S

What a great collection of short speculative fiction. I think Solaris and Rebellion did a great job of rounding up authors you ought to know–definitely going to go look further into some of them after having read their short stories.

I feel that some of the authors are more suited to the short story format than others, but every story at least had something I could think over: an ending, a concept, a constraint, and so on. 

The bad: 

• Some plot and character threads that felt like they were being built up only to go nowhere–maybe artifacts of editing? Specifically, Kiera and Jinx having tension that I thought was going to become plot-relevant relationship issues, but it blew over. Plus, the story feeling structured like a whodunnit except that with maybe the exception of guessing who is committing the murders, I don't think a reader could have unraveled what happened.

• Really cool takes on some character archetypes: luddite gumshoe, pure and wholesome teddy bear partner, l33t h@cker. Was even surprised by the shithead cop, at points.
• Nice pacing–any changes in tempo felt warranted
• A dystopian cyberpunk future that feels absolutely plausible from where I'm standing in 2023–queerness and all

First romance book I've read where fatness is really celebrated. Stinson's descriptions of weight and heft were loving and made me think twice about how I approach fatness myself. Super sensual, too.

I don't think there's necessarily a driving plot, but I enjoyed my read regardless.

To chop up a Tumblr post I made about the book:

The Luminous Dead was a super effective horror novel for me. I had to go sit next to my partner and be patted on the arm while I was getting through the last 10%, lmao.

The limited third-person POV works so, so well in a story where one character's understanding of her environment starts deteriorating.

Our protagonist Gyre is exploring a deep cave system at the behest of a mysterious corporate concern all by herself. She's wired into her cave suit, recycling and recirculating waste material in a closed loop, and subsisting off of food delivered straight to her gut because a monster in the caves may be attracted to any trace of humans.

From the second Gyre enters the caves, she's robbed of connecting to her environment with three of her senses: smell, taste, and touch. She especially laments the last as exploration of the cave wears on her.

All that's left to her is sight and sound, and it's not enough as she starts questioning why she's been hired to go down here and whether she's really alone.

While I can think of a logical reading of the novel—Gyre is hallucinating badly because of paranoia and stress from early on, and it only getting worse as things go to shit—the timbre of Gyre's panic and her constantly rounding back on herself on whether or not she can believe her perceptions color that whole experience. I cannot in good faith just say to somebody, “Oh, she imagined all those things.” Somewhere deep down, I question myself, too. And that's why “The Luminous Dead” will be on my mind for a long time.

Picked this up on a whim because like many during the early days of the pandemic, I dreamed about moving out to the middle of nowhere to escape people and the plague. Conover's experience and writing about actually doing it and reporting on its realities is personally delivered here. I won't say the pace is plodding, but he takes his time (maybe he's even on prairies time). All in all, glad I caught this one.

Two really great characters in Bez and Makeda–loved seen an ADHD love interest in Bez and how she moved through the world with her particularness, and Makeda's journey to serve herself before serving literally everybody else was super relatable.

The ending came like a bat out of hell, though–from where? How? Like, it was set up in a small way, but the pacing and the amount of time dedicated to it vs. the rest of the book gave me whiplash.

Would recommend to others just to see Bez and Makeda's characters unfold, but with a warning.

Laughed more than I thought I was going to–Lillian's voice and Wilson's writing were really great, especially in small parts in otherwise neutral descriptions or corners of the writing. Speaking of, wow, I wanted to throttle Lillian in the beginning and then was rooting for her by the end. The “I was fucked over and I'm not going to let that happen to these snots” journey won me over in a major way.

And good on Wilson–I didn't think he would actually bring the unrequited/unresolved romantic tension with Lillian and Madison anywhere. Of course it doesn't, like, HEA or anything, but at least giving it air made me cheer in a wretched gay way, lmao.

Thought a lot about lies and stories we can tell ourselves for decades after this one. Hmm!

How to put this. If something makes me draw fanart, I suppose I simply must stan, lmao. I don't feel like I can give a well-constructed review here–I just want people to read this!!

Certainly the middle drags some as the characters are themselves at a loss at how to proceed during that period, but I felt like it was worth getting through as we got to see them learn to live with each other.

This book's got a young woman coming into her own power, grappling with her family legacy, and staring down certain war as an obsessed monarch tries to take apart the family she's created–all in here. A whimsical fantasy with veins of weirdness, and a really fun read. 

I do love Lanie becoming the greatest necromancer the country's seen in centuries and taking that power to right the wrongs of her family at her beloved goddess's command. Is it her fault her family have been horrors for generations? No. But she still benefits from her family's legacy, and she's committed to balancing things out. A streak of nobility I can admire, and would love to see further acted on in future books.Also, Bran Fiakhna's whole obsession with Lanie? Chef's kiss. We love that gay shit. And do not get me started on gyrgardon/gyrveard. Insane. If I think too hard about “I will have thee or I will have no one” I'll lose it.A surprising amount of feet stuff, though, lmao.

Still thinking about this one months later. “Rattlebone” is the story of a black neighborhood in Kansas City and revolves around a young girl, Irene, as she grows up. Her family and her friends and neighbors make many appearances, and Clair is so economic about making you care about their lives in just a few pages. I legitimately went on a transformation through a later chapter, “A Sunday Kind of Love”: incensed, then understanding, and then in happy tears by the end.

Man!!

How do I put this. This book made me pace a lot.

God. It's Machado's memoir of being in an abusive queer relationship. Each chapter is stylized or themed after a named topic; it worked for me because it was great framing for the (usually upsetting) content.

A later cluster of chapters lives rent-free in my head still. The Choose Your Own Adventure section? Oh my God. What a great use of form. It really hammered home how 1. bleak the relationship was by then 2. how repetitive the abuse was 3. how inescapable the abuse was (all of the page choices making you go back to the start of the day or a time of the day!!) 4. the extra meta chastisement from Machado if you just read the pages through straight, goddamn (“not following the CYOA rules doesn't mean you can escape that this happened”).

Diverse Gothic mystery! There really isn't a way for me to not use the word “romp” to describe this book, at least as far as the plot goes. The action clips along nicely, the little discomfiting supernatural details are engrossing, the gruesome past events are hard to stomach, and the voice–the voice!!–is so strong in this book. Characters' and general narration both. Take a look at a preview to see what I mean.

I will definitely keep my eye out for more of Jess Kidd's work in the future.

A beautifully-written queer retelling of Percival, of Arthurian myth. The writing has that lofty, old-timey feel in parts, but it never drags. It's a quick read, and Peretur's steadfast sense of right and wrong and of what's good left me feeling recharged.

CW: There's some brutal descriptions of children being raped by high-school boys in some later chapters. They're brief, but vivid.

Took me a while to get used to Erdrich's terse writing, but I warmed up to it. Super economical—amazing what she could say with so little.

Interwoven, complex view of a community. All the little details of how people related to each other and lived with each other made everything seem alive. (No doubt a lot of it sourced from talking to the author's grandfather and own community members.)

I think I'm not in the mood for a cozy fantasy—keep looking at how many pages I have left and trying to rush through it. Putting it aside for when I need a soft book like this!

It was exactly what the summary said–English woman prowling for hot goss at a church–and I thought I could hang, but I just wasn't feeling it! If I'm in more of this mood later, I might re-try.

Despite the blooming of a queer romance, the pacing felt plodding to me and the world-building was feeling thrown-together. 

Despite three library extensions, I couldn't prioritize this one. Would love to return to it sometime.

Beautiful imagery and diction, though sometimes poetic to the point of being jarring or messing up reading flow. Still, really beautiful—sometimes cutting. I had to prepare myself to be in the headspace to read this because of the heaviness, sometimes.

Plot hadn't appeared as of 26%, so...

Going to come back to this for insomnia nights, so not in a hurry to finish it!

Despite an interesting world, I didn't get a lot of interiority on any one character so I think I couldn't invest in anything going on. Would love to try again later!

I absolutely believe this DNF is a victim of my current slump, so I'd love to come back to it when I have the space for it and its voice that I'm not connecting with right now.

Was having fun, but realized I didn't necessarily want to read the rest of the book to find out how this motherfucker kept tripping up the rest of his life.

Not in the headspace for incidental content with adults seeking out teenage sex workers, though I want to finish this another time.