Uncanny Magazine Issue 33 Read online

  UNCANNY MAGAZINE

  “Uncanny Magazine Editorial Staff” by Uncanny Magazine

  About Our Cover Artist: Galen Dara by Galen Dara

  “The Uncanny Valley” by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas

  “Imagining Place: New York, New York. It’s A Hell of a Town” by Elsa Sjunneson

  “So You Want to Be a Honeypot” by Kelly Robson

  “The Sycamore and the Sybil” by Alix E. Harrow

  “If Salt Lose Its Savor” by Christopher Caldwell

  “Getaway” by Nicole Kornher-Stace

  “If You Want to Erase Us, You Must Be Thorough” by L. Tu

  “Georgie in the Sun” by Natalia Theodoridou

  “Harvest” by Rebecca Roanhorse

  “Toss a Coin to Your Bitcher” by Suzanne Walker

  “One Year Older” by Michi Trota

  “Monsters at the End of the Sewer: Buffy’s Sixth Season Is Now” by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

  “The Assassination of Professor X: The Destruction of Marvel’s Most Famous Disabled Character” by John Wiswell

  “Other Worlds to Save” by Beth Cato

  “Hungry Ghost” by Millie Ho

  “behind the self-help section” by D.A. Xiaolin Spires

  “Νόστιμον Ήμαρ” by Eva Papasoulioti

  “Interview: Alix E. Harrow” by Caroline M. Yoachim

  “Interview: Natalia Theodoridou” by Caroline M. Yoachim

  “Thank You, Patreon Supporters!” by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas

  Edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Michael Damian Thomas, and Michi Trota

  Ebook generated by Clockpunk Studios.

  Copyright © 2020 by Uncanny Magazine.

  www.uncannymagazine.com

  Uncanny Magazine Editorial Staff

  Publishers/Editors–in–Chief: Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas

  Managing Editor: Chimedum Ohaegbu

  Nonfiction Editor: Elsa Sjunneson

  Podcast Producers: Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky

  Podcast Readers: Joy Piedmont & Erika Ensign

  Assistant Editor: Angel Cruz

  Interviewers: Caroline M. Yoachim & Lynne M. Thomas

  Submissions Editors: Andrew Adams, Cislyn Smith, Coral Moore, Dolores Peters, Heather Clitheroe, Heather Leigh, Jay Wolf, Karlyn Meyer, Kay Taylor Rea, Liam Meilleur, Matt Peters, Piper Hale, Renee Christopher, Tazmania Hayward, Zoe Mitchell, C. E. McGill, Nhu Le, Rowan MacBean, Brahidaliz Martinez, Genevra Littlejohn, Sonia Sulaiman, Marissa Harwood

  Logo & Wordmark design: Katy Shuttleworth

  About Our Cover Artist: Galen Dara

  Galen Dara has created art for DAW Books, HarperCollins Publishing, Subterranean Press, Uncanny Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, and Strange Horizons Magazine. She won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist in 2013, followed by nominations in 2014, 2017, 2018, and 2019 for Best Professional Artist. She won the 2016 World Fantasy award, a 2017 Spectrum Award, a 2017 Chesley Award and has been nominated several times for the Locus Award. She’s on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @galendara. www.galendara.com.

  The Uncanny Valley

  by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas

  Urbana is yo-yoing between normal winter and the new creepy warmth of climate change. Caitlin remains home, healthy (barring a cold), and back to school, but the Uncanny Thomases remain fairly stressed out as we recover from the medical nightmares, search for a new house, and get caught up in all of the national and international elections and politics.

  One nice thing over the last two months, though, has been the Best of Uncanny book tour. We want to thank the publisher, Subterranean Press, who provided the books to the bookstores; all of the authors who joined us (Caroline M. Yoachim, E. Lily Yu, Fran Wilde, Sarah Pinsker, C. S. E. Cooney, Shveta Thakrar, Sara Cleto, Ali Trotta, K.M. Szpara, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor, and Kelly McCullough); the bookstores (University Book Store in Seattle, WA; Shakespeare & Co. in Philadelphia, PA; Illini Union Bookstore in Champaign, IL; and Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore in Minneapolis, MN); and finally all of the friends and readers who came to each event.

  Editing and publishing Uncanny Magazine has many rewards, but we don’t often have a chance to directly interact with our readers. It meant a lot to us to know the magazine has touched so many lives. It also meant a lot to us that so many of you were kind about all of Caitlin’s recent health issues. You are all truly magical, Space Unicorns.

  Which brings everything back to those stressors in our life. The world is scary, but there are still so many good people in it. Communities brought together by kindness and art have more power than those formed of hate and spite. The time is now to fight back and create change—at the ballot boxes and everywhere else in the world. WE CAN DO THIS, YOU MAGNIFICENT SPACE UNICORNS!!!

  (And by “this” we mean checking your voter registration and voting, in particular. Please.)

  Outstanding news, Space Unicorns! FOUR Uncanny Magazine stories are finalists for the prestigious Nebula Award from the Sciyence Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America! “The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye” by Sarah Pinsker is a finalist for Best Novelette, “The Dead, In Their Uncontrollable Power” by Karen Osborne is a finalist for Best Short Story, “How the Trick Is Done” by A.C. Wise is a finalist for Best Short Story, and finally “A Catalog of Storms” by Fran Wilde is a finalist for Best Short Story!

  Also, the Fate Accessibility Toolkit by Uncanny Magazine Nonfiction Editor Elsa Sjunneson from Evil Hat Productions is a finalist for Best Game Writing, and “The Archronology of Love” by Uncanny Magazine Interviewer Caroline M. Yoachim from Lightspeed Magazine is a finalist for Best Novelette!

  Congratulations to Sarah, Karen, A.C., Fran, Caroline, and Elsa!

  It is an amazing list of finalists, many of whom are Uncanny authors and friends. CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYBODY!!!

  From the SFWA Nebula Award announcement:

  The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA, Inc.) is pleased to announce the finalists for the 55th Annual Nebula Awards, including the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, the Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book. The awards will be presented in Woodland Hills, CA at the Warner Center Marriott during a ceremony on the evening of May 30th.

  Fabulous news, Space Unicorns! ELEVEN Uncanny Magazine stories and The Best of Uncanny are on the prestigious 2019 Locus Recommended Reading List! WE ARE SO CHUFFED! Congratulations to all of the authors!

  Best Anthology:

  The Best of Uncanny, Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, eds. (Subterranean)

  Best Novella:

  “A Time to Reap,” Elizabeth Bear

  Best Novelette:

  “Nice Things,” Ellen Klages

  “The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye,” Sarah Pinsker

  Best Short Story:

  “Lest We Forget,” Elizabeth Bear

  “The Migration Suite: A Study in C Sharp Minor,” Maurice Broaddus

  “Canst Thou Draw Out the Leviathan,” Christopher Caldwell

  “Before the World Crumbles Away,” A.T. Greenblatt

  “Dustdaughter,” Inda Lauryn

  “On the Lonely Shore,” Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  “The Dead, In Their Uncontrollable Power,” Karen Osborne

  “A Catalog of Storms,” Fran Wilde

  This means you can vote for these stories in the 2020 Locus Poll and Survey which determines the Locus Awards! Voting is FREE TO ALL! Along with these stories, Uncanny Magazine is also eligible for a Locus Award in the Best Magazine or Fanzine category, and Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas are eligible in the Best Editor – Pro or Fan category! Vote for the thi
ngs you liked, and you can even write in things that didn’t make the 2019 Locus Recommended Reading List! YOUR VOTE ALWAYS COUNTS!

  Space Unicorns! It is time to announce the TOP STORY in our Uncanny Magazine 2019 Favorite Fiction Reader Poll!

  It is…*drumroll*

  The novelette “Away With the Wolves” by Sarah Gailey!

  Congratulations, Sarah Gailey! A SNAZZY CERTIFICATE is on the way!

  The rest of the Top Five are:

  2- IS A TIE!!!

  “The Dead, In Their Uncontrollable Power” by Karen Osborne!

  “A Mindreader’s Guide to Surviving Your First Year at the All-Girls Superhero Academy” by Jenn Reese!

  3- “A Catalog of Storms” by Fran Wilde!

  4- “How the Trick Is Done” by A.C. Wise!

  5- “This Is Not My Adventure” by Karlo Yeager Rodríguez!

  Congratulations to Karen, Jenn, Fran, A.C., and Karlo!

  Thank you to everybody who voted!

  Hugo Award nominations are now open! If you are an eligible member of Dublin 2019 or CoNZealand, you should already have your membership and voting information so you can start nominating online!

  This year, Uncanny Magazine is still eligible for the Best Semiprozine Hugo Award. Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas are also still eligible for the Best Editor (Short Form) Hugo Award. (Note: If you are nominating the Thomases in this category, please continue to nominate them together. They are a co-editing team.)

  You can see all of the eligible Uncanny Magazine stories and their appropriate categories here!

  Just one Thomas traveling this month. Michael will be at ICFA, March 18-21, in Orlando, Florida. The Uncanny Penguin will also be there along with the ICFA alligator! They are all planning on celebrating their convention anniversary by making as many animal friends as possible!

  And now the contents of Uncanny Magazine Issue 33! The spectacular cover is Wild Blue Yonder by Galen Dara. Our new fiction includes Kelly Robson’s naughty Cold War spy intrigue “So You Want to Be a Honeypot,” Alix E. Harrow’s tale of a magic tree, independence, and revenge “The Sycamore and the Sybil,” Christopher Caldwell’s lyrical story of family, work, and discovery “If Salt Lose Its Savor,” Nicole Kornher-Stace’s looping heist adventure “Getaway,” L. Tu’s powerful take on invasion and forced assimilation “If You Want to Erase Us, You Must Be Thorough,” and Natalia Theodoridou’s haunting tale of a vampire traveling on a long space journey “Georgie in the Sun.” Our reprint is Rebecca Roanhorse’s “Harvest,” originally published in the 2019 anthology New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color.

  Our provocative and compelling essays this month include “Toss a Coin to Your Bitcher” by Suzanne Walker, “One Year Older” by Michi Trota, “Monsters at the End of the Sewer: Buffy’s Sixth Season is Now” by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam and “The Assassination of Professor X: The Destruction of Marvel’s Most Famous Disabled Character” by John Wiswell. This month also includes a new editorial column by Nonfiction Editor Elsa Sjunneson called

  “Imagining Place: New York, New York. It’s a Hell of a Town.” Our gorgeous and evocative poetry includes “Other Worlds to Save” by Beth Cato, “Hungry Ghost” by Millie Ho, “behind the self-help section” by D.A. Xiaolin Spires and “Νόστιμον Ήμαρ” by Eva Papasoulioti. Finally, Caroline M. Yoachim interviews Alix E. Harrow and Natalia Theodoridou about their stories.

  The Uncanny Magazine Podcast 33A features “So You Want to Be a Honeypot” by Kelly Robson as read by Joy Piedmont, “Other Worlds to Save” by Beth Cato as read by Erika Ensign and Lynne M. Thomas interviewing Kelly Robson. The Uncanny Magazine Podcast 33B features “Getaway” by Nicole Kornher-Stace as read by Erika Ensign, “behind the self-help section” by D.A. Xiaolin Spires as read by Joy Piedmont, and Lynne M. Thomas interviewing Nicole Kornher-Stace.

  As always, we are deeply grateful for your support of Uncanny Magazine. Shine on, Space Unicorns!

  © 2020 Uncanny Magazine

  Lynne and Michael are the Publishers/Editors-in-Chief for the four-time Hugo and Parsec Award-winning Uncanny Magazine.

  Eight-time Hugo Award winner Lynne M. Thomas was the Editor-in-Chief of Apex Magazine (2011-2013). She co-edited the Hugo Award-winning Chicks Dig Time Lords (with Tara O’Shea) as well as Whedonistas (with Deborah Stanish) and Chicks Dig Comics (with Sigrid Ellis).

  Along with being a five-time Hugo Award-winner, Michael Damian Thomas was the former Managing Editor of Apex Magazine (2012-2013), co-edited the Hugo-finalist Queers Dig Time Lords (with Sigrid Ellis), and co-edited Glitter & Mayhem (with John Klima and Lynne M. Thomas).

  Together, they solve mysteries.

  Imagining Place: New York, New York. It’s A Hell of a Town

  by Elsa Sjunneson

  Hi, you.

  We started this relationship on the day I was born. I was given the birthright of your skyscrapers, your bridges, your busy streets and your sleepless nights.

  We left you behind when I was very small, but the pull of the City that Never Sleeps just kept dragging me back, until I was 23 and came here to study.

  I stayed for ten years.

  But we’re done now. I have to be. I could blame it on the transit system, on the overwhelming nature of the city, on the isolation of New Jersey. I could blame it on any one thing, but the truth is, it’s everything.

  You’re an inhospitable, genre-eating monster that I want to visit from time to time, but not something I want to live with for another decade.

  Yet I also love New York City for what she is. When I call her a genre-eating monster, I’m not joking.

  New York City is a genre all to herself.

  Mythical and yet also searingly real. I think that New York often blurs the line of reality. Sometimes she feels like a monster, with the ways that puffs of smoke rise out of manhole covers, and the way it feels when you walk down a cobblestoned street or a narrow alley on a rainy night. You can walk through real film sets on your stroll home from work, and if you sign the right forms, your commute is suddenly a part of a Marvel film.

  Or it can happen the other way around—the tragedy of my childhood was the AIDS crisis washing over my community like a curse. You can watch what happened if you turn on Rent or HBO’s The Normal Heart.

  See? New York is so imbued in our fictions that it’s hard to sort out what’s real and what isn’t.

  New York is a city of contradictions, living and breathing in its own tropes. The Ghostbusters firehouse is right there—you can visit it. Kisses have been had on the bridges in Central Park—both fictional and real. Brooklyn Bridge has been the site of breakups and proposals.

  It’s why I’ve stayed with you so long, after all. One day I can feel like a heroine in an urban fantasy novel, the next I’m stalking the streets of the LES like a noir detective.

  I think it is this liminal space—where New York is the fiction that is written about it, and the fiction that is written about New York is so palpable—that makes New York both so delightful and so terrifying.

  Everything you’ve ever heard about New York City is true, and that’s why I want to leave. Everything you’ve ever heard about New York City is also a lie.

  We consume New York as a genre—but in exchange she consumes our energy.

  This relationship is sucking the marrow from my bones.

  Because there is one thing that is true about New York. No matter how kind people are, no matter how fucking good the food is, no matter how great the theater scene—this city will eat you alive. It will spit you out, and then stomp your bones to gruel to feed to its little borough babies so they grow strong and tough and mean.

  New York City will attack your senses, an assault of noise and emotion. As a deafblind woman I’ve learned when to turn my hearing aids off when walking through certain parts of the city, to dull the overwhelming scream of jackhammers and honking horns. The voice of the city is too much.

  As a woman I’ve had to learn to live with the clo
se quarters of men who decide my personal space is not something to respect, and I’ve grown weary of the constant prickle at the back of my neck, the hypervigilant sensation that I need to watch my own back because the city won’t do it for me.

  As a disabled person with a guide dog I’ve had to navigate the inaccessibility of the city so many times that I build extra half hours into my adventures. Will I need to navigate the subway an extra three stops because there’s an exit we can’t navigate?

  How many people will stop me to pet my dog?

  How many times will I be turned out of a bar because, despite the law, he’s not welcome?

  At a certain point, the liminality of New York, the shiny brightness of the genre that has been written for her—it wears off. The excitement turns to drudgery for some of us. The energy of the city—an endless whirl of things to do, people to see, places to visit, new food to eat—becomes not a joy to behold, but instead the stalking grim haunt of FOMO. How much energy will you expend to do the things you love in a city that hates you?

  So that’s why we have to break up. Because New York, you don’t really love me anymore. You may have once, you may have sustained me, fed me, brought me joy…but instead I see you as something I’m required to participate in, something that drains the joy from my soul.

  New York City may be a beloved place in my heart, but it does not love me back.

  This relationship isn’t working for me anymore.

  Because you could be better. You could decide that revamping the NYC metro system was worth it. You could decide that cracking down on guide dog refusals was important. You could decide that New York being a city for disabled people was something you wanted.

  But you won’t. I know you won’t. And so I have to get away before you swallow me whole, before the marrow in my bones gets sucked down into the subways and my blood runs through the electrical wires. Before my joy is all but extinguished by the endless whirl of New York’s energy.

  The tropes are true. The tropes are false. The fiction that lives and breathes in the bones of the City of New York is beautiful and terrifying.