Continuing our reviews of the 2020 Hugo Awards finalists in the Short Stories category, we move on to “Blood is Another Word for Hunger” by Rivers Solomon and “As the Last I May Know” by S. K. Huang.
2020 Hugo Awards Reviews: Short Stories – Part 1
The pandemic may have led to conventions around the world being cancelled, but many of their events have managed to survive in virtual form – Worldcon’s annual Hugo Awards for science fiction and fantasy being one example. The awards are scheduled to be presented in August, under different circumstances but retaining the same spirit as…
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Vampires in Reflection
Mihail Baranga, teenage son to a family of circus acrobats, is surrounded by glamour and extravagance. But he yearns for a darker existence: he wants to become a vampire.
[Patreon Exclusive] The Fighting First Lady: Red Sonja in the 1970s
Our monthly Patron-exclusive essay series continues. You can read all of these incredible analyses for as little as a dollar a month on our Patreon. Back in the 1970s, comic covers hailed her as “Fantasy’s #1 Fighting Female” and “the Fighting First Lady of Swords-and-Sorcery”. Decades later, she retains iconic status even among people who would…
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Monsters of the Psyche
Charlee Jacob’s 1998 story “The Border in Zen” is set after a nuclear war and takes place in a village named Persephone’s Pity. Here, the people lead a peaceful, ecological, egalitarian existence, eager to avoid the atrocities of the past. But this post-apocalyptic culture has a darker side: a preoccupation with the sullying of innocence….
Our Darkest Dreams Described: Horror Fiction in the 20th Century by Jess Nevins
Horror fiction has a history problem. While its cousin, the science fiction genre, has been eagerly mapped by decades’ worth of enthusiasts, much of horror’s heritage has been documented in comparatively little detail. Perhaps this is due to the genre’s aura of disreputability; or maybe we can point to so many of horror’s finest specimens…
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Cities and Guises
Charlee Jacob’s novella “Up, Out of Cities that Blow Hot and Cold” – which debuted in the 2000 collection of the same name before being reissued as a standalone book – is a story that takes the concept of urban decay literally. All around the world, cities are being hit by disasters: the Eiffel Tower…
Action 2020: A Controversial Classic Returns
In 1976 the British comics scene was shaken by controversy, all due to a new publication with the innocuously generic title of Action. Outwardly a typical boy-targeted comic – the cover to issue #1 showed a shark, a footballer and a tank, none of them exactly groundbreaking topics – Action was, on the inside, a…
Weary of Being a Woman: Dark Agnes — from Pulp to Comics
Conan the Barbarian is the best-known of the characters created by Robert E. Howard, but he is far from the only one. Prior to his early death in 1936, Howard conceived an entire pantheon of pulp heroes including the likes of Solomon Kane, Kull of Atlantis and Bran Mak Morn, many of whom had afterlives…
The Invisible Man is a Triumphant Return for a Horror Classic
Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) is forced to flee her abusive boyfriend, wealthy technology pioneer Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). Over the next two years, she lives in fear that Griffin will track her down — until she hears that her ex-boyfriend is now dead. But shortly afterwards, strange things begin to happen around Cecilia’s home, and…
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Dread in the Beast
Bodily fluids flow freely through horror fiction. Whether the substance in question is sucked out by vampires or splattered across walls by serial killers, there is a good chance that a novel of the genre will contain its share of blood, brains and viscera. In the more erotic corners of horror literature, readers are apt…
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Haunter or Soma
Charlee Jacob invoked atrocities from across human history in the same way that a Romantic poet might invoke the Arabian Nights. Sometimes she delved into the past and found inspiration in such familiar horror reference points as Jack the Ripper, Elizabeth Bathory and the witch-hunts; other times she ripped tales of murders and warfare from…