Saturday 16 December 2017

100 Short Story Challenge: Stories 61 to 70

I'm getting closer to caught up! As I write this (rather earlier than it's going to be posted, I'm afraid) I have 30 stories left to read in 20 days. That's not so bad! Perfectly manageable, right? In any case, come January I'll write a post about how this whole short story reading challenge went, what I learnt along the way, and so forth. In the meantime, here are stories 61 to 70:

  1. Bucket List Found in the Locker of Maddie Price, Age 14, Written Two Weeks Before the Great Uplifting of All Mankind by Erica L Satifka — A flash story told in the form of a bucket list (as per the title), complete with some crossed out items. Also more hints about the coming end than I expected. I liked it more than I expected to. Source: Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction 2015 edited by Julia Rios and Alisa Krasnostein.
  2. Her Heart Never Came Down Again by Seanan McGuire — a lovely, bittersweet story about an astronaut and her engineer wife. Also an ill-fated, unusual voyage, grief, hope and perseverance. Source: Seanan McGuire’s Patreon 
  3. Phlashback by Simon Petrie — a third story in the “CREVjack” and “Goldilock” sequence, this time picking up shortly after the previous story left off and shifting point of view characters (again). Finally we get to learn more about pharmhands and their place in the scheme of things on Titan. Another tense story. Source: Wide Brown Land by Simon Petrie
  4. Placenta by Simon Petrie — about a pregnant woman who suddenly finds herself in a life- and baby-threatening situation and must do a bit of sciencey problem-solving to survive. It also gives us a snapshot of an abandoned part of Titan, which strongly reminded me of an Abandoned Photography blog I’ve followed. Source: Wide Brown Land by Simon Petrie
  5. Function A:Save (Target.Dawn) by Rivqa Rafael — a lovely story about a coder and the president’s daughter/her almost-girlfriend. Set in a near future with bio-hacking and fancy medicine, this story was engaging, a little magical and, ultimately, satisfying. Source: Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction 2015 edited by Julia Rios and Alisa Krasnostein.
  6. Noah No-one and the Infinity Machine by Sean Williams — an odd yarn set in the Jump universe, but much earlier that that trilogy. I expected it to have a dark ending, but it ended up being quite lighthearted. Source: Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction 2015 edited by Julia Rios and Alisa Krasnostein.
  7. Forgiveness by Leah Cypess — a challenging story about a physically abusive relationship in a future where there are chips to control that sort of behaviour once it’s reported. Source: Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction 2015 edited by Julia Rios and Alisa Krasnostein.
  8. Probably Definitely by Heather Morris — a nice story about a ghost and a teenager still working on finding their place in life. I am impressed at how naturally-seeming the author’s non-use of pronouns was. Source: Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction 2015 edited by Julia Rios and Alisa Krasnostein.
  9. I’m Only Going Over by Cat Hellisen — a slightly odd story about a weird girl at a party and the protagonist trying to chat with her. Source: Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction 2015 edited by Julia Rios and Alisa Krasnostein.
  10. How the Maine Coon Cat Learned to Love the Sea by Seanan McGuire — A fairytale/genesis story about maine coon cats coming to North America. Short and sweet. Source: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/maine-coon-cat-learned-love-sea/


Not long to go now!

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