Short Story Sunday 21: Jo Walton and Ted Chiang

I’ve been reading stories in Year’s Best Fantasy 2 for three weeks. I’m starting to get a bit tired of them, not because of the content necessarily as I’ve enjoyed these last six stories, but of their length. The very short length of these stories has limited their scope and depth. That changes today as one of the stories is technically the length of a novelette and it has the kind of deep storytelling that I was looking for and it’s tremendous. 

“On the Wall” by Jo Walton

Read in Year’s Best Fantasy 2 (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (uncredited)

Originally published in Strange Horizons (September 2001), edited by Mary Anne Mohanraj

This is my first time reading something by Walton but I’m already a big fan of her through her various non-fiction writing at Tor.com. I’ve been meaning to explore her body of work, but I simply seem to never get around to it. Because of that I welcomed the opportunity to get my first taste with this anthology.

Short Story Sunday 20: Gene Wolfe and Patrick O’Leary

I had a good time reading short stories last weekend so I decided to do the same again this week. I was hoping for some better stories. One of these confused me and I’m still not sure what to think of it. The other certainly delivered the goods.

“Queen” by Gene Wolfe

Read in Year’s Best Fantasy 2 (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (uncredited)

Originally published in Realms of Fantasy (December 2001), edited by Shawna McCarthy

I haven’t read much by Wolfe, but what I have read has blown me away. The Fifth Head of Cerberus and Peace are worth your time and will certainly stay with you for weeks after finishing them. That’s the effect they had on me. I’ve read a handful of his short stories and all of them read like they’ important and worth reading, even if they often leave me questioning what actually happened. That’s standard fare for a Wolfe story.

Short Story Sunday 19: Ashok Banker, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Diana L. Paxson

I’m making a serious effort to return to blogging this year. I’ve shared a couple of projects designed to help me work through my pile of unread books and encourage me to write more at SUR. I have no specific projects outside of those which is a good thing since they’re plenty ambitious as they are. Year’s Best Fantasy 2 is included on my Currently Reading list at Goodreads which ties into one of my 2020 blogging projects. I figured a good way to break that down into bite size pieces is to revive Short Story Sunday. This originally started with a Science Fiction anthology by David G. Hartwell and I thought it would be a nice little call back to revive the series by reading a couple stories in another Hartwell anthology.

“In the Shadow of Her Wings” by Ashok Banker

Read in Year’s Best Fantasy 2 (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (uncredited)

Originally published in Interzone (April 2001), edited by David Pringle

Short Story Sunday 14: Andy Duncan, Charles de Lint, and David G. Hartwell Tribute

This series originally began with a focus on science fiction short stories. I think it’s a genre that works really well with this particular form of writing and it’s given me the opportunity to read more short stories and more science fiction, two things I feel I don’t do often enough. However, Short Story Sunday is the home of all short stories and I’m pleased to say that we’re diving head first into the fantasy genre. I’ve reviewed some of Robert E. Howard’s original Conan the Barbarian stories here too, but that’s just not enough! Short Story Sunday needs more fantasy and can’t limit itself to muscular barbarians and squishy monsters. There is plenty of room for other fantasy stories such as those of politically minded Hobbits and Travelling Littles.

“Senator Bilbo” by Andy Duncan

Read in Year’s Best Fantasy 2 (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (uncredited)

Originally published in Starlight 3 (2001), edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

This story is based on a simple idea. What if the infamous white supremacist senator Theodore G. Bilbo was a descendant of Bilbo Baggins? Well, we’d end up with a filibustering, speech spewing, and racist hobbit. There isn’t much more to this story than playing out that idea, but it’s very well done and quite enjoyable.