“Seven Smiles and Seven Frowns” by Richard Bowes
12.26.12
Story 361/366
Bowes is a much-honored writer of sf and speculative fiction. This is a fairy tale with multiple versions and each with a different meaning. You can learn more about Bowes on his official site. You can read this story on the Lightspeed site.
See you tomorrow!
“The Suicide’s Guide to the Absinthe of Perdition” by Megan Arkenberg
11.08.12
Story 309/366
This is a fabulous story in the old sense of the word “fabulous.” It is full of lush wordplay that reminds me a lot of Tanith Lee. This story appears on the Lightspeed site. Read more about Megan on her blog, Bitter Irony.
See you tomorrow!
“Sun Dogs” by Brooke Bolander
10.14.12
Story 283/366
This is a great story about Laika the space dog and the choices she is given. It’s simply told and will get you at the end, get you good. It appears on the Lightspeed Science Fiction and Fantasy site.
See you tomorrow!
“The Dog King” by Holly Black
10.13.12
Story 282/366
You can find “The Dog King” on the Lightspeed Science Fiction and Fantasy site. It has a fantastically written opening paragraph that sets the tone of horror/fantasy as elegantly as a folk tale told by a fire on a cold winter’s night.
See you tomorrow!
“Cockatrice Girl meets Statue Boy” by Willow Fagan
07.27.12
Story 207/366
This is the story of a most unusual relationship and Fagan seems to be having a good time playing with his words. (Statue Boy, for example, is not a person turned to stone but a statue come to life and the difference matters.) You can read the story here at Lightspeed Online, where it was published in 2008.
See you tomorrow!
“The Cross-Time Accountants Fail to Kill Hitler Because Chuck Berry Does the Twist” by Charles Coleman Finlay
06.14.12
Story 164/366
This story has the longest title of any story I’ve posted all year. (One more word than Jack Scalzi’s “The Shadow War of the Night Dragons.” I loved time-travel stories and this one is a good one. “Cross-Time Accounts Fail to Kill Hitler” appeared on the Lightspeed site last month. (You can download the 40-minute podcast of the story at that link also.)
See you tomorrow!
A short story a day review 