November 2, 2024

SHORT STORY REX Oct 2024

1. R.T. Ester, “After Stasis”

Finely-drawn sci-fi suspense on the virtual pages of Interzone Digital. Claustrophobia and fear of contagion reign among three survivors of some nuclear attack: a father, a son, and the ensign who rescued them. It soon becomes apparent, though, that something is off with the AI construct meant to watch over them, and it only gets worse from there. I am an easy mark for this kind of thing, and as ive said elsewhere this story came for me where i live, in the three-person household i call home

2. Fábio Fernandes, “Hate: A Genealogy”

And in the latest issue of Interzone (#300!) we have another intriguing read from Fabio Fernandes, about an Oneironaut’s travels through myriad dimensions trying on bodies and selves, all whilst searching for their father so they can kill him. Much like his previous “The Last Science Fiction Writer: A Hallucination”, (which I wrote about back in November), there is a surface playfulness at work here but also an exquisite undercurrent of sadness at the injustice of the world that percolates throughout. “Come on, back to the land of the living. There is work to be done.”

3. Carson Winter, “In Haskins”

A horror tale of small-town ritual that calls to mind classics like Shirley Jackson or Thomas Ligotti, a horror not so much ‘folk’ as ‘folksy’, until the festivities give way to a sordid grotesque of a soap opera.

Whereas a story like “Hate: A Genealogy” explores the mutability of identity and selfhood and what lies beneath, “In Haskins” is more preoccupied with the assumption and performance of roles, willing or no, the scripts we unthinkingly (or worse, thinkingly) act out and where we end up when the roles are miscast, or when we play the part too well. I loved this one when it originally appeared in Apex Magazine and the audio version here is also well worth a listen.

4 Spencer Nitkey, “Within the Dead Whale” and JL Akagi, “Whale Fall”

So, seriously, what the hell is up with all the whales? Something super-zeitgeisty going on.¹ Back in February I wrote about was Sasha Brown’s “Fuck Me in a Whale” and now these two recent stories. Spencer Nitkey’s flash piece “Within the Dead Whale” and JL Akagi’s “Whale Fall” both take the giant corpse of a beached (and/or fallen) whale (and/or whale-like creature) as the central image. In both cases, it is a bounty, a magnificent creature destroyed, rendered a rotting cornucopia for both the economic and spiritual sustenance of the adults and children who need it. One of these has a happy ending, or actually maybe they both do, you decide. (For the record, I’ve decided I blame RFK, Jr for all this.)

Other short-story recs:

• I have not yet splurged on the latest issue of Weird Horror but I sure do plan to. So far I have only read Sean Padraic Birnie’s “Black Water” which is an absolute banger, as is the lineup of writers also featured in this issue. So if you need to read some frightening shit to help usher out spooky season…
• I first read Robert Coover’s Pricksongs and Descants and his very weird 1968 fantasy-baseball novel The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. a million years ago when i was probably far too young and not nearly well-read enough to properly 'get' it. I recently recovered him thanks to my public library and to the New Yorker Fiction Podcast of all places. If you’ve never read Coover you could do worse than starting with his “Going For a Beer”, and maybe follow it up with “The Colonel’s Daughter” to get an idea of the breadth and depth of imagination at work. RIP

Not-a-story rec: “Creepy Smell”, Melvins

Was at a loss for appropriately ‘spooky’ musical recommendations but for whatever reason the title/closing refrain of this one sprung to mind. Ozma is such a good album, maybe my favorite Melvins album overall or at least the one i can most effortlessly air-guitar/air-drum all the way through