Everyone Loves A Creepy Doll (Or Dolls)

2022: Award Eligible Work and Recommended Short Fiction

/ mygeekblasphemy / 1 Comment

Christ, it’s that time again already. 2022 has been a wild year for me. I had my first short story collection come out! I got nominated for my first Shirley Jackson Award! I can’t honestly say I expect to receive any nominations in 2023, particularly since so much of my recent work isn’t freely available online, but what the hell, right? I’m excited about the work I’ve done this year, so I’m gonna talk about it for a bit—feel free to scroll on down, should you get bored—before jumping into a list of the awesome short fiction that I’ve been reading. (Don’t scroll past that, though! There are some excellent stories here that you should check out if you haven’t already.)

In regards to my own 2022 published work:

YOU FED US TO THE ROSES

My debut short story collection out now from Robot Dinosaur Press! Starting with “Some Kind of Blood-Soaked Future,” which appeared in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, and ending with “Forward, Victoria,” a recent finalist for the Shirley Jackson Awards, this collection contains ten contemporary dark fantasy and horror stories. Some pretty amazing writers have said such lovely things about it, too, writers like Damien Angelica Walters, Kristi DeMeester, Premee Mohamed, and more. And Publishers Weekly called it a “grim and enthralling collection” that would appeal to fans of Carmen Maria Machado and Angela Carter. So, you know. I’m kinda proud, all in all.

“15 Eulogies Scribbled Inside a Hello Kitty Notebook” – You Fed Us to the Roses – October 2022 (about 5800 words)

If people only read one story of mine this year, this would be the story that I’d choose.

You Fed Us To The Roses is mostly made up of reprints, but I wrote “15 Eulogies Scribbled Inside a Hello Kitty Notebook” specifically for this collection. (It will also appear in PseudoPod at the end of December as part of their ongoing 2022 Anthologies and Collections spotlight, which I’m very excited about.) This story is pretty obviously inspired by my love of TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Teen Wolf, and is very much about death anxiety, though I like to think there’s a certain amount of hope in there, too. You might like this one if you enjoy poetry, unconventional eulogies, angst, humor, and stories about the emotional costs of repeatedly saving the world/losing the people you love, all while you’re supposed to be studying for physics.

“An Atlas of Names and Footprints and Thoughts Unsaid” – IZ Digital – September 2022 (about 5900 words)

Ah, my queer fantasy/western romance between an ace monster hunter and her fashionable lady detective partner. This story is a bit of a personal one, and I must admit that I’m rather fond of it, especially since the road to getting it published was long and fraught with form rejection. I wish it was available to read for free, but if you are interested in checking it out, a one month subscription to IZ Digital will allow you access to it and any other IZ Digital story. You might like this one if you enjoy F/F romances, friends to (non-sexual) lovers, mutual pining, weird westerns, cultural anthropology, detectives, blood storms, and happy endings.

ETA: Gareth Jelley from IZ Digital has graciously allowed me to post the password (CjrF!re945dfKjQwG) so that you can read “An Atlas of Names and Footprints and Thoughts Unsaid” for free right now!

“You Can Have the Ground, My Love” – Classic Monsters Unleashed – July 2022 (about 2300 words)

2020 was a shit year for obvious reasons, but it also happened to be my personal Year of Monsters, where I watched a bunch of classic Universal horror movies and reviewed them here on MGB. Bride of Frankenstein gave me a Lot of Feels—justice for the Bride! Murdered because she just wasn’t that into a strange man abruptly fondling her hand like a weirdo!—so when the call for this anthology went out, I knew I had to try for it, especially with such a fantastic lineup of authors, like, damn. You might enjoy this one if you like stories about resurrection, defiance, murder, living dead girls, aromantic heroines, and women who take charge of their own narratives.

“Tiny Little Wounds” – Nightmare – October 2022 (about 780 words)

My creepy little flash fiction about ghosts, exorcisms, and skin-picking. This is a bit of a personal story for me, too, if I’m being honest, and it was super exciting to be a part of Nightmare’s tenth anniversary issue. You might enjoy this one if you like stories about compulsion, trauma, and the wounds that linger even after surviving the monster.

“Stringy” – Apex – September/October 2022 (about 250 words)

Finally, my tiniest and most murdery of stories! “Stringy” was inspired by my love for haunted houses and won Apex’s Holidays Horrors contest, which was a delightful surprise. You might enjoy this one if you like pumpkins, blindfolds, grim discoveries, and spooky tales that take less than a minute to read.

In regards to eligibility . . .

YOU FED US TO THE ROSES is eligible for Best Collection for The Shirley Jackson Awards and The Bram Stoker Awards.  Every story listed is eligible for Best Short Story in the Nebulas, Hugos, Shirley Jackson Awards, Bram Stoker Awards, World Fantasy, etc—except “An Atlas of Names and Footprints and Thoughts Unsaid,” which—as a fantasy/western/romance—isn’t a particularly good fit for either Shirley Jackson or Bram Stoker.

With that out of the way, let’s continue. In no particular order, here are . . .

MY FAVORITE SHORT STORIES AND NOVELETTES OF 2022

1. “You, Me, Her, You, Her, I” – Isabel J. Kim – Strange Horizons

I’ve always found myself drawn to stories about identity, particular when it comes to artificial intelligence. There’s a lot to love about this one—the beginning, the ending, the quietly gorgeous prose throughout—but one thing I especially enjoy is that this isn’t a story about wanting to become human. Our MC might be imitating their host, but they never try to become her; rather, this a story about self-discovery, about creating memories, creating art—and then taking ownership of those creations.

You are not here to be faithful. You are here to be adequate.

2. “Lay My Stomach On Your Scales” – Wen-yi Lee – Strange Horizons

Okay, this story is fantastic. It’s about adolescence and body dysmorphia and slowly growing to see the worth in your own flesh; it’s also about penanggalan and stealing body parts and the friendship that forms between two monster girls. One scene in particular gave me some serious junior high flashbacks. Sometimes, it’s easier—sometimes it’s safer—to be a monster than a teenage girl.

I become forty eight kilograms lighter when I detach my head from my body.

3. “Douen” – Suzan Palumbo – The Dark

A dark and lovely story, though that’s hardly a surprise. I’ve yet to come across anything by Suzan Palumbo that I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed. “Douen” is a story about a lonely, dead child who desperately misses her mother, a child who gradually becomes more and more monstrous as she watches the world move on without her. The ending, in particular, is especially wonderful. It didn’t quite go where I expected, and I loved where it went instead.

I was standing behind one of de concrete headstone watching Mama and all meh aunties and uncles bawl. I cry too, because I didn’t remember how I get there and I didn’t want to be dead.

4. “The Many Murders of the Self” – H. Pueyo – The Dark

This is a phenomenal story. It’s also easily the darkest story on the list, so please pay attention to the content warnings because this one hits hard like a brick to the chest. The writing is gorgeous and pulls no punches. There is approximately zero room for hope, but it is also psychological horror at its finest and deserves to get all the acclaim and award nominations.

The first one to die is the little girl.

5. “If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You” – John Chu – Uncanny

Oh, this is excellent. I mean, just the title alone is excellent, but also a gay superhero romance! Or rather a gay superhero/gay bodybuilder-and-musical-theater-actor romance. It’s a very fun novelette and a very funny novelette (I will confess that I had to Google “Tom of Finland” to get the reference), but it also seamlessly discusses protests and police brutality and violence against Asian Americans. I haven’t been as into superhero movies as I used to be, but this is definitely one I’d watch in a hot second.

He grins when my gaze meets his. I may have inadvertently attracted the attention of a god.

6. “Requiem for a Dollface” – Margaret Dunlap – Uncanny

Listen, I apologize for making the comp that probably everyone makes while talking about this story, but “Requiem for a Dollface” is like Toy Story noir, which means that it’s fucking amazing. It’s a very quick read, only about 1500 words, and goes from “darkly hilarious” to “sweetly melancholic” to “oh, shit, CREEPY” in the blink of an eye. Friends. Darlings. I think I’m in love.

Not every child loved their toys gently. That was life.
This was murder.

7. “Dissent: A Five-Course Meal (With Suggested Pairings) – Aimee Ogden – Lightspeed

What a powerhouse of a story, particularly considering it’s not even 800 words. This flash fiction gives us glimpses of a queer woman’s life as she goes through protests, prison, health care insecurity, and more. The five-course meal structure works really well here, and the story ends on a lovely moment of bittersweet hope.

It’s too late in the meal for slogans.

8. “Choke” – Suyi Davies Okungbowa– Tor.com

There’s a lot of easy, relatable humor in this story (free food is a special kind of delightful, and watching Leverage reruns on Friday nights-in is absolutely the way to go), but “Choke” is also excellent at slowly ratcheting up the unease and tension as a dinner party for international college students soon grows from awkward and uncomfortable to creepy and surreal. Spectacular stuff.

No three words will make you congeal faster than Let us pray.

9. “The Pennyfeathers Ride Again” – L Chan – The Dark

Once again, I am helpless for an L Chan ghost story. This is also a siblings story, a story about creepy dolls, a story about bespoke exorcists—I mean, need I go on? I feel like I’m listing a few of my favorite things here, Julie Andrews style. The only criticism I have  is that I want more stories immediately. A Pennyfeathers novel would make for an excellent Christmas present, that’s all I’m saying.

William Pennyfeather was years dead, opened up from thigh to chin by something in the haunted underground of Holborn Station. Until an hour ago, this had been the most traumatic experience of his existence.

10. “Bonesoup” – Eugenia Triantafyllou – Strange Horizons

Finally, we have this lovely and utterly morbid delight. “Bonesoup” is a dark, modern fairy tale with a grandmother who shows her love with food, a granddaughter who’s yearned to eat what all the other children eat, and the terrible things people are willing to do to nurture and protect their family. Tender, dark, and beautiful.

In Greece, we have a saying: You must eat the body part you want to grow stronger. Or maybe that’s just something my grandmother used to say.

As always, I read far too many fantastic stories this year—not to mention how many more out there I missed—so here are a bunch of fantastic Honorable Mentions.

“So You Married Your Arch Nemesis . . . Again” – Merc Fenn Wolfmoor – Lightspeed
“The Clockmaker’s Daughter” – Tobi Ogundiran – Lightspeed
“The Weight of It All” – Jennifer Hudak – Fantasy Magazine
“Apolépisi: A De-Scaling” – Suzan Palumbo – Lightspeed
“Plausible Realities, Improbable Dreams” – Isabel J. Kim – Lightspeed
“Of all the New Yorks in all the Worlds” – Indrapramit Das – Tor.com
“The Travel Guide to the Dimension of Lost Things” – Effie Seiberg – PodCastle
“The Application of Strawberry Lip Gloss in a Low-Gravity Environment” – R J Theodore – Lightspeed

That’s it for this year! Though I do apologize to all the December writers—I’ve had a December story, myself, and am familiar with how much that can suck. If I come across anything else that I particularly enjoy, I’ll do my best to tweet/post about it. (Presuming all my various social media accounts survive, which is a big assumption these days.) Meanwhile, Happy Thursday and feel free to rec any short stories that you enjoyed in the comments!

Triple Scoop Reviews: Hotel Artemis, Ocean’s Eight, and The Last of Sheila

/ mygeekblasphemy / 2 Comments

Welcome to My Geek Blasphemy’s first Triple Scoop Review–a concept I may or may not stick with, depending on how well it goes and also how hungry I am. (Let us be under no illusions here: the criminal lack of ice cream in my freezer probably has much to do with this whole “triple scoop” idea in the first place.) Triple Scoop Reviews will function much the same as Lil Spooky Reviews, only they won’t be limited to horror movies, and I will assign each film thematically flavorful ratings. A Chocolate rating will be awarded to my favorite of the bunch, while my least favorite will clearly be inferior Strawberry and the middling film will be assigned an equal middling Vanilla.

Like I said, we’ll see how long this lasts; if I start getting frustrated that I can’t rate everything Chocolate, for instance, I may have to tweak the formula. In the meantime, however, let’s get started.

Hotel Artemis

First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Netflix (DVD)
Spoilers: Only super mild ones
Grade: Vanilla

I enjoyed this, though by the end, I couldn’t shake the feeling it was missing something. I like all of the actors: Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, and Dave Bautista are particularly great, and I’d happily watch more of their characters any day of the week. It’s a fun concept, too (high-tech hospital/hotel for criminals), and I like how the film sets up a lot of moving parts in the beginning with various little mysteries and parallel storylines. (Who is the woman outside, what is the significance of the pen, who does Nice want to kill, etc.)

Unfortunately, I don’t know that the payoff to these mysteries works as well: multiple side characters feel underused or extraneous, the few Big Reveals are unsurprising, and at some point the plot complications just sort of whimper out. I can’t help but wish the futuristic backdrop had played more into the story, too. It kinda feels like the whole idea of this plot structure is to light six matches near a powder keg and wait to see which one goes off, which is a neat idea in theory, but how it plays out in actuality . . . you know, I don’t quite know how to describe it. Everything just runs in a horizontal line, one event after the next in a chopped, hurried fashion, all racing to wrap up as quickly as possible. Like they’re on a deadline. Like the chaos is suddenly, noticeably scripted.

Hotel Artemis is totally enjoyable (it even clocks under 2 hours) and I’d watch a sequel in a heartbeat, but that third act is just missing something, making it a B movie when it could easily have been an A-.

Ocean’s Eight

First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Netflix (DVD)
Spoilers: YES
Grade: Strawberry

Man, I wanted to like this one so much. Ocean’s Eleven might have been the first movie I remember thinking, “God, how cool would this be with all women?” And parts of it are genuinely great. The idea of a heist at the Met Gala is just fun. The cast is amazing. I enjoy some of the callbacks to the 2001 film, and I really love a lot of the smaller moments, like Nine-Ball’s little sister, Debbie and Lou blowing bubbles, or pretty much every line out of Mindy Kaling’s mouth. Also, holy shit, I should probably go over to Archive of Our Own and find all the Debbie/Lou fanfic because sweet Jesus, there must be a ton of it.

Unfortunately, this plot’s got some serious weak sauce writing, particularly in the second half. I could forgive the scene between Debbie and Lou that feels like an inferior version of this scene. I could forgive how Anne Hathaway’s involvement is pretty obvious to anyone who can do basic math. I could maybe even forgive how every Reveal in the last third of the movie (including Hathaway) feels clumsy and rushed, but I cannot forgive the abysmal lack of plot complications and stakes in this movie. Pretty sure the last thing to actually go wrong for our crew is the busboys stopping to chat. It takes Sarah Paulson less than a minute to solve that problem, and then there’s still, what, twenty minutes left in the movie? Maybe thirty? The magnet problem prior is also just as quickly solved, and while I actually like the idea that there’s another act after the Big Heist, Insurance Investigator James Corden comes out of absolutely nowhere and isn’t even remotely a hindrance to our crew: shit, he helps them. Admittedly, I kind of enjoy that scene with him and Debbie at the diner, but again, it takes all of twelve seconds to turn him from potential antagonist into eager collaborator. A heist story where everything goes smoothly isn’t much of a story. Even comedies need basic tension, and this film has almost none.

Mek and I wracked our brains, trying to figure out how to fix this. Like, I know I said I could forgive them, but some of those last-minute twists (Hathaway’s involvement, the theft of multiple necklaces, etc.) are really a problem for me because they depend upon needless secrets being kept from the team and thus come across as lazy writing. Unless Debbie, who’s been burned before, secretly brings in Anne Hathaway because she doesn’t trust anybody on her team, maybe not even Lou. Now, that could create some genuine plot complications: perhaps Debbie has good reason to doubt her team because, say, Helena Bonham Carter betrays them, or better yet, maybe Debbie’s mistrust almost gets them all caught at some point, causing a rift/chaos/whatever, until they all work past it and pull the whole thing off like the badass ladies they are. That just leaves Scummy Ex-Boyfriend, who I’m mostly inclined to drop anyway, because his presence at the Met Gala feels like another failed setup, a potential complication that proves no trouble whatsoever. It’s really hard to have payoff if the characters face no actual challenges along the way.

Much like Hotel Artemis, I’d honest-to-God watch a sequel to this movie, but I’d definitely want different writers on board. Because the problem here isn’t the ladies. The problem is the script.

The Last of Sheila

First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Amazon
Spoilers: My God, YES.
Grade: Chocolate

It is a well-documented fact that Mekaela and I are mystery junkies. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find a good classic mystery these days: dinner parties with a side of murder just aren’t the rage anymore, much to our infinite sorrow. So we ventured into the way-back machine and found The Last of Sheila, a 1973 film where a young James Coburn invites six guests to his yacht a year after his wife, Sheila, was killed in a hit-and-run. Entertainment is provided in the way of a mystery scavenger hunt, where each guest is assigned a pretend-secret and has to discover everyone else’s . . . only the secrets are all-too real. Naturally, people start dying.

The Last of Sheila is actually one of the more clever and engaging mysteries I’ve seen in quite a while, not to mention boasts quite the cast and crew: the film stars a young Ian McShane, Raquel Welch, and Dyan Cannon, and was written by–wait for it–Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim. What? There are lots of small clues and red herrings to sort through, enough that just remembering them all provides a bit of a fun challenge. Mek and I immediately figured that Lee had killed Sheila; also, that Clinton was already dead when Lee supposedly murdered him and that Tom was either the outright killer or, at the very least, involved. That last bit seemed clear because we never forgot the A is for Alcoholic card–though I initially seized on it for the wrong reason, considering I thought Tom was the alcoholic. At any rate, we had a lot of fun watching this. I like the idea that two group detectives, so to speak, were actually the guiltiest people in the bunch. I really enjoyed Tom and Phillip’s extended standoff (including the WTF puppets). And I like that the mystery is also a bit of a Hollywood satire, especially considering Tom’s “rewrites are a fate worse than prison or death” ending. There’s really a fair amount to recommend here.

But. But. But.

The biggest twist in this movie is that Clinton’s party game is just that: a party game. He didn’t write the Hit and Run Killer card and he certainly isn’t trying to find out who murdered Sheila. Actually, the secrets he chose were relatively small: shoplifting, for instance, or being an ex-convict. But you know what else Clinton considered a small secret, an embarrassing bit of gossip, a Not Big Deal? Being a child molester. YEAH. Phillip–probably the most likable character of the bunch and lead protagonist after the last lead turned out to be a double-murderer–has apparently molested kids, which not only puts the audience in the deeply uncomfortable position of rooting for a pedophile, nobody else in the movie gives a shit about it. Seriously, Mek and I just kept sitting there, dumbfounded, waiting for one of the other characters to justifiably freak out or denounce the guy or discover the accusation isn’t true . . . but it is true, and everyone in the story is just like, well, directors, you know. For Christ’s sake, Phillip gets a happy ending!

And seriously, what the fuck? What the holy fuck? What the fucking holy fuck?

The 2016 Book Superlatives (Length: EPIC)

/ mygeekblasphemy / 8 Comments

It is time, my friends. Yesterday, I posted the list of all the books and graphic novels I’ve read in 2016, and today I will review them in my customary way: superlatives! (Clearly, a tormented piece of my soul will always be trapped in high school.)

To be upfront: the greater majority of my Book Superlatives are positive and/or silly because this is meant to be fun, and because I realized how shitty I’d feel if something I wrote ever got singled out as Worst Book Of The Year or something. However, there are some critical superlatives–Most Annoying Romance, for example–because I do look at these awards as (admittedly oddly formatted) reviews, and also because I’ve never not had multiple candidates for that particular category. I do, however, generally try to say positive things about a book even when I’m highlighting something particularly negative, which, honestly isn’t usually all that hard. There are often a number of things I like about even those novels that frustrate me: Most Annoying Romance, for instance, actually went to a book that I otherwise enjoyed quite a bit, even envied if I’m being honest, cause, damn that author can write.

If you are a published novelist who has somehow stumbled onto my little blog and don’t necessarily want to get blindsided by the possibility of seeing something negative about your novel, I totally get that: feel free to check out that link of stuff I read this year and see if any of your work is even on the table before making your decision. For anyone who is interested in reading, welcome! Today’s post will be full of super important awards like Favorite Sidekick, Chief Asshat, Book I Would Most Like To See As A Video Game, and Best Boo-Yah Moment. There will also be a list of my Top 10 Favorite Books of the Year, if that kind of thing interests you, and a list of my many, many favorite book quotes I read this year. God help me.

Shall we begin?

Continue reading →