Short Story Review Round Up 2

Still vastly behind on reviews, here's ten short stories I read and had something to say about.

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1. Goldilocks by Amy Barnes in Gone Lawn

“If you come across a real bear, you should stand still like a statue carved out of wood by a Smoky Mountain craftsman who has obviously never met a real bear.”

Read This: A woman eats teddy bears and it’s weird
Don’t Read This: You actually want a proper Goldilocks story

2. Layover by Kathryn Kulpa in Gone Lawn

You are in a hotel, and the airline has lost your clothes. They won’t take your money but you have been able to borrow some from Stacey or perhaps her mother.

There are crows outside, and your favourite episode of Star Trek keeps playing.

Read This: You are caught between dreams, purgatory and an anonymous airport hotel
Don’t Read This: You hate being addressed in the second person

3. …Signifying Nothing by L Jordan in Tough

Darren Wilkes was a cop who worked in the Evidence Room and then he was framed and went to prison. He survives there despite the best efforts of the inmates and then is let out.

He wants revenge but that isn’t going to help him, nor anyone else.

Read This: A tale of corruption, prison and judgement
Don’t Read This: People suffering with no relief, especially being beaten, is not for you

4. Lepidoptera by Cleo Velentza in Claw And Blossom

To get to the otherworld requires a map but a map can be almost anything. A garden for example. And a garden has butterflies and moths to visit the otherworld.

Read This: For a meditation on gardens and the otherworld
Don’t Read This: If you want anything to happen, my love

5. The Red Mother by Elizabeth Bear in Tor.com

Auga Hacksilver is a wandering sorcerer who is looking for his brother; his brother was exiled for manslaughter but Auga found the real killer. He goes up north to find a land covered is ash and soot from a dragon nesting in a volcano. There is Ragnar Karlson known as Half-Hand known as Wound-Rain, Auga’s former lover, and also his wife, also Auga’s former lover, and the two were not happy to discover this.

Ragnar is the only one who can help Auga.

This is a medieval Norse fantasy story, at least two steps closer to actual Norse legend and history than the usual horned-helmet Viking nonsense. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The charm depends a little on how you feel about the traditional riddle challenge and the flyting – an insult contest.

Read This: Very Norse flavoured fantasy
Don’t Read This: Very heavy fantasy elements

6. How To Become A Witch-Queen by Theodora Goss in Lightspeed

The king has died, and his son will take the throne. He has no more need for his mother, who was once the fairest of them all and lived with seven dwarves in the forest.

He has a need for her daughter, his sister, who will have to marry a prince for political reasons, like it or not. The queen is not down with that. She will have to embrace the legacy of her stepmother, the witch-queen. But this time she will do it right.

Read This: For what happened after Snow White, and for that matter, what happened with Snow White
Don’t Read This: You don’t want a kinder better witch-queen (who is not that much kinder)

7. The Story Scheherazade Never Told by Defne Çizakça in Barzakh

In Istanbul a woman tells tales in a room while a pandemic rages. Scheherazade told tales and that kept a man’s violence contained. This woman has a different way of dealing with the violence.

Read This: A powerful look at abuse and death
Don’t Read This: You would rather not have grim tales turned grimmer still

8. Advanced Word Problems In Portal Math by Aimee Picci in Daily Science Fiction

Penny grows up in a world that expects girls and women to excel in everything and blames them for the failures of men. She looks for a portal to another world where she can escape this. The story is in the form of questions on how to calculate the probability of such a portal existing.

Read This: For questions that set up an unflattering juxtaposition between this world and fantasy worlds
Don’t Read This: For answers to the implied questions, or the actual ones posed for that matter

9. The Heart Is A Spare Part by Hailey Piper in Baffling Magazine

RZ-D returns to Gyrocore to discover that Jagger-9000 has gone bad. They have a wild west showdown in a weird robot town.

Read This: For a stylised and stylish robo-western
Don’t Read This: If you don’t like the resolution being telegraphed

10. Banana Milk by Kwan Ann Tan in Pithead Chapel

Ba is the only one in the house who drinks banana milk, then he dies. The last carton waits in the fridge as they mourn.

But as the days and weeks go by they have different ideas on how to pay respect, what to put on the altar.

Read This: For a quiet story about moving on and not moving on
Don’t Read This: If grief is too raw for you