2019 was an exciting and eventful year for me. I was nominated for a Nebula Award, and somehow never got around to mentioning it here—and even gave an acceptance speech, in an alternate universe. I got my first “year’s best” publication, and my first translation sales. (And missed being a Hugo Finalist by seven votes!) The experience of being a finalist, of going to Los Angeles and being celebrated, was more complicated than I ever imagined, but I got to hang out with some of my favorite writers and people and I created memories that will stay with me forever.
I had three new stories published in 2019, most notably “This Wine-Dark Feeling that Isn’t the Blues,” published in Escape Pod in February, and “Amanda Draws Crows,” published in Fireside Fiction in July. Both stories found appreciative readers, but neither one caught fire. To be honest, this is okay—it frees me from the pressure to self-promote. Trying to get people to notice “The Substance of My Lives, the Accidents of Our Births” for months on end wreaked havoc with my tendencies toward anxiety and depression. I have no regrets, but it’s nice to sit back and take a year off and direct people towards wonderful stories by other people.
Calling attention to other folks’ work is something I’ve always enjoyed—there’s little pressure on me, and people always appreciate hearing that their stories were valued. I’m constantly tweeting out links to great fiction, and I’ve been rounding up some of my favorites here for years. So without further ado, here are some stories you should check out, especially if you are reading for award consideration:
“Her Silhouette, Drawn in Water,” by Vylar Kaftan: this spoke to me in a personal way. While trying to avoid spoilers, this story gave me feels about interval versus external oppression, and the ways we become the tools of our own suffering. I sometimes despair of ever being able to stop shooting myself in the foot; of ever not feeling broken, fragmented. I can’t do justice to how I felt to see this story offer a hopeful outlook on that.
“The King’s Mirror,” by M. K. Hutchins: I loved this story’s thoroughly sincere depiction of siblings who love each other and aren’t driven by jealousy or family drama. I loved, in fact, how the protagonist finds himself with a hell of a terrible choice and yet doesn’t really have any _enemies_, just . . . a rough dilemma. He’s caught in a bind where any choice he makes seems like it will hurt _somebody_ he loves, and he’s got to tiptoe his way through this. That’s the kind of story I like to write myself, so this was up my alley as a reader.
“The Last Eagle,” by Natalia Theodoridou: This is a touching story about broken things and broken people and those who love them/us, written with Theodoridou’s usual beautiful wordcraft. I’ve long been a fan of Natalia’s work, but this might just be my favorite.
“The Archronology of Love,” by Caroline M. Yoachim: This is a moving novelette that projects issues of contamination of data into a science that doesn’t exist in our world, and examines the balance between being too close to a subject of study to be objective versus being motivated by that closeness to look harder. Layered under all that is a powerful story about loss, about when it’s time to move on, and about who you still live for when you’ve lost your lifelove. If you dig that, and interplanetary exploration, deep freeze missions, found technology, and time-travel (of a sort), then give this one a look-see.
“The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye,” by Sarah Pinsker: I thought this story was a fun, spooky take on the mystery-writer-who-is-always-suspiciously-followed-by-deaths trope. Check it out!
“Some Kind of Blood-Soaked Future,” by Carlie St. George: This story is much more violent than I usually go for, but I love it. Partly it’s the deadpan voice, and partly it’s the heart that’s hiding under the sarcasm. It’s a combination of a fun romp through teen horror tropes and a really touching story of found family and overcoming shitty formative experiences and formative people.
“Windrose in Scarlet,” by Isabel Yap: This is the f/f Little Red Riding Hood/Beauty and the Beast crossover you didn’t know you needed. Less flippantly, it’s a lovely story about found family and overcoming different kinds of abuse.
“Move Forward, Disappear, Transcend,” by A. T. Greenblatt: This story snuck up on me. Not that the first line, “I lost my favorite fingers as I was walking to the library,” didn’t hook me in, because it did. But I didn’t expect the feels this story delivered, as this story went from that curiosity-provoking opening to a powerful meditation on aging and how people get left behind despite everybody’s best wishes, and how sometimes you need to let go of those you love. On an obvious level, it makes me think about aging and my inevitable death, but really there’s so much more here, like the sense of disorientation as the world keeps changing around you and becoming more alien, and the sense, as you age, that more and more of the people you care about are gone. For me, it also made me think about how much older I am than most of my publishing peers, and, how, though everybody is kind to me, sometimes I feel like maybe people are humoring me and I can never quite fit in. Check this one out when you are up for a bittersweet read.
As you might notice, I gravitated toward longer stories this year—more novelettes and novellas on this list than in past years. Lots of familiar authors on the list, though—these are folks I’ve learned I can count on to move me with words. If you find something new that you really like in here, please let me know! I’d love to know that I’m not wasting my time rounding these up!
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