Reading Wednesday

[sabotabby]

Just finished: Her Magical Pet, Rachel Manija Brown (ed.). This was a delight—a collection of very sweet, very lovely stories that gave me a big case of the warm fuzzies. "Watercat Café" was my favourite in terms of its story and characters, and the, well, sparkly vibe to the apocalypse, though “How to Get a Girlfriend (When You’re a Terrifying Monster),” is a close second for making the pet in question, not to mention one of the women, a Lovecraftian eldritch being romancing an all-too adventurous cultist.

Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction, Joshua Whitehead (ed.). It counts as homework if your instructor talks in class about a book he's reading, right? So technically I was doing homework when I devoured this book that's main flaw is that it's too short. It's one of those rare anthologies where every story in it is incredibly strong, although "History Of the New World"—about a couple, one Cree, the other white, with a young daughter, deciding whether to leave a dying Earth for a new, apparently uninhabited, parallel Earth—deserves special mention for being so haunting that I can't stop thinking about it. I'm a bit sad that Whitehead didn't contribute a story as well, because his intro was so well-written that it made me think I should give up writing forever. Anyway, highly recommended.

Currently reading: His Magical Pet, Layla Lawlor (ed.), Laurie French (ed.). Just started reading the m/m companion to the one I just finished last night. The first story is about two bickering garden wizards who accidentally bestow the power of speech on a squirrel that's been observing them for years, from the squirrel's POV. It was very cute. 

Huh. I hardly ever read short story collections and this is three in a row. They're all gay sf/f though, that's why.

Comments

[contrarywise]

Those sound like very nice reads indeed. Is Love After the End related to Love Beyond, Body, Space, and Time? I really enjoyed that anthology, and would be happy to read more similar stories.

I read fewer short story anthologies than I do themed comics anthologies these days, although my overall reading rate has dropped even more due to podcasts and knitting taking up more of my time lately.

[sabotabby]

There's a fair bit of overlap in the authors, so if you liked that one, you'll like this one.

[rdi]

I have Love After the End waiting to be read (along with Love Beyond, I think) but am currently on Catherine Hernandez's Crosshairs, which is some seriously yikes reading

[sabotabby]

I have a hold on that one. I imagine it's pretty harrowing?

[rdi]

Harrowing is a word for it, yes. Finished it this morning and wept. Will rush it back to the library to help bump you up the hold queue.