Sometimes the pool of short fiction writers feels bigger than its pool of dedicated readers. If Booktok is the barometer (and even then, it’s my feed we’re testing), it feels like nearly every mention of a short story collection by a Booktok creator, if they’re mentioned at all, is prefaced with how they’re not typically a fan of short fiction and that they don’t read that much of it.
The overall health of the medium has developed an unnerving cough. It’s currently set upon by AI-wielding grifters in a space that is already stretching every dollar. It seems harder and harder to put good short fiction in your hands. All while the audience seems to be shrinking.
Clarkesworld, arguably the biggest and best place for short SF on the internet, has essentially no footprint on Booktok, which has become the place to be to discuss books. Of the paltry showing in the #Clarkesworld nebula, most of the top videos are my own, begging for people to take a look at something that is captivating, limit-pushing, and F R E E in a world of 80 streaming services competing for your money. The videos do not perform well.
I’ve unintentionally become somewhat of a champion for short fiction, particularly in the SF space. I don’t think I’m an expert (though it’s primarily what I write) and I’m woefully underread compared to people who have existed in this space for longer than I’ve been alive. But right or wrong, people in my own life (and that extends to the people who live inside my phone) have started referring to me as sort of a go-to guy with respect to short fiction. Like it’s an exotic hobby, the way you might phone a friend who keeps bees when you discover a nest offensive gathering on your porch.
But there’s no reason I can’t lean into it. Enough short fiction goes down the garbage disposal of my skull to the point where it probably is a good signpost if you’re looking to read more and trust my taste (which, I’m assuming you do. Otherwise, you are very lost).
So I’m going to start bundling them up. Some highlights I stumble on. Some free, some found in collections I recommend. Some current, some from authors long dead. You’re reading the first such bundle right now.
I might talk about what it is that draws me to short fiction in a future post. But for now, I’ll simply shuttle you to the stories.
For this first post, I’m going to go all over the map. I’ll keep it to only things you can find with one click, but I’ll also bust into the archives. I may be more current in the future. But today, I offer some great stories to enrich your lunch break.
“Here’s Everything Leaving Your Brain This Month” by DC Pierson. (McSweeny’s 2022)
Here’s a bit of a warmup, since it’s written in the style of those old Buzzfeed (or maybe Clickhole, in this case) formats. Goes down like nothing. Forget the lunch break, you could read it between subway stops. It could be considered flash fiction, which I’m not the biggest reader of, but I figured it would be a good introduction.
It’s funny, sweet, and should fill you with excitement for how much you can be made to feel in no time flat.
“Standard Loneliness Package” by Charles Yu (Lightspeed, 2010)
Standard Loneliness Package is a story about things you ultimately can’t see. It’s about feelings. It’s about the emotions we refuse to face and the walls we put up to keep them out, forever keeping our lives at arm’s length.
And yet, I find it to be an incredibly visual story without being saddled with long descriptions. I can see the office cubicle much of the story takes place, I can see the uninspiring break room that an inspiring beauty walks through, I can see the funerals in faraway places, and the people who turn to this service to take the pain away.
With or without descriptions, I find it impossible not to look these people in the eyes. And it becomes hard to judge them. Haven’t you ever felt so bad you’d pay anything for someone to just take it away?
“The School” by Donald Barthelme (1976)
Here’s one that you can read before you finish a cup of coffee, with the added caveat that you might need to read this one two or three times before you figure out what the hell that just was.
Barthelme was a true psycho. Not in a sadistic sense, only that reading one of his stories often feels like being in the back seat of the most aggressive taxi driver on Cyberpunk Mars.
This is a fascinating, layered story about… well, see for yourself. And if you don’t like it, I give you permission to tell me off about it in person. If you do like it, you will corner someone at a party and tell them all about it very soon.
“We Built This City” by Marie Vibbert (Clarkesworld, 2022)
I’m worried I’m making it seem like brevity is the greatest virtue of all in short fiction. Not so! In fact, it’s amazing what can be done with a good 8-10k word story. The current Short Fiction landscape doesn’t bode well for works of this size, but they find their way to the surface.
Marie Vibbert was nice enough to do a small writing class about selling short fiction this week, and I complained to her about how difficult it is for me to get under that 6k barrier that most SF magazines tend to subscribe to. Her advice was helpful, but I admit I wish the bar was around 8k. Look at what she was able to do with 8k of her own, snagging a Best Novellette/Novella nomination in this year’s reader poll?
We Built This City concerns itself with a futuristic dome city and the people who wash it. This, to me, is what short SF is all about. The same reason why we love the movie Alien so much— we like science stories that are not about scientists. The people in Alien aren’t scientists— they’re truck drivers. City concerns itself with the everyday people losing shifts, losing their jobs, and the systems that keep people from speaking up for themselves and shame anyone who thinks otherwise.
Uplifting and inspiring.
You’ll be hearing me mention many, many more stories from the Clarkesworld 2022 reader poll.
“Man Vs Bomb” by M. Shaw (Fantasy Magazine, 2021)
I wanted to include at least one SF story that really rattles your skull cap. Maybe putting Bartheleme on this list was overkill, but then I thought: no.
Barthelme’s stuff skews way more literary, there’s basically no science in his fiction. And The School is a story with many layers that’s open to interpretation.
Man Vs Bomb is a story that is a burst of creativity but used in a different way for and with a different purpose.
MVB is a great example of an internally consistent world, a fucking bizarre one at that, that will dump readers out of a speeding car right at the start and make them find their way out of the woods themselves. This metaphor would have been used for any story of its kind, but I find it especially relevant here. You will too.
This one is even more abstract, but a few degrees less ambiguous than The School. The School is the Rorschach Test where you supply the meaning. MVB is that weird artsy robot claw that cleans up its own leaking fluids. Once you learn its name, its game— you can’t unsee it.
If you’d like to have more short fiction recommended by the chef, it is my deepest hope you’ll follow along and subscribe. But only if you’re nasty.