1276 words

Magical Girl: Corporate Failure
Lia Lao

The prose of "Magical Girl: Corporate Failure" is the first thing to hit you in the teeth—it’s thick, visceral and compelling. In less than twelve hundred words, the story manages to pack a great deal of context and character work, conjuring up a world that feels incredibly realistic. There are elements of spiky humor in this story, braided with the tragic and the beautiful. There are plenty of sharp edges too, not least of which is a protagonist struggling to come to terms with her life. What it was, what it is now, and what it could be—all explored in heartbreaking clarity.

Review by Faith Allington

What’s more terrifying than a demonic horde? More stressful than slaying netherbeasts? Spreadsheets. Timetables. Commuting. The realization that you royally screwed up and lost the love of your life, but can’t bring yourself to fix it. Sound familiar? Lia Lao packed so much complex emotion into this short piece, weaving a story that may be magical on the surface but pokes holes in the reality of our own human struggles. To me, that’s the sign of a great piece of speculative fiction. Would I read a story about Alice Li and Vera kicking ass and defeating monsters? Hell yeah. But that wouldn’t have the same effect. I guess what I’m saying is that this piece felt very intentional. I can feel the pain and anger in Alice Li (Magical Girl), and I know that there’s nothing she will do to change it. In honor of what Alice Li has lost, tell a loved one you care about them today. Being mean won’t transport you back to the Netherworld.

Review by L. T. Williams

A Beginner’s Guide to Summoning Demons
Cynthia Zhang

“A Beginner’s Guide to Summoning Demons” by Cynthia Zhang is a revenge story posing as a listicle. The hook is Zhang’s casual instructive tone for gathering materials. Summoning a demon should be hard, right? Within the first lines, Zhang makes the arcane task approachable and straightforward. I hadn’t planned to summon anything except for a nap. But as I read, I realized that I already have most of the items—salt, candle, and a crystal kit from a major retailer. Check, check, and check. I am set for an occult date this weekend. By step three, the narrator's backstory hits. The key ingredients, I learn later, are rage, injustice, and pain. I have those too! Let’s do this.

The power of this numbered list is its forward-moving structure, transforming abstract concepts by framing the fantastical with clinical expectations of nonfiction. The story stays grounded in the present even as the steps become more personal and supernatural. Zhang maintains utility in each step for the aspiring interdimensional collaborator. By the end, summoning demons feels like a viable option for handling oppressors. The brevity of the list is spot on. Its nineteen items reflect the urgency of our times. Who knows when you’ll need to bind yourself to an ancient god and enforce justice upon this mortal realm.

Review by Pauline Chow

Bootcut
Allison Pottern

"Bootcut" is a story that works so well because the voice is strong and engaging from the first scene. It reads almost like a conversation with the reader, while employing the second-person point of view in a way that the narrator is also in conversation with themselves (or, rather, you) with the use of parenthetical text. In utilizing this narrative, the reader is instantly drawn into the character from the opening perusal of Goodwill’s racks to the story’s conclusion.

On a personal level, a story that centers not only feminine rage but also brings us vengeance is likely to win me over. Here, Pottern excels. Right off the bat, we are set into a scene where the narrator is excited about a new pair of jeans that make her look incredible. This, we learn, is a double-edged sword. Those jeans become the focal point around which the story unfolds; yes, they make her look amazing and draw unwanted attention. But they also offer something more. In the end, I’m left wondering how much of the character growth is due to the perfect Goodwill find, and how much is because she’s fed up?

Review by K. A. Roy

Branches
Matt Tighe

This piece broke me for a few minutes. I stared at the screen, emotionally pinballing between muted contentment and resigned melancholy. Bittersweet. This is one of the feelings I so often seek out from stories, and Matt Tighe delivered with room to spare. The use of repetition to drive the narrative forward—or, perhaps, sideways—drags you right along with the main character, puts you in their skin, not giving you enough time to properly process the futility and desperation of the situation until the last words are read. There are no reprieves. There are no second chances. All roads lead to the same street, the same day, the same person. To me, staring at my computer screen, trying to smile. I think I’m going to go spend some time with my partner now.

Review by L. T. Williams

And If You Must Be Wicked, You Must
Elou Carroll

Elou Carroll’s short story about wickedness explores what happens when we look away from the darkest parts of ourselves. It offers a lovely take on the concept of changelings. Each vignette unfolds, revealing a new layer that builds on the one before, all rendered in delicate and immersive prose. From the start, the arrival of the girl from the mirror is a tiny, hissing heartbreak. Alongside young Caris, we grow up to learn all the ways we can and cannot be wicked, according to society’s rules. Not to mention, the price to be paid even if you do everything you’re told.

Review by Faith Allington

A Tree is not a Home
Diana Dima

Diana Dima’s story asks us to think hard about the taken-for-granted creatures that populate the earth in ever slimmer densities. Even in our oldest stories, the woods, the greenlands, and the shadows crawling between the villages have a life of their own that is continually resistive to any sense of control or failure of imagination that occupies most human conventions and laws. Diana Dima’s piece was an especial favourite when I came across it because it had such conceptual intrigue in its ceaseless invocation of a beyond-the-human world. It reads like a timeless lamentation, something that might be stored among a poet’s last, tormented lines about a lost love and a life they never might hope to regain. The real power of any speculative story is the ability to ask the right questions and not necessarily have all the answers. What else feels pain? Why? If trees are alive, the most unassuming of creatures who pretty our urbanscapes and simply stock our gardens with some vague symbol of passing admiration for the more-than-human world, then what else is? Do rocks whine in the night in tones or tongue we cannot conceive? Do shadows weep for their castors? Do shattered cups we bin with ease live on as scattered dust split across the world? I kept returning to Dima’s story to find in the quiet sense of grief the bracketed pain pushed down into the narrator’s unspoken thoughts, some kind of revelation that might bring me a sense of peace about the world I live in. I only come out with the same old ache, when I see my house and its wooden doors, its cupboards with grains shaped like mouths and weeping eyes. I care all the more for forgotten creatures—and mourn the rest, that furniture our world.

Review by RSL

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