Aaron's Story Recommendation of the Week :: The License Plate Game by Samantha Henderson

This week's Story Recommendation of the Week goes to The License Plate Game by Samantha Henderson, from the November 2011 issue of Bourbon Penn. I will confess I never heard of Bourbon Penn, until they attracted my attention by publishing a Samantha Henderson story. I seem to be one of Samantha Henderson's ideal readers, as I've enjoyed everything of hers I've read and given her a Story Recommendation of the Week three times. She joins only Rachel Swirsky and Aliette de Bodard as three-time SROTW recipients.

"The License Plate Game" starts out as a simple tale of a young girl's vacation with her mother and best friend, which started out great fun but somehow turned sour:

The drive home is interminable. You've listened to the good CDs too much, and what was delightful has become boring, and your Mad Libs are marked up, and you're surprised you ever thought them funny. Jillian looks out the window, bored with you, and you know on the first day of school she's going to turn away from you with that superior look and whisper to Margaret Lanhelm, and they'll laugh as if everything was a joke that you've no hope of understanding.

This first part of the story strikes a universal chord, underscored by Henderson's choice to write the piece in second person.

The fantastic element comes in late in the tale, and Henderson keeps it vague just what's happening. The focus of this story is on the kind of everyday resentments that might lead someone to make the sort of terrible choice demanded in a fantasy story. "The License Plate Game" is a nicely written, thought-provoking piece.

Aaron's 2011 Hugo Recommendations :: Best Short Story

And we finish off the fiction categories with my nominations for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story, along with a few of my other favorites.

MY FIVE FAVORITE SHORT STORIES OF 2010:
Aliette de Bodard, Age of Miracles, Age of Wonders (Interzone, Sept-Oct '10)
Aliette de Bodard, By Bargain and by Blood (Hub, Jan '10)
Samantha Henderson, Deutoroi (Abyss & Apex, 1st Qtr '10)
Hannu Rajaniemi, Elegy for a Young Elk (Subterranean, Spring '10)
Lenora Rose, It Shall Come to Pass on a Summer’s Day (Ideomancer, Sept '10)

OTHER RECOMMENDED SHORT STORIES:
Leah Bobet, Mister Oak (Realms of Fantasy, Feb '10)
Erin Cashier, Near the Flame (Shimmer #12)
Brian Keene, Lost Canyon of the Dead (The Living Dead 2)
An Owomoyela, Year of the Rabbit (ChiZine, Apr-June '10)
Ferrett Steinmetz, As Below, So Above (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Nov '10)
Sarah Totton, If You Enjoyed This Story . . . (Tales of the Unanticipated #30)
Brandi Wells, Changing Woman (Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens #Y’aing’ngah)

This listing is probably academic -- unlike the other categories, my nominees for short story seldom make the final ballot (probably because many of them come from semiprozines and fanzines that aren't read widely enough to garner nominations). From this group, the Rajaniemi story is the only one with much chance at a Hugo nomination. Aliette de Bodard may get nominated, but probably not for the two stories I've chosen -- "The Shipmaker" is the more likely contender. Good luck to all the above just the same!

Aaron's Story Recommendation of the Week :: Deutoroi by Samantha Henderson

My story recommendation of the week goes to Deutoroi by Samantha Henderson, from the First Quarter, 2010 issue of Abyss & Apex. This is Henderson's second SROTW, putting her in strong company with Paolo Bacigalupi, Catherynne M. Valente, Aliette de Bodard, Leah Bobet, and Eugie Foster.

Our protagonist Merea is the Thessa, a woman able to communicate (to a degree) with animals, trees, even the wind. As the story begins, Merea is pursued by would-be king Dathan, who needs her to help track down the Deutoroi, the white stag whose blood is necessary to give a king legitimacy in this land. Merea is drawn to this destiny but also fears it will drive her insane:

The Thessa must surrender to madness to find the Deutoroi, and all Thessa went mad in time. That's what she had come to understand after her mother died, and what she most feared. The horror of losing herself in the wind that lashed the tops of the trees, or giving in to the voice that called her from the west, from the Narcos Wade. The horror and delight of it. She heard it in the whispering of the plum trees when she was sent to pick their fruit, in the smell of a breeze that brought her up short, prickling all over.

I just loved this story. The writing is evocative but never ostentatious. It has a simple, pastoral setting, but Henderson hints at fascinating complexities to this world. The tale moves quickly in a predictable direction, yet still packs several surprises. Our sympathies are initially with Merea, hunted and used by Dathan, but we soon learn that Dathan is motivated by a sincere desire to prevent war, and we begin to wonder if Merea is truly blameless or has shirked her responsibilities. A similar pattern unfolds as they begin their hunt for the Deutoroi.

Webzine Abyss & Apex is one of the most reliable free sites for excellent fiction by up-and-coming authors. In the past two years alone, it has published work by Camille Alexa, Marie Brennan, Aliette de Bodard, Vylar Kaftan, Ruth Nestvold, Tony Pi, Cat Rambo, Patricia Russo, Ken Scholes, and Lavie Tidhar, among many others. Go give it a read, starting with "Deutoroi".

Aaron's Story Recommendation of the Week :: Hungry: Some Ghost Stories by Samantha Henderson

My story recommendation for this week is "Hungry: Some Ghost Stories" by Samantha Henderson, from the April 2008 issue of Lone Star Stories.

"They gather in the kitchen sometimes," it begins. "Hungry: Some Ghost Stories" is an elegantly constructed series of short vignettes and one-line questions about ghosts and about the stories we tell ourselves and the memories that haunt us. It will only take you a few minutes to read, but I suspect will stay with you much longer. Samantha Henderson has been generating quite a bit of buzz with her short fiction, and her first novel Heaven's Bones is just out. "Hungry: Some Ghost Stories" is a good example of Henderson's distinctive style and flair.

Lone Star Stories has been publishing high-quality short fiction free on-line since 2004, but I am not sure it is finding all the readers it deserves. I fear that "Hungry: Some Ghost Stories" is especially likely to be overlooked because Lone Star Stories editor Eric T. Marin has for some reason labeled the piece as poetry. Apparently he deemed it a "prose poem," a term that strikes me as a non sequitur. I certainly enjoyed it even though I generally don't grok poetry. Whatever you call it, "Hungry: Some Ghost Stories" is well worth checking out.