Anthology – Marked for Plot

Novella Readathon #10: North Continent Ribbon by Ursula Witcher

North Continent Ribbon went on my reading list after it got shortlisted for the Ursula Le Guin prize. Those books tend to be hit or miss, but always have a strong sense of identity and something new to bring to the genre. Ribbon was no exception; I’m sure the structure of this novella has been done before, but I haven’t read one like it. It lives in an in-between space between a short fiction/mosaic novel and a more cohesive novella, which was a really cool experience. This story isn’t the densest thing I’ve read, nor the most profound. It has lingered with me, however, and I think that’s the sign of something really special. I think I’d have picked it to win over Rakesfall, which won that year.

The Premise:
North Continent Ribbon covers ~450 years of a far flung planet, initially settled as a location to build faster-than-light ships. Each story is a discrete piece of short fiction, focusing on its own characters and conflicts. However, they layer on top of each other to tell a larger story of cultural formation and change.

Read If Looking For: unique worldbuilding that doesn’t feel gimmicky, nuanced anticapitalist themes, interpersonal conflicts framed through systemic pressures, collective bargaining

Avoid If Looking For: the protagonists always winning, traditional story structures, conflict resolution via combat, romance-free books

Monkey Meat: The Summer Batch

Back in April, I read the first collection of Monkey Meat stories and fell in love. Juni Ba’s art, humor, and themes were catnip for me. The vibes are Sunday Morning cartoons focusing on the dystopian nature of late stage capitalism, with heaping of weirdness thrown into the mix. Overall, I think The Summer Batch is (mostly) a direct upgrade, but the two can really be read in any order. Each story is self-contained, with only a few characters appearing in multiple stories – and never requiring you to have read earlier tales to understand what’s going on. All that’s important is that you’ve returned to Monkey Meat Island! Don’t worry, all we ask for access to the theme park is your immortal soul.

The Premise:
Welcome back to Monkey Meat island! Like last time, there’s a wide variety of stories within this volume. This time however, the book itself is a magazine created by the Monkey Meat corporation, meaning you also get complementary ads. Isn’t that great?

Read if Looking for: the corporation always wins, irreverent humor, in-book recommendations for real-world art, meta-commentary

Avoid if Looking for: optimism or escapism, realistic characters or situations, subtlety

Comparable Media: The Triangle Agency, Dungeon Crawler Carl, Rick and Morty

Call And Response – An Anthology of Duets

Call and Response is a fairly new anthology of short stories by Christopher Caldwell built around a delightful premise: what if each story comes in a pair? In Call, Caldwell introduces characters and worlds, only to return to them in Response. Sometimes these appearances are small cameos, other times they are directs sequels. Call and Response is unapologetically black and queer, with several stories sneaking semi-autobiographical details into the fantastic. This collection won’t satisfy those seeking the tight research of Ted Chiang or the experimental forms of Isabel Kim. However, Caldwell’s stories are candid, intense, and thoughtful. I’d love to see what he can do with a full novel.

Read If Looking For: stories of black resilience and rebellion, diverse representations of queerness, aquatic motifs

Avoid If Looking For: experiments in form or structure, answers to broken systems, unambiguous endings

Comparable Media: Convergence Problems, The Fox Roads, Ivy Angelica Bay

Monkey Meat – An Anticapitalist Fever Dream

I knew nothing about Monkey Meat other than its title and cover art. I didn’t quite know what to make of a hand crushing a Spam-esque can with a monkey on the front, but I knew I was interested in reading more. Monkey Meat: the First Batch is a zany and dark anthology that I fell in love with. It’s not the most original critique of capitalism I’ve seen, but it’s certainly one of the most engaging. I truly believe that if companies could get God to sign over the rights to people’s souls, they would absolutely do so. My only regret is that it doesn’t seem likely to get a sequel, but I will certainly be chasing down more of Juni Ba’s work in the future.

The Premise:
This anthology (though it might be better described as a mosaic comic) focuses on Monkey Meat Island. Once an untouched paradise, it is now ruled by a capitalist megacorporation cranking out questionably sourced meat, energy drinks made out of souls, and action figures showcasing the indigenous cultures the company eradicated to ‘honor’ them. Each story follows a different protagonist, but several characters run through the series, including the enslaved enforcer Lug and the supernaturally persuasive Salesman

Read If Looking For: unbridled creativity, unconventional art styles, episodic structures

Avoid If Looking For: consistent worldbuilding, subtlety and nuance, grounded characters

Comparable Media: Dungeon Crawler Carl, Invader Zim, Rick and Morty

The Paper Menagerie and other Stories

One of my 12 Must Read Books of the year, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories is the type of collection that gets spoken alongside Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang. I think this is a classic example of when I need to divorce my own reading experience from the hype a title collects as it gets recommended and re-recommended. Ultimately, this was a good collection (especially in the midpoint and back half). However, it didn’t match the pedestal I had placed the book on. In fact, I don’t think it would hit my top 5 anthologies of all time, and I haven’t read that many. I think I was expecting a bit more magic, a bit less of a history lesson. And while history lessons aren’t bad, Liu’s approach in some of these stories felt less like storytelling and more like lecturing. It didn’t help that some of the weaker stories (in my mind) were placed up front, and that Liu is perhaps too fond of parallel narratives as a framing device for his shorter work. Not a bad technique, but tiring and predictable when they come in a constant stream.

The collection was at its most successful when it explored ambiguity, moral nihilism, and the complexity of family relationships. All of my favorites explored various familial ties (an estranged father and daughter, a woman navigating the grief of her dead daughter, a son’s reflection on how he treated his mother, etc. There’s some emotional gut punches, interesting thought experiments, and moments of wonder here. Had I entered the collection with no prior knowledge, I think I’d have enjoyed it more.

Below are my short thoughts on each story. However, my highlights were Simulacrum, The Regulator, The Paper Menagerie, and The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary

Heartwood: Non-Binary Tales of Sylvan Fantasy

I have made the ill-advised decision to attempt to complete a second r/fantasy bingo challenge this year, this one comprised of nothing but comics and graphic novels. I’m really feeling the urge to read more kick in. Anyways, I immediately started hunting for some promising anthologies and I came across this. As with all anthologies, you’ll find some you resonate with more than others, but overall I found this collection to have a disappointing perspective and not as much editorial vision as I would have hoped.

Overall Impressions
To the surprise of nobody who read the title of this collection, this anthology focuses on nonbinary characters interacting with sylvan creatures – and nature more generally. Positive connections with nature were the most predominant recurring theme in these stories, and seemed a pretty clear throughline. I think there was also a predominance of child protagonists, which I didn’t quite expect. The few stories with adult protagonists (especially the single one with a protagonist older than 25) were refreshing, but I’d have liked a wider range of nonbinary experiences.

Read if Looking for: uplifting queer vignettes, cute forest critters, a diverse range of art styles

Avoid if Looking For: introspection into what it means to be nonbinary, the dark side of nature, plenty of adult nonbinary representation

Dudes Rock: A Celebration of Queer Masculinity in Speculative Fiction

I try to read a few anthologies each year, but it had been a while since I read one that wasn’t the collected works of a single author. Dudes Rock seemed promising, and I think the short story format has plenty of space to explore masculinity in bite sized chunks. I’d say that this was a pretty mixed bag in terms of anthologies. Some real bangers, but also a decent amount that I had little to no response to. But the stories that hit got me very interested in those authors’ other works.

I’ll review each story in a bite sized chunk below (in publication order), but I want to flag my standout favorites of this collection were Rosa Cocdesin by Aubrey Shaw (gothic), The Depths of Friendship by Candy Tan (cheeky and fun) and Cigarette Smoke from the Fires of Hell by Jay Kang Romanus (intense characterization). In general, I thought the middle portion was stronger than the start or end of the collection.

Read if Looking For: short story collection featuring magic dildos, himbo cults, haunted houses, fairytale princes, and stories in the form of badly written job application essays

Avoid if Looking For: consistency in depths of theme and experimentation across stories

Spirits Abroad

Short Fiction Anthologies are the types of books that I add to my TBR list, but never seem to get around to. I say I want to read more short fiction, say I want to try out some magazines, but never commit the time to it. Spirits Abroad is a first step in trying to make progress on that front and, while it definitely isn’t the best anthology I’ve read, provided several enjoyable reads, including one that I’ll be using in the high school genre fiction class I teach!

The Premise:
As with any anthology, it’s tough to give a succinct summary of the entire experience of this book. However, the collection is consistently grounded in Malaysian culture, folklore, and mythology. Oftentimes immigrant experiences or examinations of how misogyny uniquely affects Malaysian women are themes and motifs. You should also expect to encounter Malaysian terminology and dialect in each story (the audiobook narrator does a fantastic job), and while most foriegn terms aren’t explained, both absorbing general ideas up from context or pausing to do research can work for a good reading experience. You should also expect darker elements in many stories, with some verging into horror territory.

Read If Looking For: Urban Fantasy or Magical Realism short fiction, tight focus on Malaysian communities around the world, simple and straightforward language, feminist themes

Avoid if Looking For: writing that experiments with style or structure

The Bone Swans Collection

The Bone Swans of Amandale has been one of my favorite novellas for a while, and I’d been meaning to read the full collection it was included in at some point. I finally got around to it, and while I don’t think any of the stories quite captured the genius of Bone Swans, there were a few other gems in here. Expect dark fairy tale vibes to run through the series of stories as a motif, and generally high writing craft quality.

Bone Swans: Stories by C.S.E. Cooney | Goodreads

The Fox’s Tower and Other Tales

Generally speaking I only read two books at a time: one audiobook and one text copy. This book, however, has been sitting on my nightstand for around a month. Filled with 2-4 page stories (and the pages aren’t big) this collection of fairy tales and fables was perfect to read before bedtime, chipping away at it whenever I wanted to read, but didn’t have the brain power to commit to my longer novels.

The Premise:
With 26 stories in 100 pages (several of which are only art), there’s a lot of variety in content and characters here. However, there’s a through line of in this stories of hopeful vibes, queer characters, and magical worlds. Even the science fiction stories feature magic or magical creatures, and it always felt very fitting.

Read if Looking For: stories that can be read 5 minutes, hopeful and magical vibes

Avoid if Looking For: complex or deeply thematic reads