Posting any kind of round-up of 2020 fills me with a sense of pressure to comment on the hell year that we all just lived through . . . except we’re still kind of living through it. In 2020 I stopped being able to hang out with my friends in meatspace, stopped being able to go to karaoke, stopped being able to go to theaters, stopped being able to go to restaurants, stopped having my daily Starbucks. Still went to the day job, though, only now it was this weird hybrid-virtual thing with masks and the everpresent fear of catching a deadly disease that had already killed one of my friends.
All of which is still true.
I did have one new story come out, which hardly anybody read or liked or ever mentioned again.
So yeah, the less time spent recapping 2020, the better.
On the other hand, I read more than I have in years, and, with my internet being often overwhelmed by the effects of a world gone virtual, many times reading felt like the last little bit of human contact left in my life. I’m immensely grateful to the authors I read for helping me get through a difficult time. Over on twitter, I used the hashtag #labyrinthrat2020reads to call attention to stories I enjoyed that I thought other folks should know about. Here are a handful more terrific stories I encourage you to have a look at.
As I write this, there is a little over a week left to nominate for the Nebula Awards, and almost exactly a month left to nominate for the Hugo Awards. If you are still looking for short work to round out your ballot, maybe take a look at these stories:
“Flashlight Man,” by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor: I get a little more into short horror with every passing year, it seems. This is the sort of delicious little horror short story I could imagine being told by the light of, well, a flashlight, in a summer camp cabin. Read it and feel like a kid again . . . a terrified kid.
“This is How the Rain Falls,” by M. K. Hutchins: This short story was tiny, but heartbreaking and beautiful. It made me think of how trauma makes us less able to be our genuine selves, and more protective of what we have left, and . . . yeah.
“We Are the Flower,” by Claire Humphrey: This is just a heart-aching and beautiful ghost story.
“Twenty-Seven Gifts I Saved For You,” by Filip Wiltgren: This short story is a great example of how futuristic extrapolation can be used to power a gripping and lovely story.
“Rat and Finch Are Friends,” by Innocent Chizaram Ilo: This short story is quite possibly my favorite this year. It is a heartbreaking and beautiful story about how sometimes the ones who cut us the most deeply are the ones who love us, and who think they’re hurting us for our own good.
“The Author’s Wife vs. the Giant Robot,” by Adam-Troy Castro: I really enjoyed this delightfully meta novelette—it reminded me of discussions Lisa and I have had over each others’ works in progress. And at the end of it all, what I took from the story, about how we don’t generally know when our end will come, and about not letting the time we do have go to waste, spoke to me.
“Ask the Fireflies,” by R. P. Sand: This novelette pushed my tolerance for abeyance to its limit. About a quarter of the way in, I was lost, not clear on what kind of aliens I was reading about, what was happening, what was real and what was imaginary. The author really committed to not giving the reader anything outside of the narrator’s perceptions. But as it all coalesced for me, that choice really paid off. The story was gripping and the resolution powerful, and it was all the more powerful because I had to do a little more work to piece it together.
“To Look Forward,” by Osashon Ize-Iyamu: This was a story to read slowly, lest I move on before some image finished coalescing. A story about leaving childhood behind, about being pressured to be who other people want you to be, about believing (wrongly) that everybody else has their shit together and you alone do not. This story does a really nice job of showing simultaneously that childhood can be a harbor and yet that it can be one whose safety is illusory.
As I post these descriptions, I sense a theme. *grin* I definitely gravitate toward the heart-aching. Or maybe that’s what struck a chord the most this year. Anyway, if you find any stories you love in this list, please let me know!
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