Zooscape, Flash Fiction Online, and Escape Pod: Short Fiction Reviews by Charles Payseur
Zooscape 8/24
Flash Fiction Online 8/24
Escape Pod 8/22/24
The latest from Zooscape features a fresh twist on the Little Red Riding Hood story in Erin Brown’s intense “The Cloak”. Flipping the script in terms of heroes and villains, the wolf narrates the action as he is stalked by a young hunter who has successfully turned the rest of his family into the warm clothes she wears as she tracks him. Now all that remains is his own pelt, meant to be a blanket for her grandmother, as the wolf dwells on his loss, grief, and desperation in the face of the danger he faces. Reflecting the changed relationship between humanity and nature, the shift in perspective and sympathy shows a modern sensibility where humans are the aggressors, and even wolves face decimation. Brown provides a grim look at survival and violence as the wolf must decide how to face his family’s killer, and readers are left with an interesting and satisfying new take on a familiar folktale. And indeed the issue as a whole seeks to complicate a lot of these older stories and elements, from frog princes to dragons, all interpreted through the publication’s focus on furry fiction.
August’s Flash Fiction Online opens with Carol Scheina’s “Give a Smile at Ye Old Photographie Shoppe”, which would have fit right in at Zooscape as well given its protagonist, Mal – a dragon who owns a photography studio specializing mostly in reenactments where people dress as Saint George and pretend to vanquish Mal. While it brings people in, it’s not very distinguished or fulfilling work for Mal, who prefers capturing the candid joy people share when they’re happy rather than the false bravado of the “historical” photos. When he decides to change emphasis in his work, though, he risks losing his livelihood, at least until he finds a new and much more rewarding specialty. It’s a charming and heartwarming read.
Escape Pod closed out their August originals with the wonderful “Endymion” by Sylvie Althoff, which features Mac, a trans woman who’s turned to theft to survive a future defined by debt and exploitation. But as the story opens she’s put that life behind her, settling down with her partner Selene and planning for a future much brighter than the life she’s known. Except that someone keeps on intruding, bringing violence and danger into the world that Mac and Selene are trying to build for themselves. Not everything is as it seems, and Althoff slowly reveals the cracks in the façade of Mac’s good fortunes. Strongly evoking The Matrix, the story explores the draw and revulsion of the artificial, the subliminal, and the real all informed by the corruptions and injustices of human structures and institutions. It’s well worth checking out!
Recommended Stories
“The Cloak”, Erin Brown (Zooscape 8/24)
“Endymion”, Sylvie Althoff (Escape Pod 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 November 2024 issue of Locus.
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