We’re a site for readers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. We’re for readers who love short stories, or who want to read more of them; for readers who love finding new things to read, and most of all – readers who love talking stories over with other readers!
Every week, we’ll start up a discussion on a new story. All our selections are recent stories, freely available online. So read up, and join right in!
For all our discussion threads, click here.
To read ahead, a schedule of our next upcoming discussions is here.
You can also suggest stories for us to discuss in the future!
I love “secret history” style stories, which this combines with a carefully crafted nest of narratives.
This one has reactions all over the map, which should make for some interesting discussion!
Charles Payseur echoes our recommendation: “This story is something of a Master’s course in nested narratives, unfolding like a puzzlebox that defies reality and is much larger on the inside than it appears.”
Tangent Online reviewer Herbert M. Shaw calls it “overlong and burdensome,” and “a rejected plot from the Doctor Who storyboards, featuring Edgar Allan Poe.”
SF Bluestocking says: “Rather long and challenging, especially if you don’t know the works and biography of Edgar Allan Poe very well. I could see it being a great favorite for the right reader, however.”
Featured Futures sees pros and cons: “Would have interest to some fans of Poe (…) and to those who can get through its over-engineering to enjoy its rococo prose and sneakily involving action.”
What did you think? Read the story, and join the discussion in the comments!
Raised by her Aunt Dissy after her mother died, Cassie’s ability to connect with people through dreams has become a torture. The sight overtakes her literally like a force of nature. Each dream vision somehow ends up scarring her physically. (…) There are so many elements to Cassie’s character intertwined with her gifts; the people she meets and helps, and her own journey for balance and self forgiveness turns this story into a wild ride.
The prose is elegant and tied up in dreams because it is in dreams that Cassie has her Sight, that allows her to pierce the veil and see the future. Or some version of it anyway. She’s been told that she’ll not be lucky in love or money, but when a man shows up haunted by a woman he doesn’t know, things are pushed into wholly uncharted territory.
Pros: Cassie is an interesting character, and her gift is interesting in its own right.(…) Cons: Her problems all seem to happen because she won’t tell that man his fortune properly. She sure seems to stick with that position for a long time, and it’s not clear why it means so much to her to keep it from him. (…) In the end, nothing has been resolved.
What did you think? Read the story, and join the discussion in the comments!
Short Story Squee & Snark is opening its 2017 season!
With a whole Internet constantly supplying us with excellent short fiction, SSS&S is devoted to reading short stories often, and widely. Every week we read a story – hopping between magazines, authors, styles and subgenres. Then, we meet up back here and discuss – love it or loathe it, being able to talk stories over is often half the fun!
We’re kicking off discussing Sarah Pinsker’s “And Then There Were (N-One)” – the story of SarahCon, the exciting new convention for Sarah Pinskers from across the multiverse.
And, entering a new year of short fiction, we’re very eager for story recommendations – tell us what stories from 2017 you’d love to see discussed, because we’d love to discuss ’em!
Pinsker is a particular favorite of mine, clones and doubles and alternates are a particular favorite of mine, and murder mysteries are awesome! Also, it seems a bunch of other people really liked this story:
“Drop what you’re doing and read ‘And Then There Were (N-One),'” tweeted @SFBluestocking, and in her blog she writes:
Sarah Pinsker’s story of a convention–SarahCon–for Sarah’s from thousands of alternate reality might be my favorite novella of the last several years, to be honest. It’s smart and funny and thoughtful in perfect proportions. It was enchanting from page one, and it’s a story and concept that has been often on my mind ever since I read it.
Rocket Stack Rank awards a rare five stars, calling the story “Intricately plotted, Moving, and Fun.” Full review (spoilers! murder mystery spoilers) is here.
What did you think? Read the story, and join the discussion in the comments!
No discussion this week, as I’m swamped both with life and with last-minute Hugo reading.
But I’m going to take this chance to spotlight something I always look forward to — Asimov’s and Analog have both published online the selections from their readers’ choice awards!
This is an awesome opportunity to take a look at some of the work being done in the print magazines — which, most of the year, we have a harder time featuring here…
That’s it for 2016 stories. Time to bring 2017 in! We’d love to hear your suggestions for 2017 stories, anything you’ve loved in the first few months of the new year. We’ll be on a short hiatus until April, and then we’ll see what you’ve been reading!
It’s not an exaggeration to say that stories like this one are why I keep doing this, rooting through hundreds of short stories on the off chance of happening on one, by an author I’ve never heard of, that completely blows me away. I don’t want to say too much about “The Venus Effect”‘s plot, both because it’s a surprise worth preserving, and because to describe the story is to make it sound like so much less than what it is–too academic, too gimmicky, too preachy. This is a story about stories, and about who gets to be the hero in the core stories of our genre. It shouldn’t work–the tack Hill chooses should come off as glib, and the structure he comes up with should devolve into repetition–and yet, amazingly, it does. If there’s one story on this list that I’d like you to read, “The Venus Effect” is it.
If Nussbaum wants us to read it, then read it we shall!
What did you think? Read the story, and join the discussion in the comments!
This is a beautifully written and haunting and somewhat disturbing (I love it) story about creation and having children and loss. I’m not sure what more I can say about it that won’t spoil the reading experience, aside from that the language and imagery is lovely and haunting. Definitely worth a read.
Michael Kelly at @sfeditorspicks writes much the same:
Lyrical, melancholic, and moving story about parenting, loss, death, and sorrow.
The story does a great job of showing the darkness that the women live in, the world that is at war, the endless stretches of dead children, the suffering that is still somehow necessary to it all. (…) There is magic in the story but not a pretty kind. The magic is dark and springs from pain, and it sets the mood, dark and brooding and festering.
What did you think of “The Fifth Gable”? Read the story, and come discuss in the comments!
Contextualizing the contemporary Western situation with some simple but effective bits of far-future imagination, Liu keeps things relevant by understanding the idea that problems will always exist, and thus what matters is our approach—our attitude—toward them.
Pro: (…) The ending is heartwarming because, after all that time, Mia finally has the right words–and they’re noble, inspiring words.At the large-scale level, it’s a great description of human evolution and transformation into a galaxy-spanning civilization–if civilization is even the right word for something so grand.
Con: There’s little action and no tension in the story, which mostly consists of a recitation of events that transpired.
While this story doesn’t seem to be as free from a sort of historical dualism (which leads to a tincture of human self-loathing which is mostly balanced by an explicit appreciation of our “wondrous” quality) as it is from the human vs. nature dualism that it explicitly disavows and does seem like yet another climate change story at first, it does move on to bigger and better things which do involve mega-engineering and a bit of “gosh wow” and is a good execution of the tried-and-true and fitting “time lapse” structure.
What did you think of “Seven Birthdays”? Read the story, and join the discussion in the comments!
Her latest story in Uncanny Magazine is classic Alyssa Wong: intense, visceral writing; searing imagery; building horror. An orphan in this alternate Wild West can bring dead things back to life—and perhaps put them to rest as well. Skeletons rise, dead things dance, and there’s an unforgettable scene involving a chicken. In the end, it’s also a beautiful story of loss and love.
Full disclosure: I love the desert and I love myth-making. Any story that can combine the two, bringing the desert to haunting life until you can hear the dead and smell the hot breeze is almost certain to win me over.
(…) Is it about trying to come to terms with your heritage? About not fitting in and being unsure where there’s a place for you? Possibly. It’s certainly about love and loyalty and what we’re prepared to sacrifice. And it’s definitely uncanny. Excellent stuff.
This is a story that equal parts strange and bleak and beautiful to me, like the desert. Like doomed love. (…) In many ways I read the story as about how sometimes there’s no escaping a situation, a place. Sometimes who you are, who your parents are, and the machinations and plots of those with more power, are damning and inescapable. Which is not to say that those situations are hopeless.
This story is a great exploration of what it’s like living with a curse in a survival of the fittest, use everyone for personal gain society, what it means to embrace your identity. It’s a fine exploration of power and expectations, love and boundaries, fear and the limitations it brings, it allows for, it thrives in. Grief and holding on. Moving on. What an intensely rich and sobering mirror of real life.
What did you think? Read the story, and join the discussion in the comments below!
I love “secret history” style stories, which this combines with a carefully crafted nest of narratives.
This one has reactions all over the map, which should make for some interesting discussion!