Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Zooscape, Cast of Wonders, and Worlds of Possibility

Zooscape 8/23
Cast of Wonders 8/29/23, 9/3/23
Worlds of Possibility 8/23

I’ll kick things off with the August issue of Zooscape, which focuses on furry specula­tive fiction. So it makes sense that the issue lingers on the deep wounds that exist within and between animals, including humans. From extinctions and apocalypses to quieter hurts and the kindnesses that heal them, Zooscape once more shows the versatility of furry speculative fiction, in its haunting warnings and adorable joys. Azure Arther captures a bit of both in “Susurrus”, which follows a nightmare named Abernathy and Kyra, the human princess he rescued, who in turn rescued him from the lone­liness he had been wallowing in. Together they seek to avoid would-be assassins and keep each other company, though Kyra’s growing desire for human companionship shakes Abernathy’s detached confidence and instills in him a fear he doesn’t really understand – or know what to do about. Arther reveals a world with sharp edges, grim but with a warmth that can’t quite be banished, showing that even for bloodstained magical winged horses, a happy ending is far from impossible. Tessa Yang leans more into the catastrophic (and away from equine precedents) with “The Four Sharks of the Apocalypse”, which imagines the end of the world – or the human world, at least. And it finds its heralds outside those sharks most often depicted in popular media. Instead, the sharks are chosen for the ways they reflect humanity’s treatment of the oceans, each one a damning reminder of the pollution, overfishing, climate change, and other exploitations pushing marine species toward the brink of annihilation. Yang’s prose is quiet and epic all at once, not reveling in the destruction of a planet but reminding us that for the sharks and other inhabitants of the great waters of the world, destruction is ongoing, and hardly new.

Wen Wen Yang’s exploration of returning home, “From Here”, closes out the August Cast of Won­ders in moving and complex fashion. The story finds the narrator returning to Brooklyn to check on the magical lodestones they left there – parts of themself that help to anchor and ground them. Home has always been a strange concept for them, though, with many assuming they must be from Asia rather than New York, and that disconnect between place and person has been made more striking by the changes they find waiting for them, the gentrification that has changed their old neighborhood into a playhouse mirrored image of what it was. Yang brings the narrator on a journey of discovery and rediscovery, pushing readers to grapple the impossible and inescapable realities of being from a place when you can’t quite find anywhere to belong. It’s a wonderful read.

August’s Worlds of Possibility features a tender look at chosen families in V. Astor Solomon’s “We Carry What’s Ours”, which finds Ada having found a home with Kace and Ivy despite always having been seen as odd – as a tinkerer who can’t focus on what’s important to society at large. On their ship, though, they each have a place, moving through the galaxy doing what they can to live and thrive and help others, like the fungal lifeform they are hired to find a new home for, and for whom they do much more. Solomon shows a keen interest in respect, understanding, and belonging while revealing a patient and heartwarming web of connections and care forming between all the characters making their bold way through space on their own terms. In the issue’s poetry, Mari Ness confronts generational differences in “A Chat with Grandma”. The exchange between grandmother and grandchild is largely one of disapproval – the grandmother seeing the child as entitled and lack­ing appreciation for what they have. But the piece also interrogates that, revealing a child who does understand the almost magical wonder of what they can do and experience. Ness turns things slightly, perhaps questioning if it’s actually the grandmother who does not fully appreciate the possibilities of new technology, and whose disap­proval might in part be a yearning desire that she had been able to experience them when she was younger. It’s a striking piece, familiar but with a lot to say, and I definitely recommend checking it out.

Recommended Stories:

“Susurrus”, Azure Arther (Zooscape 8/23)
“We Carry What’s Ours”, V. Astor Solomon (Worlds of Possibilities 8/23)

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

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