December Short Story Catch Up 3

More stories I read this year, now briefly reviewed for your convenience.

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1. Imagine A Thief With Golden Fire In Their Voice by Riley Neither in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

There was a thief once, who met the Lady. The Lady whose magic was overwhelming, so powerful, so good. And she met the thief, who tried to beg using magic.

She reformed him, that’s the tale, and his magic was so strong, though he was never trusted. The only magician to master the unnamed elements for a hundred years – unnamed because who would he speak to about them?

Now the Lady has died and the thief is out from under her shadow. From under her thumb. Because the story of how she redeemed him is incomplete and he will never tell. Can never tell.

But being able to master the unnamed elements means a mastery beyond death. And the thief is still not trusted. They have a task for him.

Read This: For a dark tale of magic, resolution and the stories woven around it
Don’t Read This: If I want bad people being held up as good I can just open a newspaper

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2. Anwen’s Song, Efa’s Shoes, and the Halls in the Hills by Rebecca Harrison In Luna Station Quarterly

Music is poison for the Barrow Men, but their touch stops voices. Five years ago they took Gladys and now she returns, grey-haired, voiceless, tired and old. They had danced her in the halls until she was worn out.

Anwen and Efa practice their singing, but it does not keep them away and Efa is taken. Anwen must find a way to get her back, though none have ever managed this before.

Read This: For a grimly uplifting fairytale of sacrifice and loyalty
Don’t Read This: There’s a metaphor here but it’s muddied by the mythology

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3. Those Damned Birds by Emmy Teague in Roi Fainéant

Something is taking the chickens. It breaks down the door to the pen. It doesn’t come if someone keeps watch but Grandfather has to work and Grandmother won’t stay out overnight on her own.

Not with something that will tear through the pen like that. Something must be done.

Read This: For a moody story of chicken farming
Don’t Read This: Chickens come to a bad end and this story an unclear one

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4. Swimming Lessons by Liam Hogan in Haven Speculative

Patrick’s uncle left him the cottage in his will, so Patrick took the opportunity. To leave his job in the city as a clerk, take his savings and move to the seaside and try to write his stories. It’s not going well, and as for the sea he never even learned to swim.

Then a woman in a fur coat comes to visit and everything changes.

Read This: For a new twist on a very popular folk tale
Don’t Read This: It’s still another selkie tale

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5. The Firewalkers by Molly Seeling in Spry

The Firewalkers aren’t supposed to talk about their past. Volunteer or conscript, rich or poor, used to plenty of water or rationed to the last drop, no surnames, no hometowns. They’re being monitored you see.

Buckie’s the best they’ve got in Team 6, who are dowsing for water to stop the Stony Ridge Megafire. But he’s limping. They’re not getting any support or orders, so maybe they aren’t being monitored.

They need to go on anyway.

Read This: The Firewalkers have secrets and they have strength, together
Don’t Read This: Wild fires are dystopic enough already without all this strangeness

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6. The Probability Of One by Jen Brown in Fantasy

The language of particles can be used to see where they have been and where they will go. And this might change events, and at the very least change whoever is looking.

When the child is born Darius looks forward to find out what Myiad, God Prince Of The Many Mouthed Empire will be. If he will take Darius’s gifts and use them to destroy, reave. Or if there is another future.

Or if there’s something else to be done.

Read This: A very short time-bending tale of hope and fear and despair and revenge
Don’t Read This: It’s not at all clear what happens when or how

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7. The Prince Of Salt And The Ocean’s Bargain by Natalia Theodoridou in Uncanny

Salt asks the Ocean for a wish and the Ocean grants it. He’s born on the shore as a man, Thelo, who is taken in by Marietta.

Thelo knows nothing of being a man but learns. Eventually he learns to make salt. And with the salt comes riches, and land, and Gustavo the merchant. Between the three of them, they build a life and eventually a kingdom, and so war, and a bargain with the Ocean.

But this is only one version of the tale and there may be more to be learned.

Read This: For several folk tale-like stories of love, trickery, bargaining and fighting combined into one more complex narrative.
Don’t Read This: Salt is not a person, the Ocean does not keep bargains

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8. Mezcalero by Anthony Neil Smith in Tough

The new maestro of the palenque that makes mezcal introduces us to his first attempt. He inherited the palenque from his adoptive father. Though not a blood relative he nevertheless has put everything he has been given and taken from his family into the brew.

As he takes us through the process, winnowing the connoisseurs from the amateurs, he tells us of his history with the family, and how he ended up the maestro. With this unique mezcal.

Read This: For a story of abuse, revenge, tradition, blood and mezcal
Don’t Read This: There’s murder and despite the narrator’s claims the mezcal is not made in a strictly traditional manner

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9. The Placer by Tim Brown in Roi Fainéant

Albert is going through his apprenticeship as a Placer. He has an island to populate, plants, trees, animals. No predators. He can take them out of his bag and bring them swiftly to maturity.

He remembers his lessons, and his mentor. And Sally in the diner and how tomatoes slide out of his cheeseburger. And the boss in his big house, and why did he make tomatoes that way?

Read This: As Albert learns lessons and also reveals to us exactly what’s in his bag
Don’t Read This: A sub-contracted creation that’s light-hearted comedy is not for you

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10. 23andMe by Terena Elizabeth Bell in Tough

Jackson teases Sally that she has the hoarding gene, though it’s actually just that she grew up poor. Eventually though she takes a genetic test. And discovers she has a sister she never knew about.

Everyone suggests she calm down about it, but she becomes obsessed. Things spiral out of control.

Read This: A look into how simple things can become big problems
Don’t Read This: It’s from the outside and unclear exactly how we end up here