Saturday Storytime: Witch, Beast, Saint: an Erotic Fairy Tale
It is as the title promises, and C. S. E. Cooney has more for you in her Witches Garden if you want it. I put him in the cellar and fed him up until he was able to move about on his own. Then I began...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Tommy Flowers and the Glass Bells of Bletchley
I do like stories that send me off to find out more about real people, like this one by Octavia Cade. When little Tommy Flowers was presented with a baby sister, he was disappointed to find that she...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Between Sea and Shore
I don’t remember who it was that said ennui is nostalgia for a place one has never been. The idea has stuck with me, but the source hasn’t. I was reminded of it again as I read this story by Vanessa...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Ten Days’ Grace
In this story, Foz Meadows does what science fiction should do. Falling pregnant with Lily had been her first infraction against the Spousal Laws. Like homosexuality and abortion, single parenthood had...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye
This is an excellent time to dive back into story blogging, not to mention reading. The Nebula Award nominees were very recently announced, and I have some catching up to do. The only one I’ve read so...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide
Continuing this week with Nebula award nominees, it’s always fun when the nominated stories that were previously subscription-only become more widely available. This one, from writer and singer Sarah...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: When it Ends, He Catches Her
This is another Nebula award nominee. Eugie Foster died the day after it was published. Though she was much mourned, that isn’t why this story was nominated. Act II, scene III: the finale. It was...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family
Often in horror, it is the fantastic element we’re supposed to be fascinated by and fear. This is not so true in the stories of Usman T. Malik. This story was also nominated for a Nebula. “I know you,”...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: The Breath of War
Aliette de Bodard has been featured here before. This time, it’s a story that’s been nominated for a Nebula Award. Rechan watched her niece from a distance. The discussion was getting animated and...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: The Fisher Queen
This year, Alyssa Wong‘s first professional fiction sale was nominated for a Nebula Award. You can also read an interview with her about this story. When we pull the nets in the next morning, they are...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps
After the Hugo nomination news last weekend, Saladin Ahmed asked what people thought should have been on the ballot. You could do much worse than to take heed of those recommendations. I found this...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Dr. Polingyouma’s Machine
One of the joys of having an essay in Uncanny Magazine was doing the page proofs. Page proofs aren’t usually much fun. It’s your last chance to catch problems, but you don’t want to find big problems...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Nine Thousand Hours
It’s worth remembering, as this story by Iona Sharma tells us, that sometimes you screw up because you’re good at something. And there may be nothing you can do to fix it. Cally made tea and put...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Restore the Heart into Love
The editors of Uncanny Magazine are a particular source of frustration for the Sad and Rabid Puppies. Whether it’s stories they’ve bought or anthologies they’ve edited, they seem to be standing right...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Sun’s East, Moon’s West
“Strong” female protagonists are all well and good, but sometimes I prefer the relentlessly practical ones, as in this story from Merrie Haskell. Time passed swiftly in the bear’s castle; winter turned...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: An Evolutionary Myth
One of the things I really appreciate about current trends in F&SF publishing is the amount of translated work being published from Asia. Take, for example, this Korean story about transformation...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Doll Re Mi
I should have posted this last Saturday, but I didn’t post anything. Call it a minute of silence for the loss of one of my favorite writers. This is Tanith Lee in solid sensuous, decadent, menacing...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: Three Voices
I maybe like stories about the creation of art. You know, just maybe. This story from Lisa Bolekaja is enthralling and devastating. It manages that despite a viewpoint character you’re not going to...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: The New Mother
Sometimes we get in the habit of thinking that science fiction is about the reach of imagination, about how far out an author’s imagination can take us. This story by Eugene Fischer, however, is a...
View ArticleSaturday Storytime: What We’re Having
Time travel stories are tricky. As this story by Nathaniel Lee demonstrates, they’re tricky even when you sort out all the potential paradoxes. I wondered about the bacon all day. Eventually I went and...
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