Fusion Fragment Monthly - April 2024
The Latest from Fusion Fragment HQ
FF#21 TOC Announced: Our lineup for FF#21, tentatively due out in May, has been set! It’s a terrific slate of stories from returning writers and those you might be reading for the first time. This TOC has everything—mechs! VR! Parallel worlds! Way too many teeth! All the things you’ve come to expect from Fusion Fragment.
Stats Thread Survey: Do you like FF’s stats threads? (Here’s the most recent one, on Twitter and Bluesky) Starting in May, there’ll be a link in your confirmation emails when you submit to FF that points you to an optional survey. I’ll be using the data from that survey to do more threads like that and share more insights about what kind of stories are most commonly circulating (at least to FF) and any patterns I can see among stories that get rated highly by FF’s reading team. If you want to preview the survey, you can do so here.
Weird Stuff!: Tenebrous Press announced the contents of their Best New Weird Horror anthology a couple weeks back and it just so happens to contain work by FFer Thomas Ha, as well as a special citation for Lindz McLeod’s collection Turducken!
March Published Works by FFers
March was a huge month for publications by FFers! Books galore, a big list of short stories and poetry, including a reprint of an FF original!
Check out all these books out in March: What Grows in the Dark by Jaq Evans, The Neverborn Thief by Andrew Najberg, The Listeners by Nicky Penttila, Learn to Howl by Jennifer R. Donohue, and One Eye Opened in That Other Place by Christi Nogle!
Brandon Crilly’s "Soulmark", originally published in FF#7, appeared in the latest issue of Shoreline of Infinity!
And there were a ton of other short works by FFers out this month:
"A City Undying" by Ai Jiang in Haven Speculative
"A Girl's Heart Is A Wretched Thing" by A.D. Sui in Wyldblood
"An Incomplete Body Has No Answers" by Angela Liu in Lightspeed
"Auguries" by Jennifer R. Donohue in Gamut Magazine
"Breathe, Blow, Burn" by Ai Jiang in The Dark
"Ecdysis" by Jess Koch in Weird Horror
"How to Carry a Millstone" by Katie McIvor in Luna Station Quarterly
"In Exchange" by Shih-Li Kow in On Spec
"Intersected Sky" by Andrew Najberg in khōréō
"Light As Air" by JL George in Hidden Villains: Betrayed
"On the Wing" by Lindz McLeod in Flash Fiction Online
"Our Very Best Selves!" by Fatima Taqvi in Nightmare
"Over the Yiousouri Tree" by Avra Margariti in 3LBE
"Saguaro Wedding" by Jordan Kurella in Small Wonders
"Small Passengers" by JL George in All Worlds Wayfarer
"Small Talk" by Louis Evans and Angus McIntyre in Shoreline of Infinity
"The Allotment" by Katie McIvor in Tales From Between
"The Flower Eater" by Hien Nguyen in Fahmidan Journal
"The Last Leg" by Jason P. Burnham in All Worlds Wayfarer
"The Migration of Birds Through the City of Glass" by Priya Chand in DreamForge
"The Sea-Witches at Nightfall" by Tiffany Morris in Uncanny
"Where the Grass is Always Whiter" by Ai Jiang in Interzone
Recommendations from FF HQ
I was having a hard time describing why exactly I loved Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and The Sun, which I finally picked up last month. Then I read a quote about the book by Anne Enright, saying “it enacts the way we learn how to love”. The plot itself, a mashup of robot companions, sun worship, gene editing, and grief, is almost besides the point. This one works entirely because of its observations and reflections on love.
Looking back at the movies I watched last month, I’ll recommend Reality, about the apprehension of Reality Winner after her leak of documents about Russian interference in the US election. The movie’s notable for being a verbatim reproduction of the FBI’s interrogation, resulting in fascinating insights into the psychology of interrogation, instead of the usual versions we’re shown in media. And since everyone’s talking about Sydney Sweeney, I thought she was fantastic in the central role.
Obligatory Photo of Associate Editor Henry
POV: Your Associate Editor reads the classics.