Turns out some of my favorite stories I read last month were about characters taking revenge on the patriarchy. I can’t imagine what would be happening in the world that would make me really enjoy stories where the patriarchy finally got what’s coming to them. A mystery for sure. Also resurrection. Strange bedfellows. Anyway, here are ten great short speculative fiction stories.
“Bright Lights, Dark Millenium” by E. C. Dorgan
“I was a no one when I left the prairie, but stepping off the train on the cusp of the millennium, I know it’s my time to shine.” Our Métis narrator grew up in rural Canada before moving to Toronto in 1999. They get a job at a mysterious yet enticing company and have to compete with four other people—a Métis physics nerd and the rest affluent white guys—for the job. What is the job? Who knows. What does the company do? *shrug* Who are those strange gray beings in the mirror? Don’t ask. What I love about this story is that it isn’t an Eldritch being dark fantasy but also a commentary on colonialism, assimilation (particularly with regards to Indigenous identities), and the way we can eagerly participate in our own cultural destruction without necessarily realizing it. (Gamut Magazine—July 2024; issue 8)
“Eternal Recurrence” by Spencer Nitkey
“The deepfake is nothing like you.” If you know anything about AI or generative AI, this story will strike a chord. Our narrator keeps trying to replicate the person they lost, first through technology then through increasingly strange circumstances. Grief is a helluva thing. Sometimes it feels impossible to move on. What kind of life can you have without your center? (Diabolical Plots—July 1, 2024; issue 113)
“Father Ash” by Rachel Hartman
I don’t know how Rachel Hartman keeps coming up with ideas based on the fantasy world she created for the Seraphina and Tess of the Road duologies, but I’m so here for it. “Father Ash” is “adapted from a Goreddi Folktale,” Goredd being a kingdom in the Southlands where the protagonists from the aforementioned series were from. You don’t need to have read any of the books in this world in order to delight in this story. A man with no memory is on the run with a young woman trying to save his life. It’s bittersweet in the way the best traditional fairy tales are, as the pair make choices that hurt as much as they offer solace. (Sunday Morning Transport—July 21, 2024)
“Melting Point” by Cass Wilkinson Saldaña
I can safely say this is the first short story I’ve ever read where the narrator is a shipping container on a cargo ship. The technology managing the container gains sentience. It starts up a one-sided conversation with a stray pigeon that has unintentionally stowed away on the ship. The story is weird and fractured, yet strangely poetic. And it got me thinking about the ways we—meaning my trans, nonbinary, and queer siblings—seek connection and community. We do the unexpected and find others who are equally unexpected, and with that we create bonds that defy conventions. (Apparition Literary Magazine—July 2024; issue 27)
“Schrödinger’s Bones” by André Geleynse
Our protagonist in this fantasy flash fiction story decides to resurrect their dead kitten. André Geleynse describes in lurid detail the corpse and the process, but doesn’t let the story fall into horror territory. If anything, it’s hopeful. I am a rat person rather than a cat person, but each time I lose one of my babies I wish I could bring them back to life. This had me getting up off the couch to hug my boys. (Small Wonders—July 2024; issue 13)
“Skinless” by Eugenia Triantafyllou
A guy running a roadside tourist trap talks to some girls about monsters. The man tells them how to tame a woman out of being a monster, by hiding her animal skin, much like a selkie (although that word is never used in the story). I know the trope of an innocent-looking girl turning out to be a monster is an old one, but it’s one of my favorites. Little girls aren’t always sugar and spice; sometimes they’re sharp teeth and bloody vengeance. (Haven Speculative—July 2024; issue 16)
“The Angel’s Share” by Martin Cahill
“The air became heavy with all that was unsaid. At some point, he must’ve realized what Mrs. Mead had realized some time ago: After such a lifetime of trauma, what the fuck could be said, really?” Mrs. Mead’s home is haunted by angels. Mostly they feed off what’s left of her dead mother, but the longer they infest her life, the more she loses herself to their hunger. A moving story about surviving abuse, not just getting away from an abuser but the ways that trauma can latch onto you like a parasite. It can drive you to do terrible things to others and yourself, sometimes as punishment and sometimes as a twisted sort of schadenfreude glee. (Reactor—July 24, 2024)
“Three Things That Happen the Night My Dad Dies” by Isabel Cañas
This short piece is exactly what is on the tin: three descriptions of the life of our narrator’s father when he dies as a teen. Each experience post-death is different, and shapes the people in his life in unique ways. Isabel Cañas’ story has a YA feel to it that I loved. It’s not just the dad’s story here, but also what his child thinks about it and the impact his death (and sometimes resurrection) has on them. Death is never just an individual experience. (The Deadlands—Summer 2024; issue 35)
“To Call the Lightning” by Rebecca Burton
I love a good, old fashioned revenge story, and Rebecca Burton delivers with this twisted little fairy tale. When Mathilde arrives at—or, more accurately, returns to—the tower, it’s a dark and stormy night. The nobles who inhabit the tower were not expecting her, but they should have. They took everything from her, and now she’s back to return the favor. They may have forgotten about her, but now Mathilde makes sure she’s the last thing they think about. A vicious story about not so much dismantling the patriarchy as burning it down and salting the earth. (Kaleidotrope—Summer 2024)
“What Is Conjured Shall Vanish” by Akis Linardos
Speaking of fucking over the patriarchy, I give you “What Is Conjured Shall Vanish.” After the new emperor slaughters all the witches, a young woman tries to protect her magically-inclined mother by sacrificing herself. The daughter casts spells to create imaginary food to ease the pains of starvation while her mother bewitches her mouth into a smile so the emperor won’t know how angry they are. Many authors would want to give a story like this a happy or at least revolutionary ending, but Akis Linardos picks exactly the right resolution. (Apex—July 2024; issue 145)
