Favorite Short Fiction, February 14-27

I was away at a soccer tournament last weekend so this review of my favorite short fiction includes two weeks of reading. And of the twenty-one stories that I read, six stood out to me as five-star reads.

From Asimov’s first issue of the year, “Stay” by William Preston is a bittersweet tale of a nerdy brother dying of cancer who decides to create an android replica of himself to keep his dog company after the cancer has killed him. He has a somewhat estranged sister who doesn’t like dogs and doesn’t quite get it. If you have a heart and/or love dogs, this one may make you cry. But don’t worry, the dog doesn’t die.

Also from Asimov’s first issue of the year is Will Ludwigsen’s brilliant “The Imaginative Youngster’s Handbook to UFOs”. It is written in the second person directly to the youngster who has pulled it off the shelf in the library. It has the feel of something written in the 1950s to help a misfit youth feel like they are part of something. It is both funny and endearing.

I listen to the podcast Writing Excuses. In the February 7 episode, they do a deep dive on the story “With Her Serpent Locks“ by Mary Robinette Kowal originally published in Uncanny magazine. Be sure to read it before you listen to the podcast episode as it has spoilers. It is the story of a woman whose troublesome cousin invites himself for a visit. The identity of the characters is slowly revealed as the story unfolds to a satisfying conclusion.

Octavia E. Butler explores self-control and responsibility her tale “The Evening and the Morning and the Night“ from the collection Bloodchild and Other Stories. The main character is a woman with a genetic disease that without treatment will eventually cause her to destroy herself physically. With her boyfriend, she visits a clinic with a unique approach to treatment. An astounding story of nature, nurture, and choice.

The final story in Butler’s Bloodchild and Other Stories is “The Book of Martha“. In it Martha is tasked by God to make humanity better. She is given all the powers of God, and she can ask him any question. She is deeply uncomfortable with this task, but what she decides to do is stunning.

I have finally gotten around to starting the January issue of Clarkesworld magazine, and it starts out with a banger. “Remember Me in the Meat“ by Sarah Pauling takes place in a world where memories have largely been offloaded to data banks in the cloud. When a climate activist group tasks an assassin to kill a dangerous billionaire, the leader of the cult unleashes a virus that makes everyone forget the assassin. But things don’t go as expected when she finally arrives to execute her target.

I hope you enjoy these stories. Remember, you can always keep up with what I am reading on my short fiction page.

Favorite Short Fiction of the Week

I was a bit busier this week than last and only managed to read five stories, all of them from the first of issue of the year of either Analog or Asimov’s.

My favorite story was a five-star read from Analog entitled “And She is Content” by Frank Ward. It tells of a sentient AI that manages a space ark delivering colonists to their new home on a new planet. Every one hundred years, she wakes up the crew in order to exercise them before putting them back into hibernation. But as she wakes them up this time, she notices something very different. This is a touching story of caretaking and relationships.

And for the first time this year, I didn’t finish a story I started. This one was also from Analog: “Iron Star Swing” by Kate Orman. It seemed to be trying to do something clever about what happens near the event horizon of a black hole. It definitely didn’t work for me. I never really could understand what was happening and tapped out just passed 12% in the story.

Favorite Short Fiction of the Week

I read a lot of good short fiction this week. Of the seventeen stories I read, almost half (eight) were four or five star reads for me. The two five star stories are the first two stories in the latest issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact.

“Sin Eater” by Mark W. Tiedemann takes place in a near future after first contact has taken place. While these aliens have adapted to our human ways, they still stand apart. The story follows a lone detective who is still grieving for his dead wife as he investigates the kidnapping of two alien children. After their recovery in the opening, the rest of the story explores the attempt to get the aliens to press charges against the kidnapper. It is fascinating exploration of punishment and forgiveness, especially in the context of grief.

“The Origami Man” by Doug Franklin opens with a fisherman off the coast of Alaska finding what appears to be a dead body in the water. But then it seems to come back to life. I don’t want to give away too much of this story but for me it has all that I look for in speculative short fiction—great writing and realistic characters exploring multiple aspects of what it means to be human.

An honorable mention must also go to Octavia E. Butler’s Hugo award winning “Bloodchild”, a disturbing tale of humans at the mercy of aliens in her tale exploring male pregnancy. While an excellent story, this was only a four out of five stars for me due to its disturbing nature.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

I heard a lot about this book when it first came out back in 2019. I always meant to read it then, but I never got around to doing so until my sister sent me a copy for this past Christmas. My dad used to read us Winnie the Pooh stories, using different voices for all the characters. My sister said she heard those voices when she read this book.

This is the simple story of a boy who befriends the titular animals. They wander the countryside having everyday adventures and learning little lessons in life. Despite being a children’s book, it has lessons that apply to all ages. Turns out being human is pretty universal.

I really liked the messages in the book and its simplicity. Even the line drawings are simple and beautiful. I only wish the author’s handwriting was a little clearer. There were one or two places where I had to pause to discern what he had written. You see, even the words in the book are hand drawn. But this is a minor quibble about a unique and wonderful book.

My rating: 4/5

Favorite Short Fiction of the Week

I read ten pieces of short fiction this week ranging from about 1,500 words to almost 25,000 words. To view the entire list of what I read, look at the top ten entries in the table at the bottom of my Short Fiction page.

Two of these stories were five stars for me. The first was Sarah Pinsker’s And Then There Were (N-One). I read it as part of her collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea which my book club is reading this month. It is a very strange story indeed. In it, Sarah Pinsker (but not the actual author) is the main character and storyteller. She is invited to a SarahCon where she meets other Sarah Pinskers from across the multiverse (presumably even our author). When one of these Sarahs dies, the insurance investigator narrator Sarah is called on to look into it. This is a fascinating look at both identity and what might have happened if we had only made different choices.

The other story I loved, from the January issue of Uncanny magazine, is A.T. Greenblatt’s The Doorkeepers. The titular doorkeepers are essentially chaperones to small rooms where paying customers can experience a brief glimpse of the near future. The only caveat? Anything you take from that experienced future does not survive leaving the room. So, no Grays Sports Book problems like in Back to the Future II. The story is a well-written exploration of how our choices and behavior can affect our futures. And how trying to manipulate the future doesn’t turn out like we expect.

And only now am I seeing how the theme of choices is integral to both of my favorites this week. Interesting. I wonder if there will be a connecting theme for my favorites next week.

All Better Now by Neal Shusterman

I am not sure how I first learned about this book, but I really liked the author’s Arc of a Scythe series. The premise of this one sounded intriguing when I was deciding what to read next, so I picked it out of my to read pile.

Published in 2025, it takes place after the COVIC-19 pandemic during a new and unusual worldwide virus scare. This new virus, called Crown Royale, is virulent and deadly. But those who survive find they have a very unusual side effect—preternatural kindness and happiness. In fact, many people who are not among the recovered feel that the recovered are no longer themselves. There arise two perspectives among individuals. One, avoid the virus at all costs as it will change you. Two, seek out the virus for the happiness that follows recovering. This is the crux of the novel as it follows those on both sides of the issue.

The writing is very engaging and easy to follow. The author delves into both perspectives in a way that makes both seem understandable even while some of the actions taken on both sides are exceptionally questionable. I very much enjoyed the book but found the end extremely unsatisfying. Without any spoilers, there is no real resolution. I am okay with ambiguous endings. In fact I often really like a story that doesn’t spoon feed me what I should think about it. Here, though, there is no resolution at all. I have no indication whatsoever of how things go. It feels like the story just ends. Some may appreciate that, but I found it extremely disappointing.

My rating: 3.5/5

It by Stephen King

Two weekends ago I was preparing to drive from my home in the mountains of western NC to a soccer tournament near Sarasota, FL, where I was refereeing. It is about a ten hour drive, so I was searching my library for an audiobook or two to listen to on the drive. I was struggling to find one that I wanted to listen to. I came across It by Stephen King. It’s on my reading list but it was almost forty-five hours long! I skipped past it and kept looking. Eventually I came back and borrowed it. By the time I got home I was only half done. I continued listening over the last week and only just finished it. What a ride!

It is the story of seven kids in Derry, Maine, who confront an unspeakable evil in 1958 only to return to the town to kill it once and for all twenty-seven years later. It is an incredibly emotional novel. Frightening and ghoulish, yes. But also poignant and touching. It is entirely too long yet kept me wanting to find out what happened to this band of childhood friends. The writing is deeply evocative, reaching into your soul and tugging on your very being, asking questions that don’t even have answers. And yet, it is also a good old-fashioned American horror story.

As I said, much too long. But I don’t know what I would take out. Perhaps it is best to think of it as a television series. Each part of the book is its own season. In some ways, this novel reminds me of the recently concluded Netflix series Stranger Things. I suspect It was a heavy inspiration for the Duffer brothers. But where the TV show was nostalgic, this novel was contemporary when it was published.

The performance of the text by Steven Weber was simply incredible. He is a one-man show that doesn’t let up for the entire book. He brings it all to life vividly. In the end, I can only say that if you have the inclination, this book is definitely worth your time. It was certainly worth mine.

My rating: 4/5

My 2026 Reading Goals

Traditionally, I set a goal each January for how many books I want to read in the year. About halfway through 2025, I rededicated myself to reading more short fiction. Taking that into account, I have not set a goal for how many books I want to read this year. My reading goals are a little more complicated.

This year I plan to have three reading tracks this year. One is to be reading a book, either a novel or nonfiction. At the same time I will be reading short fiction from one of the short fiction magazines I subscribe to and from a collection or anthology. And instead of a goal of books to read, I have set a goal of reading 400 short fiction stories this year. That is a little more than one a day.

So far this year, I am on track having read twenty-one stories so far. You can keep track of what I read on my Short Fiction page. I will continue to share reviews here of each book I read this year. I have also toying with the idea of at least occasional reviews of some of the short fiction I read. But that will depend on other things in my life.

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt

This is the last book I finished in 2025 and is perhaps the most important book I read all year. Since it was published in March of 2024, I have been hearing about it, positive and negative. I have read and heard from those who wholeheartedly agree with it and support its conclusions and remedies. I have also heard criticism that perhaps there are other causes of increased mental illness in the world’s children, that the research was cherry picked to reach the author’s chosen conclusions. Finally, in the last week of last year, I decided to read the book and decide for myself.

The author of this book was a co-writer on a previous book about youth, The Coddling of the American Mind. That book is a sort of prelude to this one. At least it highly influenced Haidt’s decision to write this one. In that previous book, he cites what he calls safetyism as an issue in raising and educating children. By this he means protecting children and young people from the problems of the world. Instead they need to learn to face them and deal with them at age-appropriate levels. In The Anxious Generation he lays out the case for why social media is rewiring the world’s children from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood and how that is creating our present day mental health crisis.

He starts by outlining the surge in mental health issues around the world and pinning down the timing of this uptick to 2010 to 2015. He then shows how mammals in general and humans specifically need to play as children in order to learn how to be healthy adults. When children play they face challenges and harms that they learn to deal with. If this is short circuited by trading playtime for phone time, these lessons are never learned. Much of this state is due to parents wanting to protect their children from the potential harms of the world. But doing so prevents them from entering discovery mode and seeking out the risky play that kids need to grow up healthy.

The core of the book is when the author outlines and details what he calls the four foundational harms of social media. These are:

Social Deprivation
Sleep Deprivation
Attention Fragmentation
Addiction

He then goes on to explore how and why social media is more harmful for girls than boys as well as how boys are also experiencing these foundational harms from a different direction (video games and pornography).

The final section on how to address these issue is welcome after all the bad news. After laying down a foundation for collective action, Haidt goes on to outline what government, schools, and parents can do to begin to remedy this dire situation.

What impressed me most about this book was the dedication to scholarship. Everything is based on study after study. He is maintaining a website that links to all the studies and shows the numbers used to come to the conclusions in the book. This includes examining possible other causes. But none fits the data as well as those outlined in this book. The author is also open to the idea that he could be wrong. He plans to update and correct anything in that vein on this online supplement at http://anxiousgeneration.com/supplement.

I found the evidence and conclusions of this book extremely persuasive. It matches my experience with my own children and those I see around me. I only wish that this level of information had been available when I was raising children.

My rating: 5/5

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

I remember when the movie based on this book came out back in 1993. It is hard to put into words how amazing and realistic the dinosaurs were. I am sure today they don’t hold the same awe for viewers as they did then. When I recently heard a podcaster raving about this novel, it sparked an urge in me to read the original material. Being in the mood for a quick read, I picked up this old school thriller.

Everyone pretty much knows the story. A billionaire clones dinosaurs on an island off the coast of Costa Rica with the plan of opening a family friendly theme park. Some of his investors are a little concerned and convince him to host a lawyer representing the investors, two paleontologists, and a critical mathematician to evaluate the park and island. They land. Chaos ensues.

What most impressed me about this novel was the critique of scientific hubris. The mathematician is the mouthpiece for this in the book. At one point he says that scientist never ask if they should do something. It is only enough if they can. They justify it by saying if they don’t, someone else will. Though based in science and technology, this book is very humanist. The emotions (particularly fear) are front and center. I felt like I was really there. It was a fantastic combination of excellent storytelling and examination of the science and thinking of its time.

My rating: 4/5