Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Understudies by Priya Sridhar, Diabolical Plots, Samovar, and Strange Horizons

Diabolical Plots 10-11/23
Understudies, Priya Sridhar (Hiraeth) Febru­ary 2023.
Samovar 10/23/23
Strange Horizons 10/30/23, 11/6/23

Over at Diabolical Plots, the publishing schedule has been temporarily compacted, leading to an October and November with only one story each instead of the regular two. Both stories are quite good, though, and both stay in the Halloween spirit with witches and ghosts aplenty. Both also twist expectations regarding these classic elements, as in Risa Wolf’s “In the Shelter of Ghosts”, in which an invasive species has deci­ mated human housing. Devouring wood and plastics, these pests have completely changed the world, and the only thing that seems to stop them are the lingering dead. A haunted house resists destruction, and special mediums have made a vital practice of calling the dead back to protect residences and ease the overcrowding plaguing everyone. For Roribell, the situation is complicated both by grief at the recent loss of her father and the added stress of her own memory problems, so that without the artifacts of his life and their time together, he’s a ghost in more than one sense, more an absence than a presence even in her mind. It’s a wrenching piece, and Wolf steers around some big emotions, balancing pain and hope expertly.

Stepping away from speculative periodicals for a moment, I was happy to sit down with Priya Sridhar’s sophomore novella, Understudies, from Hiraeth Publishing. The story sees the re­turn of the Haunted Basilio Theater (previously seen in Sridhar’s debut novella, Offstage Offer­ings), with fraternal twins Stella and Evangeline as aspiring playwrights and stage managers working to bring their local performing troupe to new heights. Unfortunately, that all requires money, and the only source seems to be the aforementioned haunted theater, where they’ll have to pay in literal blood, sweat, and tears – but they’ll have stage space, housing, and a modest stipend. Sridhar’s strength continues to be show­ing how broken creative systems are that an offer from an obviously malevolent source is met with matter-of-fact resignation. The characters hope to bring something good out of this predatory landscape, but all they can do is feed it, and the results are expectedly… messy. It’s another perfect read for Halloween.

Samovar returned in October with a new issue of speculative fiction in translation. Of the two stories and one poem, Arnout Brokking’s “Con­tact” (translated by Camilla Maltas) probably moved me the most. Focusing on a young boy named Yuri with what others call an overactive imagination, the story deals with loss, wonder, and family, as Yuri isn’t quite old enough to understand the tensions between his rather seri­ous mother and stargazing grandfather. To Yuri, always half inside a story of space, adventure, and possibility, his grandfather is a kindred spirit – broken slightly since the death of Yuri’s grandmother, but still vibrant and interesting. And that opinion only deepens when Yuri takes a small flying saucer from his grandfather’s house that turns out to be more than a toy. Brokking mixes wild fantasy with sobering reality without crushing the former or erasing the later. Yuri’s child perspective is neither wholly reliable nor unreliable, and finding the edges of the two proves very rewarding reading.

Strange Horizons closed out October with a spe­cial issue of Caribbean speculative fiction. N.A. Blair’s story “On Fallow Fields Where Flames Once Bloomed” opens up the issue with a look at regret, fear, and an errant skin that’s trying to push Sister Patricia away from smothering her desire and passions. It’s the skin that becomes the first-person perspective while the rest of Pa­tricia remains in second person, underlining the divide between what she wants, what she needs, and what she pretends for the benefit of society at large. But Blair brings Patricia, through the active interference of her skin, into confronting the love she has for the boisterous Sister Lavern, and shaking off the shackles of polite or even re­ligious stoicism and embracing the fire burning inside her. It’s beautifully done. Ben Francisco also tells a story of denial, fear, and risks in “Brincando Charcos (Jumping Puddles)”. In it, Javier has the power to jump long distances through puddles, an ability that makes him a target of the mysterious men in blue, who would imprison him or worse if he were caught. It makes for a life of looking over his shoulder – not something that makes intimacy that easy, even after he meets and falls for Mateo, a man who also knows how to jump through puddles. Francisco tells an aching story about trust and self-censorship through the budding romance of Javier and Mateo, finding in the different ways they face the dangers of being who they are a rich source of friction, anxiety, and finally acceptance, expression, and a vibrant love. In the issue’s poetry, Rachelle Saint Louis lingers on land, belonging, and diaspora in “Manman ak Pitit”. The narrator of the piece feels discon­nected from the land they left, which they lost because of distance and circumstance. And over not only the geographical but also cultural distance there is a strain, a hurt and loss. And yet the land is still a part of them, still a mother to them, regardless of how far they go, regardless of the languages they speak or the foods they eat. Saint Louis shows that the threads that bind people and places are strong even in the face of loss and grief, because the earth has lost much, experienced many traumas, and still is nurtur­ing, and still is vibrant and alive – a home for even those who have moved far away. It’s a lovely and moving read.

Recommended Stories:
“Contact”, Arnout Brokking (Samovar 10/23)
“On Fallow Fields Where Flames Once Bloomed”, N.A. Blair (Strange Horizons 10/23)
“Brincando Charcos (Jumping Puddles)”, Ben Francisco (Strange Horizons 10/23)

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

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