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The Other Shore
May. 12th, 2026 01:53 pmThe Other Shore, Rebecca Campbell, 2025 collection. Is this something I'm supposed to be reading for the Hugos? No. Is it an ebook I've been in the queue for for months that has now inconveniently come available right at Packet Time? Also no. However, it is a paperback I've had checked out for Way Too Long, so, finally finishing it is something, at least.
Ten stories here, eight previous published, of which I am sure I had read two and it's possible I read a third. Definitely recommended if you like her work.
"The High Lonesome Frontier" - Tor.com, 2016. (This is the one I might have read.) A song, the folk process, and how even in the information age something like a song is both transient and specific to time and performance and people. (Campbell is very good at specificity, concreteness of detail.)
"A Hole Cut in the Wall of the World" - This one is a mix of "men taking academic credit for women's ideas in the background" and "what if the revival of ancient ritual magic worked" - it's set in 1976 and if someone had told me that Le Guin wrote it in 1976 I would have believed it. (Well maybe the 80s for Le Guin specifically.)
"Lares Familiares 1981" - Liminal Stories, 2017. I liked this one - a logging family and a fae.
"On Highway 18" - The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 2017. Also good - about friends growing apart, and urban legends, and the difficulty of knowing what actually happened, what kind of predator or pattern got someone.
"The Other Shore" - Genius Loci: Tales of the Spirits of Place, 2016. I liked this one a lot. An archaeological dig that starts turning up wildly mixed-up artifacts.
"Thank You for Your Patience" - Reckoning Magazine, 2020. I recommended this in my 2020 short science fiction reading and considered nominating it in 2021 but did not; I had her novelette "An Important Failure" on my novelette nominees and might have wanted to diversify authors a little, or might have just decided I liked other stories better. Anyways, a great story about the inhumanity of call centers and worker exploitation in general.
"The Bletted Woman" - The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 2021. I thought I had recently read a review of a book along a similar line - maybe added it to my to-read list? But I can't find it now. Anyways, a woman with terminal illness decides to join an experiment attempting to make translators between the natural world and the human world. A good zombie story.
"Such Thoughts are Unproductive" - Clarkesworld, 2019. I did nominate this in 2020; it's the story that made me a Campbell fan in the first place. The total-surveillance, totalitarian state. Only more chilling now that we're so much further into the AI era.
"Wider than the Sky, Deeper than the Sea" - Another story about trying to bridge human and nature, this time as performance art. Campbell has such profound grief for what's being lost to the climate collapse, the Pacific Northwest ecosystems specifically because that's where she is (and that's where many of these stories are set). I really appreciate her as a voice for that. Interesting stuff about sacrifice and suffering for art and whether that's a good choice.
"Conclusion: An Incomplete Catalogue of Miraculous Births, or, Secrets of the Uterus Abscondita" - Shimmer Magazine, 2018. This one didn't really work for me.
Ten stories here, eight previous published, of which I am sure I had read two and it's possible I read a third. Definitely recommended if you like her work.
"The High Lonesome Frontier" - Tor.com, 2016. (This is the one I might have read.) A song, the folk process, and how even in the information age something like a song is both transient and specific to time and performance and people. (Campbell is very good at specificity, concreteness of detail.)
"A Hole Cut in the Wall of the World" - This one is a mix of "men taking academic credit for women's ideas in the background" and "what if the revival of ancient ritual magic worked" - it's set in 1976 and if someone had told me that Le Guin wrote it in 1976 I would have believed it. (Well maybe the 80s for Le Guin specifically.)
"Lares Familiares 1981" - Liminal Stories, 2017. I liked this one - a logging family and a fae.
"On Highway 18" - The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 2017. Also good - about friends growing apart, and urban legends, and the difficulty of knowing what actually happened, what kind of predator or pattern got someone.
"The Other Shore" - Genius Loci: Tales of the Spirits of Place, 2016. I liked this one a lot. An archaeological dig that starts turning up wildly mixed-up artifacts.
"Thank You for Your Patience" - Reckoning Magazine, 2020. I recommended this in my 2020 short science fiction reading and considered nominating it in 2021 but did not; I had her novelette "An Important Failure" on my novelette nominees and might have wanted to diversify authors a little, or might have just decided I liked other stories better. Anyways, a great story about the inhumanity of call centers and worker exploitation in general.
"The Bletted Woman" - The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 2021. I thought I had recently read a review of a book along a similar line - maybe added it to my to-read list? But I can't find it now. Anyways, a woman with terminal illness decides to join an experiment attempting to make translators between the natural world and the human world. A good zombie story.
"Such Thoughts are Unproductive" - Clarkesworld, 2019. I did nominate this in 2020; it's the story that made me a Campbell fan in the first place. The total-surveillance, totalitarian state. Only more chilling now that we're so much further into the AI era.
"Wider than the Sky, Deeper than the Sea" - Another story about trying to bridge human and nature, this time as performance art. Campbell has such profound grief for what's being lost to the climate collapse, the Pacific Northwest ecosystems specifically because that's where she is (and that's where many of these stories are set). I really appreciate her as a voice for that. Interesting stuff about sacrifice and suffering for art and whether that's a good choice.
"Conclusion: An Incomplete Catalogue of Miraculous Births, or, Secrets of the Uterus Abscondita" - Shimmer Magazine, 2018. This one didn't really work for me.
