December Stories Update 2
10 Stories I read earlier this year
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Del Valle found a letter from an ancestor. It had directions to somewhere in the New World, somewhere that had the treasure they searched for El Loro, the legendary city.
But in trying to seek it Del Valle has rivals. Garçon and his men hunt him. Far out in the New World, beyond what is known, De Valle finds a Cathedral and must discover the truth, and face his enemies.
There are a hundred years of mysteries and secrets waiting
Read This: Gunpowder fantasy adventure that flirts with the
transcendent
Don’t Read This: Remix of New World legends
Pomegranate lives in Orissa, her father is the mapmaker. When she asks after her mother he can’t bear to say it and tells her she is in the City of Stories. She can’t find it on the map so goes out to look.
When her mother died Pomegranate got a magic gift. So when she meets the queen of Orissa, the queen offers a bargain. She will help Pomegranate find the City Of Stories. And in return Pomegranate will show her how she dies.
Strong fantasy story fairytale or fable adjacent, delving into lies and death.
Read This: A route through the labyrinth, a trickster
tricked
Don’t Read This: Unclear how the fabulism relates to the
facts
Muhammed Ali Jinnah is the world’s only consulting detective, operating from 221 Delhi-Mathura Road in British India. From there he solves crimes, occasionally deducing various facts about his visitors in an amusing way. His flatmate and assistant Khan writes up his adventures for the journals.
Then Inspector Nehru calls them to a crime scene; the Koh-i-Noor, the greatest diamond in the world has been stolen from a locked room. And in the room is a dead man, a forger. Jinnah must confront his nemesis, the mysterious Samudragupta of Crime.
An entertaining Indian riff off Sherlock Holmes becomes, inevitably given who is in the role, explicitly political. In a way that the original Sherlock Holmes always sidestepped, Holmes occasionally working for the government against spies or for an “illustrious client.” Holmes, for all his affection for the underdog and his occasional compounding of a felony in favour of larger questions of justice, is still in favour of law and order, and the Empire. This story casts light on the originals, showing the shadows where Holmes never went.
Also clever and fun in it’s own way.
Read This: Boldly inventive Sherlock Holmes pastiche
Don’t Read This: Detective stories bore you, especially when
they don’t play fair
Willa goes to talk to Granny, who’s dead. She needs help with her husband Gus. She’s in trouble, her baby is due. She knows he will know it’s not his. She knows it. Granny will help for a price.
Yet Granny has advice too. Willa’s too small to stand up to Gus? Put on some heels. Stand on a chair. Does he drink? What if he fell down the cellar steps. Why does she think there are so many widows?
There’s always a price, everyone wants something. Granny or Gus. But maybe not Willa’s baby. Maybe not.
Read This: Prices, mistakes, unhappy homes
Don’t Read This: Murder and necromancy to cover up
supernatural adultery
5. The Itch by Makena Metz in Broken Antler
Our narrator has had an itch on their shoulder for as long as they can remember. The doctors have tried everything, but they can’t find what causes it. They tried everything, scratching with hands and items, on trees, with snow and with hot coals. None of this works. They contemplate taking their own life.
Until she meets a woman who suggests she asks the bees.
Read This: Short fiction about desperation and
transformation
Don’t Read This: Unbearable itch has unlikely resolution
Working at a museum, occasionally the security guard encounters people who claim that every painting is a Rothko. Despite the fact that the paintings are not Rothko’s, not abstract blocks of colour, sometimes actual representational art. And more puzzling to him is that when he removes them, as they break down in the museum, they want to go back in.
Is this a hallucination, or do they see more, have transcended true seeing into art? What does it mean for every painting to be a Rothko?
Read This: A cleverly absurd story become a poetic
meditation about life, perception and existence
Don’t Read This: Words on a page, paint on a canvas
Cassandra is being brought up by her grandmother in the village. Her mother left, a witch, a harlot, a singer, a murderess. They survive on the charity of the priest, so when Cassandra skips church it could be bad for them.
What she’s doing, what she’s learned, it to take off her skin – skin wants to be flensed – and put on another one. So when the village children chase her she shows them, she teaches them. They can spend the summer changed into animals. Changing skins, seeing
Every summer has to come to an end. When Cassandra’s Grandmother dies she takes her skin rather than be sent to an orphanage. But there are more skins, more secrets. Everything you know might have been something else, wearing a different skin. A creepy transformation story that transforms itself, the village life darker and more magical than it appears.
Read This: Coruscating story about legacy, growing up and
transformation, utterly altered by the magic
Don’t Read This: Fairly detailed description of people
skinning themselves and animals
A letter home from the school, that starts with nut allergies. Then moves on to other incidents, fear of apples, porridge that is too hot or too cool, beans that have odd effects.
A fun set of fairy tale problems that have beset a school, and a final twist that brings into focus the cruelty of the tales – and the hope this school provides.
Read This: Entertaining riff off school communications and
fairy tales with a touch of heart
Don’t Read This: Real school letters are bad enough
The airport barn swallows are puzzled by what goes on at the airport. By the great metal birds that fly, by the actions of the humans. What doesn’t puzzle them is the lack of predators, the abundant food, the warm consistent weather.
A look at airports – and human life – from an unexpected direction.
Read This: To see what the swallows think of their new home
Don’t Read This: A mere fantasy of what birds might think if
they had introspection
Miles is a freelance designer. He’s been given a job, to design the packaging of a Mr Zeb mug for the Ramtrix corporation. The design bible has very clear requirements. Unfortunately he can’t fulfil them; the window on the mug box to see the mug takes up too much space; he can’t get a complete Mr Zeb on that face of the mug to the size needed. He asks for guidance but can’t get it.
There’s a solution, so he makes the deadline. By squeezing the image by 6%. It’s not enough that it makes Mr Zeb look weird, or more weird than normal. He isn’t sure why the attraction of Mr Zeb as a mascot is.
But when they notice they call Miles into the office where he will learn more about Mr Zeb.
Read This: For the mysteries of corporate branding and
freelance work made weird
Don’t Read This: The gig economy is weird enough already
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