Old habits are hard to break: now that I'm no longer reading and making notes on stories for F&SF, I find myself reading and making notes on genre magazines.

Readers who enjoyed my tastes at F&SF may also find some stories they will enjoy reading here.

A thread.

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Caveat: between the Trump mob's attack on the Capitol on Jan 6 and the inauguration on Jan 20, I found it hard to focus on fiction and didn't read much except the news. So I only finished 4 magazines last month. If I do another roundup for Feb, expect there to be Jan spillover.

Short Fiction Roundup January 2021

@clarkesworld 1/21
@BCSmagazine 1/21
@DailySF 1/21
@Asimovs_SF 1-2/21

"The Last Civilian" by R. P. Sand ( @RadhaPyari) was the standout for me in the Jan @clarkesworld. The mixture of military sf and first contact tropes, combined with smart POVs and shiny worldbuilding, created a thematically complex narrative. I loved it. http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/sand_01_21/ 

. @BCSmagazine published three issues in Jan, and all six stories were entertaining. I loved the ghost artist in "Her Black Coal Heart a Diamond in My Hand" by @RKDuncanAuthor, and "As Tight as Any Knot" by @ma_carrick felt like it set up a thieves novel I wanted to keep reading.

But "Bast and Her Young" by Tegan Moore, a historical fantasy about Hatshepsut's rise to power in ancient Egypt that focuses on how she found and created legitimacy as a woman pharaoh, was excellent on so many levels. http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/bast-and-her-young/

Here's Moore capturing the precariousness of Hatshepsut's power: "These men, Senenmut the High Steward of the King, Useramen the Vizier of the South, they belonged to her. But people only ever belonged to her the way a cat might belong to her: obliquely, and with no guarantees."

I counted 17 stories in @DailySF for Jan, with fun and/or interesting work by Ivy Grimes ("Sisyphus and Jane Austen"), Tobias Backman ("The Monsters Which Must Be Slain To Save The Kingdom And Set Things Right"), Bo Balder ("All About the Eye"), and Anatoly Belilovsky ("Scars").

But the most complete and satisfying @DailySF story for me was "Horseplay" by Rich Larson, about a worker on a generation ship pranking another crew member. Things don't go as expected but in a way that surprised me.

https://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/space-travel/rich-larson/horseplay

The Jan/Feb @Asimovs_SF was the best issue I've read in a while. There are at least four stories here with the potential to show up in a Year's Best or award list. It's going to seem like I'm mentioning every story in the issue, and I could talk about most of them at length.

. @RReedsf's Great Ship novella was ambitious and reminded me of Heart of Darkness, only with a journey instead into the heart of wonder. @raynayler's noirish alternate history novella was similarly infused with big ideas and big questions, plus more than a dash of fun.

The near future stories by Naomi Kanakia ( @rahkan), Sean William Swanwick, and Nick Wolven were all smart and interesting explorations of technology and humanity. The space adventure novelettes by Suzanne Palmer ( @zanzjan) and @KristineRusch were well-crafted and entertaining.

But two stories stood out for me more than the others. "Mayor for Today" by @fran_wilde started in a way that led me to expect a biting satire of the gig economy; partway through I realized it was instead a farce, with amusing escalations and the potential for some happy endings.

"Shy Sarah and the Draft Pick Lottery" by Ted Kosmatka is a novelette about the use of big data to identify people with the ability to alter reality. Sarah is supposed to recruit a superfan for a new sports team, but she's also playing another, longer game. Wonderful and fresh.

Recommended Stories:

"The Last Civilian" by R. P. Sand
"Bast and Her Young" by Tegan Moore
"Horseplay" by Rich Larson
"Mayor for Today" by Fran Wilde
"Shy Sarah and the Draft Pick Lottery" by Ted Kosmatka

/fini