Tag: short story smorgasbord

Andrew Joseph White, “The Constellations Are Unrecognizable Here” (Strange Horizons, November 2021)

[Autistic author] Two trans boys are casualties of an intergalactic war, living on a medical spaceship where the doctors are helping them heal – but also paternalistically deciding what medical procedures they do and don’t need, offering reconstructive surgery to erase their scars but withholding any gender affirming care. There is a lot of self-harm and a lot of trauma in this story but the bond between the two characters, and the desperation they are driven to by the one-two punch of wartime atrocities and transphobia, is memorable. [Recommended-2]

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Kiya Nicoll, “A Dragon in Two Parts” (Escape Pod, December 30, 2021)

[Autistic author] A disabled woman undergoes a procedure that will transform her physical body, turning her into a dragon. Magical cure stories are a hard sell for obvious reasons, but I ended up liking this a lot. There’s a refreshing nuance both to the protagonist’s thoughts and reactions, and to the transformation itself, which doesn’t always cure disability – it brings people’s bodies into alignment with their ideal selves, whether or not that involves a cure. This is one of those stories that leaves me  wondering wistfully what would happen if its fantastical technologies existed for real. [Recommended-2]

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James L. Sutter, “And All Their Silent Roars” (Nightmare, Issue 116, May 2022)

This is a really interesting case of a horror story – so interesting that I’m going to need to review it at greater length. A family with three bratty children moves into a new home, and the youngest – an autistic boy named Denny, who is obsessed with small animal figurines – digs up something in the sandbox which may be vaguely, ominously magical. Danny is delighted by what he’s found. The narrator, his brother Jeremy, isn’t so sure.

There’s a lot of quite ableist language toward Denny, mostly in dialogue but also to some degree in the narration. I don’t get the sense that the narrative endorses the ableism – it’s too nuanced to feel that way for me. Some characters are just plain vicious to Denny; others are gentler while still cringing at him a little. Jeremy goes out of his way to spend time with Denny and protect him from bullies, and seems to have some moments of genuine affection and connection, but that doesn’t stop him from thinking about Denny in an ambivalent, othering way, and feeling relief when Denny isn’t around. It’s perfectly realistic for a character like Jeremy, even if it’s one of the tropes I hate to see, and Jeremy seems to be dimly aware that his ambivalence isn’t quite what’s fair to Denny or what Denny really needs.

The Author Spotlight says Denny is inspired, partly, by Sutter’s own younger brother. It says:

I also think a lot of the story’s energy comes from recognizing ourselves in the narrator’s internal conflict. He loves Denny, while also resenting the inconvenience he poses. I think we all have to wrestle sometimes with the knowledge that we’re not as selfless as our loved ones deserve, and that sense of guilt adds to the story’s tension.

So, like, sure. I get that part.

The story is not badly written on a craft level; there are some intriguing moments of tension and atmosphere. But it still hews pretty close to a set of tropes that don’t work for me most of the time. It’s the kind of story where there’s an autistic character, seen somewhat opaquely from the outside, who gets involved with something creepy; the neurotypical POV characters wring their hands, but we’re also invited to wonder if maybe the Land of Creepy Things is where autistic people belong after all.

It’s possible to redeem or subvert these tropes, and Sutter veers close to that in places. (I really wonder what the story would look like from Denny’s point of view, for instance.) But, between the story structure and the ambivalently ableist POV, it didn’t quite subvert anything hard enough to end up landing for me. [Not Recommended]

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Sunyi Dean, “How to Cook and Eat the Rich” (Tor.com, January 18, 2023)

[Autistic author] In a dystopian future riddled with food shortages, a wealthy man is tempted into a secret society of cannibals. The big twist at the end is not really a twist since it’s telegraphed right in the title; but if you are autistically angry at the state of the world and would like to see a very bad, entitled person get his comeuppance, then you’ll like it just fine. [Recommended-2]

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Louise Hughes, “Out of the Rain” (Kaleidotrope, Winter 2023)

[Autistic author] The narrator in this story is a woman who is reincarnated over and over again, destined to die for the sake of a man’s character arc. When she meets another woman who remembers many lives, they find a way – just maybe – to escape together. Lyrical and melancholy. [Recommended-2]

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Jennifer Lee Rossman, “Don’t Look Down” (Kaleidotrope, Winter 2023)

[Autistic author] An autistic girl, who’s recently been moved out of an abusive situation and into a group home, begins to have visions of strange creatures in the sky. I like this one for its moving descriptions of how the narrator dissociates, how she can’t quite trust that anything better than her past will stay real – and for the nuance of how the group home can be quite imperfect while still convincingly enough of an improvement on the past to cause these feelings. Although the narrator is reluctant to trust humans, her impulse is to reach out, to touch, to connect, even in an inhuman way. There’s an environmentalist message which feels a bit tacked on, but the psychological arc alone is worth the price of admission. [Recommended-1]

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Lesley L. Smith, “Let Sleeping Gators Lie” (Academy of the Heart and Mind, April 5, 2023)

[Autistic author] A sweet, sad piece of climate fiction, with an adorable dog who may or may not be a ghost. [Recommended-2]

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Yoon Ha Lee, “Counting Casualties” (Tor.com, April 26, 2023)

[Autistic author] An intriguing story about a war in which, whenever the alien adversaries win, they make a culture’s greatest arts disappear. There’s some pretty strong social commentary in this one, especially once we reach the end and find out why exactly the aliens are doing this. It’s tense, ruthless, and surreal in the way that Yoon Ha Lee does best. [Recommended-2]

(ETA: Yoon Ha Lee appears to have been misdiagnosed with autism, and has asked to be removed from Autistic Book Party.)

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Mary E. Lowd, “Orange Sherbet Unlocks a Better Loot Box” (Deep Sky Anchor, June 2023)

[Autistic author] Mary E. Lowd is a very prolific author who I haven’t featured here as often as I should – as well as a tireless advocate for furry fiction, a genre that’s often misunderstood. But she’s at her best, in my opinion, when she writes about virtual realities. This is a short, sweet story that takes on some heavy topics, especially the effects of COVID-related isolation and heavy Internet use on children. But it takes them on gently, without shaming or monster-izing anyone – child or adult. [Recommended-2]

Elliott Dunstan, “Home Is Where The Ghosts Are” (self-published poetry chapbook, May 2017)

[Autistic author] This brief collection is tied together, as the author’s note explains, by an experience Dunstan had in real life – moving into a new apartment and finding eerie traces at every turn of the tenant who had lived there before. From this situation he spins out an overlapping set of perspectives on ghosts, time, change, trauma, and identity. Despite the short length, it feels thoughfully reflective rather than hurried. [Recommended-2]

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Andrew Joseph White, “Chokechain” (Medium, 2018)

[Autistic author] A trans man comes home to his transphobic parents only to discover that they’ve bought a robot designed to look and act like his idealized, pre-transition self. This is a difficult but compelling story, and its most memorable aspect to me is the way the protagonist gets to be messy and angry, seething on the inside even though his anger isn’t tolerated by those around him. There’s something very thought-provoking in how he associates anger with violence, violence with gender, gender with many of the justified reasons he’s angry; yet, despite planning violence against the new robot, he ends up finding empathy for it in an unexpected way. [Recommended-2]

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Lucas Sekiguichi, “Your Great Journey” (Daily Science Fiction, August 17, 2018)

[Autistic author] This starts out looking like one of those stories about what the afterlife is like and turns into something much weirder, as the narrator, who still physically exists and seems to be very much alive, watches everyone in their life mourn for them and move on. I am reminded of Jim Sinclair’s famous essay “Don’t Mourn For Us”; there is a lot of painful resonance here for autistic readers, queer and trans readers, and others who have been treated as dead or lost by a family or community that really just doesn’t want to face what it means for them to be alive. [Recommended-2]

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Jennifer Lee Rossman, “Gay Jaws” (self-published on Rossman’s blog, June 11, 2021)

[Autistic author] Both bloodthirsty and cute, this is a love story between a human and a hybrid human-shark who band together against the evil scientist who’s been turning people into hybrid human-sharks against their will. The whole thing is fun, but what I like best is the way the narrator calms her human-shark love interest down out of a potentially violent meltdown. She is genuinely dangerous due to her shark nature – yet the danger is contained not through force, but through explicit recognition of her humanity. [Recommended-2]

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Andi C. Buchanan, “If We Do Not Fly at Sunset” (Lightspeed, Issue 144, May 2022)

[Autistic author] A quiet, poignant story about a character descended partly from fae, perhaps a changeling, who’s just trying to navigate life and work and queer relationships in a New Zealand slowly disintegrating from climate change. The sense of helplessness and the yearning for acceptance in this story – but also the ability to find it, in small, hesitant encounters – rings very true to me. [Recommended-2]

(ETA: Yoon Ha Lee appears to have been misdiagnosed with autism, and has asked to be removed from Autistic Book Party.)

When I found out Yoon Ha Lee is on the autism spectrum, I’d already been a fan of his writing for many years. I knew I could not go back and review every single short story of his, because there are just so many! (Plus, I feel like that would be creepy somehow.) But I decided that I could, at least, review the ones that had been nominated for major awards. If you’re looking at his dozens of wonderful stories and don’t know where to begin, you may as well start here. 😀

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Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain (Lightspeed, September 2010): Bizarre and poetic fictional weapons are a Yoon Ha Lee staple, and this story centers around one. Arighan’s Flower is a gun that changes the past and erases the target’s entire lineage – an especially horrifying power given that the viewpoint character comes from a culture that worships its ancestors. Time-bending and suspenseful, this was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial award. [Recommended-2]

Ghostweight (Clarkesworld, January 2011): In this novelette, a rebel fighter and her ghost companion pilot an unreliable, semi-sentient space kite with origami weapons. “Ghostweight” is not set in the world of the Hexarchate, but many of Ninefox Gambit‘s best tropes are reproduced here in minature: a ruthless, conquering empire; a surreal and intricate system of battle; an unreliable collaboration; and a vicious ending twist. Finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and received honors from the Carl Brandon Award. [Recommended-2]

Effigy Nights (Clarkesworld, January 2013): A city that worships writing tries to weaponize its books to defend itself. This is classic Yoon Ha Lee, with clever and cold-hearted space warriors surrounded by a surreal and detailed magic that plays by its own rules. Finalist for the World Fantasy and Locus Awards. [Recommended-2]

Extracurricular Activities (Tor.com, February 2017): Shuos Jedao, many years before the events of Ninefox Gambit, goes on an undercover mission. This story takes place in the hexarchate universe, but calendrical warfare and its bizarre effects are irrelevant to the mission and therefore absent. What remains is a surprisingly accessible sci-fi spy caper with a cute, silly queer flirtation on the side. You don’t need to know Jedao or the hexarchate universe to understand it, but readers who do know them will enjoy themselves. [Recommended-2]

Last year I listed the autistic speculative poets who were nominees for the 2017 Rhysling award. This year it’s almost time for the 2018 nominees to be announced! But before that happens, I want to take you on a retrospective of Rhysling (and Dwarf Stars) nominations from before 2017. Because some of the most accomplished speculative poets of our time are autistic, and that’s awesome.

This is an incomplete list, mostly for reasons of convenience. For instance, AJ Odasso has many more nominations than this, but I don’t have easy access to a print or electronic copy of many of them right now. Similarly, all three of these poets have large back catalogs of poetry, and I couldn’t possibly review every single poem they have published. Hopefully picking the award-nominated ones is as good as way as any to deliver a suitable highlight reel.

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Rose Lemberg, “Odysseus on the War Train” (Abyss & Apex, July 2008). A subversive take on the Greek myth of Odysseus, and on the damage warriors do both to those they fight and to those they leave behind. [Recommended-2]

Rose Lemberg, “Burns at Both Ends” (Star*Line, January 2009). This poem is also the opening poem of “Marginalia to Stone Bird”; it is a paean to intensity, and to using the poet’s talents as they prefer and see fit, not as any concerned people would have them be used. [Recommended-2]

Rose Lemberg, “Godfather Death” (Goblin Fruit, Fall 2009). A poem about a boy who becomes Death’s godson, and a doctor. Intertextual, slyly silly, and genuinely poignant. [Recommended-2]

Rose Lemberg, “Walrus” (Trapeze magazine, August 2010). A… dancing walrus?! This is short and cute, and it was nominated for the Dwarf Stars award. [Recommended-2]

Rose Lemberg, “Twin-Born” (Goblin Fruit, Fall 2010). A myth of birds and blood, grief and flawed creation and desire. [Recommended-2]

Rose Lemberg, “In the Third Cycle” (Strange Horizons, September 2011). A complex love triangle unfolding over multiple lifetimes, and a part of the Journeymaker Cycle. This poem is not only a Rhysling nominee, but also won the Rannu competition. [Recommended-2]

AJ Odasso, “Parallax” (Stone Telling, March 2012). A poem about gender euphoria! Also about constellations and the liminality of never quite belonging to any accepted category. [Recommended-2]

Rose Lemberg, “Between the Mountain and the Moon” (Strange Horizons, July 2012). A lyrical love myth involving cats, moon goddesses, ritual dance, and a volcano. [Recommended-2]

Rose Lemberg, “I will show you a single treasure from the treasures of Shah Niyaz” (Goblin Fruit, Summer 2013). The story of all the different forms of labor from all sorts of different people that went into the making and acquisition of a beautiful tapestry. While a single wealthy ruler locks the tapestry away, the poorer people who created such beauty continue with their lives. This one was not only nominated for the Rhysling, but won third place in the long category. [Recommended-2]

Rose Lemberg, “The Journeymaker, Climbing” (Goblin Fruit, Winter 2013). A small (this one’s a Dwarf Star nominee) poem of a journey up a mountain, with mink and crows and trees and beautiful language throughout. [Recommended-2]

AJ Odasso, “Queen of Cups” (inkscrawl, March 2014). A short poem of uncertainty and longing, of the desire to travel and the struggle to believe that you’ll find what you travel for. [Recommended-2]

Rose Lemberg, “Landwork” (Goblin Fruit, Spring 2014). A gorgeously written tale of a person who stitches broken land back together, quietly doing their healer’s work though that very quietness causes other mages to scoff at them. [Recommended-2]

Rose Lemberg, “Dualities” (Mythic Delirium, October 2014). I mentioned the theme of doubling in my review of Lemberg’s collection, “Marginalia to Stone Bird”. This poem is a prime example, describing the resonance of two people in two different universes who are somehow aware of each other, and whose lives follow inexplicable parallels. [Recommended-2]

Bogi Takács, “You are Here / Was: Blue Line to Memorial Park” (Strange Horizons, November 2014). This poem is a fantastic technical achievement – when a reader clicks “PROCEED”, the words individually rearrange themselves into a completely different but equally intelligible version. Both versions together tell an eerie and evocative story about a war memorial inside a hollow planetoid. [Recommended-2]

Rose Lemberg, “Archival Testimony Fragments/Minersong” (Uncanny, January 2015). One of Lemberg’s rare forays into science fiction, this is a creepy and beautiful poem about an ancient sentient spaceship crushed under rock where miners are poised to rediscover it. [Recommended-2]

Bogi Takács, “The Iterative Nature of the Magical Discovery Process” (Through the Gate, March 2015). This is a seemingly cute poem about a lesbian couple experimenting with magic to make them fly. It does much more than it appears to at first glance, treating magic very naturalistically as a scientific process, complete with false starts and partial solutions. There’s some gorgeous description of food, a beautiful supportive relationship between the protagonists, and even sneaky math re-inscribed as magical incantations. [Recommended-2]

Rose Lemberg, “Long Shadow” (Strange Horizons, March 2015). OOF. This poem is a LOT – it’s long, and epic, and deals with the aftermath of war and trauma in a way that defies easy answers, or even the idea of answers at all. It’s also an instalment in the epic Journeymaker Cycle; it can stand on its own, but there are parts that will mean more if you have “Marginalia to Stone Bird” and can devour all the Journeymaker poems at once. This is one of my favorite speculative poems ever. [Recommended-2]

I’m at a conference this week, so I’m going to be scarce, but not too scarce to point you in the direction of some great poetry by autistic authors. Here’s what I found in my 2017 Rhysling anthology that wasn’t already freely available elsewhere.

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Sara Backer, “The Genius” (Mithila Review 3)

I have never interacted with this author, but I suspect that this poem is a case of accidental representation. I suspect she wasn’t thinking of autism when she wrote it, but just happened to write a fairly accurate description of some autistic people’s experience: seemingly unoccupied, while intensely engaged in sensory processing, pattern recognition, and reflection. The unintended irony with this one is how it describes the titular character interrupted by “people who want to pay her / to achieve something”. I only wish real autistic people, who face one of the highest unemployment rates of any disabled group, were deluged by such offers. [YMMV]

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Rose Lemberg, “The Journeymaker to Keddar (II)” (Marginalia to Stone Bird collection)

[Autistic author] This is a part of the Journeymaker Cycle which I previously reviewed, as a whole, in my review of Rose’s collection. In fact, it’s the concluding installment. So I was quite surprised to find that it also stands well on its own. It is an emotional mythic poem about separation and personal growth, on a very large scale. [Recommended-2]

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AJ Odasso, “Sargasso Sea” (Remixt magazine 1.1)

[Autistic author] An intensely personal poem about intersex experience. The narrator struggles with feelings of monstrousness as lovers, doctors, and others deal with their body very poorly. Like one of Merc Rustad’s protagonists, they ultimately find the idea of monstrousness freeing. Fans of poems about difficult sexual and bodily experiences will enjoy this one. [Recommended-2]

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AJ Odasso, “Widening Gyre” (Not A Drop anthology)

[Autistic author] A poignant poem about things lost at sea, which may be irrecoverable despite rituals intending otherwise. [Recommended-2]

(This post was published on February 26, 2012 – hard to believe that’s more than five whole years ago. It’s about Nancy Fulda’s short story, “Movement”, which was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula that year. You may note that this post is not structured like other Autistic Book Party posts, and that it doesn’t give as much context or introduction to the story it’s talking about. This is because it actually predates the Autistic Book Party series, as such. It’s the very first autism review I ever posted publicly. Please enjoy this blast from the past!)

I want to say this as concisely as I can.

Naming a fictional condition after autism, when even the characters in the story agree it is nothing like autism, is a bizarre choice. Cashing in on autism in this manner while it’s trendy is not helpful to autistic people, our families, or anyone else.

Writing a bad depiction of autism, and saying “but it isn’t real autism!”, does not excuse you for writing a bad depiction of autism.

Real autistic people have things going on in our lives other than autism. “I don’t want to be cured” is a nice sentiment, but it rings a little hollow when it is the conclusion to a story in which nothing happens except other people being unhappy with the protagonist’s not-autism, other people wanting to “cure” her, and her trying to deal with her perceptual differences. These are things that happen in the lives of most autistic people, but a story with this structure inherently distorts and romanticizes them.

You can write a story like this and still be an ally of neurodiversity. But writing a story like this does not make you an ally. Reading a story like this does not make you an ally. Voting for a story like this in awards season does not make you an ally. It is, in fact, unhelpful.

Real autistic people’s lives are not like this story.

It’s not my job to tell you what to vote for. Vote for what you like. But please understand what it is you are voting for.