Short Business: One, Two Three
Mar. 29th, 2021 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ladybusinessJust three stories this week because brain fog is a huge thing for me right now. Hopefully I'll return stronger next week, but at the same time we are waiting for our phone calls about work reopening so... If you'd like to, please tell me about short stories you've enjoyed which are compatible with tired brain.
Monday
After a year of not reading a lot of stories at Uncanny Magazine, this week I started working through some of their back list as award season led to me seeing a lot of tweets about stories published there. "Burn or The Episodic Life of Sam Wells As A Super" by A. T. Greenblat is a story I have spent a lot of time avoiding because I was sure, from the excerpt shared online, that it was going to be extremely tragic. Not so, and I should absolutely have read it sooner!
"Burn or The Episodic Life of Sam Wells As A Super" is definitely a story about a man dealing with the difficult revelation that he has a superpower, and that having a superpower which appears uncontrollably and sets your head on fire causes a great deal of problems. It's a story about Sam, a man who has lost his friends, his boyfriend, and his place in ordinary society because of a power he can't do anything about. And it's a story about the downsides of superpowers, particularly in a world which, like the world of the X-Men, contains a lot of prejudice towards 'supers'. So, there's a lot of background sadness and trouble to Sam's life.
However, the story begins at a point when that life is just about to change as he makes a bid to enter a team of supers, and gets a job as their accountant. Once part of the team, he'll be challenged, and disabused, of his idealistic notions about what it means to be a super, but he'll also gain friends, skills, and a new perspective on his life as a man who burns. If I was trying to describe the feel of this story it is at many points bittersweet, but with an upbeat ending and a lot of humour packed in along the way. It's also a smart, character-building story which makes you care about Sam Wells, and his new friends. This one works as a great standalone story, but if there were more stories about Sam I would love to read them. And, as always, I mean this as a compliment not a knock on short fiction.
Tuesday
Continuing my trend of picking through Uncanny's backlist recommendations, this week I also read "The Nine Scents of Sorrow" by Jordan Taylor which is a sensual historical fantasy story about a non-binary perfumiere who brings more than a touch of magic to their scent blends. This is one of those quiet, meandering stories that takes the long route to telling its story; revealing bits about the background of it's main character, Sorrow, as it drops plot points, and perfume notes. It's very invested in taking the reader on a journey through the way sense can evoke memory via the creation of perfumes. And it feels very classic; partly because of its setting at the Court of Versailles, and partly because of its preoccupation with elegantly describing scents and settings. I loved it. If you're into original fiction with a fairy tale feel I think you'll enjoy this one.
Wednesday
I don't very often write about micro flash fiction although I enjoy reading it on Twitter but this story posted on Mar 17. 2021, at Micro Flash Fiction caught my eye and I thought people might like to give it a go. It's a quick piece on the concept of the tricky, partial bargains magic makes, and what it really means to be granted invincibility. A thought provoking shot.
Monday
After a year of not reading a lot of stories at Uncanny Magazine, this week I started working through some of their back list as award season led to me seeing a lot of tweets about stories published there. "Burn or The Episodic Life of Sam Wells As A Super" by A. T. Greenblat is a story I have spent a lot of time avoiding because I was sure, from the excerpt shared online, that it was going to be extremely tragic. Not so, and I should absolutely have read it sooner!
"Burn or The Episodic Life of Sam Wells As A Super" is definitely a story about a man dealing with the difficult revelation that he has a superpower, and that having a superpower which appears uncontrollably and sets your head on fire causes a great deal of problems. It's a story about Sam, a man who has lost his friends, his boyfriend, and his place in ordinary society because of a power he can't do anything about. And it's a story about the downsides of superpowers, particularly in a world which, like the world of the X-Men, contains a lot of prejudice towards 'supers'. So, there's a lot of background sadness and trouble to Sam's life.
However, the story begins at a point when that life is just about to change as he makes a bid to enter a team of supers, and gets a job as their accountant. Once part of the team, he'll be challenged, and disabused, of his idealistic notions about what it means to be a super, but he'll also gain friends, skills, and a new perspective on his life as a man who burns. If I was trying to describe the feel of this story it is at many points bittersweet, but with an upbeat ending and a lot of humour packed in along the way. It's also a smart, character-building story which makes you care about Sam Wells, and his new friends. This one works as a great standalone story, but if there were more stories about Sam I would love to read them. And, as always, I mean this as a compliment not a knock on short fiction.
Tuesday
Continuing my trend of picking through Uncanny's backlist recommendations, this week I also read "The Nine Scents of Sorrow" by Jordan Taylor which is a sensual historical fantasy story about a non-binary perfumiere who brings more than a touch of magic to their scent blends. This is one of those quiet, meandering stories that takes the long route to telling its story; revealing bits about the background of it's main character, Sorrow, as it drops plot points, and perfume notes. It's very invested in taking the reader on a journey through the way sense can evoke memory via the creation of perfumes. And it feels very classic; partly because of its setting at the Court of Versailles, and partly because of its preoccupation with elegantly describing scents and settings. I loved it. If you're into original fiction with a fairy tale feel I think you'll enjoy this one.
Wednesday
I don't very often write about micro flash fiction although I enjoy reading it on Twitter but this story posted on Mar 17. 2021, at Micro Flash Fiction caught my eye and I thought people might like to give it a go. It's a quick piece on the concept of the tricky, partial bargains magic makes, and what it really means to be granted invincibility. A thought provoking shot.
