Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: GigaNotoSaurus, Fantasy, and Lightspeed

GigaNotoSaurus 7/23
Fantasy 6/23
Lightspeed 7/23

GigaNotoSaurus dives into secondary world fantasy with July’s “Canyon Masks” by Reed Mingault, which imagines a world where gods Mark individuals with their power, and goddess sisters of luck have chosen Lyssa to be their agent in the world. A deft hand at manipulation and planning, Lyssa finds years of work on the edge of ruin when a Marked of the sun decides the man she had been preparing for a large role in a coming conflict is too evil to live. Worse, she has history with the man, Caleb, and has to figure out a way to navigate the demands of fate and justice while contending with her own stum­bling heart. Mingault puts together a deeply imagined world and intricate plot peopled with complex and deeply entertaining characters. The story manages to feel much larger than what is shown, the world stretching on far past the action and settings revealed here. It’s a deft mix of magic, mayhem, and romance, and it makes me very much hope there is more of this world and these characters to come!

Simo Srinivas has been a newer-to-me author to pay attention to, and “Bozpo Witch-Bane” in the July Fantasy is part of the reason why. The story follows a narrator, a cat who happens to meet another cat, Bozpo, who is on a mission to kill a witch. Nearing the end of her life, the narrator decides to accompany him, and the two venture far, leaving a trail of bodies behind them as they seek out their true prey. But of course killing a witch is not an easy task, and even cats face setbacks, and need some helpful allies and, when it comes to it, a spot of luck to seize their chance to vanquish evil. Srinivas does some great worldbuilding and captures a capricious and languid voice that isn’t quite what read­ers might expect. There is adventure. There is action. There are a few surprises. And it is a wonderful read. Moving to the issue’s poetry, H.B. Asari’s “After the Pyre” explores a people who hold the wounds done to them because they are different. Because they were deemed witches and hunted, burned, and drowned. Asari avoids revenge, as the fixation and goal and aims instead at escape from the violence and the anger and the fear. The poem imagines peace as its own retaliation, along with joy and belonging, and it makes for a challenging but very rewarding read.

Moving into August, Lightspeed features Lowry Poletti’s strange and sensual “In the Nest Beneath the Mountain-Tree, Your Sis­ters Dance”, which finds Leera trying to save himself when he learns that his companion and partner – an alien wasp to whom he’s bonded – is dying. And with him will go the symbiont that will, in turn, kill Leera. His only hope might be in a man who survived his own symbiont’s death, but as Leera meets and gets involved with that man, it becomes apparent that what he has to do survive… might be more difficult and heartbreaking than he imagined. There’s a lot of world building to take in, but Poletti manages to wrap it in a messy and compelling web of relationships between the characters, rending a vivid and aching picture of people in crisis, left with no good ways forward.

Recommended Stories

“Bozpo Witch-Bane”, Simo Srinivas (Fantasy 7/23)
“In the Nest Beneath the Mountain-Tree, Your Sisters Dance”, Lowry Poletti (Lightspeed 7/23)

This review and more like it in the September 2023 issue of Locus.

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