I’m leaving this month’s Magazine Minis until late on, mostly because the degree to which blogging is a reasonable activity while sick in bed depends very much on the sickness in question (get your flu shots, kids). But I dipped into several intriguing magazine issues this month, and I’ve got some sci-fi/fantasy short fiction to talk about. My monthly reading doesn’t always fall into neat patterns, but if there’s one thing that unifies the stories I’m talking about today, it’s a penchant for weird little not-always-narratives that aren’t too worried about being especially approachable. Sometimes that works for me, and sometimes it doesn’t, but I’m always excited to see authors trying something different. So let’s get to it.

Adventitious

Issue Five of Adventitious had a couple stories catch my attention, including one told via analyses of a series of paintings inspired by a single iconic scene. Last Farewell of the Emperatrix by Daniel Ausema obliquely tells of civil war within a university that seems to be the dominant power in the narrator’s universe, with significant outposts in other worlds. It’s a story that never makes much pretense at having answers–unlike some others stylized in similar ways, there isn’t some obvious fact that the reader knows and the narrator doesn’t that ties everything together–but that doesn’t mean there’s no meaning that can be gleaned.

Puddlejumping by Parker M. O’Neill is a bit less structurally ambitious but manages an enthralling tale all the same. I’m not usually the biggest fan of dystopian future stories, but the immediate and incisive recontextualization of the opening line piqued my curiosity, and I was well-rewarded. See for yourself the first two sentence-paragraphs:

She works for hours.

She works in exchange for hours.

What follows is surely a dystopian tale, but it’s one that maintains its impressive storytelling throughout, delivering a heart-wrenching tale that communicates a lot about the world, but almost entirely through the lens of the lead’s own tragic situation. Throw in a conclusion that makes the story a true narrative as opposed to a mere portrait of an awful world, and you have all the ingredients for an excellent read.

Also, while I’m not necessarily a sci-fi comedy fan, it’s worth taking a peek at The Gorilla Fighters Under Texas, or: Derek King, Age 8, Shares His Take on the Salvadoran Civil War With Classmates at Sam Houston Elementary Based on a Viewing of ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings on January 19, 1988 (Confederate Heroes Day) by Chris Baker to see whether the bit is up your alley. It’s a lot, but it’s also clever.

Lightspeed

There were also two stories that jumped out at me from the September issue of Lightspeed. Alterverse by Sanjana Raj is another dystopian tale that offers an interesting hook, this featuring a tour guide in a digital reconstruction of long-drowned Sri Lanka flipping through a book whose reconstruction itself abruptly ends. That opening image isn’t necessarily plot-relevant, but it’s thematically relevant to a somber and compelling tale of the economics of preservation.

There wasn’t much chance I would miss a Thomas Ha entry, and Jempo somehow fits his style perfectly despite an unexpected choice of subject matter. It features a competition that feels heavily inspired by the 2000s television series BattleBots, only with cyborg machines made partially from donated tissue from human cadavers. It’s a story that does justice to the strategic element of the competition, and there are strange, moneyed figures lurking in the background, but its true heart is the exploration of a particularly uncanny machine and its enigmatic maquinista. And as I would’ve expected from Ha, that story is well worth the read.

Otherside

Otherside always manages to have several eye-catching tales, and Issue 3 was not exception, with four stories that demanded a closer look. Ivan Ivanovich by Kirstina Ten is a short, surreal tale of a spacecraft test dummy being sold as a way to identify dangers in everyday life. Despite the sci-fi trappings, this feels more like magical realism than anything, with the titular dummy used as a way for the lead to examine their own life–not just the little dangers, but the overarching, existentialist ones.

The other three that I read from this issue are grief stories in some fashion. Field Notes on Liturgical Rites, Co-Authored Li and Albrecht by Mina Yeh is a rivals-to-lovers (perhaps this is too strong–annoying coworkers-to-lovers?) story that births a literal miracle, one that the leads cannot understand enough to be sure which of their actions might break it. This jumps rapidly between timelines, rarely staying in any scene for more than a few paragraphs, making it emotionally chaotic in a way that may be appropriate to the characters’ inner lives but is not always easy on the reader’s immersion.

This Is Not a Place of Honor by R.J. Araund tells of a researcher visiting the polar resting place of the last vampire, one that never truly died. Despite the gruesome history that led up to that defeat, the second-person lead finds it hard not to sympathize with the partially-petrified villain, particularly when observing her treatment by tourists and scientists alike. I’m not sure I felt those sympathies in the same heartfelt way as the lead, but I could certainly understand them.

Wine-Dark by Cyrus Amelia Fisher follows a figure who had fled their homeland following the death of their father, hoping that education while help build prosperity that doesn’t rely on dangerous dives among the leviathans. But even with a lover who has learned to dive and to execute all of the cultural rituals, the lead cannot escape the weight of responsibility, whether looking to the past or the future.

Strange Horizons

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the weirdest trio of the month came from Strange Horizons, which were not from the same issue but came out in consecutive weeks apart in late August and into September. MR_MR_CENTICORE by Micah Giddens lead with a lot of weirdness and more grotesquerie than I usually tolerate, but the style was compelling enough to keep me reading. The result was an exploration of growing up and exploring both one’s sexuality and meme culture in a way that’s quite different from the social norm. It never lets up with the strangeness, and perhaps it ultimately was a bit more than I’d prefer, but I can’t deny it was interesting.

not to have killed a king by E.L. Roseman is a short, chaotic tale told wildly out-of-order–but more than that, told in such a way that frequently loops back on the previous segments and changes them entirely. As such, it lands on vibes rather than plot, but even when it’s hard to parse out exactly what’s meant to be happening, the vibes provide the hook.

Finally, my favorite of the three, People Shoot People by Brie Atienza, alternates first and second-person segments, the latter detailing the death of the lead’s lover and the former exploring life in the aftermath. As is fitting with this collection of stories, it gets a lot stranger than that, featuring a compelling mishmash of grief and protest, all capped off by a piece of political action from beyond the grave.

September Favorites

• Puddlejumping by Parker M. O’Neill (short story, Adventitious)