In Mercy, Rain by Seanan McGuire

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m very much in favor of the way McGuire makes use of short stories within this series. They expand upon the stories from the main books without requiring those stories to be bogged down. In a sense, these are deleted scenes, except they’re meant to be canon. In taking a small chunk and expanding upon it, McGuire can slow things down and give us even more consideration or interiority of the characters.

Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I think this is the best book McGuire has yet written in the Wayward Children series. It’s a culmination of all that has come before and seems to be setting up something big for either book 9 or book 10. It’s clear that there are more complex rules to the doors and their effects on our world than had even been revealed in previous books.

Skeleton Song by Seanan McGuire

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A beautiful short story that finally reveals Christopher’s world and how he ended up back in the real world. It’s beautiful and somber and, as always, cruel in a unique way.

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Dead Beat by Jim Butcher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even though there’s a timeskip of, I think, a year - this book is a direct follow-on from the previous one. That is to say that Dresden spends a big chunk of the book dealing with the consequences of the last one. Even the case that kicks things off is directly related to the previous book. From that kick-off, things spiral so wildly that I had a bit of trouble remembering just what the case was that set things into motion.

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 144, September 2018 by Neil Clarke

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Study in Oils (Kelly Robson) - a neat blend of science fiction and fantasy, I love how the author evokes the setting. I can really picture it in my mind. Although not entirely unique, I like the idea of an Earth cultural sanctuary.

Waves of influence (DA Xiaolin Spires) - Recently I’ve read a slew of SFF stories dealing with futuristic or fantastical versions of social media. It makes perfect sense given their prevalence and influence on the culture this last decade. This one, written back before the current moment in which it seems Twitter might implode and we might have the next evolution in the space, tackles the facial filter aspect. Any gender can experience dysmorphia from the practice but it seems to have extra urgency in the hands of Spires, who has female pronouns in her bio at the end of the story. I also love the story she has used to explore how this might affect users - quite different from the usual narrative in real life.

Apex Magazine Issue 138 by Jason Sizemore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Original Fiction

The Relationship of Ink to Blood (Alex Langer) - I world have interpreted the actions this story very differently had it not been in a SFF magazine. But in Hebrew we have different expectations about what’s real and what’s not. The ending caught me by surprise, though.

Ncheta (Chisom Umeh) - not too dissimilar from the plots of Small Gods or American Gods, but using African deities. I enjoyed it.

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

On the Cosmere subreddit there’s always a debate on how the eventual Cosmere films should be made. Some of us think it would work best as an anime. There are certain things like the Mistborn jumping around that might look better with the suspension of disbelief that comes with animation and look silly in live action. But in the past Sanderson has said he’d prefer live action and some folks are VERY opposed to the idea of anime. I mention all of this because as I was reading Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, I found myself thinking this sounds like Cosmere: The Anime. Interestingly enough, Sanderson says at the end of this book that he was partly inspired by the manga Hikari No Go and another one called Your Name.

Apex Magazine Issue 105, February 2018 by Jason Sizemore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

FICTION
A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies (Alix Harrow) - The whole reason I got this issue was because of this story, which won some awards. Andrea Johnson writes, in the introduction to an interview with the author, that the story brought her to tears. I didn’t get that far, but it did indeed tug at my heartstrings. It’s not at all what I was expected, but it was still a wonderful story.

Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Without giving away the plot or meta-spoilers, I can say that Seanan McGuire has continued to find a way to keep these novellas fresh. All these books have been deconstructions/reconstructions of the Portal Fantasy trope, but I feel this one is the closest to being a commentary on Narnia (without being as direct as The Magicians and Fillory). I’m less familiar with the mythical creatures found here although I at least knew what Kelpies were because of the PBS YouTube show Monstrum.

Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 109, June 2019 by John Joseph Adams

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

SCIENCE FICTION
Between the Dark and the Dark (Deji Bryce Olukotun) - the story starts off with the common trope of generation ships and leaving a ruined Earth. I’ve even come across it a bunch of times during my current SFF magazine binge. But the author introduces some cool new ideas, like the council. The story, therefore, goes in some interesting directions.