Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Diabolical Plots, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and GigaNotoSaurus
Diabolical Plots 5/24
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 5/2/24, 5/16/24
GigaNotoSaurus 5/1/24
The latest from Diabolical Plots includes the aptly named “How to Kill the Giant Living Brain You Found In Your Mother’s Basement After She Died: An Interactive Guide” by Alex Sobel, which follows Grace as she tries to process her mother’s death while also dealing with the strange abomination that is the living, possibly telepathic brain her mother somehow brought into being in her basement. Sobel does sharp work in exposing the frayed and toxic relationship Grace and her mother had, where failures in parenting were pushed onto Grace, and kindness and support always were often promised but seldom delivered. Even the framing of the story works into this cycle of manipulation and grief, as the live assistance Grace thinks she’s getting to deal with the living brain might not be what it seems. It’s an aching look at a relationship that even in death is not fully severed, as the damage lingers and Grace has to find ways to set boundaries, protect herself, and face the future. It’s very good!
Marissa Lingen opens up the first May issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies with “A Pilgrimage to the God of High Places”, which finds a narrator with a disability accompanying her mother to ask for the help of the God of High Places, fittingly in the lowest canyon in the region. It’s not really the narrator’s idea, nor does she even want the sort of “cure” her mother seems to desire from the trip. But following the sale of her mother’s farm, the narrator hopes it will be something of a diversion that will spare her even more maternal meddling. Unfortunately (or not), when they finally arrive, the God of War has taken over the temple, and the narrator and her mother have to find a way to help their own beleaguered god without making the war god stronger through open conflict. Lingen shows a deft hand in finding clever solutions to the various dilemmas in the story, highlighting the narrator’s strengths as she navigates the aggressive personalities around her and charts a course for something like peace, which is wonderful to behold. In the second issue of the month, Amanda Helms continues the focus on mothers and daughters but with much more of a violent and abusive slant in “Sever and Bind”. After all, Nevaline only escaped her mother and the Lord of the Dusklands whom she had sold Nevaline to through desperate magic and complete isolation. Isolation she breaks when her mother’s shadow hound arrives on her doorstep, and brings with it all manner of trouble, including the news that her mother is dead. Dead doesn’t mean powerless in this setting, though, and Helms shows the series of confrontations, betrayals, and defeats in powerful and rending fashion. The worldbuilding is intriguing, but it’s the character work that shines even in the deeper darknesses of the story and its twisted relationships. Nevaline has to defy the expectations heaped on her and find her own path forward out from the shadows of either her mother or the man who tried to dominate her, and it makes for a compelling read.
Shifting the familial focus from mothers and daughters to a trio of sisters, Eris Young’s “Lacquer Cabinet Trick” in the May GigaNotoSaurus focuses on Lisha, Lilling, and the narrator – sibling magical performers who inherited stagecraft from their father and witchcraft from their mother in a historical England. When their big trick is stolen by a rival, the three set out to confront her, only to find her murdered body. Death isn’t too big a thing with a little magic, though, and the three make the decision to resurrect her. Young builds up a cross-genre experience that is part mystery, part romance, part courtroom drama, and part gaslight fantasy, blending the disparate elements into a seamless and captivating whole. At its heart, the story deals with prejudice and fate and the prices often paid for resisting both. But there is strength and fortune (as well as very entertaining reading) to be found when people marginalized by the system stand together, and defy the forces pushing them toward destruction and ruination. That the story’s structure follows the steps of the sisters’ signature trick adds a nice layer of misdirection and flourish, and it all comes together quite well.
Recommended Stories
“How to Kill the Giant Living Brain You Found In Your Mother’s Basement After She Died: An Interactive Guide”, Alex Sobel (Diabolical Plots 5/24)
“A Pilgrimage to the God of High Places”, Marissa Lingen (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 5/24)
“Lacquer Cabinet Trick”, Eris Young (GigaNotoSaurus 5/24)
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 July 2024 issue of Locus.
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