Stories and Poems I liked in March

In March, I finally managed to go back to reading short stories, which has helped change my mood to the better. I didn’t have a plan in the way I chose what I read. In the following list there older stories and newer stories, same venues and same authors. Most of them are flash stories, because it was easier for me to focus for a shorter amount of time. But they are all unique and interesting.

So, there you go!

Stories

A Serpent for Each Year by Tamara Jerée, in Strange Horizons: I try to avoid dead mothers (or cancer) in the stories I read for now (not always successfully) but this story looked at loss from the other side. From the side of someone who has still to lose a person important to them and I loved it. We are all there at this place emotionally until we aren’t, and that fear doesn’t change even when we get there. Wonderful bite of a story.

Georgie in the Sun by Natalia Theodoridou, in Uncanny Magazine: A vampire in space with the very human love of his life and only food source traveling towards a new world. A story about love, loneliness and choices.

The First Trebuchet on Mars by Marie Vibber, in Escape Pod: Did I just discover Marie Vibber? Yes. Did I hunt down all her stories? Also, yes. I love the lightness in which she manages to approach events that have been done to death in tragedy, without depriving them of suspense or a satisfying ending.

Settling Beef by James Beaumon, in Daily Science Fiction: A story about passive-aggressive cow-like aliens versus a very angry cowboy agent. Or the other way round. 😛

Three Meetings of the Pregnant Man Support Group by Jame Beaumon, in Apex Magazine: The aliens choose only men to mate with and carry their children, and we follow one of those men, in three meetings of the Pregnant Man Support Group. I really liked the complexity of the pregnancy and the emotional toll it had on the characters.

The Theory and Practice of Time Travel: A Syllabus by David DeGraff, in Translunar Travelers Lounge: I had so much fun with this story! Teaching time travel isn’t easy with all the paradoxes and the opportunities of destroying the universe everywhere, but a professor has to try anyway.

Calling on Behalf of the Dark Lord by Catherine George, in Translunar Travelers Lounge: A fun to read story, about an employee in the Dark Lord’s call center who decides to shake things up a little to gain more followers in his name.

And Infection of Priest in the Body of God by Matt Dovey, in Translunar Travelers Lounge: Gentle and honest, a story about control and abuse and the price of breaking free.

Introduction to the Horror Story, Day 1 by Kurt Fawver, in Nightmare Magazine: Look, I don’t read horror stories, but from time to time I will do it and then it will stay with me for a long time. Like this one. I mean, what can go wrong if your professor decides to teach you first hand what the real meaning of a horror story is?

 

Poems

The Most Humane Methods Could Invoke a Knife by Tamara Jerée, in Uncanny Magazine

What Aliens Read by Mary Soon Lee, in Star*Line