THE MONTHLY ROUND - A Taster's Guide to Speculative Short Fiction, 12/2017

Last call. If you haven’t heard before, this marks the final Monthly Round. Starting with coverage of October 2014, this is the 39th installment of the series, and I’m afraid it’s the last, at least with me at the helm.

December is a time of endings, though, so perhaps it’s fitting that I’m closing the series with the last SFF stories of 2017. They are an amazing bunch of speculative fiction. And, I guess even more on-the-nose, they are largely concerned with endings and beginnings. With rebirth. With change. With moving on. Each one features a situation loaded with potential, where people stand poised to enter into a new stage of their lives. Or a new stage of humanity entirely. From apocalypses brought on by climate change or epidemic or alien invasion, to much more personal catastrophes of loss, fear, history, and hatred, the stories all recognize that things ending is a part of life, and it doesn’t have to mean the end of all things.

Life goes on. Winter gives birth to new years, new springs, and new possibilities. So, for one last time, pull up a stool, leave the cold outside, and warm yourself with a drink, and a story, and good company.

Tasting Flight - December 2017

Art by Sandeep Karunakaran

“When The Night Blooms, An Artist Transmutes: A Three-Act Play” by Nin Harris (The Dark)
Notes: As dark as soil and aged centuries, allowing the flavor to mature, for the sins to marinade into ghosts, the pour is a moonless night and a tug in the veins, a lean toward hunger...or healing.
Pairs with: Barrel Aged Baltic Porter
Review: Kasmawati is an artist who finds herself drawn to a tower that seems to appear only for her. A piece of drama, the story is told with dialogue and stage direction, the action constrained to a stage, which the reader creates in their mind as they read, conjuring up a Gothic setting ripe with ghosts, sweeping landscapes, and the need for justice. The piece, for me, becomes very much about old wounds, where this tower represents a piece of history, the touch of empire and colonization that has left its mark, and that Kasmawati finds herself revisiting in the form of the ghost of one of the old colonial governors, the architect of not just the tower she finds herself in but a series of atrocities and abuses on the native people of the island, including a woman who he took as his, who he renamed and eventually buried. In excellent Gothic tradition, though, what’s been buried pushes its way to the surface, and that power of naming that this man possessed is reclaimed by Kasmawati. Monsters of all sorts are unearthed and either put to rest or let free, and the story does an amazing job of showing how these historical wounds can fester if they’re not cleansed and allowed to heal clean. And I just love that the story unfolds as a play, as something that almost demands to be performed. The voice and mood of the piece are stunning, taking the Gothic roots and showing how they can flourish far away from where they first flowered.

Art by Sandro Castelli

“The Weight of Sentience” by Naru Dames Sundar (Shimmer)
Notes: Blood and sand dominate the color of the pour, leading the taster into an experience rich in heat and hope, heavy with the weight of violence lurking, delicate with the fragility of life, and strong with the resilience of love.
Pairs with: Imperial Red Ale
Review: Following Trisa, an android whose sentience was not voluntary but still carries with it a death sentence, the story reveals a world of prejudice, violence, and hate. Trisa, newly aware and desperate to escape, witnesses first hand the treatment that she can expect, the death waiting for her, and yet she survives, survives at first because she holds onto the dream of others, a dream for a better place. As she moves, though, and the immediate threat diminishes and escape seems possible, something changes. When she meets someone. The story then moves into a touching and wrenching portrayal of budding love and knowledge and understanding, while looking at respect and at faith. Trisa’s new reality is one where she can be seen as a person first, hiding her true nature, and then learning that for some people she doesn’t need to. This story made me want a happy ending so bad, wanted something to finally go right for the characters who had to deal with so much. What the story provides instead is a reminder that happy endings can’t really happen in places where hate is allowed to triumph over love, where people are treated as lesser, as inhuman. The piece explores Trisa’s reaction to feeling what’s possible and then being told that it’s not available to her, and how that shakes her faith. It’s a difficult, heartbreaking read, even as it’s a beautiful story that sings with the power of its emotional core. It’s a brutal world it tours, where tenderness and compassion seem impossible, and yet for all the seeming fragility of love, for all it cannot do, the story ends on a message of hope, on resilience and survival.

“The Birding: A Fairy Tale” by Natalia Theodoridou (Strange Horizons)
Notes: Complex and rising like a bird taking flight, the pour is of a sun-kissed sky, the flavor a mix of bitterness and crisp resolve, the feeling that of loss giving way to something else, of feathers and futures and the unrelenting dawn.
Pairs with: Imperial IPA
Review: Maria is a pregnant woman moving through Greece, which is being ravaged by a disease that turns people into birds. It’s a disease that her father, who had been traveling with her and who has made his life work about birds, has contracted, and as she moves she has to come to terms not just with the changing world and her own desperate need to find her husband, but the changing relationship between herself and her father, and what this disease means for them. There’s a beautiful kind of mythology about the story, a sense that for Maria, the disease is personal—the fairy tale from the title seems to me to be in how these large events revolve around Maria and her particular situation, where she is a character at heart of what is happening, the child stolen from the Queen of Birds, so that now the world must pay. It’s a way that she can think about what’s happening without being destroyed by it, to make it into a story out of a book instead of the very real, very immediate danger she is in. The piece builds smoothly, the pacing almost languid for all that the world is being transformed so quickly, so completely, humanity sprouting wings and flying away. And I love that mix of magic and science, disease and fantasy—it gives weight to the hope that Maria carries, that if this is her fairy tale, then maybe there is a happily ever after waiting at the end for her. Of course, that’s not exactly the case, but I like how the piece shows Maria move through the world, meeting another survivor, and continuing her journey to find her husband. it’s not an easy read, and there’s a definite turning point where I felt my stomach sink, where the story twisted the knife a bit. Through it all, though, I felt the story was complicating transformations, the magic at the heart of so many fairy tales. It asks if what happens here is a tragedy or something different, something beautiful and rare and freeing. It’s a powerful and disquieting question, and a wonderful story.

Art by Christopher Park

“The House at the End of the Lane is Dreaming” by A. Merc Rustad (Lightspeed)
Notes: Pouring a ruddy gold, the first sip is bright and sweet, but belies a complex flavor of fruit and wood, of fire on the horizon and the burn of limbs running from, or toward, an impossible and inevitable destruction.
Pairs with: Cherry Wheat
Review: Framed from inside a video game as it’s being created, this story stars Alex, a young woman who is faced with a town in crisis, with a situation where her pain, her loss, and her fear are all on display for the entertainment of people she will never see, who will control her and share a journey with her, but who will ultimately move on with their lives, leaving Alex with a life that has been completely upended. I love the feel the story builds, the weirdness that can only be explained by the growing certainty that things have been designed to force Alex down a single path, the “right” path that will lead her to the end of the game, to the victory that for her doesn’t feel like a victory, because the stakes have been manipulated to give Alex no way to save everyone she cares about. She, and through her the player, must decide who to value, and who dies, and Alex nopes the fuck out of that in the best way possible. What follows is a piece that breaks the rules, and in doing so breaks the barrier between worlds, turning the tables on those who hoped to profit from Alex’s pain. Along the way she digs deeper into the world around her, helping the characters who were never intended to be more than NPCs to become full realized people. To remember who they are beyond what they need to be for the game. It’s a triumphant and wonderful story that carries with it a heavy weight but that finds a way to a happy ending that wasn’t supposed to be possible.

“An Incomplete Timeline of What We Tried” by Debbie Urbanski (Terraform)
Notes: The tar-like pour reveals a nose of paved roads burning under a merciless sun, a path down which lies only ruin and extinction, the taste brash, bracing, a wake-up call to take action before we’re past the point of no return.
Pairs with: Black IPA
Review: There’s a lot of ways a story can go when its starting point is the extinction of the human species. But what I appreciate so much about this story is that it looks at so many different ways that people react to the idea of extinction. How unreal it feels. How slow people can be to take action, and how even when action is taken, it can so easily be mired in obstruction, delay, and defeat. The story is told backwards, drawing back from the end of humanity, and by telling the story in reverse the focus is put both on how large the stakes are and how much all of things on this list fail. Not perhaps because they weren’t good things to try, but because by the time that things really started getting serious, things were already pretty much decided. It’s a story that recognizes that when it comes to climate change, when it comes to the damage that humanity is doing to the planet, the time to act is not when we’re feeling the worst of the symptoms. Indeed, the story warns about putting off drastic action any longer than we already have. It’s not exactly a subtle piece, but then it doesn’t have to be, and it does a wonderful job of revealing humanity and our history of toxicity, exploitation, and destruction. There really aren’t characters in the story per se, but it’s something that draws the reader into the piece, that makes all of us part of that “we” of the title. All responsible for the failure that might result in our eradication. All responsible for making sure that we don’t get locked into this pattern, working our way backwards from an extinction we refuse to avoid. It’s a punchy bit of science fiction, a kick in the butt in prose form.

Art by Dario Bijelac

“The First Stop Is Always the Last” by John Wiswell (Flash Fiction Online)
Notes: A first sip of autumn and endings, nervous laughter and the fear of misstepping, opens into a brilliant sweetness, balanced and subtle without becoming saccharine, joyous and warm and satisfying.
Pairs with: Hard Cider
Review: A woman gets on a bus and has a conversation. A woman gets on a bus and has a slightly different conversation. A woman gets on a—well, maybe you get the idea. When one of the characters in the story is the inheritor of the power over time itself, perhaps it’s not too strange that the story is framed as a series of scenes united by the fact that they’re basically all the same scene, just tweaked slightly, each time this character trying to do a bit better, a bit better. And really the story revolves around the idea of the safety that having infinite do-overs affords. How it takes a lot of the risk out of life, because it allows the person trying over the ability to wipe away any perceived mistakes. And I love how the story complicates that idea, how it twists that idea into showing that by never taking that risk, by always going back, that going forward becomes nearly impossible. More over, it creates an imbalance, where the one person aware of the difference has an advantage, and in that imbalanced state it’s rather impossible to meet others as equals, as peers. Authentic connections cannot really be formed, because any interaction is touched by the many times the one person might tweak them, might adjust them to fit a bit better. And then for me the story becomes about having the confidence to move forward, to take chances. To get over the fear that everything will go wrong and realize that there are other ways to try and be safe. Namely, there’s a feeling for me that the story is saying that forming relationships, that making sure of consent and trust, allows us to create our own safety without having to have the advantage of temporal manipulation. it’s a fun and very sweet story, with romance and magic and a wonderful joy to it.

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I just want to thank everyone who has made the last 3+ years of The Monthly Round such a success. For me, it’s been something of an exorcism, of rediscovering my love of reviewing and trying to find my voice and place within SFF fandom. It’s been a slow kind of thing, lots of work punctuated by hoping that maybe these posts bring others as much joy as the stories I feature have brought me.

To everyone at Nerds of a Feather, thank you so much for welcoming me into the flock. To everyone out there who has enjoyed the Round, thank you for treating my weird stories-as-drink-pairings project as more than just a silly whim. You are awesome.

It’s time to play the song that means it’s time to go, though. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. Cheers!

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POSTED BY: Charles, avid reader, reviewer, and sometimes writer of speculative fiction. Contributor to Nerds of a Feather since 2014.

THE MONTHLY ROUND - A Taster's Guide to Speculative Short Fiction, 11/2017

As 2017 nears its end, November gives us a chance to look back. Not just at the past year, but at history, both personal and societal. Perhaps that’s why all the stories in this month’s Round come with a look at the past, whether it’s the tragedies of war and politics or those of family, love, and death. The stories all share a sense of characters dealing with the weight of their inheritances, whether it comes from their ancestors, their friends, their lovers, or themselves. As winter begins to take hold and the chill to set in, it’s time to look back to remind ourselves both what we’re still fighting for, and how far we’ve come.

So please, take seat. The flavors on tap this month are perfect for those looking to unwind by the fire, to shed a tear for those who have not made it this far, and to reaffirm a commitment to pushing forward, into a future that is not mired by the same harms and dangers as the past. Each pint today comes with a special side of memories and a tendril of shadow creeping just out of view. The only remedy is to drink deep, and share the moment with those you care about, and look for ways to escape the familiar cycles of hate, loss, and fear—together.

Cheers!

Tasting Flight – November 2017

Art by Psychoshadow

“The Summer Mask” by Karin Lowachee (Nightmare)

Notes: With a color of sepia, of forgotten pictures of forgotten faces, the nose is dust and the smell of old books, the flavor equal parts longing and sacrifice, grace and betrayal, bitterness and hope.

Pairs with: Session Ale

Review: David is an artist tasked with making masks for soldiers who survived massive war bearing physical scars. He meets Matthew, a man who can barely see and who has massive facial damage, and sees in him something beautiful and captivating. It’s a story of obsession and sacrifice, love and miracles. And, of course, beauty. The story does an amazing job of showing how these two men come together, Matthew because his injuries have made him an outcast and dependent on others, David because his nature and his drive to create something beautiful. And so much of what I like about the story rests on how it treats this idea of beauty, not as something redemptive or healing, but as cold and in many ways cruel. What the two men share while each is flawed might not be physically beautiful, but it comes from his place of care and love. And David, in trying to give a beautiful face to what they have, ends up inviting a distance and darkness on himself, and proves that beauty doesn’t need to be compassionate, doesn’t need approval or permission or justification. And in that it reveals a dark heart of beauty, the difference between beauty that can be captured in stone or clay, and the beauty that exists in human interaction and love. It’s a difficult and complex story, but one that captures the shape and fragility of beauty, and the price it can carry.

Art by Tomislav Tikulin

“The Sound of His Voice Like the Colour of Salt” by L Chan (The Dark)

Notes: Everything old is new again, ancient methods creating a heavy and dense profile that still crackles with static and electricity, the past crashing into the present with violence and storm before calming into something beautiful and delicately sweet.

Pairs with: Ancient Ale

Review: A nameless ghost boy shares a haunted space with a number of other forgotten spirits in this story, which explores memory and connection. When a new ghost appears on the scene, and from a most unlikely place, the main character is suddenly faced with the world outside his home, even as those around him have...mixed reactions to the prospect of freedom. The story shows how history anchors people in place, tying them with bonds that hold even after death, even after everything else has been lost and forgotten. It traces the ways that loneliness and cycles entrench harm, the ways that these ghosts reenact the same things over and over, maintaining the status quo for those in power and never able to reach beyond their prison. Until something comes from the outside in, allowing the main character to attempt to break the cycle, to reach for something new and freeing. It’s a story about change and the possibility of change, especially for those who are isolated, who can find no way to escape a physical place. The story looks with hope at the power of technology to bring people together across vast distances, to allow people to throw off the chains of their imprisonment, and to map new frontiers into a future suddenly full of possibilities. It’s a story that carries with it a heaviness, the oppression of the situation dragging at the main character and what he can do, but there’s also the hope that the drag can be overcome and escaped, and that even death is not enough to stop progress.

“Hungry Demigods” by Andrea Tang (GigaNotoSaurus)

Notes: Fusing flavors and styles, sweet and tangy and bitter and all points in between the pour in a muted tan tinged with pink, like a few drops of blood were added for good measure, creating an experience that is triumphant, fun, but undeniably complex.

Pairs with: Grapefruit IPA

Review: Isabel, a blind Chinese Canadian woman, works as a cook in Montreal, where food has always been the family business. When her brother brings in a man with a strange curse and holes in his memory, though, it’s her magic that she has to lean on in order to figure out what’s going on and if she can do anything about it. Not that cooking and magic are different spheres—with a culinary god for a father, food and spice, legacy and magic, all sort of roll together. And I love the way the story handles inheritance and the weight of family and culture, how decisions parents make for their children create burdens that are passed down, that can settle and rot. Isabel has to balance the various parts of herself, the different skills and experiences she’s had as well as the cultures that have created her, staying true first and foremost to who she is but striving not to lose sight of where she’s come from (especially since literally losing her sight when she strayed too far from honoring who she is rather than who some of her family might want her to be). The story builds a great relationship between Isabel and the man she’s trying to help, Elias, and creates a subtle romance while managing some stunning parallelism between his mysterious affliction and Isabel’s own demons. The tone is fun and swift, Isabel having no patience for fools and a drive toward justice, even when it means some uncomfortable reunions. She’s a force to be reckoned with, and I think there’s a great mix of action, world building, and plenty of emotional moments to make the story memorable and satisfying.

Art by Gregory St. John

“A Pestilence Come for Old Ma Salt” by Dayna K. Smith (Lackington’s)

Notes: With a bitterness that almost sticks in the throat and a pour inky and concealing, the flavors are a rush of spice and stars, the taste of secrets being dragged into the open and the truth blooming in the night.

Pairs with: India Black Ale

Review: Ma Salt is a healer for an insular mountain community, their first and last stop for most maladies, supernatural or otherwise. It’s a place where many people go when they want to get away from the rest of the world, which means that it has its share of loners and more than its share of secrets. When an infant comes down with a cough that turns out to be much more than a simple cold, though, Ma Salt is challenged in ways that push her secrets out from the shadows. The story explores small communities in an interesting way, looking at how the relationships become so twisted, the water so muddy, that it’s often difficult to see what’s right in front of you. Everyone knows everyone else’s business, or at least they seem to, which means people prize their secrets all the closer, the little ways that they can be private in a place where privacy is a precious thing. At the same time, it explores how those secrets can act as seeds of corruption, eroding at the very thing that communities need in order to function and survive—trust. And trust built on lies and misdirection is no trust, which is something that Ma Salt has to confront as she struggles to save the life of her community’s newest member. The story also shows how sometimes rumor is more dangerous than anything, and how even when the truth is hard, or shameful, it is often surprising just how much people have the capacity to forgive, and to accept, and to help those who might stumble, and to celebrate those things that make people themselves. It’s a great voice the story establishes, and I like how the plot follows a sort of exorcism—of deception and prejudice, so that the community can come together stronger than ever and so even the most vulnerable can be accepted and cared for.

Art by Max Mitenkov

“An Unexpected Boon” by S.B. Divya (Apex)

Notes: Pouring a dark brown rimmed with gold, the first sip is deep, subtle and smoky like dreams burning, only to reveal newer, sweeter tones underneath, a future still bright despite loss and danger.

Pairs with: Honey Bock

Review: Kalyani is a young (probably autistic) girl who experiences the world quite differently from the rest of her family. It’s something that Aruni, her older brother, finds quite difficult to handle, especially when his parents have left him in charge while they are away. For Kalyani, though, it’s the rest of the world that doesn’t make as much sense, that overflows with threats and dangers, that never makes as much sense as the order of her own mind and the quiet solitude of her thoughts. When a passing holy man observes her quiet, he gives her a gift, an insect that communicates with her, and gives her a tool to help decode the rest of the world. When a different holy man passes through with a much different outlook, though, Kalyani and Aruni find themselves at the center of a situation that could destroy them, especially if Aruni doesn’t trust his younger sister. And for me, the story is about family and about communication, about trust and value. Everyone treats Kalyani like she is defective, like she can’t survive in this world mostly because everyone else accepts the corruption and dangers of the systems they live in, which make Kalyani even more at risk for being a girl, for now knowing the unspoken social contracts that reinforce all levels of society. For all the darkness that the story uses as its base, though, the story rejects a trajectory toward tragedy, and the prose shines with the resolve and skill of Kalyani, her ability to function and act even as Aruni despairs, certain of defeat. To me it’s a story of the value of being able to see the world differently, to be able to come up with solutions that work for everyone, which might only be possible if first you refuse to accept the dominant narrative of the way things are. It’s a sweet and moving story full of magic and grace.

Art by Julie Dillon

“Making Us Monsters” by Sam J. Miller & Lara Elena Donnelly (Uncanny)

Notes: The past reaches forward into the present with a taste of loss and memories bleeding together, a cloudy pour obscuring a golden shine, a mix of spice and distance and old wounds opening to an almost floral finish, a flower placed on a grave of a unknown soldier finally revealed and put to rest.

Pairs with: Abbey Ale

Review: Borrowing from the historical story of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, this story paints a picture that connects two men across time and across tragedies, as both seek to make sense of a world that refuses to make sense, where who they are makes them vulnerable, and who they must become in order to live in the world makes them monsters. The story is told through letters, letters from Wilfred Owen from the battlefields of World War I to Sassoon, who is dealing with a much different situation in the run up to the second world war. For both men, though, they must deal with their desires and the situation that life has thrust them into—the chaos of war, the dangers of men looking for a “cure” for them. The letters are (to me incredibly fittingly) one directional, neither man truly able to express himself to the other, time and war and death getting between them, cutting short what they could have meant to what another. What remains are the bruises, the scars, the injuries that never really heal—both on the bodies of those who remain and on the world as a whole, these losses weighing heavier than stone, just as crushing as any military defeat. For me the story is about loss and about cycles, about how compassion and love becomes something else when all safety is gone, when discovery and death are so near, and all these men want is to live, to be free. And it becomes in many ways about breaking that cycle, or trying to, of stepping out from safety and trying to learn from the past so that the same injustices do not continue, or grow. It’s wrenching and it’s difficult and it’s heartbreaking, and you might end up a sobbing mess, but it is a gorgeous story about history, love, and war.

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POSTED BY: Charles, avid reader, reviewer, and sometimes writer of speculative fiction. Contributor to Nerds of a Feather since 2014.

THE MONTHLY ROUND - A Taster's Guide to Speculative Short Fiction, 10/2017

First of all, let’s just say Happy Birthday to the Monthly Round, which turns three years old with this installment, debuting in the Long Ago of November 2014 (covering the short SFF of October 2014). Free party hats for all!

October. For me, it means a lot of things. Typically, the first snow of the year happens. There's Halloween, with its long shadows and spooky revelry. For many, the month probably means autumn and gorgeous colors, but for me it means the first touch of winter, and the heat kicking on, and the shutting away of the world in an effort to conserve warmth. It means the tastes on tap today have a definite slide toward the dark side. We start with light, and happiness, and hope, and we end with a wrenching bleakness, a facing of difficult realities. In between is a powerful month of short SFF, full of magic, stars, and strangeness.

Sit down. There’s a chill settling in, but a drink might shake a bit of fire into your limbs. Settle in and watch the pour with anticipation. Then, enjoy. Cheers!

Tasting Flight - October 2017

Art by Ashley Mackenzie

“Fandom for Robots” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Uncanny)
Tasting Notes: A surprising tang gives this a punch of sweetness that almost overpowers with its joy, settled only by the complexity of its profile and the lingering smiles it leaves in its wake.
Pairs with: Peach Hard Cider
Review: Computron has a fairly ordinary job...for the only sentient AI in existence. He teaches kids about robots and artificial intelligence, something that he’s rather singularly qualified to do. Only it really doesn’t seem like people consider him the marvel that he is, judging him on the retro-futurist aesthetic he has, imagining he’s outdated despite his uniqueness, despite the fact that he’s sentient. It’s not until he finds a show that features a character much like himself, an older-style robot named Cyro, that he begins to understand just how much he was yearning to see himself represented in media, to interact with other people who won’t think he’s strange because of the way he looks. Enter fandom. I love how this story explores the ways that fan spaces allow people to explore and celebrate themselves. No, fandom isn’t perfect, and Computron does have to deal with aspects of that, but at the same time it gives him this new purpose, this new feeling of belonging. Where he doesn’t have to fit all he has to say into a tiny window inside a larger presentation on robotics. Where he can really get into something and be appreciated for it and make connections through it and shatter the isolation that had dominated his life. It’s a story about being a fan, and how fun and freeing that can be. The story revels in Computron’s journey into fandom, writing fic and offering feedback and just being an all around pleasant person. And it’s a joyous story to experience, clever and cute and playing with the tropes of how AI mirror humans, but how they are distinct as well, and valuable in how they are different, able to contribute in ways that are surprising and wonderful.

Art by Geneva Benton

“Barbara in the Frame” by Emmalia Harrington (Fiyah)
Tasting Notes: With a nose like fresh baked goods and a rich copper pour, the taste is sweet but complex, a tugging disquiet that gives way to a positive warmth and the feeling of home.
Pairs with: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ale
Review: For many, college is a freeing experience, a time of freedom and exploration. For Bab, though, a young trans woman who already had a bad college experience once, going back has been difficult, even if being in the correct dorms has been a huge improvement. The fear of being “found out” and rejected is strong, and coupled with anxiety and a few other issues, it means Bab is something of a hermit, staying in her room where her main company is a portrait of her grandfather’s great-aunt, Barbara. Which might seem very lonely indeed, except that it’s a very special portrait. The story blends magic and navigating the strange and obscure social landscape of college. For Bab, it means experiencing the push and pull of wanting friends but not wanting to expose herself to danger. Of needing connections and community and fearing that she’ll never truly belong. The story does an amazing job of capturing the voices of a solid cast and finding powerful resonance in situations that might seem at first low stakes. Because it shows how Bab can take nothing for granted, how her world sometimes feels like it’s closing in around her, and how it can take a friendly face and a reassuring presence to make the world a less painful place. Plus, well, it’s a story that combines magic and cooking, bringing people together by the foods they cook, by the ways they each bring something different to the experience, to the meal, in order to create a feeling of completeness, safety, and belonging. It’s a quieter kind of story, but one that shines with an indomitable heart.

Art by Dario Bijelac

“Claire Weinraub’s Top Five Sea Monster Stories (For Allie)” by Evan Berkow (Flash Fiction Online)
Tasting Notes: Strong and with a taste of the ocean, the pour is an inky oblivion, an impenetrable cloud in which anything might lurk, but which reveals slowly a soft texture, a tenderness only seen in hindsight, only experienced after everything has been bathed in dark.
Pairs with: Oyster Stout
Review: Some stories take a long time to lay the groundwork for devastation. To map it fully and without blinking. Others, like this one, manage with the broad strokes of memory and pain, the absence of a person who, for the main character, was everything. And okay, I might have a soft spot in my heart for stories that in some ways are built as reviews that might or might not actually exist, fleshing out a world and, more importantly, a relationship by the way the narrator describes what these stories meant. It’s a piece that seems quiet, reserved, and yet that packs the emotional punch of a freight train, driving relentlessly around the space once occupied by Allie, now empty. It’s a story of layers and time and grief, each story pulling back another veil, revealing more and more of what has happened and what it has meant for Claire. Framing the stories around stories is a great touch, too, because it looks at the power of fiction in these situations. Not only to draw the boundaries of despair and give that feeling of lurking danger, each story mentioned one of monsters, after all, and darkness. But it also allows a framework to begin to heal, to allow Claire the power to begin to conceive of a world that is better. To reach for a place where she no longer feels quite so much pain. Where she can continue, and where perhaps she can be reunited with Allie, or at least find some way to cope with what has happened. It’s a short but elegant read that opens up this huge hurt but also the even larger power of speculative fiction to give hope, to inspire. It centers the power of imagination as a redemptive impulse in humans, to use to navigate life’s travails and find a course to a better future.

Art by Tomislav Tikulin

“The Whalebone Parrot” by Darcie Little Badger (The Dark)
Tasting Notes: There’s a distinct ghostly quality to the feel of this, the pour a gold leeched of vibrance, the taste an echo of something bright dulled to bitter, everything about it reaching for a light and hope that seems ethereal, cold, and distant.
Pairs with: Pale Ale
Review: Erasure and family and colonial harm mix and mingle here as Emily—a young woman who grew up in an orphanage that stripped her of her Native American heritage, name, and language and tried to make her acceptable for the white society that consumed her land—visits her sister, Loretta, who is about to give birth to her first child. The story captures a nicely Gothic style, setting up the isolation and distance and haunted nature of place that Emily must inhabit. Her sister is married to a white man, supposedly liberal, and yet for all his kindness his world is defined by his language, that of empire and white dominance, and his view toward his wife and her sister is hardly free of either misogyny or racism. Instead he is an Intellectual, burdened by his own family issues and sure that those thorny problems of inheritance and pride supplant the very real dangers that Emily and Loretta face from a source he refuses to recognize. The source? The ghost of a parrot, which Emily knows is serious but which Albert believes, in Gothic tradition, is an indication that something Isn’t Right with Loretta, or Emily, or both, an entirely different kind of threat for them to Be Quiet or else end up in an institution. The weight of expectations and Albert’s refusal to truly risk himself, placing as primary importance the securing of his fortune, is something the story weaves into this malevolent force, revealing just how at risk the sisters are when they think the system will ultimately protect them. And I love how the story shows that it’s only by finding strength in each other and the heritage that everyone else seems to think is better off erased, that Emily and Loretta can hope to survive and overcome. By doing what they need to do, regardless of what they are allowed to do. It is an empowering, redemptive story that does not conceal the danger or the dark, but shows how it can be fought, and defeated.

“To Us May Grace Be Given” by L.S. Johnson (GigaNotoSaurus)
Tasting Notes: Brash and with the taste of blood, wine and beer meet and battle here, the pour a riot of ruddy copper, the first sip bitter, the experience memorable and strange and bold and unsettling even as it dances with promise.
Pairs with: Syrah IPA
Review: Sometimes there are situations that have no good options. Where the setting and circumstances have been twisted and corrupted into leaving only hard roads paved in loss and blood. For Addy, a young person being raised as a boy to make them less of a target for abuse and rape, the world seems mostly what their mother tells them, a pit of vipers and a landscape of monsters. Faced with the prospect of being forced off their land by a man with considerable pull in the frontier town, Addy’s mother hatches a plan, to use a monster to kill another monster. In so doing, though, she reveals the cruelty and violence in her own heart, and Addy is left in a situation where there is no way out without doing harm, without betraying someone. The story is fast, visceral, and unsettling as fuck. This is a setting where to survive is essentially to become a monster, where violence and abuse are so woven into the fabric of society that there is getting away from it. Addy is put into an impossible situation and wants only the uncomplicated love of their animals and for a bit of safety in a dangerous world. What they get is a conflict they never wanted and no way to avoid the chaos and the noise and the death that finds them. It’s a story that weaves together vampires and six-shooters, blood and magic and revenge. It has a power to it, and a momentum that cannot be denied or delayed. And it also has something, coated in mud and mire and all manner pain, but beautiful all the same—that in a world where everyone is a monster, you still have choose what kind of monster you’ll be. That a broken world is no excuse for not trying to do the right thing, even with the right thing is impossible. That for Addy, the most important thing is to be true to themself, and to see how far that will get them.

Art by Rubén Castro

“My Struggle” by Lavie Tidhar (Apex)
Tasting Notes: Evoking an older German style, this updates and twists expectations, offering up a freshness that breathes with the feeling of autumn—of fading light, the coming of winter, and the crunch of dead leaves underfoot.
Pairs with: Oktoberfest
Review: So I don’t think I expected a story featuring Hitler (yes, Hitler) as a private detective in an alt-history noir mystery about the Spear of Destiny would ever make the Round. And yet this piece so deftly marries the offensive, monstrous narrative of Hitler, P.I., with a frame that makes it about the desire to rewrite history, about the many might-have-beens that could take the place of real-life atrocities. More than that, the story captures a tone and feel of a time and reveals through essentially making Hitler the “good guy” of the story just how dangerous and powerful stories can be, and how especially for stories of that time period, swapping Hitler with the main character doesn’t actually break the story. What does it say, in some ways, that this story exists, and that for some the urge might be to root of Hitler. Especially given recent events, the story seems to ask what people like this look like without the power over states. The answer is...they look familiar. And there’s the darkness and the horror of the story, the way that it builds this rather familiar narrative and makes it fun and almost farcical except for the parts that you can’t ignore or get around. Because, in the end, it’s a story with Hitler as one of the main characters. A story that is almost…fun as it spotlights celebrities and scandals of the era and builds a plot around greed and shades of fascism. And it doesn’t lose sight of how delicate a proposition that is, grounding the larger narrative not with Hitler but with a Jewish man trapped in the Berlin ghetto, trying to find distractions even as the reality of his life looms ever larger. It’s unrelenting and powerful and manages to make a story about Hitler subtle and nuanced, and it does it in breathtaking (and heartbreaking) fashion.

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POSTED BY: Charles, avid reader, reviewer, and sometimes writer of speculative fiction. Contributor to Nerds of a Feather since 2014.

THE MONTHLY ROUND - A Taster's Guide to Speculative Short Fiction, 09/2017

Fall is officially in the air, though summer hasn’t quite died off entirely. We’re in that thin space between seasons, and though it means the weather shifts quickly and dramatically (made worse by human-drive climate change) and the freshness of summer is slipping toward the chills of winter, it also means the leaves are changing color, blushing a bit of beauty into a landscape that will soon be covered in white.

It might be no surprise, then, that the stories on tap for September’s flight are rather concerned with bleak settings and how people confront them. How they seek to come together to create warmth and hope and the chance for healing. The stories are, by and large, concerned with relationships and family, focusing on how people helping people, people respecting people, needs to be at the heart of any movement to survive. Because really, survival is about more than reproduction, more than merely delaying the decay that’s led to the problems in the first place. Survival is about balance and trust and harmony, and these stories all circle around people creating situations where they can reach towards something better, something more whole, or else being confronted by the rot at the heart of their philosophies, and having to see where those corrupted roads lead.

The stories very much run the gamut between joyous and crushing, but each one is beautiful in its own way, and each brings its unique flavor to this early autumn tasting experience. So settle in and raise a glass, and let’s get to it. Cheers!

Tasting Flight - September 2017

Art by Vladimir Manyukhin

“Pan-Humanism: Hope and Pragmatics” by Jess Barber and Sara Saab (Clarkesworld)

Notes: Expertly balanced between darkness and light, the story tastes like a breath of fresh air after a lifetime of smog, warms and lifts and offers a hope of healing.

Pairs with: Amber Bock

Review: Amir and Mani grow up in a Beirut strained by climate change, by water-scarcity, by the fear of doing greater harm. Both characters, because of their world and because of the weight of history, know only too well the cost of possession, of privatization. Both enter into service to try and heal the planet and bring water and hope and life back to a world that is on the brink. At the same time, they find themselves drawn to one another, and yet mindful that how humans treat the world, and how they treat each other, is linked, and that treating people like possessions, just like treating the Earth like a possession, leads only to corruption, deprivation, and loss. The story, through the exploration of these characters lives and relationships, begins to build a picture of what it might take to make the world work better. It stresses that it’s not technology alone that will save us, because without a philosophy to match, the exploitation and consumption will continue to escalate, pushing past all obstacles and barriers and safeguards. I love how the story implies that humanity needs a different framework in order to respect humans and the environment, in order to put cooperation and compassion ahead of personal ambition or passion. And it is a beautiful story that touches on how love still works in this philosophy, not quite in the same way that we now expect but still in profound and powerful dimensions that allow Amir and Mani’s story to be one of hope and healing and triumph, even as it is often about longing and distance as well. It is an amazing piece, and one of my very favorite stories of the year, period.

“The Last Spell of the Raven” by Morris Tanafon (Glittership)

Notes: With a pour as dark as night and thick as blood, a taste of smoke and grief slowly solidify and deepen into something hungry, mysterious, and devastating.

Pairs with: Imperial Stout

Review: Galen is a magician, one of the rare few who can cast spells, and most of his life is shaped by this one aspect of him, this one thing that makes him valuable to his government and their ambitions. A magician only gets five spells, though, and with the casting of the last they die. Magicians are supposed to use two of these spells in service of their nation, and the rest are sort of...bonuses. Galen isn’t exactly careful with his spells though, casting his first by accident and then losing the others. But more than that, the story shows just what Galen gives up because of what he fears to lose. It’s a piece that explores how he doesn’t fit in to the normal mold, but also doesn’t quite know how to break out of it. It captures the sense of his yearning, of his lust for life and love and connection, and how the world that he lives in and the exploitation and militarism that it operates by poisons everything it touches. It erodes every act of kindness and compassion that Galen does, pushing him towards isolation, grief, and loss. And yet even as he becomes a sort of symbol of what not to do and be in the eyes of his country, he also becomes a symbol for those who don’t fit in, and through that there comes a certain amount of...not healing, exactly, but something more like meaning. For his life and for his regrets—that he can show others that being different is possible, and that maybe if they embrace it, or act on it, they’ll be able to avoid the losses that he suffers. It’s a wrenching and deep story about value and about caring about people. Even when it’s not what’s valued in society. It’s about how the system grinds people down, but even so that small kindnesses are not only possible, but incredibly important.

Art by Setor Fiadzigbey

“On The Other Side of the Sea” by Nerine Dorman (Omenana)

Notes: Bitterness is cut by a warmth that gives a shine to this story’s golden pour, with a feeling of loss like an open wound slowly fading into something alive and hopeful.

Pairs with: Session Ale

Review: This is a story of sisters, the narrator the older and Lindi the younger. Together they carry the weight of their mother’s ashes across a mostly-barren landscape, hungry and afraid and injured, hoping to reach the fulfillment of a promise, that if they reach the sea there will be salvation. A hope that their mother told them and one that they cling to, for the world has fallen to the point where civilization is scarce and most people are cruel and eager for a target for their anger. For all the setting is bleak, though, and the situation harsh, the story for me is very much about kindness and trust and hope. The narrator, though, is distrustful and resourceful, concerned most with fulfilling her mother’s wish and getting her sister to safety. And I like how the conflict is hazy, filtered through the perception of the narrator, a child, the entire situation one of immediacies. She distrusts because of how dangerous it is, because she thinks there is this thing waiting for them, and yet as the story moves it reveals the full scope of the damage and destruction that has been done, the lies that were told to comfort, that were told because of the desire for there to be a better elsewhere, a place to escape to. And yet I like that the story shatters that hope without shattering hope itself. That it refuses to buy into the idea that escape is the only option, and begins to come around to the idea that there is something to gained in community and kindness, that what is truly required here is a situation where these children can trust and not be betrayed. And that with that, progress can begin again, and safety can be built, and maybe, someday, healing can be possible. But that it begins with people, and taking that step to try and trust, despite everything.

“Feeding Mr. Whiskers” by Dawn Bonanno (Fireside Fiction)

Notes: Brash and fun, the crisp, clear notes lead the taster down into a subtler and celebratory experience of sun, shadows, and friendship.

Pairs with: Pear Hard Cider

Review: When the family cat, Mr. Whiskers, needs a new bag of dry food retrieved from the basement, it falls to the family’s youngest member, Melanie, to brave the strange landscape that her imagination makes of the darkness and uncertainty she finds there. Basements are places rich in fear (at least, they were for me growing up), and the story captures just why, showing how the weird neglect and distance from the rest of the house imbues the area with an almost sinister aura. There is a palpable darkness to the nether realm of Melanie’s basement, and yet there’s also a sense of fun and adventure and possibility there as well. Melanie, in plunging down into the dangerous depths of the space, is also escaping in some ways the rules of the world above, the strict necessity that things maintain their proper place. The basement is where fantasy and reality can mix and mingle, and it makes it dangerous but it also makes it in some ways freeing, a place where Melanie can make new friends and have daring dos and have victories of her own. It’s a semi-controlled environment where she can build her experience and confidence and be powerful and connected that isn’t already infected by the constraints of the world outside, of gender rolls or the more crushing forms of horror. Nor is it completely isolating because it taps into the nebulous magic of basements, into a place that, if inhabited by monsters, might be inhabited by friendlier sorts as well. And I just love the feel of the piece, the humor and imagination and the push and pull of revulsion and adventure that the basement embodies. It’s fast and tight-paced and it’s got a cat named Mr. Whiskers, so probably you’ll love it. I know I do!

“They, We, Me” by Ryan Bloom (Terraform)

Notes: Capturing the heart of America, the complex notes of clear skies, golden wheat, and ignored intolerance, the flavor is almost smooth in its naked bitterness.

Pairs with: American Pale Ale

Review: The future this story paints is one where androids have finally gotten a certain amount of rights. Where they can work and earn money and where they’re supposed to be protected by the law, citizens of America. And while there is fear of extreme prejudice against androids, it comes from outside the urban centers where the androids must live in order to be connected to the grid that keeps them powered and alive. The threat is always framed as being rural, as being outside. And the story itself focuses on one android, Adéle, who was bought to be the sister to the narrator of the piece, and who has been living without a lot of direction since her brother went away to school. She gets a job at a small shop, but her presence isn’t exactly treated well, as people view her as a threat. Androids steal jobs. Androids think they’re better than everyone. Androids aren’t real people. The story looks at how these things express themselves within this situation, how Adéle refuses to play into the expectations people have about her, how she refuses to smile, to make nice. She expresses herself as she is, and the reaction she tends to get isn’t very encouraging. For me, the story becomes about how we think about difference and think about humanity and, ultimately, where we see extremism. For the narrator, he thinks of bigotry as something that only exists in caricature, the cartoon racism that people associate with isolated loners. He doesn’t see what exists, that bigotry and hate live everywhere we see difference, where we see people as less than fully human. In rural areas yes, but also in urban centers and even in the narrator’s own heart. It’s a deeply unsettling and impacting story that leaves an emptiness in its wake and demands we all pay attention.

“Stories We Carry On The Back Of The Night” by Jasper Sanchez (Mithila Review)

Notes: Complex and alluring, with a nose of sunrise on an alien world and a first sip of betrayal tinged with love, the taste gradually resolves into something strong, resilient, and powerful.

Pairs with: Baltic Porter

Review: Sam is a young boy caught between the pain and betrayal of the world he lives in, our world, where his gender and identity are often violated, and an alien world where he can be fully himself, but where he would have to give up being with his father, who is about the only person Sam knows who has treated him with dignity and respect. It presents something of an impossible decision to make, where Sam has to weigh being treated like who he is by an entire society of people against the love he has for his father. And the story does a great job of showing the complexity and weight of this choice, and I love how it ultimately reveals the options as somewhat misleading. There is this lovely use of ritual and harm within the story, that allows Sam to see the ways that this alien world isn’t quite as rosy and accepting as they seem. That they, too, have this strong enforcement of ritual and societal harmony, and any straying outside of that are punished, and punished harshly. That for all that Sam himself might be accepted for being a trans man, he wouldn’t necessarily be safe, because it’s not a society that truly trusts its citizens, or truly protects them. Sam is left having to navigate the situation where there is no perfect place. That even the world that promises to accept his gender would demand he hurt, would demand he give up something important. And I love how he’s able to see what a futile thing that would be, that any society demanding that he change for it is not a society that deserves his loyalty. That what does deserve his loyalty and trust are those who have earned it, who have treated him always as a person first, and it’s just a beautiful story that explores identity and family and hope in the face of injustice.

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POSTED BY: Charles, avid reader, reviewer, and sometimes writer of speculative fiction. Contributor to Nerds of a Feather since 2014.

THE MONTHLY ROUND - A Taster's Guide to Speculative Short Fiction, 08/2017

Welcome! Pull up a stool—let me tell you what’s on tap today. August represents the height of summer for some, and for others the first step toward Autumn. For my SFF reading, the month seems full of heat, decay, distance, and ghosts. Which makes a certain amount of sense, what with 2017 on its downward slope, having cleared the peak of June and July and entered into the fast descent toward the end of the year. And what a year...

The flavors are mostly heavy, alluding to the coming harvest with the sweet tones of apple and barley. Looming behind that, though, is the specter of winter, and scarcity, and cold. The bite of IPA stands as a resistance to going gentle in that good night, a fire to guide lonely travelers through the chilling dark. The stories are pulled from across SFF, with a lean toward fantasy, from contemporary to historical to second world, but there’s a hint of science fiction as well, a glimpse of the void and a voice calling out into the distance of space.

August saw a huge amount of short SFF published, and constructing this month’s tasting flight was a particular challenge, but I hope I have captured something of the season. A feeling of the growing isolation winter will bring, with despair creeping along the edges of everything, held back only by the warmth of compassion and the power of people helping people. So settle in and peruse the flavors—I hope you find something you like. Cheers!

Tasting Flight - August 2017

Art by Ira Gladkova

“Avi Cantor Has Six Months To Live” by Sacha Lamb (Book Smugglers)
Notes:Singing with notes of sweet romance complicated by the spices of trust, betrayal, and perception, its cloudy pour slowly resolves into a golden hue that shines with warmth.
Pairs with: Chai Spiced Ale
Review: In the mire that is high school, Avi isn’t even out as a trans man when his name appears on a bathroom mirror with the titular warning/threat/???. Rumors flood in and suddenly (and mysteriously) Ian, the other trans boy in the same grade, wants to become friends. And, it turns out, maybe even boyfriends. What follows is a beautiful portrayal of a budding relationship, struggles with family, with depression and suicidal ideation, with trust and betrayal and, ultimately, with magic. Avi is almost instantly compelling, caught between the pressures to conform and his drive to be true to himself. He faces poverty, loneliness, and a school situation ignited by this strange message foretelling his death. Through his interaction with Ian he begins to push back against some of those, even as the nature of their relationship, and some secrets that Ian has been hiding, threaten to make everything much, much worse. It’s a piece that takes an even look at depression and consent, not condemning Avi for his despair but also showing that healing is possible, that trust in the face of a hostile world is still possible. Not easy, definitely, and not without a few large complications, but possible, and beautiful. The speculative element takes a little while to show up in this novelette, but when it arrives it’s a wonderful twist on a number of tropes, casting a deal with the devil (or a devil, at least) in new light. And I love that Avi’s problem isn’t presented as him being a trans boy, but rather the lack of support he has, the way that society has let him down not only as a queer child but as the child of a poor Jewish mother, and how the story captures family in such vibrant and warm tones. There is a definite darkness to the piece, to the dangers in Avi’s life and despair he often feels, but it’s also a story about joy and hope and getting past mistrust and the betrayals of adolescence to a place of acceptance, security, and affirmation.

“The Wanderers” by Ian McHugh (GigaNotoSaurus)
Notes: Striding confidently into a cold landscape, the flavors only really open up as the drink finds the fire of company to cut the chill of loneliness, distance, and cruelty.
Pairs with: Nut Brown Ale
Review: Life as a fox isn’t easy, especially for Rhy-lee, who inherited her mother’s wanderlust even as she was raised by her devoted father. Pulled between her love of home and her strong desire to explore, to go out and meet the world, Rhy-lee tries to find piece in building a family with her partner. When tragedy strikes, though, it becomes time for her to finally strike out, though not on her own. Accompanying her is Yfan-wyn, one of her two sons—the one afflicted with the same itch to roam as she has. And the story follows them as they embrace a part of themselves they have always denied and feared. Rhy-lee, because of how she was abandoned, because she feared hurting her family like her mother hurt her, and Yfan-wyn because it’s always been treated as something to resist, something that his mother always had to fight against. Yet here they are allowed to go, to explore, to make friends and escape danger and discover a world that is certainly not safe. But at the same time, even as the world threatened to chew them up and spit them back out, there’s something beautiful about it, about the wild wonder, the strangeness and the wider community that can exist only when the familiar is left behind and the unknown is pierced. And slowly Rhy-lee finds that what she feared isn’t the case, what her mother assumed isn’t the case—to explore and to wander doesn’t mean to give up a home. It doesn’t mean giving up a family. The action of the piece is intense but the story maintains a slower pace throughout, with a sweep of adventure and a definite sense of fun. It shows what the characters are capable of when they celebrate their drive outward, while showing how necessary it can be at times to have some place to return to, and people who will always welcome you back.

“un/furled” by Jes Rausch (Strange Horizons)
Notes: A rush of different flavor variations compete for attention within the clear confines of the glass, one subtly more dominant and yet all combining into a memorable, bracing whole.
Pairs with: Four Hop IPA
Review: A four-part computer consciousness, made from incorporating four very different humanoid minds, is put in charge of a massive solar collector and tasked with providing energy to a burgeoning population. Only there seems to be something wrong with the system, and as the minds begin to investigate, a number of anomalies become clear that point to a very different (and bleak) situation playing out. The voices of the personalities are clear even as they merge at times, the four minds a gestalt, a “we,” while also allowing for individuality. That split between the individual and the consensus becomes more and more apparent as the story progresses, as the darkness and the terror of what’s happening begins to creep in along the edges of perception. It looks at how the minds within the greater whole vie for dominance and control even as they’re supposed to work seamlessly together. It’s a story that looks at corruption and a system tainted by inequality and injustice, while at the same time imagining a computer consciousness that might be starting to slip into a kind of dementia. It’s not a piece that provides solid answers, but one that provides clues for the reader to follow, an unreliable narrator struggling to hold things together. And for me it’s a story that resonates with the loneliness of space and the desperation of what might be the last vestige of an entire civilization, detached from the planet of its birth and yet connected as well, holding on as long as they can even as time takes more and more away. The style is bracing and strange but works to create an experience that blends some visual tricks and literary gymnastics to great effect. It explores memory and loss, ability and ignorance, and does it all with a keen focus and devastating impact.

Art by Red Nose Studio

“The Library of Lost Things” by Matthew Bright (Tor)
Notes: Deep and with a since of nearly overwhelming longing, the first sip is a punch of premise and wonder that settles into a darker and much more intimate profile.
Pairs with: Barleywine
Review: The premise alone would have been enough to make me stop and pay attention to this story—a library made up of the stories lost to the world, the books that people never finish, or the works that are lost to time through accident or intentional destruction. Thrown into the mix, though, is a community of people working in this environment, ruled over by the authoritarian Librarian, for whom imagination is a sin, and populated by denizens stolen from time or made up of ideas and bits of detritus. And newly employed as a cataloger of these lost texts comes Tom, a young man on a very specific mission, infiltrating the Library in order to find a particular lost book. Along the way, though, he gets to know the other residents of the Library (including a few absolutely adorable Library rats), and discovers the complex and wrenching nature of this place, of history, of being lost. The story is full of longing, full of Tom’s need to hide who he is in order to pass safely before the Librarian’s scrutinizing gaze. The backdrop to the story is the destruction of stories and texts, from book burnings to moments of authorial self-doubt, and the Librarian’s voice becomes the one saying that these stories are best forgotten, catalogued but never experienced. It renders the loss of so many texts, of so many voices, value neutral, which is something that Tom cannot do, who feels the loss like a cut, like the absence that they are. It’s a story full of a heavy tension of the constant fear of discovery—Tom’s mission is largely isolating and personal, but it also allows for intimate connections and slow reach toward something better, safer, for stealing something lost and dragging it back into the light.

“Our Secret, In Keys” by Suyi Davies Okungbowa (Fireside)
Notes: With a nose of fire and notes of sweetness swirling into something almost chaotic and brash, the experience is breathtaking even as it is nearly violent in its boldness.
Pairs with: Cinnamon Hard Cider
Review: At the heart of this story is a relationship, fragile in the fact that one of the people in it is something powerful and magical and dangerous, unable to contain their fire when exposed to certain kinds of light. It’s a strain between the two, who live from place to place, trailing destruction, until they find what seems a perfect place, where they can shut the rest of the world away. The story, to me, becomes about the barriers and limitations. The nature of the character means that there are things they cannot do, ways that they cannot be together because of how they would hurt each other. Where this distance is a comfort to one of the characters, though, for the narrator it is unbearable, and so they go about trying to find a way to break through that barrier, regardless of what their partner wants or consents to. And in that the story becomes about fire and which of the character’s heats is more dangerous. Certainly one of them can start buildings on fire, and yet that doesn’t hold a candle to the damage that the narrator’s passion can do, the destruction not limited to property or even life, but to something much more intangible but even more important. Because the story is about the destruction of trust and respect, how breaking through those barriers are toxic to relationships, to love. It’s not a story about monsters so much as it is about prisons. Those that people are born into because of their natures and those that people create for themselves, built with the bricks of betrayal and violation and far more isolating and consuming because of it. It’s a rather heartbreaking story, beautiful and fiery but leaving only ash in its wake.

Art by Dana Tiger

“If a Bird Can Be a Ghost” by Allison Mills (Apex)

Notes: Pouring a ghostly yellow like the memory of sunlight, the drink mixes the bitterness of loss with a dim hope that persists, strong and lifting and holding on despite the grief.

Pairs with: White IPA

Review: Shelly is a young woman, the granddaughter of a real-life ghostbuster, someone who eases spirits into the next world and exorcises them from homes when they become a bit too troublesome. The story takes a very fresh and interesting take on ghosts, though, casting the most troublesome as the ghosts of animals confused over what has happened to them and showing that it’s ghosts who have much more to fear from people than the other way around. For Shelly, what starts as a way to connect with her grandmother becomes something else when she experiences a sharp loss and refuses to accept it, keeps looking to this supernatural phenomenon to try and ease the pain and grief that she feels, avoiding dealing with death by seeing it as somehow not final. The story is a mix of heavy loss and something lighter, almost fun, as Shelly learns about the way of ghosts. It’s a story about growing up and dealing with loss, learning that there is no bargaining with some things, that for all Shelly is granted power by her ability to bind ghosts, they cannot stand in for the people that are gone, and that ultimately she needs space and time to heal, not drawers stuffed with old ghosts who don’t understand what’s going on. It’s a slower story and a difficult one at times because of how understandable Shelly’s anger and frustration are, and how much harm she is capable of doing to reflect the hurt she holds inside. Even so, it’s a piece that reaches for healing and release, even if grief lingers and haunts for a time, even if pain never fully departs. And it’s also about asking for help, and allowing others in to try and ease what pain can be eased, finding comfort in family and community and finding the strength to move on and help others, especially those who are vulnerable and alone.

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POSTED BY: Charles, avid reader, reviewer, and sometimes writer of speculative fiction. Contributor to Nerds of a Feather since 2014.