Reading Pleasure in 2023
by Deborah Davitt
I was genuinely thrilled to be asked to take part in the “Pleasures of Reading” series this year because, as it happens, I started a podcast (Shining Moon: A Speculative Fiction Podcast) devoted to writers and editors this year. As a result, I’ve read a lot of things that have delighted me, and have been privileged to ask questions of their creators. . . or in some cases, to read and discuss the stories with other creators. . . and I’d love the chance to share these wonderful stories with a different audience!
First up are two stories that are holdovers from 2022 that I didn’t read until 2023:
Suzan Palumbo
“Douen,” The Dark, 2022.
Written in T&T creole, this story involves a girl who was accidentally killed by a car driven by her uncle, and how she came back as a douen, a faceless creature that can mimic voices and lure people into harm’s way. Her jealousy of her cousin drives her to kill her own dog; her jealousy of her baby brother leads her to torment her mother. Finally, when she’s led her cousin deep into the woods in a bid to kill her, she relents when she hears her mother calling her name, and her mother can finally see her again.
This bare description of the plot doesn’t do justice to this story, which is heart-wrenching in the best ways. The girl, the douen, is aware that she’s doing bad things, but because she’s so young and her mind is so unformed, she reacts out of jealousy and need toward everything around her, and the results are tragic. Everything bad that she does she ends up regretting deeply, but she can’t seem to stop. . . until her mother’s love saves her. Really wonderful, and I’m glad it was recommended to me, even if it was a little late
Holly Schofield
“Maximum Efficiency” Analog, November December 2022
This story is set after some sort of cataclysm has devastated the Earth. There are haves and have nots, and the haves have robots that guard their food supplies and keep the have-nots at bay. One of those robots has been damaged and is ‘malfunctioning’ when it approaches a woman of the Have-Nots, who is eking out a living growing soybeans and turning them into tofu for trade with other survivors. This woman also suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, so she only has the spoons to care about so many things in a given day, and being afraid of a seven foot tall combat model robot is not one of them. The story concludes with the robot, revealed as having been infiltrated by a software update implanted by a resistance member, decides that for maximum efficiency, the stores of the Haves should be turned over to the whole of humanity, and that his robot brethren should be turned to work, instead of to defending the hoarded goods of the affluent.
I really liked this story, which has subsequently been reprinted in The Year’s Top Robot and AI Stories: Fourth Annual Collection also the inaugural Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction. Like most of the stories on this list, it’s got richness and depth to it that go beyond a spare recounting of the action of the story.
Next is a 2023 novel by my acquaintance Mel Melcer, which I had the pleasure of reading for the podcast episode on hard science fiction. Mel is Polish by birth, lives in the UK, and has a uniquely international feel to her writing style. She’s deeply aware of nuances of politics and interpersonal relationships, and that gives her writing a richly-textured feel.
Mel Melcer
Refractions, November 2023
I can’t recommend this novel highly enough. In this book, the protagonist, Nathalie, takes a journey in cryosleep to the first human colony outside of Earth to escape her own past, little dreaming that she’ll be forced to solve not one, but two mysteries: first, what happened to that first colony, which has gone dark and silent, and second, who’s trying to sabotage the mission and the ship they depend on for their lives.
It’s much more than a mystery, though; it’s got elements of cli-fi to it and asks important questions about how we find justice in an inherently unjust world. It’s tautly written and never made me roll my eyes or think “oh, and now we see Trope X or Trope Y.” Every suspicion is subverted and then tucked back away into a new suspicion, until the terrible truth is revealed. . . and Nathalie must make a terrible choice, not just for her crew, but for all the humans home on Earth as well.
Next up is a piece by my acquaintance P.A. Cornell, who had a really great year in terms of publications, but this is one that showed up on my podcast on the topic of dark fantasy vs. horror.
P.A. Cornell
“Hard Time” in the anthology Darkness Blooms, May 2023.
This is a dark sci fi piece about a man who’s taken his son’s place in a penal colony, a rap for a crime he didn’t commit. The punishment is exponentially worse than the crime—hard labor on a Venus-like planet for a handful of skimmed credits. When the warden finds out that his son got into security as an adult, he tries to get the father to force the son into embezzlement. The father manages to get the right friends to help him knock the warden out, and joins him in a coffin aimed directly at the planet.
Much more than a simple horror piece, this story questions the basis of justice in society—can we ever really truly implement a system that reforms as well as punishes, or is that a fool’s errand?
I’m not acquainted with Sam J. Miller, but folks who were due to appear on the podcast on the subject of dark fantasy vs. horror recommended this next story, and I’m glad they did.
Sam J. Miller
"His Guns Could Not Protect Him" by Sam J. Miller. Lightspeed, Issue 153, Feb. 2023
Read online at: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/his-guns-could-not-protect-him/
A really good dark fantasy story about the two sons, Winchester and Remington, of a man whose “monster” has come for him, and how Winchester, the older son, comes to realize that he doesn’t have to be like his mom OR his dad, and that the monster he sees now might not be the one that comes for him in the end.
This story goes deep into the psychology of the older son, and asks questions about how we choose to become the people we want to be. He thought, for the longest time, that he had only two roads ahead of him—to be a fighter like his father, or a supporter like his mother. But, taken into the home of some family friends, who live lives surrounded by books and thought, he wonders if there might be another way to be, and chooses to put aside childish things, in the form of his card collection, which he gives to his sleeping younger brother. I loved this story!
I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting this next author, but I hope to in the future. This story came up as a recommendation for discussion on the Mythology, Folklore, and Prehistoric fiction episode of the podcast (a December episode, for anyone wanting to listen!), and I’m glad folks suggested it.
L Chan
"Re/Union" by L Chan in Clarkesworld (Issue 199 – April 2023)
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/chan_04_23/
Sharon is the only living member of her family that bothers to dine with the Shen Pai, the algorithmically-generated ‘spirits of the dead’ created from people’s online presences and digital records, on Lunar New Year each year. She’s the only descendant who can be bothered, and yet, because the Shen Pai cannot create new memories, there’s no recognition of this fact, no appreciation. Every year, she tries to recreate a traditional Peranakan dish that her mother never gave her the recipe for—digitally, so that these digital ghosts can sample it—and every year, the burden of her mother’s disapproving sniffs grows heavier. This year, she explodes at the ghosts, as so many people do over the holidays—and this time, her mother apologizes, they reconnect, and her mother tells her the secret of her recipe. But that recipe was never noted down in any of her files. . . .
I really enjoyed this story, which conveys great emotional depth and realism, while juuuust hinting at the possible reality of the ghosts at the end. I also enjoyed the blending of the folkloric past and the digital present/future, which was really skillfully done.
Marie Brennan is another of my writing acquaintances, and I’m happy to say that we trade RPG stories every now and again, too. She’s one half of M.A. Carrick, the pseudonym that she and Alyx Helms use to write the “Rook and the Rose” series. She’s been on the podcast several times, and always has something insightful to say. She brought me two new 2023 stories to discuss this year, and both are really excellent.
Marie Brennan
“The Merchant With No Coin” Flash Point Science Fiction, June 24, 2023.
In this flash piece, which seems inflected with Slavic influences, a merchant from a people known for driving sharp bargains is unable to prosper. He goes to a wisewoman, asking for a blessing of wealth, and she tells him that one of the gods has turned their face from him, ensuring that he will never prosper. Even if she grants him a blessing, he’ll never be able to save a penny of wealth for himself. And he replies that he doesn’t need the wealth for himself—it can go to beggars and friends and family. So she grants him his boon, and he becomes renowned for his generosity through all the days of his life.
This is the sort of story that, once you read it, simultaneously seems fresh and new while at the same time neatly slotting into a needed space in mythology and folklore—a spot that might not have been occupied before, but now is, and the story is perfectly shaped to fit the space.
“Constant Ivan and Clever Natalya,” Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue #373, January 12, 2023. https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/issues/issue-373/
This is a delightful story, simmering with world-building details. Constant Ivan sets himself a task to receive a prophecy from the Moon Turtle, but then reasons that since there are two moons, there must be two turtles. These turtles, once he’s reunited them for the first time in long ages, give him a prophecy that he’ll move what’s impossible to move—and when he hears about a caravan wagon that cannot be moved without the proper horses, he resolves to help the woman who owns it, Clever Natalya, not knowing that this is actually a test to find a new leader for her caravan. He finds sea horses, the horses of dawn, the horses of dusk, and finally, a horse made from the bones of the mountains themselves, and Clever Natalya, on seeing them and him, in his steadfastness and courage, decides that he would make a decent leader for her caravan, if he chooses to stay with them. 
This story is infused with a strong sense of Slavic folklore, but seems utterly unique. Again, if there wasn’t a story like it before, there is now, and it’s slotted firmly into my head cannon as a “genuine” piece of folklore that should always have already existed.
Sheila Massie is a wonderful dark fiction writer of my acquaintance; I have no shame in admitting that she’s read and commented on a couple of my darker stories, and given me feedback to make them so much better. Her turn in the spotlight this year is the following story, which is dark and not for the faint of heart.
Sheila Massie:
“Fae Magic on a Friday Night,” Flash Fiction Online, 2023. https://www.flashfictiononline.com/article/fae-magic-on-a-friday-night/
This story features what I would characterize as an unlikable protagonist—there’s a trigger warning on the story for assault, and it’s not one but several perpetrated by the protagonist over the course of a thousand words, all for the purpose of gathering magic from willing and unwilling fae, so that the protagonist can do nothing more than cast a spell to be proficient at dancing.
This is a dark story about consent, and the lack thereof, and definitely deserves the trigger-warnings that are posted at its introduction, but it’s well worth braving, because it’s sumptuously written and deeply thoughtful
Laurence Brothers is another of my circle of writing acquaintances. I had the joy of discovering his novella The Demons of Wall Street this year for the podcast, of which there are I believe five excellent offerings in the series, all well worth checking out. What I’ll talk about here, however, is a short fiction piece.
Laurence Brothers
With Respect to the Cat, Kaleidotrope, Spring 2023
https://kaleidotrope.net/archives/spring-2023/with-respect-to-the-cat-by-laurence-raphael-brothers/
A pair of time agents in pursuit of an iridium statue of Bast find themselves moving from one intersection in time to another, changing the past as they try to get the statue safely to the future. By the time they do, the statue has lost the power of Bast that it contained, but a number of crisis points have been changed, allowing the timeline as a whole to become a better world.
This is definitely alternate history, because the timeline changes—repeatedly—but unlike most alternate history changes, we don’t see the world become worse for the alterations. We see the world become its best self, which is a genuine delight.
That’s all I have time to talk about for this year. I hope to be invited back next year to do the same sort of recap. . . and in the meantime, if you want to hear what these authors had to say about their work? Come check out Shining Moon!
Deborah L. Davitt has published over two hundred poems that have appeared in prestigious genre magazines like The Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy and Asimov’s Science Fiction, and her poetry has received Pushcart, Rhysling, and Dwarf Star award nominations. Her short stories have appeared in Analog, Galaxy’s Edge, and Flame Tree anthologies, and have been translated into Italian. Aqueduct published her From Voyages Unreturning earlier this year.
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