Another month, another batch of short fiction to read. Let’s take a look at the two magazines I read in full this August! 

Clarkesworld

The August issue of Clarkesworld features a couple authors I’d immensely enjoyed in the past, so I was really excited to get to this one. And as expected, it gave me plenty to enjoy. 

The issue opens with The Time Capsule by Alice Towey, in which a woman scavenging in the desert centuries after the collapse of society as we know it happens upon an artifact meant for space exploration that may turn out to be something more. It’s not a story with an excess of twists and turns, but it’s a good read that makes for an entertaining start to the issue. 

Next up is the quiet tension of The Sort by Thomas Ha. I’ve read a lot of Ha’s work, and he has a recognizable style that I really enjoy, digging deep into mundane interactions while hinting at underlying danger that keeps the tension high even without a clear antagonist—sometimes without a clear overarching plot at all. “The Sort” deals with a father and son from a family that isn’t quite normal, traveling through a new town that likely won’t accept them for what they are. It’s a story that feels like it could be an episode in a larger tale, and I’m not totally sure how I feel about an ending that doesn’t offer a whole lot of closure. But its exploration of family and neurodivergence in strange and possibly hostile circumstances is wonderful, and it gripped me from start to finish. It might take a reread for me to figure out how I feel about the ending, but either way, it’s still my favorite story in this issue. 

Rich Larson, another author I’ve enjoyed quite a lot in the past, delivers a gritty cyberpunk story in Molum, Molum, Molum the Scourge, in which a former gladiator is coaxed into a heist that could keep him going for years while getting revenge on an old frenemy. I’m not a particular fan of cyberpunk, but Larson writes well, and this is an entertaining tale that could be more for fans of the subgenre.  

The issue’s first novelette, Something Crossing Over, Something Coming Back by Timothy Mudie, tells of a psychological spy returning to meet the man whose mind he’d infiltrated during the war. The bulk of the tale consists in flashbacks to the lead living another man’s life, with the frame story returning for the conclusion. The flashback segments are just the kind of personal sci-fi I love so much, and while the frame isn’t especially satisfying, it’s unsatisfying in a way that nicely serves the theme. 

The second novelette, Canyon Dance by Rajeev Prasad, is an addiction story in space, with a husband and father trying to do right by his family while avoiding the places that would send him into relapse. There’s a nice arc here, and one that I imagine would particularly appeal to fans of addiction stories. 

The Deformed Saint and the Poison Wind by David McGillveray is a first contact story that uses technology to skip past some of the difficult communication that I often love so much, but one that still delivers a satisfying arc that brings both sides something they truly need. 

Where My Love Still Lives by Emily Taylor tells of an underground, postapocalyptic society in which a woman who braves the surface in search of food is forced to return to the home of a former lover who couldn’t abide her dangerous calling. It drives to a conclusion that I think makes sense, but I would’ve liked to see a little more time exploring how it gets there. 

The final story in the issue is also the shortest, Three Circuits of the Monoceros Ring by Marisca Pichette, an epistolary tale of a polycule sending and uncovering messages while on missions that fling them apart to the far corners of space. There’s a lot of longing here, but I spent so much time trying to keep the characters and their locations straight that I didn’t fully engage with the emotional core. I think that core story can work, but it needs either fewer distractions or a better hook to ground the reader. 

On the nonfiction side, the letter from the editor is short but full of good news, recapping Clarkesworld stories on awards shortlists and sharing that the magazine was very close to making up their lost subscriptions from the departed Amazon magazine program (they have since hit the number, with plenty of help from r/printsf and r/Fantasy members joining in early August). 

Additionally, Wole Talabi provides an overview of African speculative fiction, with demographic trends, common themes, and significant works throughout the eras. His piece is followed by interviews with Jonathan Strahan, anthologist extraordinaire whose New Adventures in Space Opera came out this month, and Nnedi Okorafor, renowned SFF author working on a novella trilogy in the universe of Who Fears Death and a literary metanarrative titled Death of the Author.  

GigaNotoSaurus 

The long story in this month’s GigaNotoSaurus is the novelette Elves in Illinois by Sarah J. Wu, a story about small-town prejudice that delivers some truly tense moments but drives toward a conclusion that’s not especially hard to see in advance. It’s a good read for those who don’t feel they need to be surprised, but not a must. 

 July favorites 

• The Sort by Thomas Ha (short story, Clarkesworld)
• Something Crossing Over, Something Coming Back by Timothy Mudie (novelette, Clarkesworld)