I’ve been trying to organize my short fiction a little bit better this month, so I have two magazine review posts and a little bit less for the miscellany. And yet, I still have some favorites to share, both in short-form and long. Let’s take a look!

Short Fiction

September Favorites

I’ve already reviewed the September issue of Clarkesworld, which I thought was tremendous and had three stories that deserve a place here: “A Theory of Missing Affections” by Renan Bernardo, “Broken” by Laura Williams McCaffrey, and “The Music Must Always Play” by Marissa Lingen. My Asimov’s and Lightspeed mini-reviews also include three more favorites, in “The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea” by Naomi Kritzer, “A Gray Magic” by Ray Nayler, and “Eternity is Moments” by R.P. Sand. But what else?

• “In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind” (2013 novelette) by Sarah Pinsker. I’m a big Pinsker fan, but I’ve just recently circled back to this novelette that won a whole lot of other fans, winning the 2014 Sturgeon Award. It’s a truly beautiful family story, with a speculative element that plays more of a supporting role than a central one. The ending is just a hair neat for my tastes, but family portrait is so good that this is well worth a read regardless.
• “Spill” (2024 novella) by Cory Doctorow. My first Doctorow story features dual first-person perspective, with a hacker and an activist coming together to fight an oil pipeline going across indigenous lands. This relies heavily on the reader taking some satisfaction in environmental activists fighting over-the-top (though perhaps not unrealistic!) villains, and it’s not one that’s going to try to keep the hook set with a lot of twists and turns. But it is satisfying, and it really nails both character voices, which keeps things feeling fresh and interesting.

Strong Contenders

• “Other Worlds and This One” (2017 novelette) by Cadwell Turnbull. A disorienting, world-hopping novelette that was later published as part of an even more disorienting mosaic novel No Gods, No Monsters, this one is worth reading just for the words, and the story is fascinating as well, even if it’s not easy. There’s multiversal physics and a pair of heart-wrenching family stories. It’s not necessarily a story to put a neat bow on everything, but it’s an excellent read.
• “The Fairgrounds” (2024 short story) by Thomas Ha. Thomas Ha seems to write so many quietly ominous stories with adolescent protagonists, and this one is no exception, with a boy trying to impress a school crush by bringing home something impressive from the fair, only to find himself embroiled in a conflict he hardly understands. Plenty of atmosphere and plenty of introspection, this is a good one.
• “Bears Discover Fire” (1990 short story) by Terry Bisson. A Sturgeon Award winner with a dash of magical realism–the speculative element isn’t really the point, so much as it’s an opportunity to explore family and society. The storytelling is good enough to generate real interest in the family story, even if it’s a quiet one, and while the societal reaction to the titular discovery mostly sits in the background, it’s wonderfully worked.

Others I Enjoyed in September

This section is sparse, because most of the stories that would’ve been here ended up in one of my other magazine reviews.

• “The Edge of the World” (1989 short story) by Michael Swanwick. This feels like a cross between a “Gen X teens do something dangerous” story and a “be careful what you wish for” story, set against the backdrop of a world changed subtly from ours by the alternate history brought on by the speculative element. Some dated dialogue make it feel like a period piece–whether or not it was intended as one–and this feels like such a small piece of lives that some of the character decisions want more explanation. But at the same time, it’s engagingly written, well characterized, and a solid example of the type.
• “Letters From Mt. Monroe Elementary, Third Grade” (2024 short story) by Sarah Pauling. A generation ship story from the other direction, told via letters sent by children to aliens on their way to Earth. It’s a cool premise that’s executed well, though not necessarily one that comes together for a big wow moment in the plot.
• “This Container Transports a Disease Which Has No Cure” (2024 short story) by Taylor Rae. Though it hovers near 2,000 words, this feels a bit like a flash piece, consisting mostly of one vignette in a dystopian world and leaving the reader with a clever closing punch.

Novels and Novellas

Reviews Posted

• Alien Clay (2024 novel) by Adrian Tchaikovsky. A cross between extremely weird first contact, nearly VanderMeer-style, and a revolution story. The lead is a bit more cynical than I prefer, but it comes together well.
• Haunt Sweet Home (2024 novella) by Sarah Pinsker. A ghost story that isn’t scary, with a delightful reality TV setting and a personal growth arc that’s a lot more interesting than the speculative element.
• The Two Doctors Górski (2022 novella) by Isaac Fellman. The plot here comes in fits and starts, but the portrait of toxic personalities in academia is well worth the read regardless.
• Shubeik Lubeik (2023 graphic novel) by Deena Mohamed. My first graphic novel in over a decade, and it’s an exceptional one, with a couple fantastic character portraits in a world in which wishes and genies are real, with some fantastic art to boot.
• The Warm Hands of Ghosts (2024 novel) by Katherine Arden. A ghost story in a World War One setting that’s a quick read despite heavy themes, with plenty about family, loss, and trauma, and a speculative element that dovetails wonderfully with the speculative element.
• The City in Glass (2024 novel) by Nghi Vo. A short and mostly plotless novel about a demon grieving the destruction of a favorite city and slowly rebuilding it over centuries, with an enemies-to-lovers romance for good measure.

Other September Reads

• A Court of Mist and Fury (2016 novel) by Sarah J. Maas. I really didn’t care for the wildly popular A Court of Thorns and Roses, but I read the sequel upon the promise that it was significantly better, and. . . it is significantly better! The Fae don’t act much like Fae, and there are occasional plot dramas driven entirely by characters making terrible decisions, but both the romance and fantasy arcs are much more consistent and compelling, and it sets up an intriguing sequel hook for book three.
• One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967 novel) by Gabriel García Márquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa. There are a couple subplots here where the satire is absolutely viciously hilarious–though quite a bit dark–but there are also plots that just involve the main family making the same mistakes generation after generation. Perhaps with more knowledge of the author’s cultural context, I may find those also viciously hilarious, but instead, this was a mixed bag for me. Full review to come.
• The Wings Upon Her Back (2024 novel) by Samantha Mills. The story of leaving a religious group with a psychologically abusive leader, with plenty of action and secrets to uncover. Full review to come.
• The Reformatory (2023 novel) by Tananarive Due. I put this off for far too long because it was marketed as horror, and I don’t much care for horror. But despite the ghosts, this has more in common with Octavia Butler’s Kindred–one of the best books I’ve ever read–than the little genre horror I’ve experienced. This is a truly exceptional book that is going straight on my all-time favorites list. Full review to come.

SPSFC

The fourth annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC4) is just getting under way, and I have a team and a first-round allocation ready to go. Keep an eye out in the next couple weeks for more information about Team Tar Vol On and what we’ll be reading this year.