Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Flash Fiction Online, Diabolical Plots, and Lightspeed
Flash Fiction Online 7/23
Diabolical Plots 7/23
Lightspeed 9/23
September’s Flash Fiction Online features an interesting take on obsession and artificial intelligence with Sylvia Heike’s “Quantum Love”, where a sentient computer called Queenie finds themself in love with their primary handler, Natalie, who is increasingly stressed and distant because her marriage is falling apart. Queenie has a solution, though, and the subtlety to pull it off – perhaps with a little bit of help from a coworker whom Queenie is loath to rely on, but who turns out to be pivotal to their plans. It’s difficult to trust the near-stalker tendencies of Queenie, nor see their interference in Natalie’s life as necessarily positive, but Heike does a good job of balancing the creepier aspect of Queenie’s affections with their willingness to really consider what might be best for Natalie, even when they don’t really like what that is.
P.H. Low lingers on the power of song and the deep fissures childhood trauma can leave in a life in “Requiem”, which closes out the September Diabolical Plots. The story follows a singer, Vitka, in an Empire where songs are magic and only those working for the Empire are allowed to sing. In this place, all music is treated as a possible treason, and yet it was to escape the abusive musical training of her father that led Vitka to escape into the brutal mercies of the Empire’s chorus. There she is powerful, a punishment given voice on all those who would defy the Empire and break its edicts, and her songs bring fire and death wherever she tours. Low brings a raw energy to the prose, resolving into something tragic and broken, Vitka trapped by the needs of her father and her own needs to escape, never fully free even with the terrible might of her song. It’s a bracing and complex read.
Yvette Lisa Ndlovu’s “His Thing” shines and unsettles in the September Lightspeed, following Rufaro, who has crossed an ocean only to be trapped in the home of her new husband in America. She was prepared for this in a way and didn’t exactly fight the marriage that took her so far from her home and her people, but she wasn’t prepared for her new husband’s “thing” – the particular way he’d flex his power over her. For him it’s by isolating her, keeping her locked away, the house itself an extension of his will as he enjoys her futile struggles to defy him as he forces her to serve, to burden her with chores and to enjoy her suffering. But while unprepared, Rufaro is not without tools of her own, and has a will that does not shrink from pain if it means the chance for freedom. The piece is intense and grim, but reaches for something joyous, triumphant, and wholly satisfying, and Ndlovu hits the mark admirably on all counts.
Recommended Stories:
“His Thing”, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu (Lightspeed 9/23)
Charles Payseur is an avid reader, writer, and reviewer of speculative fiction. His works have appeared in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Lightspeed Magazine, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, among others, and many are included in his debut collection, The Burning Day and Other Strange Stories (Lethe Press 2021). He is the series editor of We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction (Neon Hemlock Press) and a multiple-time Hugo and Ignyte Award finalist for his work at Quick Sip Reviews. When not drunkenly discussing Goosebumps, X-Men comic books, and his cats on his Patreon (/quicksipreviews) and Twitter (@ClowderofTwo), he can probably found raising a beer with his husband, Matt, in their home in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
This review and more like it in the November 2023 issue of Locus.
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