I started a new Sunday morning ritual of reading and/or listening to podcasted short fiction.
Last week, I listened to When Your Child Strays from God by Sam J Miller on Clarkesworld. A slipstream story about family drama and homophobia and motherhood. The fantastic elements of the story were closer in spirit to Kelly Link’s work and amplify the psychological journey of the first person narrative. Clever, funny, dark.
This week was The Litigation Master & the Monkey King by Ken Liu on Lightspeed. This historical tale, threaded through with Chinese folklore, starts out light and whimsical, then gets progressively dark. A nimble bit of mood whiplash.
Craig Laurance Gidney 