Love Letter by George Saunders (The New Yorker)
I listened to this story in the The New Yorker Fiction Podcast where it was read by David Sedaris, and I must admit that Sedaris’ excellent narration of the story might also have affected how I feel about the story. Still, as Sedaris also mentions in his conversation with the editor (another good reason to listen to the story), this was a story that had a very distinct narrative voice, colloquial to the extreme yet easy to follow.
That voice also made the character feel much more real than in most stories, and, despite taking the form of a letter, it helped Saunders make the characters more relatable as well.
Aside from the great characters and voice, this is also a very poignant political criticism of the current US government, a near future prediction written in 2020, and too much of it has already come true. But it goes further than just criticizing the government and, mostly really, points at the people who should have done something but could not or would not.
Really, this was just an excellent story.
Everyone Hates It When The Alien Show Up At The Club by Elijah J. Mears (Flash Fiction Online)
The premise is exactly what the title says, a ten-foot alien with tentacles shows up at a gay bar, causing trouble. Or well, maybe it’s really the narrator causing trouble. And the narrator, really, is what made this story so interesting.
The story is told by the hivemind of the bar’s patrons, which in itself is make the story original. But the way Mears wrote the narrator’s internal monologue (well, dialogue, really) was also quite interesting. The narrator is constantly arguing with itself, and it’s clear their various personalities aren’t really aligned.
And then they try to prevent the alien from talking up some guy at the bar, and it all goes wrong.
This is a story for you if you want to read something different, something with a unique narrator and writing style.
Nothing That Bleeds by Leah Ning (Apex)
This one is an older story (from 2022, I believe), but that doesn’t make it any less interesting.
The premise is a familiar one: the MC relieving the same day over and over again to save their love interest. Actually, it was only last month that I had a recommendation with a twist to the very same trope. However, it’s not the premise/speculative idea that made “Nothing That Bleeds” so good. It was the prose.
It almost felt more like poetry than prose. Though, I’m not much of a poetry fan, so it speaks to the strength of the writing that Ning made me love the story for that. There are concise yet gorgeous descriptions, and there are raw emotions on the page. And then Ning uses the repetitiveness of the premise to create repeated patterns in the prose itself, notably the use of “Sometimes…” All of this, combines with the length of the story, gives the piece a poetic feel.
And on top of all that, the story also does a great job at showing just how difficult it is to take care of someone else, how it can drain your energy until you are suddenly the one in need of help.
This is a story to read if you love great prose and strong emotions.
Toby Backman 