Short Story Review Round Up 5

Translunar Travelers Lounge had an issue in, um, August that was pretty good, in an effort to catch up on my reviews here's five stories from it that caught my eye.

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1. The Last Scribe Of Tazrahal by Jess Hyslop

Idris is the last scribe who carves the sacred script onto the walls of Tazrahal. No one believes that this keeps a demon at bay, it’s just an old tradition.

One day he does not go out to carve and exactly what is going on is revealed.

Read This: To learn exactly what has been inscribed on the walls for so long
Don’t Read This: Stories should not be cute

2. Miss 49 Days by Mina Li

“In Chinese mythology, there’s an old woman in the underworld that’s always stirring a big pot of soup. When you die, you drink it to forget everything that happened in your life, so that you can move onto the next one. It’s a story they taught us in Chinese school when we were kids.”

In this story our narrator has bought a house and then the woman who owned it previously comes when she is making soup. The woman is dead. Previously she made soup for the dead on their way to whatever comes next.

The dead can stay for 49 days. And our narrator’s mother is terminally ill.

Read This: A bittersweet story of soup and coming to terms with grief
Don’t Read This: So much left undone, so many regrets

3. The Case Of The Teapot Of Enlightenment by Anya Ow

Master Lee Engseng is a Taoist priest brought in to investigate the theft of the teapot Cloud Step. It was a relic kept after a member of the clan drank from it then ascended to enlightenment. There were many traps, untriggered, and many other valuable and esoteric objects, unstolen. An inside job, and aimed at just the one object.

Engseng is in no hurry to solve the case, so spends time learning about the city and it’s society (and  makes a connection to another of Ow’s stories, Seven Parts Full). And along the way he may try and fix more than just a missing teapot.

Read This: For a fairly gentle mystery and an exploration of tea and enlightenment
Don’t Read This: If you would prefer a thrilling detective story with chases and fistfights

4. The Library Of Babyl by Jared Millet

The library is understaffed and the wizard Melnock has forgotten the incantation that unlocks his scrying, a security measure against the city’s enemies. As they try to work out the answer to his recovery question they are interrupted by a warrior with the prince of Uürk and the Black Book of Belek. The prince is due to be sacrificed unless there is something in the book to break the geas.

The city authorities have laid siege to the library and things are desperate. But Ragna the librarian knows that the important thing is that there is a client with a request and he will try to answer it.

Read This: For a Babylonian-flavoured tribute to libraries with some sly satire interwoven
Don’t Read This: Wizards forgetting their passwords is too real

5. One Coin, Under Earth by Jessica Yang

“Long ago, Ke Guan had:

1. Held up a collapsing bridge with their bare hands
2. Broken a siege with the might of a flaming staff
3. Saved a bureaucrat from drowning in spectral horse shit”

But it’s been centuries, most of the heroes have ascended to heaven. Still, on the day Jinye’s fortuneteller aunt declared was lucky she meets Ke Guan, now a maintenance worker on the sky train. They go outside, high in the air, to fix things.

Jinye studies the classics, knows the stories and poems about them. So they become friends and maybe they’ll learn what happens when a hero has passed the age of heroes.

Read This: Adventure, friendship and heroism
Don’t Read This: Problems on the rail commute are too real