watsonneith

[watsonneith]

Favorite Short Stories of 2024

Oh, hello there. Yes, I've put on a sweater. You might not see me around often because I can only focus on one social media account at a time. But Bluesky is not the best venue for sharing list of short story recommendations, and this... is better.

2024 was a shitty year. I didn't read as much as I intended to; I'm ages behind all of my subscriptions and they're sadly piled up in my to-read folder in favor of the paper books and interpersonal obligations of my life.

But it still had some great fiction.

Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld)

You've probably read this already. If you haven't, you should.

The Pitha Seller of Qismat Square by Maria Hossain (Translunar Travelers Lounge)

Maria Hossain continues to fight against tyranny in her short fiction, this one about a street vendor with a goal. Her work is in TTL regularly and you should seek it out (see last year's recommendations).

Up from Slavery by Victor LaValle (House of Gamut)

Reprint from Weird Tales; my first time reading it. I don't want to give you spoilers, but it's Victor LaValle, so it's great, and it involves settling an estate and a sinister man.

Date Night by Jan Stinchcomb (House of Gamut)

Final girl problems.

Binomial Nomenclature and the Mother of Happiness by Alexandra Munck (Clarkesworld)

A story about feelings of isolation and a talking elephant.

Doorbell dot mov by Jennifer Donahue (Deadlands)

Well this was creepy. I guess the moral is "Don't drag people you love into an escalating problem if you live in a horror story."

The Ecological Impacts of Resurrection: A Survey by Corey Farrankopf (Deadlands)

A father-daughter team travel to investigate whether a species of otters has begun burying its dead. Hint: it's not otters.

What He Woke by Jess Whitecroft (Pseudopod)

Even though it doesn't impact me directly, I can't resist a jab at Tories. This one fits nicely in a cosmic horror envelope.

Across the Street by Greg van Eekhout (Uncanny Magazine)

An almost-flash short about one of those micro-neighborhoods you keep meaning to explore but you have work, or other obligations, or...

Signs of Life by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine)

Estranged sisters try to bridge the gap, decades later.

[watsonneith]

oh my.  

this is so perfect.

(source)

[watsonneith]

for my fellow silly geese –

go to 'settings' ->

pick the blog ->

toggle, near the very bottom:

if you're tech-illiterate like me I hope you find this helpful

[watsonneith]

Fanart?  Fan-tableaux?  The door to my lab cosplaying as the door to a Preservation Alliance auditorium?

POV: You are a Preservation Alliance resident coming to the quarterly planetary town hall after Dr. Mensah’s return to ask your elected officials about some normal infrastructural issue or something and you see this.

(Comments added by Murderbot, Ratthi, Pin-Lee, and Gurathin, respectively.)

Full text:

Keep reading

[watsonneith]

Good news, fellow artists! Nightshade has finally been released by the UChicago team! If you aren't aware of what Nightshade is, it's a tool that helps poison AI datasets so that the model "sees" something different from what an image actually depicts. It's the same team that released Glaze, which helps protect art against style mimicry (aka those finetuned models that try to rip off a specific artist). As they show in their paper, even a hundred poisoned concepts make a huge difference.

(Reminder that glazing your art is more important than nighshading it, as they mention in their tweets above, so when you're uploading your art, try to glaze it at the very least.)

[watsonneith]

[watsonneith]

I finally finished story one of my comic, The Crane and the Deer. These will a series of short stories that I'll also be working on! Enjoy! Link Below!

TW: Horror and mild trypophobia (lots of eyeballs).

COMIC

[watsonneith]

2023 Short Stories

OK, I'm pretending I use this for anything other than clicking like on wry tumblr comments or reposting artists. But I'm still reading short stories, and tracking my favorites, and these are the ones that struck me the most in 2023, in order of reading from January onward:

Rabbit Test by Samantha Mills (Uncanny)

Samantha Mills is writing a dystopian future that is a little too close to home; I could barely stand to read it because it was so sharp.

The Big Glass Box and the Boys Inside by Isabel J. Kim (Apex)

Essentially everything by Isabel Kim is my favorite, but this one concerns the uncanny transformations of legal work.

The Museum of Erased Things by Maria Hossein (Translunar)

Haunting story about a museum of banned objects where any citizen who enters never emerges again, and despite the dictator's attempts to destroy it, it always reappears.

Unusual Times by Gail Ann Gibbs (Translunar)

A school building has to defend some of its students.

Professor Strong and the Brass Boys by Amal Singh (Apex)

Robots start a protest band.

A Girl is Blood, Spirit, and Fire by Somto Ihezue (PodCastle)

A novice rebels against the hierarchical system of her order.

Discreet Services Offered for Women Ridden by Hags by Stephanie Malia (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

A doctor takes on her sister's soucouyant.

How to Stay Married to Baba Yaga by SM Hallow (Baffling Mag.)

Exactly what it sounds like, but it's also very poetic.

If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Formal You by John Chu (Uncanny Magazine)

I like ACAB superhero stories sometimes.

The God of Minor Troubles by Megan Chee (Strange Horizons)

A small god makes a big difference.

One For Sorrow, Two for Mirth by Tina Zhu (Strange Horizons)

Two pairs of estranged siblings cross paths over shadow magic and a murder.

The Relationship of Ink to Blood by Alex Langer (Apex)

A fascist clerk faces consequences for his role in disappearing people.

Measure Twice, Cut Once by KR March (Apex)

Capitalism, but the inhumanity is filtered through the magic of sewing a dress.

The Fox Roads by Nghi Vo (Tor.com)

Prohibition-era bank robbery, magic, and more than I can really summarize in one sentence.

Also, two short story collections and an anthology absolutely delighted me:

No One Will Come Back For Us by Premee Mohammad

I really love Mohammad's take on cosmic and eldritch horror.

White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link

Spot illustrations by Shaun Tan. The titular story nearly killed me because I was laughing while eating. What more do I need to say? But seriously, read it for White Cat, Black Dog alone.

Out There Screaming edited by Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams

I knew I was going to pick this up for a lot of reasons: I can't remember if the first was the fact that a sheet of tin foil has been rendered terrifying, or because Jordan Peele is attached, or because it contains stories by NK Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafur, and Tananarive Due (and more), but anyway, pick it up I did and sleep restfully I did not.

All in all, I have read a grand total of 221 short stories and (not counted in that number) five collections and anthologies. I subscribed to Apex, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and Apparition Lit.

Next year I'll be subscribing to Uncanny Magazine, renewing my Apex subscription, and picking up FIYAH, which I meant to do this year but honestly my bandwidth starts to taper off after two subscriptions. I read everything except the books I have, as one does.

[watsonneith]

the Jewish TTRPG renaissance continues! there's 15 days left to back my latest project, a collaboration with other amazing Jewish creators that funded on Kickstarter in 15 minutes (!!!) & includes some fun add-ons & stretch goals we have yet to hit.

also, how great is this video that animates some of the art Shari Ross & i made for this game?

[watsonneith]

also never posted this photo study from like 2021 i think?

[watsonneith]

This was funny AND creepy, like the best of things.

EXTINCTION - THE TRAVEL

EXTINCTION is a fantasy / horror story about things that end. You can get it here as part of the Shortbox Comics Fair!

The Extinction PDF is screen-reader accessible.

[watsonneith]

It's mushroom season! Here are all the types you will see.

Patreon | Mailing list

[watsonneith]

he’s going places

[watsonneith]

Ah, the memories I'd happily laid to rest have come back to me, a 19th century person, who has too many violent action plays leave the stage and find their way into the department stores and pharmacies and penny arcades of my humble city.

loving this new tiktok trend of 14 year olds thinking 1998 was actually the 1800s

[watsonneith]

[watsonneith]

uh so i never do this but maui is quite literally on fire and there isn't nearly enough care or consideration for. you know. Native Hawaiians who live here being displaced and the land (and cultural relevance) that's being eaten up by the fire. so if ya'll wanna help, here's some links:

maui food bank: https://mauifoodbank.org/

maui humane society: https://www.mauihumanesociety.org/

center for native hawaiian advancement: https://www.memberplanet.com/campaign/cnhamembers/kakoomaui

hawai'i red cross: https://www.redcross.org/local/hawaii/ways-to-donate.html

please reblog and spread the word if you can't donate.

[watsonneith]

All 15 issues of The Nib magazine are available to download for free. 1,600 pages of comics.