Paula Guran Reviews The Sunday Morning Transport, Weird Horror, Uncanny, and Apex

The Sunday Morning Transport 1/1/24 – 3/17/24
Weird Horror Spring ’24
Uncanny 1-2/24, 3-4/24
Apex #142, #143

Lots to cover this month, so let’s concentrate on the cream of the crop.

The Sunday Morning Transport publishes new fiction almost every Sunday throughout the year. Each of the stories merits a read, but of the first eleven stories of 2024, six stood out for me.

The title of Mary Robinette Kowal’s story (March 3) about a spaceship-saving cat with a doctorate is “Rude Litterbox Space”. Need I say more to entice you to read? “Country Birds” by Kij Johnson (February 11) is an indescribable story of life and death. It may not resonate as well with readers younger than I, but most of a certain age will appreciate this quietly lovely tale. Margaret Ronald’s “A Hundred Secret Names” (February 4) is a delightfully unique telling of a heroic being with scores of secret names who makes a bargain with a prince to free his beloved princess. And ev­ery word of it is true. Isn’t the narrator/protagonist’s “forty-eighth secret name Accurate-in-Speech”? “Embers Burning in the Night” (January 21) by Marie Brennan is a mini-epic about the need for the masses to effect change. Waiting for saviors is not the best way to overcome evil: “What this land needs isn’t dawn. It needs more embers, more people willing to light a fire in the dark.” “Cuneiform” by Yoon Ha Lee (January 14) is a highly entertaining (if cautionary) tale about a woman hired by a near-future publishing company to play Nisaba Sheng, the bestselling “author” of books that are generated rather than written, in public. I laughed out loud at the title of Sheng’s latest novel: Plastered and Mastered. Nibedita Sen packs an epic’s worth of rich dark fantasy worldbuilding and characterization into the less than 5,000 well-chosen words of “Agni” (January 7). It’s about the powerless gaining power. Always nice to see a righteously angry woman burning evil down to the ground.

The 12 stories in Weird Horror #8 are all well writ­ten, but two stories take twists that make them ofthe most interest. In “Patience Is the Virtue” by Aimee Ogden, Caroline’s husband has, without her consent, made her immortal by housing her brain in a life-sized, lifelike doll. Victorian-era patriarchy at its nightmarish heights. The suburban neighborhood of David Ebenbach’s “The Haunt­ing House” wants a status symbol haunted house. Once in place, its ghosts haunt visitors – no one can resist visiting – with the more depressive aspects of their lives. Ebenbach plays with our attraction to horror as well as the state of modern society. A third story, “Ecdysis” by Jess Koch treads well-worn paths – hearing something in the walls, a child that may or may not exist – but does so well enough to bring on the creeps.

Uncanny #56 offers seven new stories. I particularly enjoyed four. To best appreciate “The Feast of Baku & the Yume no Seirei” by Cheri Kamei it helps to know that its setting – the artificial island of Dejima off the coast of Nagasaki – was, for more than two centuries, the only place in Japan where most Europeans could set foot. In Kamei’s fiction, stories told by these Westerners have begun to affect the dreams of the island’s women. This provides two hungry supernatural beings – an “old man who was not a man at all” and the monstrous Baku – plenty to feed on. Less than 2,000 words and plotless, this folkloric tale is still exquisitely evocative. I’d love to see it expanded. Angela Liu’s “A Contract of Ink and Skin” is also quite short (under 1,500 words), but this tale of cursed ink and tattoos will get under your skin. Mary Robinette Kowal’s “Marginalia”, a fairy tale in which a local lord tries to defend his land and people against a snail (yes, a snail) as big as a prize bull. The lord needs the help of Margery and her ten-year-old brother Hugh, but most importantly, the aid of their mother. Against most traditions and realities, the noble is reasonable and equitable. A pleasure to read. The protagonist of “A Recipe for Hope and Honeycake” by Jordan Taylor was the title char­acter of “Bramblewilde”, a story Uncanny published in 2022. I liked it a great deal, so I’m delighted to see its titular fairy back in this sweet story. Times are not good in the village, but Bramblewilde sees no way to ease their hardships. Luckily, their bees have an answer.

Of the seven stories in Uncanny #57, I’d like to highlight two. Set in the world of his novel Central Station (and other works), “The Robot” by Lavie Tidhar follows a caregiving robot through centu­ries of interacting with humans and other robots as it seeks existential meaning. A beautifully writ­ten, moving novelette. “The Best-Ever Cosplay of Whistle and Midnight” by Annalee Newitz is an amusing story about future cosplay competition not limited to homo sapiens.

First of two standout originals from Apex #143 is Nika Murphy’s “The Ghost Tenders of Chornobyl” which features a transmasculine Ukrainian-American who journeys to Ukraine to aid in the fight against Russian invaders. He is killed. His ghost remains in the forested Chornobyl Exclusion Zone caring for fungi that feed off the radiation from the reactor that was destroyed in 1986. Ultimately, it’s a story about acceptance and the need for change. There’s also a wonderful supporting character: the fearless, elderly babusya Lyudmyla. The other is “Chị Tấm is Tired of Be­ing Dead” by Natasha King, a dark fairy tale. An evil stepmother and her daughter, Cám, murder stepdaughter/half-sister Tấm – so Cám can marry the king instead of Tấm. But an angry Tấm keeps coming back in various incarnations. Cám kills her again each time. Tấm, finally reborn as herself, is reunited with the king, and wreaks revenge. Along with the bloodshed, there’s considerable humor. An old trope freshly re-expressed.

The four original short stories and two works of flash fiction in Apex #142 are all horror. Of them, “Just You and Me, Now” by KT Bryski struck me as the most effective. A family – mom, dad, three kids – go camping. During their first night at the campsite, their car disappears. They seem to be in the middle of nowhere, then a silent stranger appears. Bryski builds the sense of dread and trepidation well.

Recommended Stories
“The Haunting House”, David Ebenbach (Weird Horror Spring ’24)
“The Feast of Baku & the Yume no Seirei”, Cheri Kamei (Uncanny 1-2/24)
“Country Birds”, Kij Johnson (The Saturday Morning Transport 2/11/24)
“Marginalia”, Mary Robinette Kowal (Uncanny 1-2/24)
“Rude Litterbox Space”, Mary Robinette Kowal (The Saturday Morning Transport 3/3/24)
“Cuneiform”, Yoon Ha Lee (The Saturday Morning Transport 1/14/24)
“The Ghost Tenders of Chornobyl”, Nika Murphy (Apex #143)
“Patience Is the Virtue”, Aimee Ogden (Weird Horror Spring ’24)
“A Hundred Secret Names”, Margaret Ronald (The Saturday Morning Transport 2/4/24)
“Agni”, Nibedita Sen (The Saturday Morning Transport 1/7/24)
“A Recipe for Hope and Honeycake”,  Jordan Taylor (Uncanny 1-2/24)
“The Robot”, Lavie Tidhar (Uncanny 3-4/24)

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

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