Tag Archives: fantasy

March Reading Review

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Below is a list of my favorite science fiction short fiction in the last month (you can find my review for last month here). I like to read them and give myself a little time to think about them. If you still remember and like a story weeks later, it was a good story.

Happy reading on this snowy Monday!

Writing prompt: the spongy place in the yard

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“The spongy place in the yard” (As a kid in the northeast, this happened in my backyard. I thought there was something under there, which made a perfect launching point for a prompt.)

Every spring, after the snow melts, the backyard gets spongy. I always knew why, and though I told mom, she laughed and smiled in that patronizing way. I knew there was something underground. The ground just sagged too much, the way the ceiling sagged and my grandmother’s abandoned childhood home. I could tell by the way it looked that it was a sagging ceiling too. I was just seeing it from above.

Then I noticed that the neighbor spends a lot of time in her shed. Hours. She must be about two hundred, hunched and always walking with a hand against the small of her back. Summer or winter, she walks with a throw wrapped tightly over her shoulders.

So last night, I went into her shed. Sure enough, under a sheet of plywood, I found a staircase downward. I turned on my flashlight, and I went down the winding stairs. There must have been fifty, I lost count. At the end of the staircase, I found myself in a huge earthen room, taller than any room in my house. And on the ceiling, they hung, dozens of little people like my neighbor. They were all wrapped up in throws like the woman. Then they noticed me, and I discovered they weren’t throws. They were wings. And they were flying after me.

I panicked, and I ran down a corridor into the darkness. I dropped my flashlight, but I kept running, because duh. I hear the rustle of their wings in the darkness, searching, like the sound of a sheet being snapped again and again.

 

February Reading Review

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Every day, new, wonderful works of fiction are published, more than most could ever read. Lately, I’ve tried to read a couple of science fiction or fantasy stories each day. It’s a good way to learn about the magazines, and the state of the genre today. It’s also a way to read some great fiction. In this post, and in the ones like it in following months, I’ll list some of my favorites.

Short fiction:

Longer stuff:

  • Beyond the Glass Slipper: Ten Neglected Fairy Tales to Fall in Love with by Kate Wolford (2012): In this book, Kate Wolford, editor of the fairy tale magazine Enchanted Conversation and teacher of fairy tales at Indiana Southbend, presents ten unusual fairy tales. All are historical, but told less commonly. She offers commentary and discussion about each. I bought this on a whim rather than a purpose, but I absolutely loved it. Her discussions pointed out things I hadn’t considered about fairy tales, and gave me a whole new angle on them. I found it both fascinating and very inspiring.
  • Wonderbook by Jeff VanderMeer (2013): I am still working my way through this book, but thus far I am very pleased with it. This is a guide to writing that actually inspires while you read; I find myself jotting down notes about things to try or aspects of old things to revisit. Often, I find myself feeling somewhat self-conscious and discouraged, no matter how kind the tone of a writing book, so I really found it noteworthy. It is packed with quirky or even absurd illustrations, and lots of visually based diagrams. It is also not only by VanderMeer, who has taught at Clarion workshop, but features essays by writers both super famous (Ursula Le Guin and Neil Gaiman, for two) and unfamiliar to me. I have read 3.5 chapters of 7, so I will have to report as to my final reaction, but so far, so good.

Writing Prompt: Intrigue and Alchemy

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Time: 10 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

This prompt led to my short story “The Alchemist’s Contract“, which appeared in Swords and Sorcery Magazine in November 2013.

“Intrigue and Alchemy”

“Beware the alchemist,” the man said from the shadows of the tavern. I wasn’t sure if he was truly real at first- I could see only the glow of his pipe, the shine of his glassy false eye, and his oversized black boots emerging, crossed, from the shadows. The soles were crumbling and peeling, looking more eaten at by some creature than by wear and years.

The room grew quiet as our party turned toward the man.

“Pay no mind to him,” someone behind me said.

“We have business with the alchemist,” I said. “He is a man of business, and we have the coin to entice him.”

“Don’t mind me, then,” the man in the corner said. He leaned forward. I expected gruffness, a man who’d lived a harsh life. His skin was smooth and pale. His one eye reflected distress and concern.

“Boy, you’re not more than 25,” my companion said. “Making stories about the alchemist to rile traveling strangers.”

“You’re mistaken,” he said gently, “I’ll be 80 next month.”

“Is this at all true?” my companion asked the barkeep.

The keep looked away and began to polish glasses.

“The alchemist,” the man in the corner said,” took my age from me, as sure as the Long War took my eye.”

“I’d like such a theft,” I said, three beers in.

“Well then, take yourself to the alchemist.” He stood and walked out the entryway, with the gait and pace of my grandfather.

Writing Prompt: Cleaning the Lab

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“Cleaning the lab”

Ash scowled at the mess sitting in front of her. What a mess decades of research could produce. Now, as the last student, it was her job to clean all of it, whether she knew what it was or not. What a graduation present!

She started with the stack of archaic computers. No one even knew the passwords to operate them anymore, not that anyone should care to. Top of the line, decades ago. If you need to make a killer cassette recording, this is your machine! She loaded them onto a cart, bringing them batch by batch to the electronic reclamation center. Their problem now. Three cartloads later, and at least that batch of junk was gone. The dust under the pile was incredible. While it wasn’t her job to clean the dirt of the lab, something was too disgusting about this dust not to try to improve. She didn’t have any cleaning implements. She wetted a rag and wiped the worst of it away. Three lines of the dirt remained, sinking into the painted cinderblock walls. They almost looked like a door…

She looked closer, and the cracks were the dirt had stuck seemed to penetrate into the concrete. She thought of the floor plan for the building—was there anything on the other side of this wall? There was an office next door, but it seemed like there was a dead space in between. She would have assumed it was for ventilation, if she’d ever thought of it before, but now she was looking at a tiny, bizarre door, about 2 feet high and 2 feet across. She got a crow bar from across the room and wedged it into the crack. She pulled, and the door yielded. Inside were thousands of tiny sprites, chained to tiny desks, in a room no more than 4 feet by 4 feet.

“What on earth is this?” She exclaimed, more to herself than them.

“We make the science,” one of them said, forlornly, before returning its hands to its intricate task at hand.

Writing Prompt: Monkey Day

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Time: 5 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“Monkey Day” (This is actually a real thing, every December 14)

Today was Monkey Day, the biggest day of the year for the elevated chimps and tarsiers. Although it originated centuries ago amongst humans as a joke, it was no such thing now. The elevated walkways for the monkeys above the streets were be-decked in glittering tinsel, far more interesting than the lights that glittered below for Christmas. Monkeys swung across the path, throwing toys and playing with tinsel. Not that such things held their mighty intellects anymore, but Monkey Day was a celebration of how far they had come since those days. It was a day where elevated primates had a little joke at themselves, where they had come from. In a way, it was like April Fool’s Day, except the monkeys actually recognized the inherent silliness of all sentient beings, rather than pretending such things were isolated to a few members of the species.

Bananas decked the table of every monkey, and the day started with the shrill, high-pitched laughter one used to hear only in zoos. Beware, humans, it was the Monkeys’ Day!

 

Writing prompt: the tissue printer

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Time: 8 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“The printer”

I loaded the file into the printer and made sure all the print cartridges were full—nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon… Carbon and hydrogen always went fast, but the cartridge was no bigger than nitrogen or oxygen. The traces array was full enough too. I didn’t want this print-out to pause mid printing, it wasn’t good for the creatures. I made sure the enzyme and synthesis units were at operating temperature and weren’t gumming up. Once I had printed an entire miniature penguin only to find it dead, with damage to the proteins. That’s an expensive mistake.

This time I was printing a fairy. I had slaved for hours on the design, making sure that the wings were sufficiently large to support a creature of the size while still looking appropriate. I borrowed the digestion from a hummingbird, and the wings from extinct, enormous species of dragonflies. She would be six inches tall, beautiful and the color of caramel. I had hoped to start with the colors of the rainbow, but I was worried that yellow might end up looking jaundiced, and I wanted this first one to work. I could sell her to a fantasy novelist for a pretty penny, but it would go better if she was alive and beautiful.

I did a last check on the equipment and hit the go switch. The enzyme cartridge came to life, and soon the print head started on the internal organs, the template spinning around, allowing different angles. With these things, the sequence was also important.

I sat nervously on my stool, while the print head flew around, filling in muscle here and connective fiber there. Several hours passed, and I could see a tiny heart. I couldn’t be more nervous if my (hypothetical) wife were giving birth.

Writing prompt: “Magic Tea”

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“Magic Tea”

“Here, drink this, dear,” the old hag said. The darkened growth on her nose shook. “You don’t want to come down with anything.” Leo thought it sounded a little like a threat, but he was cold to the bone after getting lost in the woods. It had been so lucky to find her home, so tucked away from it all.

“Thank you, ma’am. I’m not sure what would have become of me if not for you.” The beverage steamed enticingly. His put his face close to the cup and felt the radiating warmth.

She just smiled, revealing a row of gray and uneven teeth. The ones that she had, that was.

“It smells delicious, what’s in it?”

“Just some tea and some spices. It’s an old family recipe. It’ll heat you right up.”

He blew on it to cool it off. She leaned in, strangely interested. He tilted the cup back and took a deep drink. It felt wonderful, the heat spreading down his body. “This is delicious,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

He continued drinking the tea. In no time, he didn’t feel any chill anymore. He felt wonderful, and tingly all over. Then black hairs sprung from his arms. “What—what’s happening?”

“Don’t fight it,” she said with a kind but uncomforting smile. He was growing fur!

Writing prompt: “He tore off another sheet of paper and threw it in the bin”

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“He tore off another sheet of paper and threw it in the bin”

He tore off another sheet of paper and threw it in the bin.

“This just isn’t working, I don’t know why I even bother! I’ll never reach 50,000 words!” He buried his head in his arms.

A clattering caused him to raise his head. The bin was tipped over. James looked at it with curiosity; he hadn’t heard the cat come in. The crumpled pieces of paper rolled out of the bin, one after another, with a strange sense of direction. That was odd.

The pieces uncrumpled themselves, and then crumpled together, forming some kind of an animal in amalgamation. An ostrich, he decided.

“You just need to have imagination!” He blinked. It was the paper ostrich that spoke. It had a buzzing voice, like air blown quickly over the edge of paper.

He looked into his coffee mug. What type was this?

“Put the mug away and get to work. We’re full of good ideas, and we’re here to put you to work. First, you will write about a radioactive raccoon that has been breaking into people’s trash. Then you will write about a woman’s struggle against the tyranny of cowboy aliens in the early American frontier. Then you will write about a colony of people who live inside the sun. Then they will all meet!”

“That’s insane,” James said.

“They are words, and you will write them! You weren’t doing any better before!”

“That’s true. That one about the sun sounds kind of cool.”

“Write, and the inspiration will come. How many words have you written in the month before this one?”

James didn’t reply. He always meant to get around to writing… there were just cool new bars opening, and concerts… Hmm… what would he write about a colony of people living inside the sun?

Writing prompt: “She watched the autumn leaves fall”

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“She watched the autumn leaves fall”

She watched the autumn leaves fall. The floor of the forest must be covered in several inches after the last week.

It’s under there, she thought. She gazed at the sea of golden and brown leaves. It was tempting to notice how pretty the scene was, golden late afternoon light spilling through the nearly bare branches. But it was more like looking at a new ocean that had just formed, a great useless barrier in between her and her prize. How long would it them to find the city under this mess? If she couldn’t, would it be too late by spring?

Five years ago, when she had started the research, the danger of it had never occurred to her. Ants were nifty, clever little critters. Somehow, she still didn’t know how, but somehow she had changed them. They were smarter. They plotted. They got to things normal ants shouldn’t get to, like the morning she arrived to find the sugar-water solution in the next room down a quarter in volume. It hadn’t been her imagination, she realized, when the birth rate went up the appropriate time later.

Somehow, a week ago, a few had stowed away on her person. She wouldn’t even have noticed, except that somehow she’d killed one. What a shock it had been to see one of her hot pink ants in her pocket, the worst kind of smoking bullet. She’d traced her steps back to her cut-through home. Even her ants were remarkably camouflaged this time of year. Had they planned it?

People probably imagined that viruses or bacteria engineering would eventually wreak havoc on the world. But no, she shook her head; it was going to be her Technicolor ants. Maybe they wouldn’t survive the winter.