LINKDING

excerpt: Sandrine dropped into the chair beside me and stretched her back dramatically. I took the opportunity to admire the view, as I was sure she intended. “Ugh!” She wiggled her fingers high overhead. “Never be a compositor, Mylène my beauty. You’ll have to typeset a scholar’s list of sources in eight point, half of them in Greek.” “I don’t speak a word of Greek,” I pointed out, though it didn’t need saying. When would a girl from a little Normandy village have learned such a thing as Greek? Sandrine was the one who had grown up in this printshop two streets from the Quartier Latin, not me. I had the impression that she didn’t read it terribly well herself, come to that; the king’s censors had been striking out texts so eagerly recently that the shop had been taking on jobs we might ordinarily have farmed out. ➤ as one would expect from the venue, this short story is about historical lesbians! ➤ specifically, historical lesbians working in a parisian printshop in 1830 (2 years before Les Mis is set, if that's relevant for you) ➤ ahhhh I love all the different women in this story, their relationships with each other and their work and their beliefs ➤ and the main character a provincial girl who's finding a place for herself and coming to understand the world of revolutionary paris she's found herself in! ➤ I also love how real and grounded the printshop work is that they all do ➤ it was great from start to finish <3 ➤ and yes the author is a friend but I'm not biased at all!! ➤ 5k words in length ➤ available as written text and as podcast; I have been told that the podcast version is excellent too.

excerpt: We drove out to Joshua Tree for the star party—a gathering of amateur astronomers under a clear, dark sky. It was Holly’s idea, an impromptu adventure on a Friday after work: “Hey, Lou, do you want to go look at the moon tonight?” Holly had the best ideas and the worst ideas, and in the daylight, it was hard to tell them apart at first glance. I took a gamble. I said yes. And I meant it—I wanted nothing more than to lay down under the Milky Way with my hand in hers and gaze into forever. For a long time, our love was the biggest thing I knew how to believe in. ➤ an sff novelette about family dynamics, religion, queerness, trauma, and the beauty of the night sky ➤ it's a horrifying story even as it's also beautiful, exploring its ideas in ways that leave me not quite sure what to think about any of it, but in a way that's clearly done with purpose and care ➤ content note for explicit child murder. I am serious about the horrifying aspects of the story! but if it's something you feel able to read, it's definitely worth it imo ➤ 9k words in length

<blockquote>I’m thrown through a doorway into a room full of girls. I use this word loosely. Most are past bleeding age, some with bellies that round like rising moons. They sit at a large table in the middle of the room, dressed in matching gray smocks, identical white sashes tied around their waists. To my people, white is for funerals; the color seems fitting. They watch as I hit the ground. Like me, they wear hobbles of strong, light chain.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“It was like this behind the Iron Curtain.” The woman in the grocery line was wearing a cowboy hat and had the leathery skin of someone who’d spent their entire life in the sun. Smoker skin, Payne’s mother had called it. She always loved finding ways to blame people for their misfortunes. Payne thought about ignoring the woman, pretending not to hear. Instead, she tapped her headset, shutting off her podcast. “Pardon?” “In school, studying communism. Hours of lineups to buy bread and butter. Hear the teachers tell it, you’d get to the front of the line just as they ran out. Wasn’t supposed to happen in the so-called free world.” “In the free world, your shelves are fully stocked and having to wait for a cashier is a violation of human rights.” Payne’s lips were numb. Hadn’t Butch said this, last night? Smoker Skin tipped her hat. “You know during Stalin, every house over there was haunted?” Yeah. This was why she didn’t talk to the living anymore.</blockquote> ➤ unnerving but in a good way

<blockquote>Hi, we were both in Central Square on Friday, around 9:30 PM. I’m a tall trans lady with brown hair and glasses. You were standing in front of Sonia with some people. You were looking at your phone and then you looked up at me. Our eyes met for—I’m sorry, I’ve deleted and retyped this a couple times. Our eyes probably met for like a second, from your perspective. Several years ago I stayed at this inn where the innkeeper was this wizened old woman (I know that sounds dopey, but if you saw her you’d be like, “no she’s totally wizened”—serious crone hours in that inn), and I can’t really tell if I upset the old woman or if I did her some kind of favor? She was very hard to understand. Anyway, I have this curse now.</blockquote> ➤ beautiful and interesting

<blockquote>The technical term is “generation ship cascade failure.” Cryogenic collapse. Millennium drive breakdown. Failed ship-in-a-bottle revolution against the corpostate hegemony. I call all the outcomes whalefalls, though. Because that’s what they are: the carcasses of something that used to be alive, floating slowly down through the black. I guess that makes me one of those blind fish that flit around in the dark. Those pale monstrous things with teeth like needles. Me in my nullsuit, carrying my ripper as I clank around on the outside of the hull. This is one of the smaller generation ships we’ve tapped. The size of a station, maybe. I wonder how big whales are.</blockquote>

<blockquote>She took the coffee-hot chocolate mix, grinned at the misshapen white marshmallow lump that Doris had fabricated for her coffee, and came to a stand next to the forward window to look out upon the expanse of Venusian clouds that roiled pleasingly in front of the blimp lab, aglow with the sunset that would deepen over the next few weeks. She used to stand here with Jorn, her husband. What was it now … six … seven months ago? He’d made it all of three weeks after Earth went silent, the poor emotional, beautiful wreck of a man, weeping nonstop for days.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Isabel said, “I think I’m being possessed.” You said, “You’re not being possessed.” You also said, “Don’t be so dramatic,” which you would later look back on and regret.</blockquote> ➤ really good and interesting, and then that last line!!!

<blockquote>It’s a three-day journey through the Donchad jungle’s muggy labyrinth to our research site. As such, I wish to gift you in advance an extraordinary breakthrough in our understanding of the Telperi flower’s time-bending properties: A first-hand account from the sole survivor of the tragedy that occurred during the last blooming season.</blockquote> ➤ the footnotes do work and they're important

<blockquote>Soon, she’d arrive at Starbase Orion VI and a station officer would offer her a summary of the ninety years she had wriggled out of through this assignment. The government-mandated prep course said most pilots took it hard. But wasn’t the time slip why she did this in the first place?</blockquote>

<blockquote>In Lily’s last vlog, she says she’s not scared of dying. I know it’s a lie because her gaze drifts off camera and she blinks three times, like there’s something in her eyes. Lily was always a bad liar, but I am a very good editor, so her six-point-five million loyal subscribers never have to know.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Every time I wake Sheri up, I want to sit her down and distill, reduce, refine. What is important to her? What experiences would she want to wake up for?</blockquote>

<blockquote>Shprintze, you nudnik, Before you ask again, I’ve gotten all your letters scolding me for not writing—and Esther and Sarah’s too. Well, I’m sorry about it, but with one thing and another, my cousin’s kid crying all the time on the one side of me and Gitl crying all the time on the other, I haven’t had two wits to rub together, let alone two words to put onto a page for you. Anyway, what’s the point of going on a visit only to spend all your time talking to the same people you’d talk to at home? But everything’s calm to the point of boredom now, so I can spare a little time to catch you up, and then you can share this letter around and catch up everybody else.</blockquote>

<blockquote>You’ve lived this all before. That’s the thought that keeps me going, through the acrid sting of mage-smoke in my nostrils and the terror of almost having lost you already. There’s fear on your face, too—you’re only now straightening, one trembling hand clutching at your sleeve, and—and—no. I find I cannot call this woman you. You look older than your years, your hair streaked with silver. This woman is barely thirty. She does not have your easy calm; she flinches at the sight of the Tierran assassin pinned neatly to the floor by my sword. She is not you, and will not be for years to come. So be it; she is Fallon Deere, First Minister to the Free State of Altorania, and you are you, the woman who sent me to her side.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Pharyn Heir Lorelei Steddart sits at the conference table where she will negotiate her marriage. In front of her is a leather folder filled with notes, assumptions, expectations. There are no photos. No dossiers. She should be afraid for her future, but it’s hard to focus; even her nerves can’t pierce through the dull wrap of grief that has swaddled tight around her for the past six months.</blockquote> ➤ this is so interesting and I love it. Apparently it's “a modified excerpt from an in-progress work" so maybe someday I might get to read more of it?????? stands alone as is though too!

<blockquote>When Jess died, Amy gave over her body without a second thought. They were lucky, the doctor said. He showed Amy how close the steering wheel had come to denting Jess’s cranium, shattering the bridge of her nose, pushing bone fragments into her fragile frontal lobe, bruising the precious neural tissue that let Jess talk and think and be saved. Three inches, the length of a person’s thumb, the diameter of the blueberry muffin Amy was eating when she got the phone call. The taste lingered sour on her tongue and she wondered if she would ever be able to eat one again. “In fact—” She forced herself to listen. “You’re lucky it was bad enough. Impact a little lower, and she’d be looking at spinal damage and long-term rehab instead of an upload. This is the best case scenario.”</blockquote> ➤ the one where a newly-dead person's consciousness can be uploaded into someone else and then they share brainspace

<blockquote>She stood before the judges in the dim light, Justine just to her left. Lyra pulled a sheaf of paper from her pockets. Their marriage certificate. Proof of cohabitation. Sheet music for the nocturne. “I’ve come to ask safe passage for myself and my wife to the realm of the living,” Lyra said. Her voice was loud in the chamber and she did not let it shake.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“So you’re a chef,” the huntress said, after she’d saved the day, “and you’re out here to hunt and cook a dragon?” “Yes?” Kee picked leaves off her muddied pants, a futile gesture.</blockquote>

<blockquote>In late summer of the fourteenth year of the reign of Fei-hu the Road-Builder, on a day when the portents suggested peace and prosperity throughout the city and all its territories, the warrior Aun-ki woke up and found that her skin caught fire at the slightest touch. Pale flickers of flame sprouted on her brown arms, almost invisible in the sunlight, then guttered out. Even the light drape of her dressing gown across her shoulders was like the grind of a blade on a whetstone, striking sparks. The fabric browned, and when her apprentice Jin-ho came in to help her bathe, Jin-ho’s fingers left streams of blisters in their wake.</blockquote>

➤ the one where a reincarnated dinosaur searches for the bones of her long-dead love

<blockquote>It is never lucky for a child to kill her mother in the course of her own birth. Perhaps for this reason, the soothsayer who attended the naming ceremony for Princess Essylt was not a celebrated one. Haidis had barely finished his own apprenticeship when the summons came. He knew that delivering the prophecy for this princess was a thankless job, because no soothsayer in his right mind would attempt to foretell the life of a girl-child born out of death. His mentor and former teacher told him to sugarcoat the prophecy as much as possible. “She’s unimportant, in the grand scheme of things,” said Gerlach. “King Radek needs a son; he’ll find a new bride soon enough and the princess will simply be married off when she’s older.” He gave Haidis a sharp glance. “Make sure your prophecy sounds true enough, but remember that the king doesn’t need the truth; he only needs a benediction.”</blockquote> ➤ fairy tale ish

<blockquote>Constable Kershaw has not uttered any overrides, nor issued a warrant to access her memory logs, but Celia understands nonetheless that she is expected to stay, to sit and answer his questions like a suspect. It surprises her, this treatment. Like she’s human.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The date is June 18th, 1815. The place is Waterlô. And Sa Segokgo is racing against time. The treads of her boots scoop up huge tracts of bloody, Belgian soil and thresh it into aerosol. Archaic bullets dart about her like swarming mosquitoes, pinging noisily off her poly-diadmant suit, its staalglas facepiece. An experienced strandrunner, she is not daunted by such minor impacts. Over ridges and craters she leaps, devouring meters with each stride, explosively imprinting the IOvac corporate icon wherever she lands. Her armor does its work, yes, but it is her conditioned body that knows how to exert itself most efficiently. Every movement must barter energy for distance, and profit. There are no pit stops in this sport; to spend recklessly will purchase only a quicker death.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Queerness as the vanguard of transformation,” the woman with the pink hair was saying, “that’s what it’s about. Whereas Deepika’s latest is more about conformity with the establishment. She’s this odd little government flunky. I’d think it were performance art if it weren’t so sad. Meg, or Megan or something.” It was the fault of her shoes, Meg thought. Sensible ballet flats with soles that made no sound on the floor tiles. Or else the fault of the damn Victorian architect who’d built this house back in the year whatever and attached the bathroom to the kitchen, of all things, so you went off to hide from your girlfriend’s tiresomely political (if not until this moment actively loathsome) friends and found yourself listening behind the door to their unvarnished opinion of you.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The world as they know it is ending; a new one is taking its place. Among the doctors and nurses of a clinic-turned-fortress, Kath is coming of age in this new world, and helping define it. But that doesn’t make letting go of the old any easier.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Paseia takes care to observe her supplicants before every consultation; a successful interpreter must read and accommodate any mood. Fortunately, Lady Ouridia Diphan and Lady Biota Leanax descend from their shuttle in high spirits, which gain altitude as Paseia leads their ladyships to the appointed room. They are a pair in their early thirties, fiancées, both of them pretty as puddings straight from the mold. Though tall Lady Biota wears spectacles, and though Lady Ouridia has neglected to powder her freckles, their styles of dress and speech are otherwise nigh identical not only to each other, but to every other wealthy woman whom Paseia has served. Their gowns bell from this or that season’s new waist-line; their hats perch upon the inevitable curls; their lips shape each syllable with gushing precision. The oracles, oh, just look at them! Paseia, too, could rhapsodize about the parrots, but she will not subject their ladyships to the interpreters’ orisons, most of which are fond insults and complaints.</blockquote>

<blockquote>They gave me directions, not an address, and once I arrived, I could see why. There was no church here, no hall, no theater. I parked at the end of the dirt road by the lightning-blasted oak and peered toward the line of fir trees, fuzzed orange by the sinking sun beyond. I wondered, briefly, if this was a trick—lure the lady bartender out to the woods for nefarious purposes—but they’d paid half up front and the check had cleared, so I checked my professional demeanor in the rearview mirror, grabbed my bag, and got out of the car.</blockquote> ➤ bartending a faerie wedding

<blockquote>All women dream of rescuing Napoleon. For less ambitious girls, it is only a passing fancy. They imagine sailing across the Atlantic on a stolen ship, their hair flowing behind them like a flag. Napoleon will watch from a window in his tower as they stride upon the beach, swords drawn, thrusting and parrying their way through dozens of red-coated British soldiers and evading the horses’ hooves, the dogs’ teeth. There will be traps too, they think: quick sand and spring guns which only the cleverest of girls could survive. </blockquote>

<blockquote>“Listen, you can have your pick of men in town, but I can’t ever love again. He’s the only one for me. Leave him alone.” That was what you were supposed to say, right? Chapter One in the How to Confront Your Husband’s Mistress handbook? Because you and Jesse have been married since high school, and that was what you did. You fought to preserve the fumbling on prom night and the negative pregnancy test and the whispered vows you exchanged anyway. Even when those vows shattered like the wedding china that slipped from your hands the first time you heard him say her name. Jolene.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Sere Gulliarme is brought into custody for treason against the state in the week of her forty-eighth birthday, eight months after she fled her position as Deputy Commissioner, but it is the youth in her pain-set face that unsettles those who had searched for her. She was not meant to be life-laced with anyone. They cannot execute her if she can prove the lacing.</blockquote>