Runalong the Short Shelves - Clarkesworld and The Dark

Hellooo!

In The short shelves we look at short fiction and this week a bit of a contrast the joys of horror in The dark Issue 116 and a newcomer for me in the form of SF Magazine Clarkesworld 220

The Dark via https://www.thedarkmagazine.com

In this issue we have

Four Questions with Something Like God by Carlie St George - really inventive questionnaire/choose your own adventure style tale of a mighty power telling you you’re dead and what do you want to do about that? You’ll get to try all the answers - will any be good? You’ll be the judge but it’s a great mix of the fun and the unsettling.

In The Blue Room by Orin Grey - this is a more moody haunting tale using the idea of a college production of Hamlet and the ambitious theatre director’s desire to do the stage trick known as Pepper’s Ghost. All is not well in the cast and the themes of murder and tormented relationships stir really well until we finally get the big reveals to what has actually happened. The sense of oncoming danger is strong.

Lost You Again by Ian Rogers - this tale has an unsettling never ending nightmare vibe. Reality, time and truth are being played with and Rogers plays with the main character stuck in his kitchen just as much as the reader on deciding what has actually happened. The unsettling question we are left with is have we finally got back to reality and is that even a happy ending if true. It’s feely creepy and I loved it.

Coffin Dancing by Chris Kuriata - another standout and delightfully strange tale is of four men in their middle age who visit a funeral home and all buy a coffin to store at home. Just for added weirdness every few weeks they go playing music and dancing on it. As we watch the group from their wive’s perspective we have a tale exploring middle aged life, break ups, disease and more and anything that is done to the coffin has repercussions, the lack of explanation helps maintain the feel something is wrong here but it also ends rather beautifully as a reminder life is always fleeting even in the long run.

Overall a really good read!

Now onto Clarkesworld via https://clarkesworldmagazine.com

When There Are Two of You: A Documentary by Zun Yu Tan - this take looks at AI’s impact on us and posits in the future that a software called Sentience can replicate our own minds and as a guide: the tale has two key sub-plots a film director who decided to decided to upload himself in a double and marry himself too. Bit more down to earth a woman who used her internal Sentience as a moral compass. The tale explores how even two very similar minds can diverge and become very different in outlooks but for me the ‘documentary’ structure isn’t really summing up what’s next just offering case studies so it feels a little lacking in an overall ending.

Child of the Mountain by Gunnar De Winter - off to the Himalayas as we watch a child named Chime work with vultures to ensure a body is being eaten, from that evocative opening scene we watch the dead be incorporated into a new body and Chime serves ‘sisters’ who are verbally monitoring the Earth via endless cameras. Chike seems to go on a homicidal streak and while that is all good horror it’s really only until the last few lines we see why and that conclusion felt a little undercooked and could have been threaded in earlier and instead feels a last minute explanation.

Never Eaten Vegetables by HH Pak - here another AI tale but one focusing on space and colonies in trouble. There are glorious scenes of a self aware ship travelling with purpose and what that means for her unborn cargo. Then we jump to later in the colony and find it hugely under resourced due apparently to the ship’s actions upon arriving at its destination. For me the most interesting story on the magazine as we explore the aftermath on a colony with not enough people. Imagine your entire world and you know only the people you meet every day, there are corporate politics, moral dilemmas and even scenes of understated horror at what was happening onboard. It’s a chewy tale of imagining the consequences on such a colony but also a mystery to solve as to what actually happened.

The Temporary Murder of Thomas Monroe by Tia Tashiro - a rich teenager is murdered but once reborn in hospital has no memory of who killed him. We flash back and forth gathering the evidence and yes it was not quite what it thought. It’s quite a traditional murder mystery take with a hint of resurrection but for me a little too easy to predict if you know your noir but an enjoyable read nonetheless.

Beyond Everything - by Wang Yanzhong translated by Stella Jiayue Zhu - ancient aliens have left portals for humans to find and people known as envoys are invited to travel but often do not return. A touch of the metaphor as we find strange new world with ancient life and find out what happens to the civilisation and the previous envoys. There is a subtle theme of humans trying to find a solution to all our problems via alien life who must have the answers and indeed this seems to say there are no perfect worlds or answers but the last act of the story goes very metaphysical and has a touch of humans becoming gods but I find that kind of tale loses energy and the ending for me was a bit disappointing.

Autonomy by Meg Elison - a young woman hears there is a car programme to help you when in trouble and she is then carjacked. Those spotting that the programme is called Christine and the King in-joke mentioned may guess where the tale goes but this is actually a satisfying tale of someone getting their just desserts. Fun and bloody what’s not to like!?!

Also in the issue we have Priya Sridhar extol the wonders of terminates in a fascinating non fiction article. Then Diana M Pho talks to Arley Sorg about their career as an editor and explains it really well with added future Booktempting. Arley Sorg also interviews author and managing editor of GigaNotoSaurus Lashawn M Wanak and how their career and also life on the magazine has evolved. Finally Neil Clarke as editor from his desk gives a summary of 2024’s output just in time for the nomination season.