On "A Sensitive Soul" by Andrew Coburn (8120 words) ***

Coburn's story deals with life, death, God, reasons for living, birth--just a few small things like that. The overall arch of the story is the most fascinating part, what kept me reading on for the whole thing. Frances and Amy are best friends sharing a drink on the balcony of their condo when Amy gets a phone call. It's her husband. Her husband has been dead for some time. The tale then jumps back in time--or maybe forward, since Coburn doesn't tell us, so we're not sure exactly what is going on. We get a tale about the husband Dennis, his time in the army. We learn, eventually, how Amy and Dennis met. Meanwhile, we get a set of opposites: Amy the churchgoer, the beauty who doesn't eat, and who can't find love because men are superficial; Frances, the intellectual who loves food, doesn't believe in God, and who can't find love because men are superficial. They're both in love with sensitive souls: Frances with Nietzsche, Amy with Dennis. Within all these opposites is everything--and like the far right and the far left of the political spectrum, the opposites make a full circle to meet again, at the same place. Originally published at the Arch, read the story here at Scribd.

On "City Girls" by LiAnn Yim (4116 words) ****

I love this seeming randomness of this story, the way we start off with this absurd idea that there's a man going around town cutting off women's hair, that this is terrifying, a reason to avoid salons. I thought I was reading some kind of absurdist story, and then, no, I wasn't. I was reading a story about the kind of games, the kind of obsessions, the kind of misunderstandings, that children sometimes have, the kind that make me wonder, for example, now whether my memories of the 210 freeway in Pasadena not being finished until I was about age four and about that trench being used, for a time, to catch floodwater are simply my child fantasies confused with real history of the place I grew up. Then Yim wanders off into fights between friends and fallings out and some growing up that happens and all of this somehow once again brought back to hair, which is what's important to these girls. Read the story here at Fwriction.

On "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert A. Heinlein ****

I'd been told to read Starship Troopers by people in the know, this more than Heinlein's classic Stranger in a Strange Land. I ended up reading neither, as both were out of stock at the library. And I can  say that the choice of this book was not a bad one. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is essentially a story about the founding of a nation, a fight for independence--but with many odd social and technological considerations included.

It starts off more or less as a story of friends, a man and a computer--a very intelligent computer, with access to records that affect an entire colony. This computer appears to have self-awareness. (Having just seen Her, I had to think often about how many other people this computer was pretending to be "specially" linked to. It was Mike to the narrator, Michelle to a later friend. Events in the book suggest it was not playing both sides, friends to both rebels and approved government.)

The narrator, Manuel, is not particularly political, but somehow he gets drawn into a meeting that seems vaguely communistic--though as the text goes on, the eventual government that emerges appears to be more inclined toward anarchy and then finally something more like the U.S. government in its early days. There he meets a couple of folks, a man and a woman, who draw him into their attempts to free the moon from its owners on Earth (essentially, a UN-type board--ownership shared by all peoples). The issue is that the moon grows food for Earth, and the people of the moon are essentially treated like slaves (they see little in return for their work, though they don't pay taxes, and because they live on the moon, which has less gravity, they are not really free to return to Earth without health consequences). Manuel introduces the two agitators to Mike the computer, and together they all begin to hash out plans to sever ties with Earth.

Eventually, the novel becomes an account of war, one in which Mike takes a major role, saving the Lunies from encroachments of troops sent from Earth and plotting out large rocks to send to Earth as asteroid bombs that eventually convince the Earthlings to grant the Lunies their independence. Strangely, by the novel's end, one has a certain amount of feeling for the computer, who becomes a very real type of character.

Also of interest in the novel is Heinlein's take on families. With a lack of women on the moon, families take on a group form: one woman with several husbands, and then eventually several men and women together. I've read of the former in certain Asian cultures where women are in short supply, but I don't think I've read any anthropological works that would feature something akin to what Heinlein describes.

On "Nora and Paul at the Coffeeshop" by Peg Alford Pursell (417 words) ***

A falling set of coffee mugs takes on metaphorical significance in this flash piece by Pursell. Nora and Paul are a couple out for coffee, but Nora is about to discover something about Paul that puts her mind at disease. Originally published at Staccato, you can read the story here.

On "Accident" by Iheoma Nwachukwu (1071 words) ****

This rather simple piece of fiction excels not in plot or even so much in characterization but in bold descriptiveness. It is, as the title notes, about an accident--two girls driving along when a tire goes out and the car goes spiraling out of control. Nwachukwu packs the short piece with metaphors that are utterly original and yet don't seem forced. This is not an easy thing to achieve. Read the story here at Flywheel Magazine.

On "Envy" by Alyce Lomax (2180 words) ***

"Envy" tells the story of A Star Is Born in a way. In that film, one star takes a dive while the other rises; here, one never quite rose, but as the other person in the couple sees career success rise to ultimate heights, it's too much for the other. Read the story here at Summerset Review.

On "An Unusual Case" by Bruce Dodson (1876 words) ***

This strange piece of noir starts off normal enough. The narrator is hired by the usual oddly compelling to look at woman. He ventures to a bar, asks around, looking for a suspect, a man. But what I like about this piece is how things circle around in a kind of mind-numbing way. Let's just say that everything he's searching for shows up. Read the story here at the Applicant.

On "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester **

This is supposed to be one of the best science fiction novels of all time. As such, it has, as SNL's Stephan would say, "everything." Unfortunately, I don't mean that in a good way. I felt like the novel was a bit too much of a mix of every plot one could think of.

It starts off well enough. Bester can write a great sentence. But once the lead lines peter out, we're dropped into what seems much more like the pulp world that Bester was writing to.

The world in which Bester writes is one in which people can "jaunt." That is, they can think about where they want to go and end up there. Jaunting is limited to places one knows intimately and usually to small spurts.

Next, after a history on the subject, we find our main character Gully Foyle in a space ship (Nomad) out in some forsaken place. He is a lone survivor, and he sends out a distress signal when another ship comes by, but he is ignored. This sets the events of the novel into orbit, so to speak. Abandoned, he crashes the ship onto an asteroid. The inhabitants of the asteroid tattoo his face and marry him to a local.

He vows revenge for his face--he will punish whoever ran the ship that ignored his distress signal. And so it is that he goes in search of the person running the ship, torturing various crew members he's able to find along the way to get the information he needs.

In the process he runs into a woman with telekinetic powers he hires to speak to him when he's among rich people (since he can only speak lower-class dialect). He becomes a magician of sorts. He recovers a treasure hid on the ship he was abandoned on that he crashed into an asteroid and becomes rich enough to seek who he will get revenge on. A radioactive detective comes chasing after Foyle (radioactive because he was caught in a horrible accident at one time and now can only be in proximity to people for about five minutes before they get sick). Everyone is looking for the riches--and more important for something called PyrE, which is an explosive that can be blown up by mind action (for use in a war).

Foyle eventually finds out who ordered him to be ignored, but in the process he learns also the meaning of forgiveness and redemption. And jaunting across a vast degree of space time.

More happens, of course, in between all this. The whole thing seemed very convoluted, and the only thing missing, it seemed, was a vampire.

On "Dinner Date" by Abigail Wheetley (3040 words) ****

Here's a straightforward tale about a blind date gone bad. The obvious connection here is to how we can make bad decisions or have things happen to us that we never would have expected and how it is we cope. I suppose I've been a few dates with others' kids around; it does make for an interesting, if sometimes uncomfortable, dynamic. A gal last week was telling me about some truly horrendous dates she's had, one of which I'd have to say might well be the worst I've ever heard of. I said I'd never had a bad date, and she said something about it being obvious because I was so charming. I think, however, that maybe it's a combination of both happenstance (I've yet to go out with a truly horrible woman) and a willingness to give the other person the benefit of my doubts, to simply accept what is and who I'm with. A date like the one described here would not have gotten high marks, but it is what it is, you know? We all struggle in our own ways. Read the tale here at Flywheel.

On "Last Girlfriend" by Chris Vola (1982 words) ***

I'm not sure exactly what to make of this story. A lesbian whose ex is now an ex goes out on the town and picks up a boy--or maybe she just imagines it. No matter. The writing itself here is really cool, drawing us into this collegiate world of too much booze and a little too much self-confidence masking an internal lack of it. Read the tale here at Volume 1 Brooklyn.

On "That's Him! That's the Guy!" by Dan Chaon (605 words) ****

If I were to write about creating a short story, I might just this as an example of the perfect form. Chaon starts with an image, an idea, and circles back around to it at the end but with a different meaning, and that, in essence, is what many stories, many poems, do in some way. Here, a family deals with the death of a father, grows apart, and years later reunites around the same event (of sorts). Read it here at Wigleaf.

On "A Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter M. Miller Jr. *****

This is a friend of mine's favorite science fiction novel. When I decided to do a whole reading list of classic science fiction, he emphasized that this was one I had to read. I don't think it would have been on my list initially if he hadn't, so I'm glad that he emphasized its importance. I'm also glad he emphasized its importance so that I would stick with it. A book about Catholic monks didn't particularly seem like something I would fancy, and the early going portions of the novel seemed very much concerned with that religious world.

But something is much different about this world. We've reverted to the Dark Age. In fact, Miller tells essentially the story of human history here. An atomic war has taken back into an era pretechnology, where superstition reigns. The masses (one has to believe these are the same masses who let their anger stoke illogical choices in political elections) blame scientists and knowledge for man's destruction and set about to destroy virtually all higher learning. The Church is the one that saves a few precious documents. And it is these documents that astound here in the early-going portions of the book, for among them is the work of an atomic engineer named Leibowitz, and his scratch pad of formulas is pondered over by many a monk. He is, in fact, accorded among the saints.

The novel splits into three sections, each of them ending in death. In the first, Francis, a novice monk, discovers a bomb shelter with relics of Leibowitz's. There is much anguish over whether the relics are genuine or fake and over how best to position the discovery so that the Church will accord Leibowitz sainthood. A counterfeit set of relics would actually set back Leibowitz's cause.

There is much irony in the second section, set many hundred years later, wherein a new enlightenment is coming into being. During this period, science is again beginning to find its own--and questioning the value of religion. Now Leibowitz's work is called into question for its actual usefulness. Modern minds surely know more than their predecessors. And when a scientist comes to deliver the fatal blow to Leibowitz's papers, showing that they are worthless, he is surprised to find in them things of actual value, things that he as a scientist is just discovering. This unleashes new theories: That Leibowitz and the supposed advanced civilization of the past was actually an alien race, and that this race left the planet, leaving in its place an inferior race with too much technology on its hands and not enough brains to know how to use it properly (i.e., to not blow itself up with it). Meanwhile, war lurks on the horizon.

The last section finds us in a very modern world, more advanced than even our own at the present time. Men are traveling across space, just beginning to colonize distant planets. But war still looms, and unfortunately, as before, technology proves to be man's undoing. All the material capabilities in the world do us no good if we don't have the ability to love one another. It sounds like a trite lesson, but Miller draws it out into one compelling novel.

On "Lake Celeste or The Joy of Sex" by Emily Meg Weinstein (2808 words) ***

This reads more like a family reminiscence than a story, but it's a finally crafted piece of writing about, of all things, time travel. As Weinstein notes, "If you want to travel through time just make sure one place, one house, stays unchanged your whole life. It turns out you don’t need math to build a time machine, only time itself." And that's Weinstein does, focuses on a summer lake house that, while generations of family have passed away, continues to exist, with its rotting books and old scrawl of phone messages. Read the tale here at Volume 1 Brooklyn.

On "Dirt in the Blood" by Joshua Canipe (4585 words) ***

Canipe's tale is one of violence and love and the way that the two can transform one another and inform one another. The narrator comes from a military family, a set of men who are used to killing foreigners and who also are used to playing hero. If a woman has trouble, the men will protect her, even if it means going to jail. The narrator is not this sort. He's a medical student. There's no fight in him. So when his girlfriend gets beaten up, questions of love arise. What does protecting a loved one mean? And what are the excusable forms of violence? Read the story here at Trigger.

On "5 Tiny Things" by Brandi Wells (539 words) ****

Is Brandi Wells real? I see her name splattered across the Internet, assigned to certain stories and even at one time a journal. Well, now, via Knee-Jerk, I have confirmation, the craziness belongs to a person who has an actual photographic identity (unless it's a fake one). Here, Wells brings her latest wacky ideas to form in five very short pieces, wherein bears make flashlights and dinosaurs wear dog suits. I put her in the class with writers like Amelia Gray and, to a lesser extent, Tao Lin, writers who you never know quite what you're going to get, but you know it's going to be interesting, linguistically, mentally, if not narratively. Read the weird here at Knee-Jerk Magazine.

On "Tactics" by Matthew Brennan (199 words) ***

Here's a short tale on loneliness and longing. It reminds me a bit of a Richard Brautigan poem about a widow hoping it's cold enough to bother the neighbors about wood (my summary is probably longer than the poem). Here, we have a wife making coffee for her husband--or not. Read the story here at Trigger.

On "Bird Sanctuary" by Gabriel Welsch (5002 words) ****

Janet has some issues with life. They involve men. They involve friends. They involve work. Or really, the involve being a single with no life outside of work, outside of the stress that comes with a failure in one's work. I remember once in high school sort of befriending a guy who tended not to have any friends--by that I mean, not that I sought him out but that I was perfectly okay with him hanging out with me if he wished to. My small clique of friends weren't okay with him, and they did some not so nice things to discourage his presence. Still, there were other opportunities for him and me alone. And it was in those times that I discovered not some nice guy just wanting someone to accept him; rather, I discovered a not-so-nice guy who was not only not much of a pleasure to be around but, at times, a genuine jerk. As we get to know Janet, unfortunately, we discover much the same. Perhaps, used to rejection as she is, she makes it easy for people to reject her by treating them like scum. Read the story here at Ascent.

On "The Truth about Love" by Pat Love ***

Like so many self-help books, this one has its highs and lows and is full of simple, practical advice as well as pleasant anecdotes, enough that what is in some ways a difficult thing to actually live is made to seem simple. Love also packs the book with couple and self-quizzes that are supposed in some way to help you assess your relationship.

Love's practical advice is what redeems what was, for me, in many ways a disappointing text. The gist of her thesis is that our feelings about people change over time and that just because feelings might relax for a while, we shouldn't give up on love--that with work, they can return and build to something deeper. To demonstrate this, she breaks the book into four stages of love: infatuation, post-rapture, discovery, and connection. It is the post-rapture stage where "love" often falls apart, and it is sticking with things through that period that can allow us to harness a deeper love for one another. (Love is as much about acting like we are in love as feeling we are. Hence, when we seem low, a key to continuing on is to "act" loving even if we don't "feel" loving.)

Means by which we can do this include figuring out how we define love for ourselves, what rocks our boat, so to speak. For some, love is chiefly romantic, for others companionate, and for still others commitment. It is, of course, all three, but relationships are often built more on one than the other two--and what's important to a given person may be more one than the other two. Recognizing this allows us to better take into the account the needs of our partner.

Also of importance is trust--which can only be built over time, and which is not the same thing as honesty. Some things are better left unsaid, Love says. Finally, there's commitment, which is more than just "staying together." Commitment is commitment to the relationship itself, to making the relationship a happy and effective one.

The chapter on support goes into how loving relationships consist of people who support one another. She spends a good deal of time discussing how we can take someone else's personal problems personally, assuming we did something wrong when the problem is really one that has nothing to do with us. How exactly we are to navigate being supportive in such situations is difficult. Recognizing the signs of distress and how our partner wants to be treated in those cases can help. But Love does not provide concrete solutions, since they'll differ from couple to couple.

The main drawback to the book, as I see it, comes in the quizes themselves. Many of them are sets of questions with evaluative answers, but Love doesn't really clarify what those evaluative responses mean or what we are to do with them. They just sit on the page taking up space. Perhaps, they are to serve as a source for discussion with one's partner, but even here, some of the questions seem potentially more harmful than helpful. That the quizzes make up such a large chunk of the book seems unfortunate.

On "Nothing Says Home Like Boredom" by Molly Gaudry (168 words) ***

You'll probably have to read this piece through a couple of times to figure out what's going on. Such is the way with language used so densely. But also, what that leads to are some great turns of phrase, like the title . . . or the last sentence. There's lust here--and love. Read the story here at Wrong Tree Review.

On "Dick" by Rebecca Kanner (3080 words) ***

What was it Wordsworth said? That poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility"? Well, that's what we have in Kanner's piece, but I don't think that this is the kind of thing Wordsworth had in mind when he was writing his definition. The tale is about junkies, a runaway, a twelve-year-old doing things that even someone twice her age has no business doing. There's a kind of innocence here, and it's recollected from an older age, recollected with a kind of love, even though the reality of the moment is anything but. Read the story here at Wrong Tree Review.