#city of red midnight: a hikayat

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

"City of Red Midnight: A Hikayat" is available to read here (NOTE: Submitter has added TWs for depictions of spousal abuse and misogyny in this text. Read at your own risk.)

[goosemixtapes]

max's favorite online reads* of 2024

*instructions unclear; included burrow's end

started cataloguing the short stories/articles i read online this year, so have a companion to the top ten books post! in vague order of reading:

On Sensitivity, Sadness, and Noticing Things by Charlie Squire (nonfiction essay) ("I’m very sensitive. I wouldn’t even say I’m particularly empathetic or understanding, just very sensitive. Everything seems so excruciatingly full of detail that I can never wholly take in or fully express that it leaves me impossibly frustrated, sometimes to the point of tears.")

Dropout's Burrow's End (DND show) (i fucking LOVE a talking animal story i fucking LOVE a xenofiction and the horror in this series is so fantastic. aabria iyengar the woman that you are)

Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim (speculative short story) (what it sounds like. isabeljkimheads stand UP)

Haunted Home by Conrad Loyer (speculative short story) ("The ship features a recreation of a slave ship's hold. The cruise prides itself on it. It is not a good recreation, if the metric is realism." one of my clarion west friends wrote this & i do firmly believe he's one of the most talented emerging writers out there)

Freedom of Sex by Angela Long Chu (nonfiction essay) (on why trans kids should be allowed to change their sex. one of the best pieces of trans journalism i've read)

City of Red Midnight: A Hikayat by Usman T. Malik (fantasy novella) (NESTED STORIES! TRICKSTER CHARACTERS! QUESTIONABLY EVIL WOMEN!)

Other Worlds and This One by Cadwell Turnbull (sci-fi short story) (on alternate universes and brothers. made me cry)

And Then There Were (N-One) by Sarah Pinsker (sci-fi novella) (a murder mystery set at a convention for dozens of alternate-universe versions of sarah pinsker)

Fandom For Witches by Ruoxi Chen (speculative short story) (the best and, dare i say, only work out there about fandom culture. i can't say what it is without spoilers but chen wrote this story in like 2019 and predicted something VERY very funny)

Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism (nonfiction essay) (for some reason i thought this was going to be much denser/less accessible, but it's quite straightforward and worth a read for everyone imo)

Twenty-Seven, Genius Loci by B. Pladek (sci-fi short story) (idk about you, but if i created a serum that let me revisit past years of my life in synesthetic symbolism, i would definitely get really weird about it.)

[badbookopinions]

City of Red Midnight - Usman T. Malik

You can find this on the Tor website at https://www.tor.com/2020/10/21/city-of-red-midnight-a-hikayat-usman-t-malik/#more-615043. It does the story-within-a-story thing so well, and I really loved the different layers happening at once, how you dip into stories and out of them again (I need to read more fiction like this because it's such a good trope). I also loved how Malik keeps the rhythm of it going, if that makes sense - you can hear how it's meant to be spoken aloud, and it was great of the storyteller Baba Kahani to speak directly to the listeners of the story and to us. Also, some A+ magical and horror elements.

[readingbooksinisrael]

Short Stories I Read Recently, Part 3

The Romance of Aunt Beatrice/L.M. Montgomery-Margaret always maintains that it was a direct inspiration of Providence that took her across the street to see Aunt Beatrice that night. And Aunt Beatrice believes that it was too. But the truth of the matter is that Margaret was feeling very unhappy, and went over to talk to Aunt Beatrice as the only alternative to a fit of crying. And so changed Aunt Beatrice’s life. 3/5

The Bride Roses/L.M. Montgomery-Corona (that's the main character’s name) has been terribly lonely ever since a family feud left her with no one close to her. This morning-the morning of her cousin’s wedding-she is lonelier than ever. 2.9/5

The Magical Bond of the Sea/L.M. Montgomery-Nora Shelley has always wanted to see the great world. The rich Camerons have always wanted a daughter. (Nathan Shelley has his doubts but says nothing). 3.5/5

Conjurer’s Rights/Jen Brown-During a family reunion Sidney struggles to connect with her family’s magical roots. 3.5/5

After Many Days/L.M. Montgomery-A mysterious man in a rural inn-cum-railway station eavesdrops on news of a foreclosure. 3.5/5

City of Red Midnight: A Hikayat/Usman T. Malik-In this spell-binding tale, a Pakistani storyteller captivates a group of wide-eyed tourists with a nesting doll of interlocked stories about a trickster and a hidden city ruled by the Queen of Red Midnight. 4.5/5

[part 1] [part 2]

[goosemixtapes]

max's may 2024 reads

they let me out of finals so i went fucking crazy this month

fiction

#Spring Love, #Pichal Pairi by Usman T. Malik

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (review)

City of Red Midnight: A Hikayat by Usman T. Malik (review)

the first half of The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

The Rock Eaters by Brenda Peynado (review)

Other Worlds and This One by Cadwell Turnbull

Two Truths and a Lie by Sarah Pinsker

Piranesi by Susanna Clark (review)

Ambient and Isolated Effects of Fine Particulate Matter by Emery Robin

nonfiction

the latter half of Cultish by Amanda Montell (review)

Napoleon: A Very Short Introduction by David A. Bell (reread)

the first half of Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft

On Writing and the Business of Writing by Carmen Maria Machado

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (review)

A Suspense Novelist's Trail of Deceptions by Ian Parker

plays i read at my girlfriend's house

Iphigenia and The Furies (On Taurian Land) & Antigone by Ho Ka Kei (review)

As You Like It: A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal (review)

Beautiful Man & Other Short Plays by Erin Shields (review)

If We Were Birds by Erin Shields (review)

misc

episodes 3.20-3.31 of Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast