GigaNotoSaurus, Diabolical Plots, and Small Wonders: Short Fiction Reviews by Charles Payseur
GigaNotoSaurus 8/24
Diabolical Plots 8/24
Small Wonders 8/24
The August GigaNotoSaurus story is Sarah J. Wu’s “Elves in Illinois”, which finds Linnet growing up in a small rural town that abuts a forest where fae live and hire out their services to farmers to ensure prosperous crop yields regardless of drought or blight. Linnet’s family is initially reluctant to pay the fees that the fae ask for their work, but in the face of the grim realities facing small farmers, find that working with the fae is far preferable to not. And for Linnet, the fae, and especially one of them named Ellender, hold a charm and a magic that captivates her and offers her something quite different from the small-town expectations she’s faced with, where escape means going to university before returning to settle down. But tensions between the town and the fae threaten the magic and the prosperity of everyone as Linnet has to decide the future she wants, and who she wants to spend it with. Wu does a fantastic job of taking the Old World traditions of the fae and importing them to the New World.
Mike Reeves-McMillan appears in the August Diabolical Plots with “Dreamwright Street”, which imagines a fantasy world where dreamwrights prepare any kind of dream… for those who can afford them. For those who can’t, the closest they can often get is as those drained of their potential dreams, slowly left as little more than husks. For Habsor, a dreamwright whose clients include the city’s leading families, it’s just the unfortunate but necessary price for doing business, and he hardly thinks about the young man he drains in order to complete an order for a dream of flying for the daughter of one of the city’s rulers. Until the dream is experienced by a group of young nobles, who begin to act very strangely (if also rather justly). Reeves-McMillian takes a sharp look at exploitation, resistance, and the power of dreams both of oppress and subvert.
The August Small Wonders features a striking poem with Dyani Sabin’s “Abstain from Spinning, beauty”. Wrapped around the trapping of familiar fairy tales is a rather damning look at safety, or the illusion of it, in a world and place where those with power can prey upon those without, as especially women are often blamed for the violent attention aimed at them – for their assaults and worse. The piece examines the frail armor “abstaining” is when no amount of trying to avoid a bad situation can be wholly effective. So the piece seems to advocate for education rather than ignorance, and for breaking down the structures that push blame onto victims rather than violators. Sabin provides a sharp and brutal, but also deeply insightful, look into the stories we tell and the lessons we draw from them. Kurt Pankau also contributes to the issue with “12 Foolproof Ways to Solve the Grandfather Paradox”, which places a second-person you as a quasi-god of time, responsible for making sure that reality itself doesn’t come undone thanks to time travel, which is rather difficult to outlaw entirely and which must be met with rather creative approaches. The story guides you through the possible pitfalls of time travel, giving some advice in avoiding reality-ending catastrophes while keeping the tone light and conversational. Pankau walks a line between grimness and humor that works well, implying a number of reasons why this sort of guide is necessary… and might not be as foolproof as advertised.
Recommended Stories
“Elves in Illinois”, Sarah J. Wu (GigaNotoSaurus 8/24)
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 October 2024 issue of Locus.
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