Short Stories I Read in May

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

And the Dreams That You Dare to Dream by Marissa Lingen (Lightspeed Magazine; May 2024; Issue 168)

The first story I checked out in May was Marissa Lingen’s And the Dreams That You Dare to Dream. Pretty standard portal fantasy/fantasy land setting, which reminded me of Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children’s series. Where this story shines is in the character, Gemma’s, POV. She wants to go to a fantasy land, and she doesn’t want to come back—and she’s very logical/deadpan about her approach. It's one of the aspects I liked best about her characterization. Besides that, the story has a very frank style to the way it was written, which suited it perfectly. All-in-all, I liked this one.

Done Deal by Rory Harper (Lightspeed Magazine; May 2024; Issue 168)

While I was still on Lightspeed Magazine’s website, I read two other stories. The first was: Done Deal by Rory Harper. In speculative fiction, deals with the devil—Faustian bargains, errant wishes—those can be pretty common. However, they are among my favorite kind of story conventions, because the possibilities are endless. In Done Deal, a famous, at the top of the world musician named Jack Malagan, is suspected to have made a deal. Much of the story has a blasé feel to it, as it recounted Jack’s meteoric rise, and a pivotal conversation that revealed his backstory and the consequences of the titular “Done Deal.” As the story progressed, however, the tension increased, which gradually built toward the final twist at the end. Done Deal was a great story!

Exit Interview by Ben Peek (Lightspeed Magazine; May 2024; Issue 168)

And the second was Ben Peek’s Exit Interview. It’s the exact kind of story I like: magic hidden right alongside the normal every day, a sense (and atmosphere) of danger and darkness, and a secretive organization with questionable recruitment tactics. All of that was great. At the heart of Exit Interview, though, was a mother whose life fell apart after the disappearance of her daughter, the places her work for “The Ministry of Saturn” took her to, the people she met, the answers she found, and the actions she took. Sprinkled throughout was the titular exit interview, which added another layer of detail to the story. This was a truly engrossing read.

From around the web…

• I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle is a Moving Tale from a Fantasy Master [Vanessa Armstrong; Reactor Magazine; May 22, 2024]
• Scalzi on Film: The Aesthetics of Spectacle: A Look at Dune in 1984 and 2024 [John Scalzi; Uncanny Magazine Issue Fifty-Eight]
• Read an Excerpt From Caitlin Rozakis’s Dreadful [Reactor Magazine; May 23, 2024]
• Writing Inside a Box [Amy Berg; Uncanny Magazine Issue Fifty-Eight]