September Story Review Update 1

10 short stories (and poems) I read earlier this year 

****

1. Frenemies by David Schairer in Roi Fainéant

The narrator has been considering words and language and etymology since their retirement. How both host and guest and ghost, and hostile all have the same root. They discuss this with Ted, each with a different view of language (each somewhat out of fashion).

A fun vignette, offering multiple views of this discussion.

Read This: Short story about friendship, rivalry and language
Don’t Read This: Better to do your own research on the topic

2. The Midwife In The Palace Of The Forest King by Jelena Dunato in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Katarina is called into the forest to perform as midwife. There she finds Vlasta in labour, in a rich palace. Yet she knows there is no nobleman who lives here, and she’s heard the tales. She has a piece of mountain crystal that will allow her to see truly.

The Forest King wants his son, says to cut him out if need be. That’s not what Katarina does, she’s not that kind of midwife. She’s there for the mother and the child, not the father. Not even a father that can grant wishes if he gets what he wants.

And what wish will Katarina make? Can the tales save her here?

Read This: Dark fairy tale of birth and wishes
Don’t Read This: Visceral birth descriptions are the least of the things going on

3. I’m Not A Bloody Robot I Have Feelings Too by Mark Berlex in Roi Fainéant

She goes to the doctor and finds the sound is she has mechanical hips. And it turns out she can remove parts of herself, and replace them, and extra spleen, chunkier calves for walking. Her husband isn’t too happy, her eyeball comes out, she wants to chang bits he likes, not others.

Her new nose smells unexpected scents on her husband. She leaves an ear with him and learns things she doesn’t want to hear.

She orders new hands.

Read This: A story of bodies, and also of marriages
Don’t Read This: The robot fable is a poor counterpoint for the infidelity

4. Seal-Skin by David Stephen Powell in Mythaxis

Gytha is a widow and goes to the wise woman to ask for help, to find a husband. She gives her an offering to put in the sea at the highest tide. Seven days later there will be a man, and she must hide his seal-skin clothes. She knows this story, just as we know this story.

His name is Morton and everyone accepts him, indeed he becomes a leader in the community. One day, after her son is born, the Danes come, and Morton leads the people to safety. But they burn the village and when Gytha goes to look for the seal-skin clothes under the hearthstone they are gone.

She knows this story. We know this story. But perhaps, perhaps this is a different way for a selkie story to end.

Read This: Story of magic and family with a twist
Don’t Read This: Everyone and the (sea) horse they rode in on has done a selkie story

5. Quest-Giver by J S Carroll in Kaleidotrope

“The King sits on his throne, his outline gleaming.” Somehow whenever events threaten the kingdom, his troops are tied up his knights unavailable. Always comes an adventurer, who offers no respect, who demands a reward, who does not serve for love or duty.

The kingdom somehow always has the treasure to hire the adventurer. But what if the King were able to get up off his throne? What if the King went on the adventure himself?

What does the Quest-Giver desire for themself?

Read This: For a clever look inside the Quest-Giver of a game, and how they might make sense of their situation
Don’t Read This: You’d rather hear about Cromarch fighting the lamassu

6. Tatterhood by Matt Knutson and Ross Nervig in Cold Signal

Tatterhood and Dominika are twins, as unalike as possible. Dominika beautiful, Tatterhood wearing a rag hood to avoid shocking people with her face. Witches come and their mother, in a careless drunken way warns them not to go to them. Tatterhood ignores this, goes out to drive them away. In turn, a witch finds Dominika watching and replaces her head with that of a calf.

Tatterhood takes her calf-headed twin on a boat to get her head back. Along the way she learns magic, and confidence, and the power of stories. She grasps hold of her own story yet despite that – despite it being named after her – there is only so much the swapping of heads can achieve.

Read This: Fairy tale adventure that manages to successfully incorporate character and gritty description
Don’t Read This: The horror of transformation on full display

7. Forge by Jordan Hirsch in Kaleidotrope

Today they make the sword in the forge. Last night they made love. Their lover will take the sword and go after just one night.

That is the way it is.

Read This: Hard-edged poem of swordsmith/warrior love
Don’t Read This: S&S should be swords and sorcery, not swordmaking and shagging

8. Argent by Caroline Shea in Cold Signal

“She doesn’t speak for seven years. She weaves a coat from a single thread. She spins straw into gold. She solves so many riddles it would make you sick. It does make her sick—she gags at rhyme. Gets nauseous at the first sign of wordplay.” 

Our heroine is always the heroine, always the one who has to save them in the folk tale. Always the one who suffers. Always the one who is offered a choice by the devil. The happy ending can’t last.

A bargain was struck, but it’s been paid. Paid over and over. And then she has a daughter. And a new bargain, one with a new story.

Read This: All the old folk tales, from a new perspective
Don’t Read This: All the worst parts of the old folk tales

9. The Other Wives by Archita Mittra in Tasavvur

When Lola sees the portraits of his former wives on the wall, she jokingly asks Leonard if he’s like Bluebeard. Obviously not, he invites them all to their wedding. But he does go away on his mysterious business, and none of his ex-wives can tell her what that business is. They all left him for the usual reasons – inability to have children, wanting to start their own business, cheating with another man.

He starts her on a serum to end aging, though both are still young. After she uses it she hears strange noises, and the doctor runs tests, gives her pills. Lola confronts him, demanding to know what he does, what is in his locked study, or else she will divorce him. He chooses divorce.

In the study waits the secrets of his marriages.

Read This: A genuinely new and interesting take on Bluebeard
Don’t Read This: Betrayal and pathetic secrets

10. Just A Little Business Arrangement by Eric Wampler in Penumbric

Aboard the space station above the planet Pallas Kurt takes a job with Fryx, a Gleeian. Genetically human, the Gleeians are enslaved by the spider-like Ryenalds – though some have escaped and live free in the commonwealth. Kurt is seeking to learn more about the Gleeians in order to go to graduate school. He has nine months until the fleet comes and his family wish him to take a job here; he is technically fulfilling their requirements.

He learns much, and even begins a romance. Gleeians tattoo themselves to cover up their slave marks. Ryenalds are bound by strict rules of purity, though that does not stop them from ritually declaring war on the Gleeians. They are in alliance because the Commonwealth needs them in the fight against the AIs, one in which the Commonwealth gets much of the profit.

There is no such thing as “just” a little business arrangement. There is always more going on.

Read This: Cleverly built story of business, exchange and recompense
Don’t Read This: Resolution is built atop a silly tower of arbitrary rules