/lit/ - Literature

>>15586257
F&SF May/June 2020

Hornet and Butterfly - Tom Cool and Bruce Sterling
A jumbled and nonsensical mess of a cyberpunk story set in a raft refugee city and then mainland China. I don't understand why it was the lead story. It's unfortunate because I've really enjoyed a lot of Sterling's short fiction. I blame the failure on it being a cooperative work.
Disliked

Stepsister - Leah Cypess
A quite darkly amusing continuation of Cinderella taking place 5 years after she marries the Prince, now the King. The protagonist is the King's brother.
Enjoyable

Eyes of the Forest - Ray Nayler
Humans settle on a new planet, but the surface's flora and fauna are too deadly so they live underground. Those who dare brave the surface are called Wayfinders.
Enjoyable

Byzantine - Holly Messinger
A young boy and an ifrit use each other in the last days of Constantinople.
Enjoyable

Warm Math - Rich Larson
Two men are in an escape pod which needs to lose a lot more mass for one of them to survive. One man is in an escape pod and he needs to lose a lot more mass if he's to survive.
Meh

An Indian Love Call - Joseph Bruchac
>Since 1971, Bruchac has published more than 120 books.
Guy makes a potion which attracts a female bigfoot to him and demands they find her a mate or else.
Meh

Birds Without Wings - Rebecca Zahabi
A horror story about monsters that steal the bodies of others. Very similar to Shucked - Sam J. Miller which ran in the same issue as her previous story, which I quite disliked.
Ok

In the Eyes of Jack Saul - Richard Bowes
This is both historical fiction and fanfiction of The Picture of Dorian Gray. How very queer.
Enjoyable(?)

Who Carries The World - Robert Reed
I want to enjoy Reed's various Great Ship stories and novels, but I can't and it's unfortunate.
This particular one is about a nigh invincible immortal, most people are now, searching for a girl he had last seen 12,000 years ago.
Meh

Another Fucken Fairy Tale - M. Rickert
A 98 year old woman meets a very rude female fairy.
Ok

The "cartoons" were as bad as usual.
I still don't care about the poems at at all.
The rest can be read for free here, same with the other issues: https://www.sfsite.com/fsf/toc2005.htm
The various references I originally made to other media were omitted because I thought they'd distract overly much.