The Horrid Glory of Its Wings
10 best books like The Horrid Glory of Its Wings (Elizabeth Bear): A Cup of Salt Tears, A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers, Brimstone and Marmalade, Among the Thorns, Red as Blood and White as Bone, Men Who Wish to Drown, That Game We Played During the War, Cold Wind, A Kiss With Teeth, The Hanging Game
Makino’s mother taught her caution, showed her how to carve her name into cucumbers, and insisted that she never let a kappa touch her. But when she grows up and her husband Tetsuya falls deathly ill, a kappa that claims to know her comes calling with a barbed promise. “A Cup of Salt Tears” is a dark...
The day my sister ended the world, the sky opened up in rain for the first time in years, flooding the desert wash behind our house. The snakes drowned in their holes and the javelinas stampeded downstream, but the water overtook them, and the air filled with their screaming as they were swept away.
this...
Author | Aaron Corwin |
ISBN | 1466856394 |
Just in time for Halloween, we have a funny, sweet, and slightly skewed short story by Aaron Corwin, an up-and-coming writer from Seattle.
All Mathilde wanted for her birthday was a pony. Instead, she got a demon. Sometimes growing up means learning that what you think you want is not always...
Author | Veronica Schanoes |
ISBN | 1466868929 |
They made my father dance in thorns before they killed him.
I used to think that this was a metaphor, that they beat him with thorny vines, perhaps. But I was wrong about that.
They made him dance.
this free tor short is based on the grimm's tale
The Jew in the Thorns
, which is...
Author | Theodora Goss |
ISBN | 0765389428 |
I am a daughter of these mountains, and of the tales. Once, I wanted to be in the tales themselves. When I was young, I had my part in one—a small part, but important. When I grew older, I had my part in another kind of story. But now I want to become a teller of tales.
this story is everything that's...
Author | Elizabeth Fama |
ISBN | 1466827157 |
From the Falmouth Historical Society Collection
Cited as the only extant firsthand record of a mermaid encounter in New England waters, this deathbed letter from a great-grandfather to his great-grandson is more likely an instructive fiction--a parable of regret. Supposedly corroborating...
Author | Carrie Vaughn |
ISBN | 0765389355 |
The people of Gaant are telepaths. The people of Enith are not. The two countries have been at war for decades, but now peace has fallen, and Calla of Enith seeks to renew an unlikely friendship with Gaantish officer Valk over an even more unlikely game of chess, in Carrie Vaughn's novella That Game We Played...
AND NOW IS THE TIME OF YEAR I FLOAT OLD CHRISTMAS REVIEWS TO COUNTDOWN TO BING BONG BING BONG!!
It was one of the most pernicious fallacies, common the world over: old ways are best. But old ways can outlast their usefulness. Old ways can live on pointlessly in worlds that have no room for them.
i...
I'm upping my rating from 4.5 stars to 5 stars on rereading this Tor.com online freebie. I love this story! Vlad the vampire is married to a human (in fact, the woman who was originally hunting him down!). They have a young son, and Vlad tries to live like a regular human, denying his darker self and powers....
Author | Helen Marshall |
ISBN | 1466839252 |
Sometimes a game, even a sacred game, can have far-reaching consequences. In bear country young Skye learns just how far she is willing to go to play the game properly in order carry on the traditions that came before her and will most likely continue long after she is gone.
At the publisher's request,...
Author | Aliette de Bodard |
ISBN | 0765389819 |
Charlotte died to shore up her master's house. Her bones grew into the foundation and pushed up through the walls, feeding his power and continuing the cycle. As time passes and the ones she loved fade away, the house and the master remain, and she yearns ever more deeply for vengeance.
At the...
“I hate you.” I crouch in front of him. “You have no understanding as to how much. You charmed little prick.”
I have to say I agree with this statement when I read about the horrific little brat kid and all of the things the stepmother was telling us he did. He deserved to boil!
He...
The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections
Author | Tina Connolly |
ISBN | 1250296994 |
Nebula nominee for best novelette in 2018! 4.5 stars for this excellent Tor fantasy story, free online here at Tor.com. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Saffron is one of the official food tasters for Duke Michal, the regent for an infant prince. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind...