Shane Halbach, “Copy Machine.” Flash Fiction Online, June 2014.
Two love stories on Valentine’s Day; how appropriate. The first is a jokey short-short about if only you could copy yourself or your lover in the mood you want you or them in. It reminded me a bit of Rachel Swirsky’s “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love“, in that same bittersweet imagining of the impossible so to fix your problems.
Maria Dahvana Headley, “The Tallest Doll in New York City.” Tor.com, February 14, 2014.
A Damon Runyon pastiche full of mock-thirties New York slang, about that Valentine’s Day that the Chrysler building finally took matters in her own hand and stepped up to the Empire State to ask him out. It shouldn’t work and it should set my teeth on edge, but Maria Dahvana Headley makes it work, makes what could’ve been cloying into something sweet. I like Lars Leetaru’s illustration quite a lot too; very New Yorkerish. Originally published on Valentine’s Day last year.
Kat Howard, “The Saint of the Sidewalks.” Clarkesworld, August 2014.
Kat Howard’s “The Saint of the Sidewalks” is a story about belief, about what happens when a young woman at the end of her tether asks for a miracle from the titular saint and to her horror finds herself waking up as Saint Joan of the Lightning Strike. Interestingly told, slightly Pratchettesque.
MC
February 14, 2015 at 11:43 pmI liked “The Saint of the Sidewalks” quite a bit, but maybe in part because it called to mind Rachel Pollack’s Unquenchable Fire, which I enjoyed a long time ago.