Short Stories I Read In May

It’s the twenty-ninth of June. So it’s time to talk about the short stories, miscellaneous posts, and podcast episodes I read or listened to in May.

All These Ghosts Are Playing to Win by Lindsey Godfrey Eccles (Uncanny Magazine; Issue Fifty-Two)

I only got around to reading two stories from Uncanny Magazine in May, and the first was All Theses Ghosts Are Playing to Win by Lindsey Godfrey Eccles. This story, at its base, is about grief and regret and forgetting. And it does those things very well. It’s told from the perspective of Theo, a ghost, who is in a casino where memories are the currency. This was an interesting approach to this kind of story: by linking high-stake bets with the function of a sort of limbo where you go up (as a big winner) or to the “DARK.” Supposedly, but is everything really that simple? You’d have to read to find out. There was also ample time devoted to Theo’s reminiscing, but I liked those moments just as much as the other aspects, themes, and overall conclusion. So while the general tone had an air of melancholy, All These Ghosts Are Playing to Win was haunting but in a good way. And I enjoyed reading it.

A Lovers’ Tide in Which We Inevitably Break Each Other; Told in Inverse by K.S. Walker (Uncanny Magazine; Issue Ffty-Two)

The second one was this very short piece called A Lovers’ Tide in Which We Inevitably Break Each Other; Told in Inverse. I read this one for the writing, which was evocative and instantly drew me in with descriptions of a lonely night at a shore combined with a slight feeling of the fantastic and uncanny. And I liked it exactly for those reasons. All-in-all, this was another good one.

From around the web…

• Print Run Podcast Episode 162: Turning Over the Same Leaf
• Place and Tome: On Two Kinds of Unforgettable Reading Experiences [Molly Templeton; Tor.com; May 25, 2023]