Favourite short stories for January

[zeborah]

Ghost Night by Dani Atkinson

Urban fantasy where the fantasy is, in the author's words, 'commonplace enough to make the weather report'. I have to say, the warding precautions are so complex I honestly think the authorities have a point saying '...Actually just don't even try.' Though I also see the point that people will be desperate enough. So, probably there should be licensed practitioners or something.

It Brought Us All Together, by Marissa Lingen

(A reread as I perform browser-tab maintenance.) This is about grief and reminds me a lot about the earthquakes even though it's nothing to do with that.

So Much Cooking by Naomi Kritzer

Food blog + bird flu pandemic = all of the earthquake feels that got missed out by the previous story.

Yuanyuan’s Bubbles by Liu Cixin

The utility of beauty: blowing soap bubbles as climate change-induced drought threatens a city.

Today I Am Paul by Martin L. Shoemaker

This was sweetly sad (reminding me of the recent Dutch documentary about a care-bot prototype being alpha-tested) and then I reached the last line and the only thing that stopped me bawling my eyes out was that I was visiting family and I didn't feel like explaining.

Comments

[heliopausa]

Thanks for these links - I'm reading slowly, starting from the last, and have just finished 'Yuanyuan's Bubbles' - very interesting take on geoengineering (and on Chinese western development strategy).

[heliopausa]

It's been a few months - lots of things happening for me - but I did get back to read the other stories, and the first one just today.
It's a sad little story, which left me wanting to know more. Maybe the saddest part the breaking-up of the first, unwanted ghost; I wondered what had drawn her to the narrator, and what now, for her? But I wondered much about Maria and the narrator, too. Melancholy and troubling - and good! Thanks for the link.