Short Business: Is It The Stories Or Is It Me?

[bookgazing]

Monday

This week I decided I would read a few stories from print collections I have in the house. I started with a story from N. K. Jemisin's How Long Til Black Future Month?, "Cloud Dragon Skies", which was originally published at Strange Horizons. I read Jemisin's introduction to the collection where she talks a little bit about how she came to write short fiction, and what the SFF literary world looked like when she started writing short fiction. In that introduction, she mentions how powerful it was for this story, her 'first pro-sale...to be about a nappy-haired black woman trying to save humanity from its own folly' and that made this story seem like a good place to start.

"Cloud Dragon Skies" is about a world where some of Earth's population moved to live in space after nearly destroying the Earth. These 'sky-people' have become very different to the population that now lives on Earth - for example, they ' have to dress in protective gear when they return to Earth as they're vulnerable to disease, and can't breathe the air. In this story, they return to study the changes in the sky which went from being blue to 'a pale, blushing rose' filled with clouds full of 'intention' when the narrator, Nahautu, who lives on Earth, was a child.

Jemisin has worked a lot into this story, making "Cloud Dragon Skies" a multi-layered narrative full of lots of angles to explore. It would be a great story to study on a course because you could pursue lines about environmentalism, feminism, scientific destruction, what the contrast between the two societies represents, male pride as a cause of destruction, science fiction that melds with fantasy, and probably plenty more that I'm missing. It's also one of those stories that I think really hits fully when you read the last line, which seems designed to make the reader eager to go back and re-explore the story with Nahautu's words in mind. There's lots to examine, and I can imagine students putting together really interesting essays.

Tuesday

Next up, "Logarithm" from Nudibranch by Irenosen Okojie, a story which I find very difficult to interpret. "Logarithm" is a very short piece made up of a collection of seemingly random images. By the end of the story some of the images are returned to, and this emphasis makes it clear they obviously have some wider significance, but I have absolutely no idea what that significance is.

Reviews of Nudibranch made it clear Okojie's stories are really experimental, and stream of consciousness. I'm often fine with just being carried along by imagery and tone in fiction. And when I started reading "Logarithm", I thought at least I'd have a similar, enjoyable reaction to this collection. Now, I'm not so sure… I also tried "Kookaburra Sweet" the second story in this collection, and I'll be trying some of the other stories, but I'm wondering if Okojie's style is just too experimental for me or if my current frame of reference doesn't give me enough information to understand these stories. In some ways, "Logarithm", and "Kookaburra Sweet", reminded me of "This World Is Full of Monsters" by Jeff Vandermeer, which I read when I started Short Business up again, and which was a little bit too much of a collage of fast-moving, seemingly random images for me.

On a related note, I'm wondering if it is a good idea to jump around in single-author short story collections, or whether you get better experience by reading straight through. I decided against reading the first story in How Long 'Till Black Future Month first because Jemisin mentions in her introduction that it's in response to an Ursula Le Guin story I haven't read. But now, I wonder if maybe I should have started there after all, and whether I should try to read Nudibranch in order. Thoughts?

Wednesday

On Wednesday, I returned to a more linear story; "Those Are Pearls" by Kat Howard. This was published a long time ago as part of a small book by Sarah McCarry's Guillotine Press, which also contained Sophie Samatar's "Meet Me In Iram". The book is a lovely little object to hold, and I was so excited when I found it as part of the great lock down reorganisation project a while ago. I read "Meet Me In Iram" when the book first arrived, but I think I then put this down "somewhere safe" and never read Kat Howard's story.

"Those Are Pearls" is about two sisters who have both broken their curses; one more successfully than the other. The more successful sister soon becomes a magnet for people who want to break their curses without having to go through the trials of traditional curse breaking. Meanwhile, Elaine, her sister, sees her curse regrow. With this story as a background, the first sister, and unnamed narrator, spends time unpacking the nature of curses, her own particular curse (silence) and the bond between the two sisters.

Howard is good at unpacking gender issues in fairytales, particularly the way that traditional methods of breaking them appear designed to keep women down. This story also makes interesting points about the different ways curses manifest for women and men, and highlights the painful realities of curses which are perhaps obscured by their original tellings. And it's full of striking images which capture the mind's eye, and remind the reader of the sharp, dark edges of fairy tales. I just wasn't sure how to feel about the ending. And I can't decide whether that's because Howard deliberately leaves it open for the reader to make up their mind about which sister's reaction to Elaine's fate is right, or if I'm just not catching her full point. It was a bit of an odd week for me and short fiction so I'm maybe putting this down to a bit of readerly frustration.

Thursday

Back to fiction online on Thursday with "A Life in Six Feathers" by Kathryn Yelinek. I saw this story reviewed as cosy SFF, and which is a good reminder that there really isn't a universal standard for that word. This story involves a life-changing accident, and ends with the protagonist heading in for an operation to remove cancer. The reader never finds out what happens to the patient, and while I am generally fine with ambiguous endings, especially if they end on a hopeful note, this was too much uncertainty for me to find the story my kind of cosy.

I think this is a story that a lot of people I know would enjoy. It's structured around a list of feather types. It's got a female scientist trying to become the first person to clone the archaeopteryx - 'the very first dinosaur to become a bird'. It shows how when life changes, and your goals change with it, you can find an equally satisfying life on a different, but related, path to the only one you thought could make you happy. It's definitely an interesting piece, and worth exploring, particularly if you like stories that continually make something positive out of a flavour of trial and disappointment.

Friday

Ok, so, clearly last week was a mixed week for me in relation to short fiction so I decided to round off the week with a story forestofglory rec'd in a recent blog post - "Loosestrife" by Marissa Lingen. Predictably, considering this was both a forestofglory rec and a story by Marissa Lingen, I had a great time reading "Loosestrife" which is about a character being led a merry dance by genetically engineered goats. I loved how the dialogue and the humour both felt very light and natural. I think writing natural sounding dialogue and comedy, which doesn't weigh a story down and stop it from moving, is one of the hardest things to do. And I'm always super excited when I find a story that pulls both off. I almost wanted to be in the world of this story because it was so fun.

I also learned through this story that Marissa Lingen's Patreon(correction: this is a multi-author project Patreon & more info can be found here) seems to be a series of stories all linked by a couple of characters who appear in a section at the end of the story. I should definitely subscribe to this Patreon because it looks like those sections build up to create a lovely story about the experience of reading in its own right.



Ideas for supporting these short fiction authors at this time

You can order books by N. K. Jemisin (The City And The City and many others), Irene Okojie (Nudibranch), and Kate Howard (An Unkindness of Magicians) anywhere online that's still shipping. Or you can pick up e-books by these authors. On a personal note, if you're buying physical books, please support book shops by ordering through their sites, as long as you're sure these shops are able to work safely at this time. Alternatively, Hive and Bookshop.org are set up to pass a portion of profits along to indie book shops.

Marissa Lingen has a Patreon account.

You can learn more about Kathryn Yelenik.

Finally, a great way to support short fiction authors in general is to support the places that publish them. Consider picking up a subscription to a short fiction magazine, or buying an individual issue.

Feel free to use the comments to recommend short stories you'd like to see written about here. Like, I said - bit of a weird week for me and short fiction, and I'd love some recs you think I'd really enjoy.

Comments

[forestofglory]

Yay! I'm glad you enjoyed "Loosestrife"

Just a quick correction The New Decameron project is not run by Marissa Lingen. It's a multi author project being run by several other people. Info here: https://www.patreon.com/projectdecameron

[bookgazing]

Thanks for recommending it and for the correction. I'll change that now.

[jhameia]

There are a lot of short story writers and authors on curiousfictions.com! Including yours truly. Like Patreon you can subscribe to them, though there aren't tiers, and they also take less fees from the authors.

[bookgazing]

Thanks for the recommendation. I don't think I've ever heard of that site before so definitely one to check out.