Lightspeed, Worlds of Possibility and Reactor: Short Fiction Reviews by Charles Payseur

Lightspeed 6/24
Worlds of Possibility 6/24
Reactor 6/5/24

Lightspeed ushers in June with Oyedotun Damilola Muees’s “Warning Notes from an An­nihilator Machine”, which is framed as a series of messages from said Annihilator Machine to Tijani Damilare (known online as Teejay_009) concerning the approved destruction of Earth. Despite the dire message, ANM-722 actually wants to help Tijani, providing information that might help avoid the approaching mechanical apocalypse at least for some of humanity. Muees makes the interesting decision, though, to in­clude only the messages from ANM-722, without revealing how Tijani is reacting to or faring with this alarming series of revelations about his fu­ture. It’s a tightly woven and interesting method that leads to a lot of questions that readers will have to decide for themselves about the fate of humanity in the face of a possible overwhelming threat. And it’s a great read. Deborah L. Davitt also contributes to the issue with “In the Hands of the Mountain God”, which finds Sennu a little lost as a novice in a religious order that worships the god of the mountain, Eero. Except they don’t really worship, and they don’t promise answers, and Sennu doesn’t really believe anyway. But Sennu does want to know why her husband and child and all the rest of her people died while she has lived, and in her search for that answer she sets herself on a path that might well lead to the divine. It’s a philosophical piece that Davitt grounds in physicality, in the strain of a trial that Sennu must pass in order to meet with a god. And while it’s not at all what she expected, it makes for a nuanced and satisfying read.

The latest issue of Worlds of Possibility is very much about dragons and their friendships and relationships, as in Priya Sridhar’s poem “Fabric Hoard”, which centers a young woman trying to acquire a gown made of starlight for a princess she cares for, for her to wear to a wed­ding that seems both an obligation and defeat. And there is a heat to the piece, both in the feelings the woman is keeping guarded, and in the dragon, whose own fire resonates with the anger surrounding the injustice of nobility and marriages of court and convenience. Sridhar also sneaks in a kind of subversion, though, as the woman and dragon both seek and find ways to bend rules and maybe hearts through their work. And Joshua Gage tells a charm­ing and heartwarming tale in “Child and the Bocwyrm”, which opens with a child known as Child who is sent to the great Bocwyrm along with a mysterious tome. Child is to be part of the payment to Bocwyrm for assistance in decipher­ing the text, and it’s an arrangement instantly suitable to all parties, as Child gets a home full of strange books to read and categorize, and the Bocwyrm gets an assistant to help in all aspects of maintaining their vast collection. Tucked into the slice-of-life cataloging, though, Gage does careful work with the characters, bringing them not out of their respective shells but rather finding space for them to cohabitate and help each other understand themselves and their work better. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable read!

I’ll close with Reactor’s June stories, which included Rich Larson’s tender and striking “Breathing Constellations”. In it, Vega is a young woman and part of a commune strug­gling to find food to eat in a future where humanity has recognized and begun to respect other creatures’ personhood and rights, like the orcas Vega has to ask for permission to harvest fish from their waters. Without the permission, the commune will likely have to disband, and Vega has been desperately trying to live up to the legacy of her mother while carrying a numb grief about her passing. But it hasn’t been going well, and Vega is forced to confront not just hu­manity’s history and future but her own feelings and fears. Larson beautifully parallels the plight of the commune with the inner turmoil Vega is going through, finding that a solution to one might also hold a solution to the other. It’s great!

Recommended Stories
“Warning Notes from an Annihilator Machine”, Oyedotun Damilola Muees (Lightspeed 6/24)
“Child and Bocwyrm”, Joshua Gage (Worlds of Possibility 6/24)
“Breathing Constellations”, Rich Larson (Reactor 6/5/24)

This review and more like it in the August 2024 issue of Locus.

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