Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few stories we’ve read that we wanted you to know about, including three 2018 Nebula nominees.

“A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies” by Alix E. Harrow (2018, free at Apex magazine, $2.99 Kindle magazine issue). 2018 Nebula nominee (short story).

Our narrator is both a librarian and a witch (all good librarians are, she claims), and one of her joys is giving library patrons the book they “need most.” So when the black teenager with the red backpack comes into the Maysville Public Library, located somewhere in the deep South, and latches onto a portal fantasy, she breathes him in and can tell he’s deeply, howlingly yearning for a way to escape this world and never come back.

God save me from the yearners. The insatiable, the inconsolable, the ones who chafe and claw against the edges of the world. No book can save them.

(That’s a lie. There are Books potent enough to save any mortal soul: books of witchery, augury, alchemy; books with wand-wood in their spines and moon-dust on their pages; books older than stones and wily as dragons. We give people the books they need most, except when we don’t.)

So she feeds him a series of magical fantasies, knowing that’s not enough to truly help him. He needs a book that’s not just about magic, but a book that is magic. But sharing those types of books with library patrons is strictly forbidden.

I loved the librarian/witch narrator’s voice and dry sense of humor. The details in this story are delicious. I have a major soft spot for library-themed fantasy, and Alix E. Harrow’s love for books and reading shines through in this imaginative tale, where books jostle on the shelves to try to attract the attention of readers, and a book that is returned with “the flashlight-smell of 3:00 a.m. on its final chapter [is] unbearably smug about it.” At the same time, you also feel the heartbreak and hopelessness this teenager feels in the foster care system.

“A Witch’s Guide to Escape” is my favorite 2018 Nebula nominee so far in the short story category (four down, two to go), though I agree with Skye that “And Yet” is a very strong story. ~Tadiana Jones


“And Yet” by A.T. Greenblatt (2018, free at Uncanny, $3.99 Kindle magazine issue). 2018 Nebula nominee (short story).

“And Yet” is a 2018 Nebula Award finalist in the short story category, and it’s easy to see why. It’s a story told in the second person, where you find out that you are an up-and-coming theoretical physicist with a surprising inspiration for your work.

This story interested me from the first line:

Only idiots go back to the haunted houses of their childhood. And yet.

Because it’s a speculative story I guessed that the ‘haunted house’ referenced would be literal, but at no point afterwards did I think I could predict where the story was going. Greenblatt builds an emotional tension as the reader gets more background information on our main character. There’s a cleverness to the story ― and the main character ― that I found more engaging when backdropped by the emotional stakes. Aside from one small moment that pulled me out of the narrative, I was thoroughly engaged with the story. “And Yet” is a satisfying short read, and to my mind an excellent Nebula finalist. ~Skye Walker



“Some of These Stars Might Already Be Gone” by Rich Larson (free at Daily Science Fiction, June 5, 2018)

As they’ve done many times during the course of their relationship, a couple once again “rolls back,” which means diving into a shared past memory using their “FreezeFeel data,” though their perspective on the experience isn’t as commonly felt as the memory itself.

The premise is a good one, though one can guess where the story is going pretty quickly and easily, but the story rises above the predictability with some nice detail work. Part of that is put to use to efficiently convey a decent sense of the world in a short span of words and time. It’s a future with “autotrucks” and “stalled-out refineries.” A future where hackers regularly take down major portions of the power grid and where the stars in the sky are seldom seen. And it’s a night out to see those stars that is the source of Tyus and Bea’s shared memories, and that make as well a sharply-felt metaphor for the impact of this new technology. ~Bill Capossere


The Rule of Three by Lawrence M. Schoen (2018, free in Future Science Fiction Digest, Dec. 2018, $3.99 Kindle magazine issue). 2018 Nebula nominee (novelette).

The narrator, an employee of the U.S. state department, is passed a message from his Miao (Hmong) grandmother, who lives in a small, mountainous village in China: “a funny-looking fellow fell from the sky in a giant pearl and was teaching the village’s children odd things.” No one outside of the village is aware of the alien visitor. Alarmed, he rushes across the world to his grandmother’s village to find out what is happening and whether his grandmother is in danger. Less understandably, he fails to tell anyone at the state department where he’s going and what he’s heard.

Once he gets to the village and recuperates from his jet lag and a major bout of food poisoning, he meets the alien, named Foom. Foom is literally unable to see clearly anyone who is immersed in modern technology, whether it be carrying a cell phone, eating processed food, or wearing store-bought clothing. Foom calls these things “unlife,” and requires the narrator to put aside all these artificial trappings of technology and modern society in order to learn from him. Most especially, the narrator learns that he must respect the Rule of Three: you must be no more than three people removed from the one who originally made the food, clothing, method of transportation or anything else.

“Three is the limit. Pass the thing I made on to a fourth person and it can no longer detect me. The connection is broken. Unlife rushes in to fill the void. As a result it cannot be easily perceived. It is dark, inert.”

 

I swallowed. “You’re describing virtually all manufactured goods. Everywhere.”

The primitive Chinese village Foom is visiting was one of the few places on earth where he could perceive humans. All technologically advanced societies are dark to him.

The Rule of Three is a back-to-nature screed, with a bit of a bite to it. This story was inspired by the author’s trip to Guizhou Province, sponsored by the Future Administration Affairs and a poverty abatement program run by the Wanda Group. I found it rather long-winded and preachy, but readable. And while I appreciate that technology has many dangers, I think it brings countless benefits as well (most modern medicines and treatments would, of course, violate the Rule of Three; food might be manageable, but clothing and transportation would be near impossible). I can’t say that I found the Rule of Three ― either the credo or the novelette ― particularly compelling or convincing. ~Tadiana Jones

Authors

  • Tadiana Jones

    TADIANA JONES, on our staff since July 2015, is an intellectual property lawyer with a BA in English. She inherited her love of classic and hard SF from her father and her love of fantasy and fairy tales from her mother. She lives with her husband and four children in a small town near the mountains in Utah. Tadiana juggles her career, her family, and her love for reading, travel and art, only occasionally dropping balls. She likes complex and layered stories and characters with hidden depths. Favorite authors include Lois McMaster Bujold, Brandon Sanderson, Robin McKinley, Connie Willis, Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, Megan Whalen Turner, Patricia McKillip, Mary Stewart, Ilona Andrews, and Susanna Clarke.

  • Skye Walker

    SKYE WALKER, who has been on FanLit’s staff since September 2014 (after a brief time on staff as a YA reviewer in 2007-2008), is from Canada. Their HBA in Anthropology and Communications allowed them to write an Honours paper on podcasting as the modern oral tradition of storytelling: something they will talk about at any and all opportunities. Skye is a communications professional in the non-profit sector. These days their favourite authors include Ursula K Le Guin, Bo Bolander, and Chris Wooding. They can be found on social media @tskyewalker

  • Bill Capossere

    BILL CAPOSSERE, who's been with us since June 2007, lives in Rochester NY, where he is an English adjunct by day and a writer by night. His essays and stories have appeared in Colorado Review, Rosebud, Alaska Quarterly, and other literary journals, along with a few anthologies, and been recognized in the "Notable Essays" section of Best American Essays. His children's work has appeared in several magazines, while his plays have been given stage readings at GEVA Theatre and Bristol Valley Playhouse. When he's not writing, reading, reviewing, or teaching, he can usually be found with his wife and son on the frisbee golf course or the ultimate frisbee field.