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The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023
A collection of the year’s best science fiction and fantasy writing selected by New York Times bestselling author R. F. Kuang and series editor John Joseph Adams. R. K. Kuang, New York Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy and Babel, selects twenty pieces that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year and explores the ever-expanding and changing world of science fiction and fantasy today.
320 pages, Paperback
First published October 17, 2023
About the author
R.F. Kuang
19 books61.5k followersRebecca F. Kuang is a Marshall Scholar, translator, and award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy and Babel: An Arcane History, among others. She has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale.
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November 25, 2023*The Six Death of the Saint*, all the chef kisses
October 24, 2023
This is a grumpy old man review.
Up until 2010 or so there were a couple of annual paperback "Best of" science fiction collections available. Gardner Dozois edited the best of them. They were a good way of keeping up with the hot new authors and seeing what your old favorites were up to.
None of those series are still published. There are a few small presses that try to fill the void, but they tend not to last long. The on-line world in another option. Overall, it is hard to find that kind of annual overview of what is going on in science fiction.
The biggest reason for the decline is the general decline in science fiction. Publishers focus on multi-volume fantasies sagas and space war sagas. The traditional science fiction novels and stories have almost disappeared.
Science fiction stories typically were about an alien or far future world. They had plots. The hero, typically male, would face a challenge. The story would give the author, typically male, a chance to explore current issues and challenges under the guise of a fictional world. The fictional world was bound by the rules of science, even if it was fictional science. Magic, spells, curses, etc. played no part.
This collection, which seems to be the most readily available yearly series, has almost no stories that are even close to a typical science fiction story. First, as the title suggests, there are not enough good SF stories to fill the book, so we have to include fantasy. There are twenty stories in the book. Eight of them are fantasy stories with various versions of magic and spells.
Five of the stories are fictional reporting on a future world with no real plot or protagonist. A couple of them are surreal plotless scenes.
A few were well thought out science fiction stories. Chris Willrich's "The Odyssey Problem" is a first-rate story and the concept of "The Room" is very clever. Theodora Goss's story "Pellargonia: A Letter to the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology" has what could be considered a fantasy premise but it is carried out with wonderful specificity and realism. Whatever it is, I enjoyed it. Kim Fu's "Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867" is a transcript of a conversation with an AI. She teases out some of those issues but tells a funny story with an almost optimistic punch line.
Note that neither the Goss story nor the Fu story meet my description of a typical SF story. Willrich's story is really the only classic SF story in the collection.
I have a good selection of older SF story collections which I dip in to when I am in the mood. It is probably a good thing that literature moves on. The famous saying is that the golden age of science fiction is 13. It is a good point. I am sure I would enjoy a "best of" collection from 1967 more than I enjoyed this one. I am comfortable in my old chair reading my old books, and I am sure that there is a 13-year-old somewhere who loves this collection.
Up until 2010 or so there were a couple of annual paperback "Best of" science fiction collections available. Gardner Dozois edited the best of them. They were a good way of keeping up with the hot new authors and seeing what your old favorites were up to.
None of those series are still published. There are a few small presses that try to fill the void, but they tend not to last long. The on-line world in another option. Overall, it is hard to find that kind of annual overview of what is going on in science fiction.
The biggest reason for the decline is the general decline in science fiction. Publishers focus on multi-volume fantasies sagas and space war sagas. The traditional science fiction novels and stories have almost disappeared.
Science fiction stories typically were about an alien or far future world. They had plots. The hero, typically male, would face a challenge. The story would give the author, typically male, a chance to explore current issues and challenges under the guise of a fictional world. The fictional world was bound by the rules of science, even if it was fictional science. Magic, spells, curses, etc. played no part.
This collection, which seems to be the most readily available yearly series, has almost no stories that are even close to a typical science fiction story. First, as the title suggests, there are not enough good SF stories to fill the book, so we have to include fantasy. There are twenty stories in the book. Eight of them are fantasy stories with various versions of magic and spells.
Five of the stories are fictional reporting on a future world with no real plot or protagonist. A couple of them are surreal plotless scenes.
A few were well thought out science fiction stories. Chris Willrich's "The Odyssey Problem" is a first-rate story and the concept of "The Room" is very clever. Theodora Goss's story "Pellargonia: A Letter to the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology" has what could be considered a fantasy premise but it is carried out with wonderful specificity and realism. Whatever it is, I enjoyed it. Kim Fu's "Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867" is a transcript of a conversation with an AI. She teases out some of those issues but tells a funny story with an almost optimistic punch line.
Note that neither the Goss story nor the Fu story meet my description of a typical SF story. Willrich's story is really the only classic SF story in the collection.
I have a good selection of older SF story collections which I dip in to when I am in the mood. It is probably a good thing that literature moves on. The famous saying is that the golden age of science fiction is 13. It is a good point. I am sure I would enjoy a "best of" collection from 1967 more than I enjoyed this one. I am comfortable in my old chair reading my old books, and I am sure that there is a 13-year-old somewhere who loves this collection.
April 5, 2024
After reading a couple years of Best American Short Stories and criticizing this year’s collection for including no speculative or experimental work, I decided to check out this anthology—all speculative, of course, and this batch highly experimental in form and structure. To the extent guest editor Kuang chose the stories (series editor Adams picks 80 by reading widely in magazines, collections and anthologies; the guest editor narrows it to 20), her introduction makes her philosophy clear: her primary criterion was “commitment to the bit,” with a strong preference for gonzo, bonkers, and sometimes political stories. They are concept-heavy, giving me new appreciation for the character-driven stories in BASS 2023. It is an interesting and diverse batch of stories—in topic and structure as well as author and character identity—but I only liked about 8 out of 20, and loved none, even the couple from authors whose work I’ve loved before.
Notes on the individual stories:
“Readings in the Slantwise Sciences” by Sofia Samatar: I love Samatar’s work—seriously, go check out her collection—but this is a wild choice to begin the anthology because it isn’t even a story, it’s a writing exercise. Samatar was going stir crazy during lockdown and rewrote three National Geographic articles to be surreal and fantastical. The articles have no connection to each other and while I rather liked the use of fairies as a metaphor for insect die-off, the piece overall is a strange choice.
“Air to Shape Lungs” by Shingai Njeri Kagunda: Another strange choice for a first impression. The author comes up with a fantasy concept to symbolize opposition to borders and racism, writes a 3-page description of said concept and stops there, without actual plot or characters.
“Beginnings” by Kristina Ten: The first one I sort of liked, a poignant little suburban fairy tale that kept me guessing about where we were and what was really going on. Not sure why the author thinks all fairy tales end happily, though.
“Sparrows” by Susan Palwick: A favorite. While the world is falling apart, a lonely college student holes up in her dorm to finish her Shakespeare paper, and it’s a resonant exploration of meaning in life, what we do when death is imminent, and where the world might be headed. I’m excited to see this author has written novels (better yet, not about the apocalypse)—my biggest find of the anthology.
“The Six Deaths of the Saint” by Alix Harrow: The most popular of the anthology, and I see why and mostly agree. An exciting tale of love and war with twists that pack a punch, and emotional and thematic resonance. I didn’t entirely love the ending: But overall I probably liked this better than the novel I’ve read from Harrow and see why people love her short fiction.
“Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist” by Isabel J. Kim: I’ve heard great things about this author, but this is a very meta takedown of a subgenre I don’t read, which did very little for me.
“Men, Women and Chainsaws” by Stephen Graham Jones: A twist on horror tropes, which will likely work better for people who like horror. I admired the rare realistic depiction of average small-town young adults—not bookish, or solitary and eccentric, the way authors tend to prefer their leads; the protagonist works at a car dealership but wishes she was a hair stylist, lives in a trailer with roommates and parties hard at bonfires on the weekend—but didn’t otherwise enjoy it. The ending felt particularly off:
“Rabbit Test” by Samantha Mills: Part dystopian tale, part historical review, all op-ed about reproductive rights in America. It’s effective—I can see it being read at conferences in years to come, and if you’re feeling outraged about recent Supreme Court decisions and want validation, this story is a great choice. I would have liked a little more from the characters.
“There are No Monsters at Rancho Buenavista” by Isabel Cañas: A flash fiction monster story. It’s fine but not helped by putting the author’s note up front—I’m not convinced this is the subversion she thinks it is.
“Murder by Pixel” by S.L. Huang: This reads like a feature in a news magazine—impressively so; fiction authors rarely mimic the style of anything so well. What happens when chatbot AIs are set loose to contact people? The story gives us a scenario, inventing only the people involved, and giving us even (presumably fictional) interviews with professionals and the (real) history of AI. A strong work, to be engaged with as a thinkpiece more so than a story.
“White Water, Blue Ocean” by Linda Raquel Nieves Perez: The worst-written story in the collection, featuring a Puerto Rican(?) family under a curse (or perhaps a poorly-thought-out blessing from a clueless spirit). Full of abrupt emotional shifts and awkward exposition, and with a narrator who believes the entire world revolves around their gender identity.
“The CRISPR Cookbook” by MKRNYILGLD: Formatted as an instruction manual for the science-inclined who need to cook up their own abortions in an oppressive world. Suffers from being Abortion Story #2 and less effective than Abortion Story #1; I’d have rather read the actual story of a scientist doing this than the manual she refers to.
“Three Mothers Mountain” by Nathan Ballingrud: A well-written story if you’re interested in Appalachian fairy tales blended with horror. I don’t like horror and found it gross and sad. The kids should’ve talked to their teachers.
“The Odyssey Problem” by Chris Willrich: A spacefaring riff on “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” in which several completely opposed—but all sensible by their own terms—systems of morality run into each other in what feels like escalating moral oneupmanship. I see why some people love this, and it’s certainly confident, blazing ahead and demanding readers keep up. But my biggest takeaway was “never assume you’ve reached the apex of moral progress,” which is pretty obvious, and its characters are no more than props. Why make a rescued Omelas child your narrator if you refuse to do pathos? Plus, Willrich ignores Le Guin’s points about the long-term effects—intellectual, linguistic, physical—that such a childhood would have.
“Pellargonia” by Theodora Goss: Three teens with a worldbuilding hobby accidentally create a country, and the story is in the form of a letter to the relevant journal asking for help. Maybe I’m a curmudgeon for disliking it, as most readers found it charming, but the constant interjections interrupt the flow and it is not believable as a letter to an academic journal (nor did it make me believe these kids could’ve successfully passed off their prior work). Also, it felt like it was hiding the fact that this is a story about clueless Americans screwing things up for everyone by messing with countries they don’t understand behind the tired “every kid in the friend group has a different diversity point” trope. Maybe it’s subtly making the point that identity politics don’t absolve you of responsibility for your actions, or maybe that’s giving it too much credit.
“Pre-Simulation Consultation” by Kim Fu: Happily, I liked this one: a story in the form of a transcript between a customer and employee, negotiating a virtual reality experience. We learn a fair bit indirectly about both of the characters, it’s a fun but thoughtful look at corporate and legal handling of new technologies, and the end is strong.
“In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird” by Maria Dong: Ugh. A vibes story I definitely didn’t vibe with. A depressing premise (all life is dying off, and humans are making it worse by their spirits parasitically invading other species and killing them off even faster), that’s apparently supposed to be counterbalanced by the mystical connection between two souls, but those souls are parasites and we’re given no reason to care about them, and no hope. Also, the protagonist didn’t begin as a bird.
“The Difference Between Love and Time” by Catherynne Valente: A bonkers story about a woman’s turbulent lifelong romantic relationship with the space-time continuum, which is always appearing in different forms. I can see why people like it but this one was just too out there for me, not surprising since Valente’s recent novels have been too. My buddy read partner, who liked it, describes it as “a story of metaphysics and madness.”
“Folk Hero Motifs in Tales Told by the Dead” by KT Bryski: A good one. In a sort of purgatory, this story alternates between the poignant story of the dead narrator, and trickster stories recognizable in inspiration but twisted to feature the dead. Clever and meaningful and strange.
“Cumulative Ethical Guidelines for Mid-Range Interstellar Storytellers” by Malka Older: I can see why others would find this unremarkable, but for me it was the perfect end to the anthology. It reads like a crowdsourced Google Doc put together by and for storytellers working on spaceships. It sneaks in a lot of worldbuilding while sounding like the kinds of comments people actually write, and I found it fun and sweet.
Overall, then, lots of ups and downs, a few new authors discovered. Worth the read for me but hard to recommend. I might try another volume in a different year to see whether it’s the guest editor’s taste that doesn’t quite agree with me, or the series editor’s.
Notes on the individual stories:
“Readings in the Slantwise Sciences” by Sofia Samatar: I love Samatar’s work—seriously, go check out her collection—but this is a wild choice to begin the anthology because it isn’t even a story, it’s a writing exercise. Samatar was going stir crazy during lockdown and rewrote three National Geographic articles to be surreal and fantastical. The articles have no connection to each other and while I rather liked the use of fairies as a metaphor for insect die-off, the piece overall is a strange choice.
“Air to Shape Lungs” by Shingai Njeri Kagunda: Another strange choice for a first impression. The author comes up with a fantasy concept to symbolize opposition to borders and racism, writes a 3-page description of said concept and stops there, without actual plot or characters.
“Beginnings” by Kristina Ten: The first one I sort of liked, a poignant little suburban fairy tale that kept me guessing about where we were and what was really going on. Not sure why the author thinks all fairy tales end happily, though.
“Sparrows” by Susan Palwick: A favorite. While the world is falling apart, a lonely college student holes up in her dorm to finish her Shakespeare paper, and it’s a resonant exploration of meaning in life, what we do when death is imminent, and where the world might be headed. I’m excited to see this author has written novels (better yet, not about the apocalypse)—my biggest find of the anthology.
“The Six Deaths of the Saint” by Alix Harrow: The most popular of the anthology, and I see why and mostly agree. An exciting tale of love and war with twists that pack a punch, and emotional and thematic resonance. I didn’t entirely love the ending: But overall I probably liked this better than the novel I’ve read from Harrow and see why people love her short fiction.
“Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist” by Isabel J. Kim: I’ve heard great things about this author, but this is a very meta takedown of a subgenre I don’t read, which did very little for me.
“Men, Women and Chainsaws” by Stephen Graham Jones: A twist on horror tropes, which will likely work better for people who like horror. I admired the rare realistic depiction of average small-town young adults—not bookish, or solitary and eccentric, the way authors tend to prefer their leads; the protagonist works at a car dealership but wishes she was a hair stylist, lives in a trailer with roommates and parties hard at bonfires on the weekend—but didn’t otherwise enjoy it. The ending felt particularly off:
“Rabbit Test” by Samantha Mills: Part dystopian tale, part historical review, all op-ed about reproductive rights in America. It’s effective—I can see it being read at conferences in years to come, and if you’re feeling outraged about recent Supreme Court decisions and want validation, this story is a great choice. I would have liked a little more from the characters.
“There are No Monsters at Rancho Buenavista” by Isabel Cañas: A flash fiction monster story. It’s fine but not helped by putting the author’s note up front—I’m not convinced this is the subversion she thinks it is.
“Murder by Pixel” by S.L. Huang: This reads like a feature in a news magazine—impressively so; fiction authors rarely mimic the style of anything so well. What happens when chatbot AIs are set loose to contact people? The story gives us a scenario, inventing only the people involved, and giving us even (presumably fictional) interviews with professionals and the (real) history of AI. A strong work, to be engaged with as a thinkpiece more so than a story.
“White Water, Blue Ocean” by Linda Raquel Nieves Perez: The worst-written story in the collection, featuring a Puerto Rican(?) family under a curse (or perhaps a poorly-thought-out blessing from a clueless spirit). Full of abrupt emotional shifts and awkward exposition, and with a narrator who believes the entire world revolves around their gender identity.
“The CRISPR Cookbook” by MKRNYILGLD: Formatted as an instruction manual for the science-inclined who need to cook up their own abortions in an oppressive world. Suffers from being Abortion Story #2 and less effective than Abortion Story #1; I’d have rather read the actual story of a scientist doing this than the manual she refers to.
“Three Mothers Mountain” by Nathan Ballingrud: A well-written story if you’re interested in Appalachian fairy tales blended with horror. I don’t like horror and found it gross and sad. The kids should’ve talked to their teachers.
“The Odyssey Problem” by Chris Willrich: A spacefaring riff on “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” in which several completely opposed—but all sensible by their own terms—systems of morality run into each other in what feels like escalating moral oneupmanship. I see why some people love this, and it’s certainly confident, blazing ahead and demanding readers keep up. But my biggest takeaway was “never assume you’ve reached the apex of moral progress,” which is pretty obvious, and its characters are no more than props. Why make a rescued Omelas child your narrator if you refuse to do pathos? Plus, Willrich ignores Le Guin’s points about the long-term effects—intellectual, linguistic, physical—that such a childhood would have.
“Pellargonia” by Theodora Goss: Three teens with a worldbuilding hobby accidentally create a country, and the story is in the form of a letter to the relevant journal asking for help. Maybe I’m a curmudgeon for disliking it, as most readers found it charming, but the constant interjections interrupt the flow and it is not believable as a letter to an academic journal (nor did it make me believe these kids could’ve successfully passed off their prior work). Also, it felt like it was hiding the fact that this is a story about clueless Americans screwing things up for everyone by messing with countries they don’t understand behind the tired “every kid in the friend group has a different diversity point” trope. Maybe it’s subtly making the point that identity politics don’t absolve you of responsibility for your actions, or maybe that’s giving it too much credit.
“Pre-Simulation Consultation” by Kim Fu: Happily, I liked this one: a story in the form of a transcript between a customer and employee, negotiating a virtual reality experience. We learn a fair bit indirectly about both of the characters, it’s a fun but thoughtful look at corporate and legal handling of new technologies, and the end is strong.
“In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird” by Maria Dong: Ugh. A vibes story I definitely didn’t vibe with. A depressing premise (all life is dying off, and humans are making it worse by their spirits parasitically invading other species and killing them off even faster), that’s apparently supposed to be counterbalanced by the mystical connection between two souls, but those souls are parasites and we’re given no reason to care about them, and no hope. Also, the protagonist didn’t begin as a bird.
“The Difference Between Love and Time” by Catherynne Valente: A bonkers story about a woman’s turbulent lifelong romantic relationship with the space-time continuum, which is always appearing in different forms. I can see why people like it but this one was just too out there for me, not surprising since Valente’s recent novels have been too. My buddy read partner, who liked it, describes it as “a story of metaphysics and madness.”
“Folk Hero Motifs in Tales Told by the Dead” by KT Bryski: A good one. In a sort of purgatory, this story alternates between the poignant story of the dead narrator, and trickster stories recognizable in inspiration but twisted to feature the dead. Clever and meaningful and strange.
“Cumulative Ethical Guidelines for Mid-Range Interstellar Storytellers” by Malka Older: I can see why others would find this unremarkable, but for me it was the perfect end to the anthology. It reads like a crowdsourced Google Doc put together by and for storytellers working on spaceships. It sneaks in a lot of worldbuilding while sounding like the kinds of comments people actually write, and I found it fun and sweet.
Overall, then, lots of ups and downs, a few new authors discovered. Worth the read for me but hard to recommend. I might try another volume in a different year to see whether it’s the guest editor’s taste that doesn’t quite agree with me, or the series editor’s.
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February 13, 2024It is my goal in life to read anything that RF Kuang's mind touches! This was a wonderful assortment of short stories, with so many creative formats and voices. I hadn't ever read any fantasy or sci-fi short stories before and I was impressed by the amount of world-building, character, and style (which were often times unconventional) packed into so few pages. My mind has definitely been expanded in terms of the potential of what short stories can be and what kinds of stories can be told.
My favorites in the collection:
"Beginnings" by Kristina Ten
"The Six Deaths of the Saint" by Alix E. Harrow
"Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist" by Isabel J. Kim
"Three Mothers Mountain" by Nathan Ballingrud
"In the Beginning of Me I Was a Bird" by Maria Dong
"The Difference between Love and Time" by Catherynne M. Valente
My favorites in the collection:
"Beginnings" by Kristina Ten
"The Six Deaths of the Saint" by Alix E. Harrow
"Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist" by Isabel J. Kim
"Three Mothers Mountain" by Nathan Ballingrud
"In the Beginning of Me I Was a Bird" by Maria Dong
"The Difference between Love and Time" by Catherynne M. Valente
January 15, 2024
my question is why did they start the collection with the worst short story in the book 💀
October 30, 2023
Series editor reads short fiction extensively, picks 80 stories and strips the authors' names from them, then hands them to the guest editor (in this case, R.F. Kuang) to pick the best 20 which he publishes.
This volume contains the scorching abortion story 'Rabbit Test' by Samantha Mills, which just won the Hugo award. There are stories that deal with clmate change, and the wonderful story of reminiscence and physics, 'The Difference Between Love and Time' by Cathrynne Valente. Chris Willrich's story 'The Odyssey Problem' is in conversation with Le Guin's 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas', and Nathan Ballingrud adds some creepiness with 'Three Mothers Mountain'. It's a wide and varied selection, which I think was Kuang's intention: To show the range that SF&F takes these days.
This volume contains the scorching abortion story 'Rabbit Test' by Samantha Mills, which just won the Hugo award. There are stories that deal with clmate change, and the wonderful story of reminiscence and physics, 'The Difference Between Love and Time' by Cathrynne Valente. Chris Willrich's story 'The Odyssey Problem' is in conversation with Le Guin's 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas', and Nathan Ballingrud adds some creepiness with 'Three Mothers Mountain'. It's a wide and varied selection, which I think was Kuang's intention: To show the range that SF&F takes these days.
March 6, 2024
The Odyssey Problem by Chris Willrich ★★★★☆
Like a fascinating, and comic, episode of Star Trek this story shows how different levels of advanced societies see the universe and judge each other.
The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow ★★★½☆
Live. Die. Repeat.
Girl. Devil. Saint.
This story was long, rough, and sad. It would be amazing to relive your life with a little help from your own experiences. But only if you were in control, and our poor MC never was. The ending was not worth the investment.
There Are No Monsters on Rancho Buenavista by Isabelle Cañas ★★★½☆
A man obsessed with a mysterious woman finds out her secret, he dies screaming it out to the world.
Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness by S. L. Huang ★★★☆☆
Exploring the legal liability and ethical responsibility of A.I. chatbots. No answers, just a long frustrating series of questions.
Sparrows by Susan Palwick ★★★☆☆
It’s the end of the world and a Shakespeare student elects to finish her paper on King Lear. It felt like the center of a hurricane, a thoughtful moment in the madness.
Men, Women and Chainsaws by Stephen Graham Jones ★★★☆☆
That was an over-the-top revenge story, and I like revenge stories. Mostly what annoyed me was fantasy of “real parents” as if the people who raised you were less for not being biologically related. Parents are the people who show up every day and care.
Folk Hero Motif in Tales Told By the Dead by KT Bryski ★★★☆☆
Stories told by the dead start at the end. I like the idea that there would still be adventures, the unknown, after death.
White Water, Blue Ocean by Linda Raquel Nieves Pérez ★★★☆☆
When none of the women can lie it takes family drama to the next level.
Pellargonia: A Letter to the Journal of Imagined Anthropology by Theodora Goss ★★★☆☆
Teenagers with a world-building hobby see their dreams get out of hand. It’s creative but nonsensical.
Readings in the Slantwise Sciences by Sophia Samatar ★★½☆☆
A dashingly pretty blend of incomprehensible science fiction and fairy fantasy that spoke to little other than insect loss and a touch of trendy anti-colonialism.
Air to Shape Lungs by Shingai Njeri Kagunda ★★½☆☆
This could have been good with a solid backstory of who left, why, for how long, how did they change… etc. What was given was more like poetry.
Three Mothers Mountain by Nathan Ballingrud ★★½☆☆
I like this author but this offer wrong felt a dud. Two brothers go to witches for help and you never find out if it’s granted or if the boys sacrifice made any difference.
In The Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird by Maria Dong ★★☆☆☆
An alien seeding of the planet causes humans to connect to all living things… by killing them. This wasn’t a drag to read but it didn’t make sense and you never find out the why.
Cumulative Ethical Guidelines for Midrange Interstellar Storytellers by Malka Older ★★☆☆☆
Storytelling is a job on interstellar voyages to inspire passengers. Not much to this.
Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist by Isabel J. Kim ★½☆☆☆
I don’t know what this A.I. mess was trying to achieve but entertaining me was not high on the list. This was not a cool sexy story.
Beginnings by Kristina Ten ★½☆☆☆
The barest hint of confectionery fantasy sprinkled over angry agenda.
Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867 by Kim Fu ★☆☆☆☆ DNF
Warning: May trigger rage if you have ever had a customer service job.
Just read the handbook.
Why did you even come if you have not read the handbook?
All the answers are in the handbook.
Get the fuck out of here and don’t come back unless you have read the entire handbook!!!
The CRISPR Cookbook by MKRNYILGLD DNF
I didn’t make it past Pregnancy Officer. The horror was too much.
Rabbit Test by Samantha Mills DNF
I couldn’t finish this. It wasn’t a bad story but it’s just so upsetting because it’s real. The real horror of life in the US, and too many other places, for women.
The Difference Between Love and Time by Catherynne M. Valente DNF
I made it halfway. I either love her work or toss it across the room. (previous review, I chose not to give this another chance)
I finished 17/20 stories that averaged 2.61 stars rounded down to 2 stars to accurately represent my experience.
Like a fascinating, and comic, episode of Star Trek this story shows how different levels of advanced societies see the universe and judge each other.
The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow ★★★½☆
Live. Die. Repeat.
Girl. Devil. Saint.
This story was long, rough, and sad. It would be amazing to relive your life with a little help from your own experiences. But only if you were in control, and our poor MC never was. The ending was not worth the investment.
There Are No Monsters on Rancho Buenavista by Isabelle Cañas ★★★½☆
A man obsessed with a mysterious woman finds out her secret, he dies screaming it out to the world.
Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness by S. L. Huang ★★★☆☆
Exploring the legal liability and ethical responsibility of A.I. chatbots. No answers, just a long frustrating series of questions.
Sparrows by Susan Palwick ★★★☆☆
It’s the end of the world and a Shakespeare student elects to finish her paper on King Lear. It felt like the center of a hurricane, a thoughtful moment in the madness.
Men, Women and Chainsaws by Stephen Graham Jones ★★★☆☆
That was an over-the-top revenge story, and I like revenge stories. Mostly what annoyed me was fantasy of “real parents” as if the people who raised you were less for not being biologically related. Parents are the people who show up every day and care.
Folk Hero Motif in Tales Told By the Dead by KT Bryski ★★★☆☆
Stories told by the dead start at the end. I like the idea that there would still be adventures, the unknown, after death.
White Water, Blue Ocean by Linda Raquel Nieves Pérez ★★★☆☆
When none of the women can lie it takes family drama to the next level.
Pellargonia: A Letter to the Journal of Imagined Anthropology by Theodora Goss ★★★☆☆
Teenagers with a world-building hobby see their dreams get out of hand. It’s creative but nonsensical.
Readings in the Slantwise Sciences by Sophia Samatar ★★½☆☆
A dashingly pretty blend of incomprehensible science fiction and fairy fantasy that spoke to little other than insect loss and a touch of trendy anti-colonialism.
Air to Shape Lungs by Shingai Njeri Kagunda ★★½☆☆
This could have been good with a solid backstory of who left, why, for how long, how did they change… etc. What was given was more like poetry.
Three Mothers Mountain by Nathan Ballingrud ★★½☆☆
I like this author but this offer wrong felt a dud. Two brothers go to witches for help and you never find out if it’s granted or if the boys sacrifice made any difference.
In The Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird by Maria Dong ★★☆☆☆
An alien seeding of the planet causes humans to connect to all living things… by killing them. This wasn’t a drag to read but it didn’t make sense and you never find out the why.
Cumulative Ethical Guidelines for Midrange Interstellar Storytellers by Malka Older ★★☆☆☆
Storytelling is a job on interstellar voyages to inspire passengers. Not much to this.
Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist by Isabel J. Kim ★½☆☆☆
I don’t know what this A.I. mess was trying to achieve but entertaining me was not high on the list. This was not a cool sexy story.
Beginnings by Kristina Ten ★½☆☆☆
The barest hint of confectionery fantasy sprinkled over angry agenda.
Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867 by Kim Fu ★☆☆☆☆ DNF
Warning: May trigger rage if you have ever had a customer service job.
Just read the handbook.
Why did you even come if you have not read the handbook?
All the answers are in the handbook.
Get the fuck out of here and don’t come back unless you have read the entire handbook!!!
The CRISPR Cookbook by MKRNYILGLD DNF
I didn’t make it past Pregnancy Officer. The horror was too much.
Rabbit Test by Samantha Mills DNF
I couldn’t finish this. It wasn’t a bad story but it’s just so upsetting because it’s real. The real horror of life in the US, and too many other places, for women.
The Difference Between Love and Time by Catherynne M. Valente DNF
I made it halfway. I either love her work or toss it across the room. (previous review, I chose not to give this another chance)
I finished 17/20 stories that averaged 2.61 stars rounded down to 2 stars to accurately represent my experience.
July 4, 2024
“The difference between love and time is nothing. Nothing. There is no difference. The love we give to each other is the time we give to each other, and the time we spend together is the whole of love.”
Short story compilations definitely aren’t for everyone, but I love them and often pick up the annual edition of this collection, made up of a variety of speculative, sci-fi, and fantasy short stories. I was delighted to find that I had actually read and enjoyed several of the stories in the 2023 edition prior to reading this compilation!
I have seen some low rated reviews for this collection that bemoan the fact that it includes fantasy in with the sci-fi, that many of the speculative stories don’t quite fit the mold that older sci-fi tales did, and that the stories tend to focus on a variety of protagonists instead of just men. I will say that all of these were reasons that I highly enjoyed the collection, though. I find that a many (not all of course) older sci-fi/speculative books only include the perspectives of white men, and many of them demonstrate very outdated views toward anyone not fitting that description. So to find a collection with so many different perspectives and diverse worlds was refreshing for me.
As with any short story compilation, I enjoyed some of the tales more than others. There were 2-3 I wouldn’t care to read again, but the majority were ones I really enjoyed or at least really made me think! I will definitely continue to come back to this collection in future years, and I’d recommend it to anyone wanting to dip their toes into modern speculative/sci-fi short stories.
Short story compilations definitely aren’t for everyone, but I love them and often pick up the annual edition of this collection, made up of a variety of speculative, sci-fi, and fantasy short stories. I was delighted to find that I had actually read and enjoyed several of the stories in the 2023 edition prior to reading this compilation!
I have seen some low rated reviews for this collection that bemoan the fact that it includes fantasy in with the sci-fi, that many of the speculative stories don’t quite fit the mold that older sci-fi tales did, and that the stories tend to focus on a variety of protagonists instead of just men. I will say that all of these were reasons that I highly enjoyed the collection, though. I find that a many (not all of course) older sci-fi/speculative books only include the perspectives of white men, and many of them demonstrate very outdated views toward anyone not fitting that description. So to find a collection with so many different perspectives and diverse worlds was refreshing for me.
As with any short story compilation, I enjoyed some of the tales more than others. There were 2-3 I wouldn’t care to read again, but the majority were ones I really enjoyed or at least really made me think! I will definitely continue to come back to this collection in future years, and I’d recommend it to anyone wanting to dip their toes into modern speculative/sci-fi short stories.
December 19, 2023
Man, if these 20 stories are the best 2022 had to offer, it was a bit of a rough year. I've bought most volumes of this series but this one, which I borrowed from the library, is the first I've actually bothered to sit down and read. I like the basic setup, of having a standing editor who chooses his 80 favorite stories and then a new person each year to whittle that down to just twenty. It means there'll be some consistency year to year in the larger pool but the actual stories you read will align with the taste of whoever is picking this year. But judging from this collection, R.F. Kuang and I have different tastes in speculative fiction.
I do really like her discussion in her intro of how she likes stories that commit to the bit and how she's sick of the ironic defensiveness of stuff like the MCU. And these stories do generally commit to their idea. I just often didn't enjoy that idea. There's a bunch of stories tackling current issues, including migration and abortion rights. There are some stories about storytelling. There are some that are just weird. But I think the stuff I liked most tended to be good sff with neat ideas, regardless of what bent they had.
My favorites are Six Deaths, Termination Stories, Chainsaws, and The Odyssey Problem. Two of those engage with storytelling and genre tropes. Termination Stories featuring a woman referred to only as Cool and Sexy Asian Girl because that is the role she's playing in a cyberpunk story told in a city that has been in many genres and bends to whatever one is foremost. She's the obligatory exotic sidekick to the white male protagonist, but she's decided she likes being Cool and Sexy and tries to manipulate the story so she can stay that way. The Odyssey Problem is clearly a response to Omelas and Star Trek, featuring what I can only describe as morally complex turtles all the way down. It's definitely a neat story and is one that would be good for provoking debate about it's points.
The Six Deaths of the Saint is a great story that seems to be a fantasy about gods and heroes until it turns into a groundhog day loop of death and questions about whether it's better to be happy or change the world. Though, of course, changing the world doesn't always make it better. Men, Women, and Chainsaws is a great little horror story that twists the trope of bringing somebody back from the dead by eschewing the corpse of a loved one and instead featuring sacrificing blood to a car to revitalize it - and perhaps it's occupants. It also has an especially clever way of killing somebody with a chainsaw.
There were some other neat stories, tackling things like virtual reality, the stories the dead tell each other, and what happens when a trio of middle schoolers' imaginary country becomes all too real. But even the stories I enjoyed never quite blew my mind to the level I hoped for, and many of the others just didn't work for me. It was fun to read some stuff I wouldn't have otherwise, but I'm not sure that there are too many new to me authors I'll be rushing off to check out. Still, this is a neat way of doing a best of anthology, and I might have to finally read some of the older volumes.
I do really like her discussion in her intro of how she likes stories that commit to the bit and how she's sick of the ironic defensiveness of stuff like the MCU. And these stories do generally commit to their idea. I just often didn't enjoy that idea. There's a bunch of stories tackling current issues, including migration and abortion rights. There are some stories about storytelling. There are some that are just weird. But I think the stuff I liked most tended to be good sff with neat ideas, regardless of what bent they had.
My favorites are Six Deaths, Termination Stories, Chainsaws, and The Odyssey Problem. Two of those engage with storytelling and genre tropes. Termination Stories featuring a woman referred to only as Cool and Sexy Asian Girl because that is the role she's playing in a cyberpunk story told in a city that has been in many genres and bends to whatever one is foremost. She's the obligatory exotic sidekick to the white male protagonist, but she's decided she likes being Cool and Sexy and tries to manipulate the story so she can stay that way. The Odyssey Problem is clearly a response to Omelas and Star Trek, featuring what I can only describe as morally complex turtles all the way down. It's definitely a neat story and is one that would be good for provoking debate about it's points.
The Six Deaths of the Saint is a great story that seems to be a fantasy about gods and heroes until it turns into a groundhog day loop of death and questions about whether it's better to be happy or change the world. Though, of course, changing the world doesn't always make it better. Men, Women, and Chainsaws is a great little horror story that twists the trope of bringing somebody back from the dead by eschewing the corpse of a loved one and instead featuring sacrificing blood to a car to revitalize it - and perhaps it's occupants. It also has an especially clever way of killing somebody with a chainsaw.
There were some other neat stories, tackling things like virtual reality, the stories the dead tell each other, and what happens when a trio of middle schoolers' imaginary country becomes all too real. But even the stories I enjoyed never quite blew my mind to the level I hoped for, and many of the others just didn't work for me. It was fun to read some stuff I wouldn't have otherwise, but I'm not sure that there are too many new to me authors I'll be rushing off to check out. Still, this is a neat way of doing a best of anthology, and I might have to finally read some of the older volumes.
February 27, 2024
Out of 20 stories 6 are worth reading. That's a 1.5 out of 5. Only two would I actively recommend, hence the rounding down. Listed in descending order of quality, I would actively search for the first two from their magazines:
The Six Deaths of the Saint - Alix E. Harrow
The Odyssey Problem - Chris Will Rich
Fol Hero Motifs in Tales Told by the Dead - KT Bryski
Three Mothers Mountain - Nathan Ballingrud
Sparrows - Susan Palwick
Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist - Isabel J. Kim
The Six Deaths of the Saint - Alix E. Harrow
The Odyssey Problem - Chris Will Rich
Fol Hero Motifs in Tales Told by the Dead - KT Bryski
Three Mothers Mountain - Nathan Ballingrud
Sparrows - Susan Palwick
Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist - Isabel J. Kim
November 26, 2023
this really was just through and through excellent
my favorite stories:
- the six deaths of the saint by alix e. harrow
- men, women, and chainsaws by stephen graham jones
- rabbit test by samantha mills
- pellargonia by theodora gods
- the difference between love and time by catherynne m. valente
my favorite stories:
- the six deaths of the saint by alix e. harrow
- men, women, and chainsaws by stephen graham jones
- rabbit test by samantha mills
- pellargonia by theodora gods
- the difference between love and time by catherynne m. valente
Read
May 3, 2024This is the first short story collection I've read where EVERY SINGLE ONE of them was a hit! All of the authors featured are extremely talented and R.F Kuang, as always, knows what she is doing. She picked such great stories that were so confident, imaginative, and reignited my love for sci-fi and fantasy.
While they were all great here are my top stories in no particular order:
1. Air to Shape Lungs - Great and creative immersion for the complexities of displacement, and all somehow done in 3 pages. Incredible work!
2. Beginnings – If you've read that first sentence, you know. This one also ended up shocking me in the end. The pains of being a women are felt so hard in this one and fuck those extremely American-suburban-white-men-murderer-dumbass-losers King & Prince.
3. Sparrows - I have never felt so heart-warmed by an apocalypse! This was also a shockingly great read during finals week, not only because it helped coax the "never stop" mentality of higher education, but also because it made me feel like maybe there is a point to all of this stress. I am working toward a goal despite all the chaos of my life and I am fulfilling my want to learn no matter how futile it might be.
4. The Six Deaths of the Saint - Holy fricking shirt balls. I actually have no words, just go read it! It IS one of the best short stories you will ever read, hands down, pack up your bags, flip the sign to "Closed".
5. Rabbit Test - The different perspectives and timelines was so vital to effectively communicating the necessity for bodily autonomy in this story, and I am thrilled to report it was done expertly here. I love this story so much. Yes. Yes. And oh yeah, yes!
6. Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness - So well written that it honestly felt real. I love how it focused on AI, but also the companies involved and society as a whole. Just made me think a lot and I like that :)
7. In the Beginning of Me I Was a Bird - First of all, AMAZING title. Secondly, wow, I love when people use the English language like this! Minus the stalking, a pretty story too.
8. The Difference Between Love and Time - Yeah I giggled my ass off and bawled my bug-looking eyes out, are you going to pretend like you didn't?
While they were all great here are my top stories in no particular order:
1. Air to Shape Lungs - Great and creative immersion for the complexities of displacement, and all somehow done in 3 pages. Incredible work!
2. Beginnings – If you've read that first sentence, you know. This one also ended up shocking me in the end. The pains of being a women are felt so hard in this one and fuck those extremely American-suburban-white-men-murderer-dumbass-losers King & Prince.
3. Sparrows - I have never felt so heart-warmed by an apocalypse! This was also a shockingly great read during finals week, not only because it helped coax the "never stop" mentality of higher education, but also because it made me feel like maybe there is a point to all of this stress. I am working toward a goal despite all the chaos of my life and I am fulfilling my want to learn no matter how futile it might be.
4. The Six Deaths of the Saint - Holy fricking shirt balls. I actually have no words, just go read it! It IS one of the best short stories you will ever read, hands down, pack up your bags, flip the sign to "Closed".
5. Rabbit Test - The different perspectives and timelines was so vital to effectively communicating the necessity for bodily autonomy in this story, and I am thrilled to report it was done expertly here. I love this story so much. Yes. Yes. And oh yeah, yes!
6. Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness - So well written that it honestly felt real. I love how it focused on AI, but also the companies involved and society as a whole. Just made me think a lot and I like that :)
7. In the Beginning of Me I Was a Bird - First of all, AMAZING title. Secondly, wow, I love when people use the English language like this! Minus the stalking, a pretty story too.
8. The Difference Between Love and Time - Yeah I giggled my ass off and bawled my bug-looking eyes out, are you going to pretend like you didn't?
June 2, 2024
Rabbit Test!!!! That’s it that’s the tweet
August 23, 2024
3.5 rounded up. some of the choices in here are total 5 stars but it took me 3 months to get through this because I was not sold on so many of them!! sorry I love rf kuang but we just have different taste in short stories. some I read twice and still didn't get. my favorites were:
- stephen graham jones: men women chainsaws (I can't wait to read more from him after my year of forced choice is up)
- theodora goss: pellargonia
- catheryne m valente: the difference between love and time
others ranged from fine to meh but I feel like if this is a collection of BESTS there should have been more standouts. also if you read just skip the first one, it gets better.
- stephen graham jones: men women chainsaws (I can't wait to read more from him after my year of forced choice is up)
- theodora goss: pellargonia
- catheryne m valente: the difference between love and time
others ranged from fine to meh but I feel like if this is a collection of BESTS there should have been more standouts. also if you read just skip the first one, it gets better.
January 12, 2024
mixed bag here. well-written stories and a nice variety of concepts and genres, but very few standouts. few moments really grabbed and captivated me like other anthologies have (ellison’s Again, Dangerous Visions), but then again maybe I’m just a sucker for new wave sci fi and that’s just not where the genre is now. either way, this has really inspired me to get back into writing after a long break. if i want to see the genre go somewhere else might as well steer it myself.
overall- good, not great, but worth a read
overall- good, not great, but worth a read
February 24, 2024
This is the second time I’ve been let down by RF Kuang this year. While Kuang is not the author and only the main editor who chose this collection of stories, this is probably the first short story collection I’ve read where I didn’t enjoy the majority of the stories. There were maybe two in the entire collection that stood out that I really enjoyed. It also seems like a lot of the stories Kuang chose revolve around similar themes, which made this a very one-note collection.
A lot of interesting premises for short science fiction and fantasy, but most of them really didn’t grab me in any meaningful way.
A lot of interesting premises for short science fiction and fantasy, but most of them really didn’t grab me in any meaningful way.
January 27, 2024
I’m not sure if I’m an anthology reader. Some of these stories were either a bit boring for me or my attention span is too short for short stories. However, I really enjoyed some of the stories. There were 20 total and 3 or 4 were really great!
May 20, 2024
how exactly is one supposed to rate an anthology??
some of these stories were forgettable, some incomprehensible, and some literally made me cry.
rounding it out to four stars ladies!
some of these stories were forgettable, some incomprehensible, and some literally made me cry.
rounding it out to four stars ladies!
June 3, 2024
faves: the rabbit test, beginnings, the difference between love and time, pellargonia, and the six deaths of a saint.
Read
June 23, 2024The Six Deaths of the Saint” by Alix E. Harrow and “Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867” by Kim Fu were my absolute favorites in the collection
February 1, 2024
There were some stories I loved, some I liked, some that confused me and only a couple I did not like at all. A very solid collection this year. I would like to also add it was interesting how many of these stories had an unnamed first person narrator and how many were in second person.
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Readings in the Slantwise Sciences
By: Sofia Samatar
Like most scientists, Herbst has a wild romantic streak (7)
Samatar paints beautiful fantastical landscapes in piece that is constructed out of articles. It might be my sleep deprived state I am in, but I had trouble finding the thread that connected each of the articles and what the story actually is. The first article is about the establishment of the Elder Crystal at a University, the second was a travel article about visiting the Broken Thorn, which is a witch city, and the third is about the massive decline in fairies. A bit haunting and a bit interesting.
Air to Shape Lungs
By: Shingai Njeri Kagunda
Do you know even the trees move through their roots? (10)
Another beautiful abstract account told in small sections of "memories" and "living now." It invokes the thoughts of diaspora, immigrant experience, and what it is to be try to find a home in a place filled of people not like you. It is a really cool little story.
Beginnings
By: Kristina Ten
In the Beginning, June and Nat are best friends. June is not yet a swarm of honeybees and Nat is not yet a cloud of houseflies..." (12)
This story is set in a modern era suburban setting with Nat and June working towards moving to the city and deciding not to go to the Prince's barbecue. Oh wow. This story just wow. To talk about what this is about is to spoil it. The story talks about "in the beginning" a lot. It makes it so that the story feels like you are perpetually in the start of the story, like it is repeated and repeated, and then you are slammed with the end. Nat and June get their beginning and we get their end at the start, but it doesn't seem they get a middle at all. It is tragic and beautiful and brilliantly written.
Sparrows
By: Susan Palwick
The room felt peaceful to her, a good place to work. (17)
Lacey is determined to finish her Shakespeare paper and turn in in despite the world literally ending around her. This story is poetic and dramatic. It is a little bit about what it is to not be alone and really about finding peace in a storm.
The Six Deaths of the Saint
By: Alix E. Harrow
You were a child the first time the Saint of War came to you. (23)
You are the campion of the Prince on a crusade to make him a God no matter what the cost to you. This story is epic and powerful. It has some of the most beautiful writing I have ever read. I can only dream of writing even close to it. The words in this story vibrated in my bones like the most epic rock song at full blast.
Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist
By: Isabel J. Kim
She dreams of cities where it is not always night. Not that it's always night here. But it is. In the heart, it is. (43)
Cool Sexy Asian Girl guides the Tourist through the Cybercity to uncover his wife's murder. It is all very meta, all the characters fill in archetypes for the Tourist's story. Everything bends and shapes to serve him and without him Cool Sexy Asian Girl is no longer Cool Sexy Asian Girl. I find this a fascinating take on the worlds that these main characters inhibit in video games, movies and novels. Who are the side characters outside of the service of the story? How different is the world when it isn't stylized for a camera view? What identities do we lose or gain as our story changes?
Men, Women, and Chainsaws
By: Stephen Graham Jones
Like her mom had always told her, you've got to look for the silver lining, girl. If you squint, then the world can look a whole lot better than it does with your eyes all the way open. (59)
A basic classic story, girl meets boy, boy promises to marry girl as he leaves for the army, then boy breaks up with girl, sleeps with half the woman in Texas and girl leads a very angry life. Also, there is a magic/cursed car. This story is fine. The ending was pretty moving....no pun intended.
Rabbit Test
By: Samantha Mills
It is 2022 and it is never over. (98)
This is a collection of anecdotes and stories of the access of abortion and the pregnancy test. About how woman after woman generation after generation are fighting for their autonomy and it seems like an unending battle. The anxiety pours out of the words in this one. I try not to quote the end of the story, but this really was the most powerful line.
There Are No Monsters on Rancho Buenavista
By: Isabel Cañas
See, Rosario had secrets. Secrets have a way of drawing moth to flame, and Rosario's lit her like a lamp. (99)
I guess this is a cautionary tale to remind people to mind their own business. That is snark, but accurate. It is hard to summarize such a short story without giving it away. Basically, Antonio wants to find dirt on Rosario, follows her everywhere and gets more than he bargained. It is a Mexican fairytale/ horror story.
Murder By Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness
By: S. L. Huang
i'm sylvie, was the calm reply. & i'm ur worst nightmare" (105)
This piece reads like an in depth article in the ethics of AI chat following the appearance of an AI called Sylvie. The fictional article is so relevant to today that it reads more like a fiction rather than science fiction. It helps to know that this story was written a year before ChatGPT was a household name. Too real. Very little plot just a lot of exploration on AI. Not my cup of tea.
White Water, Blue Ocean
By: Linda Raquel Nieves Pérez
The García family, with girls as beautiful as the moon and bodies blessed by the Earth, can't lie. (126)
Painting over my skin wouldn't make me white. Painting over who I was wouldn't remove my colors. (132)
Gabriel is visiting their family in where I can only guess is Puerto Rico (as the author lives there). Their family also harbors a curse, if they lie than deadly vapors seep out of them. This story is very vague. It feels you are trying to constantly catch up and understand what is happening. That being said, it has interesting thoughts on identity and how the truth can change at different times or circumstances.
The CRISPR Cookbook: A Guide to Biohacking Your Own Abortion in a Post-Roe World
By: MKRNYILGLD
What does it say when our country's best scientists are trying to develop artificial wombs, trying to develop tools to tear apart genomes and undo what we've done rather than address the reason we did it to ourselves in the first place? (144)
A small story hidden in a instruction guide on biohacking your own abortion. I try not to say this often because it is overused, but the world is very Handmaid's Tale. The story is empowering and angry, which feels like a balm in a country where conservatives are striping away women's rights.
The Three Mothers Mountain
By: Nathan Ballingrud
Darkness was an animal, and this is where it lived. (152)
A spooky tale of a pair of brothers who are haunted by their dead father and their quest to get revenge on the witch that brought him back. I found this story inhabited by the perfect example of scary witches in a terrifying house. It has beautiful creepy imagery and is a very solid dark fantasy horror story.
The Odyssey Problem
By: Chris Willrich
There is a me for every shade emotion. There is a me who'd belonged to the Room, and who is my will to survive. There is a me who'd known a life before the Room, who is my sense of wonder. There is a me who'd born aboard the Odyssey, a me of curiosity. (175)
The narrator is saved from The Room (which is a device that will power full cities or a full planet if a person is trapped inside and tortured) by the crew of the Odessey a peace keeping space faring vessel that vaguely feels like it was borrowed from Star Treck. This was very sci fi and I got pretty confused in the last quarter. This gist I got from it is that it really about the concept that there is always someone else who has a higher moral ground than you have. An interesting but a little complicated read.
Pellargonia: A Letter to the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology
By: Theodora Goss
We [Julia, David, and me, Madison][That should be I, not me.--David] are writing to you because we need your help. Professor Jorge Escobar is missing, and it's all our fault. (180)
Julia, David, and Madison send a plea of help to the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology to rescue Julia's father who happened to be captured in a foreign country they made up during their sophomore year in high school. You can hear the teenage voices in these words. The whole thing would be kind of funny if like there weren't actual people dying in the civil wars and Julia's father wasn't kidnapped.
Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867
By: Kim Fu
--WELCOME I WILL BE YOUR OPERATOR TODAY (198)
This is a chat exchange between a customer service representative and the customer. They are trying to negotiate a simulation experience for the customer within the corporate legal tape. I have no feelings or thoughts one way or another on this one.
In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird
By: Maria Dong
As for me, I only feel right when I'm some kind of bird. (208)
A very dreamlike story where seeds are falling from the sky and are infecting and killing people. The souls of the dead then take over the bodies of animals burning them out until those die and rinse and repeat. The narrator details their journey from body to body to body. I am a little confused with the timelines and I found it was a little too dream-like for me.
The Difference Between Love and Time
By: Catherynne M. Valente
If you cannot handle me at the peak of my recursive timeline algorithm, you don't deserve me when I'm an iguana. (228)
This is a love story between the narrator and space-time continuum. It's about how they met and the ups and downs of their relationship. A bit of an odd story and told non-linearly. It follows the concept everything is happening all at once, so I think this will get even better after several read throughs. Also, I am not ashamed to say I did not know what a geoduck was before I read this and I am not sure I am happy to know now. I wonder if they are edible.... Okay, okay, okay I did a Wikipedia search and wow. They are apparently edible and they are described as "savory and crunchy" which I thought they would be more meaty considering what they look like. They are also one of the longest living lifeforms. The oldest recorded being 179 years old. Huh.
Folk Hero Motifs in Tales Told by the Dead
By: KT Bryski
Truth is, everyone in the afterdeath wonders what waits in the Maw, but no one's been ready to take that last short leap. (247)
A collection of folk stories about the hero Skullbone told in the afterdeath. I thought the ending was pretty neat and I don't have much else to say about it. This after life is (or afterdeath as they say) monotonous and the corpses basically sit around. About what you expect for an afterlife rather than hope.
Cumulative Ethical Guidelines of Mid-Range Interstellar Storytellers
By: Malka Older
I. The Ethical Priorities of Storytellers Are (259)
This is a basic ethical guide for "storytellers" who perform for guests on long interstellar space trips. Think of the ship like the one in Wall-E, but there are actual destinations. It is hard to get into this one right away. It is really confusing until you realize that it is both a guide and an unlabeled message board. Like this whole thing was being done in Zoom and you have chat interrupting.
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Readings in the Slantwise Sciences
By: Sofia Samatar
Like most scientists, Herbst has a wild romantic streak (7)
Samatar paints beautiful fantastical landscapes in piece that is constructed out of articles. It might be my sleep deprived state I am in, but I had trouble finding the thread that connected each of the articles and what the story actually is. The first article is about the establishment of the Elder Crystal at a University, the second was a travel article about visiting the Broken Thorn, which is a witch city, and the third is about the massive decline in fairies. A bit haunting and a bit interesting.
Air to Shape Lungs
By: Shingai Njeri Kagunda
Do you know even the trees move through their roots? (10)
Another beautiful abstract account told in small sections of "memories" and "living now." It invokes the thoughts of diaspora, immigrant experience, and what it is to be try to find a home in a place filled of people not like you. It is a really cool little story.
Beginnings
By: Kristina Ten
In the Beginning, June and Nat are best friends. June is not yet a swarm of honeybees and Nat is not yet a cloud of houseflies..." (12)
This story is set in a modern era suburban setting with Nat and June working towards moving to the city and deciding not to go to the Prince's barbecue. Oh wow. This story just wow. To talk about what this is about is to spoil it. The story talks about "in the beginning" a lot. It makes it so that the story feels like you are perpetually in the start of the story, like it is repeated and repeated, and then you are slammed with the end. Nat and June get their beginning and we get their end at the start, but it doesn't seem they get a middle at all. It is tragic and beautiful and brilliantly written.
Sparrows
By: Susan Palwick
The room felt peaceful to her, a good place to work. (17)
Lacey is determined to finish her Shakespeare paper and turn in in despite the world literally ending around her. This story is poetic and dramatic. It is a little bit about what it is to not be alone and really about finding peace in a storm.
The Six Deaths of the Saint
By: Alix E. Harrow
You were a child the first time the Saint of War came to you. (23)
You are the campion of the Prince on a crusade to make him a God no matter what the cost to you. This story is epic and powerful. It has some of the most beautiful writing I have ever read. I can only dream of writing even close to it. The words in this story vibrated in my bones like the most epic rock song at full blast.
Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist
By: Isabel J. Kim
She dreams of cities where it is not always night. Not that it's always night here. But it is. In the heart, it is. (43)
Cool Sexy Asian Girl guides the Tourist through the Cybercity to uncover his wife's murder. It is all very meta, all the characters fill in archetypes for the Tourist's story. Everything bends and shapes to serve him and without him Cool Sexy Asian Girl is no longer Cool Sexy Asian Girl. I find this a fascinating take on the worlds that these main characters inhibit in video games, movies and novels. Who are the side characters outside of the service of the story? How different is the world when it isn't stylized for a camera view? What identities do we lose or gain as our story changes?
Men, Women, and Chainsaws
By: Stephen Graham Jones
Like her mom had always told her, you've got to look for the silver lining, girl. If you squint, then the world can look a whole lot better than it does with your eyes all the way open. (59)
A basic classic story, girl meets boy, boy promises to marry girl as he leaves for the army, then boy breaks up with girl, sleeps with half the woman in Texas and girl leads a very angry life. Also, there is a magic/cursed car. This story is fine. The ending was pretty moving....no pun intended.
Rabbit Test
By: Samantha Mills
It is 2022 and it is never over. (98)
This is a collection of anecdotes and stories of the access of abortion and the pregnancy test. About how woman after woman generation after generation are fighting for their autonomy and it seems like an unending battle. The anxiety pours out of the words in this one. I try not to quote the end of the story, but this really was the most powerful line.
There Are No Monsters on Rancho Buenavista
By: Isabel Cañas
See, Rosario had secrets. Secrets have a way of drawing moth to flame, and Rosario's lit her like a lamp. (99)
I guess this is a cautionary tale to remind people to mind their own business. That is snark, but accurate. It is hard to summarize such a short story without giving it away. Basically, Antonio wants to find dirt on Rosario, follows her everywhere and gets more than he bargained. It is a Mexican fairytale/ horror story.
Murder By Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness
By: S. L. Huang
i'm sylvie, was the calm reply. & i'm ur worst nightmare" (105)
This piece reads like an in depth article in the ethics of AI chat following the appearance of an AI called Sylvie. The fictional article is so relevant to today that it reads more like a fiction rather than science fiction. It helps to know that this story was written a year before ChatGPT was a household name. Too real. Very little plot just a lot of exploration on AI. Not my cup of tea.
White Water, Blue Ocean
By: Linda Raquel Nieves Pérez
The García family, with girls as beautiful as the moon and bodies blessed by the Earth, can't lie. (126)
Painting over my skin wouldn't make me white. Painting over who I was wouldn't remove my colors. (132)
Gabriel is visiting their family in where I can only guess is Puerto Rico (as the author lives there). Their family also harbors a curse, if they lie than deadly vapors seep out of them. This story is very vague. It feels you are trying to constantly catch up and understand what is happening. That being said, it has interesting thoughts on identity and how the truth can change at different times or circumstances.
The CRISPR Cookbook: A Guide to Biohacking Your Own Abortion in a Post-Roe World
By: MKRNYILGLD
What does it say when our country's best scientists are trying to develop artificial wombs, trying to develop tools to tear apart genomes and undo what we've done rather than address the reason we did it to ourselves in the first place? (144)
A small story hidden in a instruction guide on biohacking your own abortion. I try not to say this often because it is overused, but the world is very Handmaid's Tale. The story is empowering and angry, which feels like a balm in a country where conservatives are striping away women's rights.
The Three Mothers Mountain
By: Nathan Ballingrud
Darkness was an animal, and this is where it lived. (152)
A spooky tale of a pair of brothers who are haunted by their dead father and their quest to get revenge on the witch that brought him back. I found this story inhabited by the perfect example of scary witches in a terrifying house. It has beautiful creepy imagery and is a very solid dark fantasy horror story.
The Odyssey Problem
By: Chris Willrich
There is a me for every shade emotion. There is a me who'd belonged to the Room, and who is my will to survive. There is a me who'd known a life before the Room, who is my sense of wonder. There is a me who'd born aboard the Odyssey, a me of curiosity. (175)
The narrator is saved from The Room (which is a device that will power full cities or a full planet if a person is trapped inside and tortured) by the crew of the Odessey a peace keeping space faring vessel that vaguely feels like it was borrowed from Star Treck. This was very sci fi and I got pretty confused in the last quarter. This gist I got from it is that it really about the concept that there is always someone else who has a higher moral ground than you have. An interesting but a little complicated read.
Pellargonia: A Letter to the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology
By: Theodora Goss
We [Julia, David, and me, Madison][That should be I, not me.--David] are writing to you because we need your help. Professor Jorge Escobar is missing, and it's all our fault. (180)
Julia, David, and Madison send a plea of help to the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology to rescue Julia's father who happened to be captured in a foreign country they made up during their sophomore year in high school. You can hear the teenage voices in these words. The whole thing would be kind of funny if like there weren't actual people dying in the civil wars and Julia's father wasn't kidnapped.
Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867
By: Kim Fu
--WELCOME I WILL BE YOUR OPERATOR TODAY (198)
This is a chat exchange between a customer service representative and the customer. They are trying to negotiate a simulation experience for the customer within the corporate legal tape. I have no feelings or thoughts one way or another on this one.
In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird
By: Maria Dong
As for me, I only feel right when I'm some kind of bird. (208)
A very dreamlike story where seeds are falling from the sky and are infecting and killing people. The souls of the dead then take over the bodies of animals burning them out until those die and rinse and repeat. The narrator details their journey from body to body to body. I am a little confused with the timelines and I found it was a little too dream-like for me.
The Difference Between Love and Time
By: Catherynne M. Valente
If you cannot handle me at the peak of my recursive timeline algorithm, you don't deserve me when I'm an iguana. (228)
This is a love story between the narrator and space-time continuum. It's about how they met and the ups and downs of their relationship. A bit of an odd story and told non-linearly. It follows the concept everything is happening all at once, so I think this will get even better after several read throughs. Also, I am not ashamed to say I did not know what a geoduck was before I read this and I am not sure I am happy to know now. I wonder if they are edible.... Okay, okay, okay I did a Wikipedia search and wow. They are apparently edible and they are described as "savory and crunchy" which I thought they would be more meaty considering what they look like. They are also one of the longest living lifeforms. The oldest recorded being 179 years old. Huh.
Folk Hero Motifs in Tales Told by the Dead
By: KT Bryski
Truth is, everyone in the afterdeath wonders what waits in the Maw, but no one's been ready to take that last short leap. (247)
A collection of folk stories about the hero Skullbone told in the afterdeath. I thought the ending was pretty neat and I don't have much else to say about it. This after life is (or afterdeath as they say) monotonous and the corpses basically sit around. About what you expect for an afterlife rather than hope.
Cumulative Ethical Guidelines of Mid-Range Interstellar Storytellers
By: Malka Older
I. The Ethical Priorities of Storytellers Are (259)
This is a basic ethical guide for "storytellers" who perform for guests on long interstellar space trips. Think of the ship like the one in Wall-E, but there are actual destinations. It is hard to get into this one right away. It is really confusing until you realize that it is both a guide and an unlabeled message board. Like this whole thing was being done in Zoom and you have chat interrupting.
November 13, 2023
I just wasn't connecting as much with this years collection as I have with the last few.
Standouts:
"The Six Deaths of the Saint"
"Men, Women, and Chainsaws"
"Rabbit Test"
"Murder By Pixel"
Standouts:
"The Six Deaths of the Saint"
"Men, Women, and Chainsaws"
"Rabbit Test"
"Murder By Pixel"
November 20, 2023
I did not find this year’s selections, on the whole, to be exciting—with the notable exceptions of “Rabbit Test”, “Beginnings,” “The Six Deaths of the Saint,” and, of course, “Three Mothers Mountain.”
October 29, 2024
With anthologies, there are always ups and downs, which made me hate them when I was younger. But hey, I've grown! I've realized I need to just embrace the fact no anthology will be perfect to me, and that is fine. So I just wanted to highlight some of my favorite stories in this book and note that R. F. Kuang's introduction was amazing, and it will definitely influence some of my writing.
1. Beginnings- A great and short story that talks about gun violence, female friendship, and evokes such emotion despite only being four pages.
2. The Six Deaths of the Saint- I heard from so many reviewers that this was one of their favorites. While it wasn't a favorite of mine, I understand why it's loved.
3. Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist- Somehow the stereotypes manage to subvert stereotypes. This is what I like to see in short stories!!
4. Men, Women, and Chainsaws- Very sad and very good. More surface-level than some of the others, but still very clever and jawdropping.
5. Rabbit Test- WOW!! This was so good and clever. I loved the way it brought contemporary issues into fiction.
6. Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness- Not my favorite, but I feel compelled to mention it just because of the topic. It didn't feel very sci-fi, since I feel as if it could happen.
7. Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867- This one almost made me cry. I loved the unique format, and the ending was so clever. More than that, the theme of grief was so palpable, despite the format. I felt for the main character, and I'm convinced this is one of the best in the series.
8. The Difference Between Love and Time- This is my favorite of the anthology. I felt so connected to it. Also, my hometown got a shoutout! I also almost cried. There was something so childlike and adult and human about the story. This is what good sci-fi and fantasy is all about!
And those are my favorites! The rest were not terrible, but I either didn't understand them or didn't remember them off the top of my head. I'd say, in order, 8, 7, 3, 5, and 1 are my favorites of those!
1. Beginnings- A great and short story that talks about gun violence, female friendship, and evokes such emotion despite only being four pages.
2. The Six Deaths of the Saint- I heard from so many reviewers that this was one of their favorites. While it wasn't a favorite of mine, I understand why it's loved.
3. Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist- Somehow the stereotypes manage to subvert stereotypes. This is what I like to see in short stories!!
4. Men, Women, and Chainsaws- Very sad and very good. More surface-level than some of the others, but still very clever and jawdropping.
5. Rabbit Test- WOW!! This was so good and clever. I loved the way it brought contemporary issues into fiction.
6. Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness- Not my favorite, but I feel compelled to mention it just because of the topic. It didn't feel very sci-fi, since I feel as if it could happen.
7. Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867- This one almost made me cry. I loved the unique format, and the ending was so clever. More than that, the theme of grief was so palpable, despite the format. I felt for the main character, and I'm convinced this is one of the best in the series.
8. The Difference Between Love and Time- This is my favorite of the anthology. I felt so connected to it. Also, my hometown got a shoutout! I also almost cried. There was something so childlike and adult and human about the story. This is what good sci-fi and fantasy is all about!
And those are my favorites! The rest were not terrible, but I either didn't understand them or didn't remember them off the top of my head. I'd say, in order, 8, 7, 3, 5, and 1 are my favorites of those!
August 30, 2024
Favorite story: "Rabbit Test" by Samantha Mills
Average rating: 4.5 stars (rounded up to 5 for Goodreads)
Readings in the Slantwise Sciences - 4
Air to Shape Lungs - 4
Beginnings - 5
Sparrows - 5
The Six Deaths of the Saint - 5
Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist - 5
Men, Women, and Chainsaws - 5
Rabbit Test - 5
There Are No Monsters on Rancho Buenavista - 4
Murder by Pixel - 5
White Water, Blue Ocean - 3
The CRISPR Cookbook - 4
Three Mothers Mountain - 4
The Odyssey Problem - 5
Pellargonia: A Letter to the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology - 5
Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867 - 5
In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird - 4
The Difference Between Love and Time - 5
Folk Hero Motifs in Tales Told by the Dead - 4
Cumulative Ethical Guidelines - 3
Average rating: 4.5 stars (rounded up to 5 for Goodreads)
Readings in the Slantwise Sciences - 4
Air to Shape Lungs - 4
Beginnings - 5
Sparrows - 5
The Six Deaths of the Saint - 5
Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist - 5
Men, Women, and Chainsaws - 5
Rabbit Test - 5
There Are No Monsters on Rancho Buenavista - 4
Murder by Pixel - 5
White Water, Blue Ocean - 3
The CRISPR Cookbook - 4
Three Mothers Mountain - 4
The Odyssey Problem - 5
Pellargonia: A Letter to the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology - 5
Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867 - 5
In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird - 4
The Difference Between Love and Time - 5
Folk Hero Motifs in Tales Told by the Dead - 4
Cumulative Ethical Guidelines - 3
August 2, 2024
I bought this book so I could read Alix Harrow’s “Six Deaths of the Saint”, and it was worth EVERY bit of hype I had heard about it. Absolutely my favorite short story in this collection. But there were a ton of other gems in here worth reading. One in particular I loved was “The Difference Between Love and Time”. I have never been much of a sci-fi reader, but there are several short stories in this collection that have sparked that interest for me. Definitely worth reading.
August 21, 2024
As with most short story collections this was very hit or miss. Just for my own reference I’m going to list the authors I want to read more from based off what I read here (as their stories were my favorite…obviously)
- Stephen Graham Jones
- Samantha Mills (possibly my favorite in the entire collection)
- SL Huang
- Linda Raquel Nieves Perez
- Theodora Goss
- Catherynne M. Valente (another contender for favorite)
- Stephen Graham Jones
- Samantha Mills (possibly my favorite in the entire collection)
- SL Huang
- Linda Raquel Nieves Perez
- Theodora Goss
- Catherynne M. Valente (another contender for favorite)
January 13, 2024
Feels like a collection of experimental shorts, some of which workout and some that don't. The ones that don't, well at least they don't take up much of your time. Some strange combinations like a fictional story mixed with non-fiction are an interesting read once item while there are a few stories I'd love to see expanded into books.
A very mixed bag.
A very mixed bag.
March 1, 2024
I love me a best American short stories collection. There’s always like one or two that I remember forever. This is the first time I’ve read one of the themed collections, usually I just read the general ones, and it was amazing!! There were so many amazing stories that with super unique world building and really experimental writing styles. It actually made me reconsider a lot about how expansive fantasy and sci do can be as a genre
May 23, 2024
Didn't love all of them, but I did particularly enjoy "The Six Deaths of the Saint" by Alix E. Harrow, "Rabbit Test" by Samantha Mills, "The Odyssey Problem" by Chris Willrich, and "The Difference Between Love and Time" by Catherynne M. Valente
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