Week Three of Story a Day

Thank God I decided to update this once a week. It's much easier to keep track of this way.

Antieau, Kim, Storm Poet (Asimov's January 2006)

Odd coming of age story set in 1932. A boy hangs out with his 'crazy' uncle and revives a bit of fantasy in a life with too little dreams. Even though I had little to identify with this family, I was touched.

Comear, Joey, The Machine (Strange Horizons, 16 January 2006)

Two miracle researchers investigate the idea that a machine can store the location of every known particle in the world and recreate it. Ignoring the exponential impossibility of such a data structure without the logical loophole of not needing the machine to store everything, since it's all stored in the machine at one point as time flows by it would merely need to look at itself at a point in the past, the idea has a throwaway line about how the Christian Church would look if Jesus' life were firmly recorded. (I think it would be much better, actually, but that's me.) Comear plays with the idea well, but this really needs P.K. Dick to unravel.

McDonald, Sandra, A Lock of Ra (Lone Star Stories, December 2005)

The background story of war and apocalypse plays into the central plot. If this were a workshop story I'd ask if the war was relevant, but it is a bad question. The hint of the world falling apart comes into play at just the right time.

Gaiman, Neil, Chivalry (Smoke and Mirrors)

I know a lot of people who love Gaiman, but I'd never read him. I found a 14 tape recording of American Gods that I haven't started yet at a close-out, but thought I'd start with something smaller. I am imased at how casually a fantastic element is introduced into the story, and dealt with in a perfectly normal manner. Perhaps my own struggle with modern fantasy is that I don't treat it as casually as this, and contrast it to the ordinary dullness of life. Then again, maybe I do. I'll have to wait for feedback from my group.

Lee, Yoon Ha, Words Written in Fire (Shadows of Saturn, Aug/Sep 2005)

This story opens doors to a mystical form of arson. There just isn't enough here to satisfy me, for some reason. I wanted just a little bit more weird, but too much more would probably break the story. It's a balancing act, isn't it?

Mohan, Steven Jr., Whale Falls (Ideomancer, December 2005)

The lack of clear transitions to flashbacks makes the narrative a bit difficult to sort out on first read. The timing of flashbacks introduces the next major plot point in the story. With a smooth transition, this is a good example of how to do flashbacks that tell a story that takes place over a long period of time.

Pronzini, Bill, Possibilities (The Strand Magazine, October-January)

This is the kind of story I wished I had thought of, because it's exactly the kind of sick joke I would play on nosy neighbors. It managed to up the tension enough to make me wonder if the narrator had killed his wife and was lying about it to me.