Sunday Shorts—The Serpent’s Tail by Mharie West

Found in Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space), Mharie West's "The Serpent's Tail" gives us some Vikings to enjoy, and joins them when everything hits the fan. I was a bit conflicted with this story—I was really enjoying all the stories thus far in the collection as quite empowering in the sense of …

Friday Flash Fics — “Out”

Today's Friday Flash Fics made me think of how important Pride is these days especially, where it feels like the pendulum is swinging against us. So I went back to my world of "Lesser Evil" (from The Lavender Menace) and superheroes and supervillains. This takes place after the other flash fiction pieces set post "Lesser …

Sunday Shorts—Wilson’s Singularity, by Terence Taylor

This tale, from People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction, was so damn clever I cannot tell you. The notion behind it is deceptively simple: we're following the titular Wilson as he navigates the anniversary of the creation of the Unity—an AI he designed/directed/taught that reached out, world-wide, and enforced a kind of "your freedoms end …

Cole Just Poofed onto The Aurora Ballot!

Yesterday, while I was at Limestone Genre Expo, some other genre news happened: the Prix Aurora Awards ballot was released, and it turns out Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks was nominated in the Best Young Adult Novel category. First, huge congratulations to everyone on the ballot, in all the categories. I'm particularly stoked to see …

Sunday Shorts—Madeleine by Amal El-Mohtar

When I originally listened to the Queers Destroy Science Fiction anthology, it was in the midst of winter, and I have to admit the overall tone of the stories as a whole is often only darkly triumphant (if they're triumphant at all). That's not surprising, given the times we live in, but by mid-winter, I …

#ShortStoryMonth Day Thirty-One — The Bending the Landscape Anthologies

Saving the Best for Last Despite headaches and grey skies (and the way the latter causes the former), I made it through the whole month of chatting about short fiction relatively unscathed. Today, I'm gonna round it up with a trio of anthology recommendations on a theme that I really loved. Bending the Landscape. There …