entails of relatively flat characters and predictable plot. However, the author team that is M.A. Carrick pull off the writing so expertly that those issue don’t really matter.
They keep the story short so that the predictability of the plot matters less than it would in a longer story. And while it is clear from the start that the two main characters will inevitably meet, it is not certain until the very end how they will meet or what kind relationship they will end up having.
And while the two MCs are basically their main virtues, they are made more rounded as it is shown how these virtues are also vices. On top of that, there is some cool magic elements like the prohecy delivering moon turtles.
Stubborn/Constant Ivan promises to catch one of these turtle and deliver a prophecy to a girl he is wooing. Meanwhile, Arrogant/Clever Natalya needs to find a man as clever as herself to take over leadership of their clan as her father is dying.
As said, the two character eventually meet but how that plays out you should read for yourself.
That is it for now. I hope to see you for the next round of short story recommendations. Also, feel free to comment if you feel like I missed your favorite story published in the last month or so.
Toby Backman 