Arboreality

Arboreality, Rebecca Campbell, 2022 novella. This is an expansion of her 2020 novelette "An Important Failure" (online at Clarkesworld here), which I loved and Hugo-nominated. Climate change, and grief, and adaptation, and hope, and the pursuit of beauty. The kind of deep, serious grappling that was totally absent from Lost Cause - what might it be like as communities (in this case, Vancouver Island) become cut off from the parts of the world where industrial civilization survives. (In this case partially a Retreat to the North and partially a Retreat to the Midwest scenario. The identity shift as the island residents stop thinking of themselves as Canadian really hit me when I caught it.) What kinds of people might choose to stay rather than leave and what might they do, trying to live good lives, and what it might feel like to be doing everything "right" but still know that climate impacts were going to keep getting worse.

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2023 online short fiction - some authors I deliberately sought out

So, I'm definitely not "really" reading online short fiction this year, in the sense of doing a mostly-comprehensive pass through my usual-suspect magazines. However, I have read a few stories, enough to make a couple of posts (and maybe even nominate something, like, tomorrow?). Noting when stuff is on the Locus list or Renay's spreadsheet for likelihood-of-ballot purposes.

In this post, some authors who I looked up to see what they'd done this year, or in the case of Naomi Kritzer went and read as soon as I heard about them.

So let's start there: Naomi Kritzer. Often good for uplifting positive stuff about hope and community coming together and this year's stories definitely deliver that.

Better Living Through Algorithms, Naomi Kritzer, Clarkesworld. An online AI-guided happiness club. On Renay spreadsheet.

The Year Without Sunshine, Naomi Kritzer, Uncanny, novelette. Community solidarity and climate-collapse survival. Locus List and Renay spreadsheet.

Next up: Isabel J. Kim. Prolific, interesting concepts.

The Narrative Implications of Your Untimely Death, Isabel J. Kim, Lightspeed. Reality television and regrettable contracts. Renay spreadsheet.

The Big Glass Box and the Boys Inside, Isabel J. Kim, Apex. Also contracts, this time with Fae. Locus List and Renay spreadsheet.

Zeta-Epsilon, Isabel J. Kim, Clarkesworld. A cyborg, or a soulbond, or a twin. Locus List and Renay spreadsheet.

Day Ten Thousand, Isabel J. Kim, Clarkesworld. Fate, clones, suicide. Very meta. Locus List and Renay spreadsheet.

You Will Not Live to See M/M Horrors Beyond Your Comprehension, Isabel J. Kim, Lightspeed. Meta flash piece about shipping.

B. Pladek wrote a story I really liked a couple of years ago, and a novel I haven't had time to read yet this year.

Spring Woods Spring, B. Pladek, Strange Horizons. A silent but bright apocalypse.

The Salt Price, B. Pladek, Lesbian Historic Motif. Salt smuggling in early 18th century France, with a fairy. A historical setting I'd never thought about before, kind of neat.

Adam R. Shannon wrote one of my favorite stories from 2021.

First in Fear and Then in Pain, Adam R. Shannon, Nightmare. Trauma, ghosts, living in a haunted house.

Sam J. Miller can be kind of hit or miss for me, but I thought this was a solid vampire story.

If Someone You Love Has Become a Vurdalak, Sam J. Miller, The Dark. When your twin is a vampire. Locus List and Renay spreadsheet.

Ursula Whitcher is someone I know personally (and probably reading this, hi!), but that's irrelevant to my rec of this story, about power and regime change and AI.

The Fifteenth Saint, Ursula Whitcher, Asimov's, novelette. Uncomfortably relevant. Renay spreadsheet.