Posted by Nicky Drayden on Sep 8, 2010 in
Reviews Author website: http://lavietidhar.wordpress.com/
Published by: Strange Horizons, August 2010
Photo by Christine Zenino Creative Commons
The Story:
A hub junkie, a hafmek, and a tentacled worm walk into a bar…
Three nest-brothers from Mars are running away from their pasts, and end up on the gritty, non-protocol streets of Earth. Here, the temperatures aren’t regulated, and neither are the people. It seems like a good place to escape reality, but no-space pop deity Aphrosisia’s music haunts our poor, washed up hub character. He’s still in love with her, though he’s been barred from no-space, the plugs in his skin filled in with bone and blood.
The Craft: 20 Master Plots: Love
SPOILERS
If you don’t feel the pain of unrequited love in this story, then you’ve got a socket for a heart. It’s a classic “Boy meets Girl, but…” situation, the but being the girl is an Upload Deity, everywhere and nowhere at once and the boy is a self-mutilated hub junkie banned from the no-space that she inhabits. There’s a physical (non-physical?) barrier that keeps them from meeting. Taunted by Aphrodisia’s music, the hub junkie can’t take the separation any longer and decides to jack in with the help of a back-street fixer.
The lovers are reunited in no-space where our character tries to plead his case, but is swept up in her lyrics. She once was flesh like him, but now she is real, a queen. Her message is that she is moving on, beyond no-space. Our character wakes up, so pathetic and bleeding from his wounded sockets. He doesn’t know what is beyond no-space, but there are no boundaries that he won’t cross for Aphrodisia’s love.
Short and sweet, this has to be one of my favorite stories of the year. Its intricate world building left me gasping for air and scratching my head and wanting more. I loved how seamlessly all of the tech and otherworldlyness blended it. It was our normal that stood out in this piece, as illustrated by the line “Earth is different to anything you can imagine.” The characters are endearing. Definitely a must read, and it’s even more fun on the second read.
Tags: master plots, must read, science fiction, Strange Horizons, world building
Posted by Nicky Drayden on Mar 18, 2010 in
Reviews Published by: Strange Horizons, March 15, 2010
Photo by Suzie T Creative Commons
The Story: Annie has a goblin for a friend — a short and well dressed fellow with yellow, hungry eyes. He leaves her gifts of golden trinkets, but when Annie’s mother learns about this green-skinned friend, she begs Annie to tell him to leave her alone, scared he’ll steal Annie away. But Annie likes the goblin, so she only banishes him to the far end of her bedroom instead of out of her life completely.
And so he watches her, silently. Day after day. Waiting for her to change her mind.
The Craft: Character Arcs
SPOILERS
If characters made sensible decisions, then there’d never be a story. Annie is no exception to this. She’s presented with a series of choices involving her interactions with the goblin, fueled by her shaky relationship with her mother, and eventually her daughter, too. As a child, Annie is enamored with the shiny trinkets that the goblin provides for her. She calls him a friend, though evidence of that is somewhat lacking. She’s friendly to him, yes, but their relationship seems to be a bit on the opportunistic side. Annie gets what she wants from him as a child and a teen — trinkets and companionship — but the goblin never gets what he truly wants.
It’s no wonder why Annie uses the goblin so. She finds out that her own mother had promised Annie to the goblin in exchange for success, which maybe explains a little why the goblin seems to be intent on marrying Annie. She banishes the goblin for good this time, then pursues her own life so she can buy her own trinkets, acquiring a family along the way. Her marriage dissolves, and when motherhood momentarily drives Annie to her wits’ end, she again calls upon the goblin and asks him to take her daughter away. But he doesn’t want the child. He wants Annie. Too late, she banishes the goblin again, and although her daughter is perhaps too young to understand what has happened, a great rift opens up between them. Annie carries out her motherly obligations, as well as she can raise a child that hates her. And at her daughter’s high school graduation, Annie sees her goblin, her tool, standing near the bleachers as he always has. There she kisses him, a kiss that paints her invisible to the world and her obligations, free to be the girl she’d meant to be.
I liked that this story chose the road less traveled, the character whose nature does not change. Annie uses the goblin in the beginning, and is still using him in the end, stringing him along, getting everything she needs from him and offering him nothing in return. For a brief moment in her life, she does try providing for herself, so driven to be something better than her mother that she alienates her husband and daughter in the process. Annie follows through with her motherhood obligations, but at the first opportunity regresses back to that carefree girl dancing, twirling.
Tags: character arcs, fantasy, goblins, motherhood, Strange Horizons
Posted by Nicky Drayden on Feb 7, 2010 in
Reviews Author Website: http://asakiyume.livejournal.com
Published by: Strange Horizons, February 1, 2010
The Story:
Willow’s Daughter has five children, each with a different father. She’s found love and lost it several times over, but that’s not all she’s lost — she’s in exile, trapped here in the world of hours and days while the sounds and sights and smells from across the border mock her. Over there is another world, and only a few possess the ability to cross back and forth freely. Like Vessy’s father. Willow’s Daughter used to tell her children stories of Vessy’s father, and of Fox’s father, and of Daisy’s father…but two of her children didn’t get father stories. One is the narrator, and the other is Cory…and Cory’s Father has a story that definitely needs to be told.
The Craft: Beginnings
SPOILERS (and excessive apostrophe use)
This story opens with the mundane — a weary mother who once told her children stories about their fathers when they needed cheering up. Except that two of the children didn’t get father stories. While this opening paragraph doesn’t hint at any particular genre, it definitely pulls the reader in with a strong question: “Why don’t the two children get stories?” Also, I’m wondering why the mother has so many different baby-daddies.
In the next few paragraphs, we learn that the narrator’s father was Willow’s Daughter’s true love. More importantly, we learn about Cory’s dad, who was just a twinkle in her eye, and though Willow’s Daughter won’t say much more on the matter, the narrator knows the true story of Cory’s father, the deal he made with their mother, and why she’s unable to see one of her children. Here, my genre antenna perks up. There’s something a bit odd about a woman who can only see four out of five of her children, especially when a “deal’” is involved. The tone of this has been established as the tale of a nameless, genderless child, a nice voice, though, which has a touch of honesty to it.
Next we get into the actually story of Cory’s father, which actually starts with Vessy’s father who is one of those few that can cross the border between here and there. Willow’s Daughter is currently pregnant with Vessy, and is vexed by the coming and going of the border which is something like a cloud’s shadow that looms and smells of sweet fern. It bothers her so, she neglects her children, leaving her older children to wrangle the younger. And then our narrator catches a stranger in Willow’s Daughter’s bedroom, a stranger who takes on the form of a large crow. They talk of here and there, and of the bargain Willow’s Daughter made — the one that exiled her. We’re clearly in a fantastical world now. There’s not a whole lot of setting or characterization, but there are a lot of questions that keep cropping up, and that’s what keeps the reader going, and quite effectively, I might add.
In fact, I wanted this story to keep going. The end sprung up on me suddenly, and although the story told me what it promised me (Cory’s Father’s story) I felt like I was left with a lot of questions that were never answered. Like what’s up with the narrator’s father’s story? What deal did Willow’s Daughter make to get her exiled? And what exactly is over there? To me, this felt like the first scene in a larger story, and I would love to see it continue.
Tags: beginnings, fantasy, Strange Horizons, young adult
