Runalong The Short Shelves - Fiyah Magazine #37
Price - $3.99
Publication - Out Now via https://fiyahlitmag.com
For this Short Shelves it’s great to return to Fiyah Magazine and a really interesting and varied collection of stories
The Things We Bury In Each Other by Timothy Ngome
I really liked this very gentle fantastical tale of grief. A man loses his partner of many years but in keeping with the world she calls him from the afterlife. Eventually she stops talking but he keeps listening out for her voice and this results in a very strange plant growing in the home. The story has a powerful examination of grief’s power to take over life and place the people left behind in danger. The world is suitably not quite ours to make the story really work and feel things aren’t quite what they should be.
Legion by Karama Neal - I loved this story as it plays with the expectations of a science fiction reader to make a powerful message. In the near future the human race after a permafrost meltdown have had to accept a strange ecosystem of bugs that live on human skin. Our narrator has never really accepted these are in our best interest and she has decided to ensure her son never had to take them on.
Neal uses Science fiction’s paranoia about the strange and weird taking over our bodies and creates just enough tension for us to imagine some evil agenda. That’s then powerfully undercut when we see the impact of not having bugs causes her son and instead Neal has a timely reminder that science often does have the answers and to avoid conspiracy theories that hurt children. The way that’s revealed is beautifully delivered.
Rather Be The Devil by Jordan Alexander - this is a wonderfully entertaining story as a woman tells us how a ma has gone to Hell to get her back. The storytelling makes the story really work and plays with expectations it’s in the style of a folk tale as our Key character named Man meets everyone from Rabbit to a wonderful version of Lucifer.
As he shouts for his beloved ‘Baby Girl’ initially this feels it’s going to be a cautionary tale but a happy ending awaits. Indeed it is but not for whom we think and that’s the great thing that this story reminds us in the 21st century a woman has choices if her own. It’s witty, thoughtful and creative and I loved it.
The Sobolo Prophet by Irene W Collins - This is a fascinating weird fantasy story exploring faith set in modern day Ghana. It centres on fallen Pastor Kojo Addo who once had a Jamestown church and glory but it all fell down around him. Now he’s a street pastor selling some local wine. But suddenly the wine gives the buyer’s visions of the future. That sets in motion a afvsinating strange change across Ghana as everyone wants to see the future and yet also every future is different. Kojo is at first delighted to once again be famous but the gets disturbed as how the world is changing.
Collins explores faiths, competing versions of a country’s future and how more always comes before a fall. The way the country falls out over its matured is delivered powerfully with a very subtle exploration of where these all come from and I liked how rager than go dark and destructive the ending is actually more contemplative.
Into The Briarpatch by Ella N’Diaye - A tense science fiction tale awaits in this story that also has timely messages for today too. We follow a refugee ship taking a dangerous mission to save its occupants from a cruel galactic empire and a game of cat and mouse begins but there may be a traitor within our cast. Tense, great action and suspense but also although there are nods to America’s history with mentions of Tubman and Lafayette the story also feels very much in dialogue with the current situation towards refugees. I really liked this.
The issue finishes with three poems ‘my maker is a Black Man’ by Donnie Moreland with a vampiric flourish, ‘Notes From A Death Star Rec Room’ by upfromsumdirt which appeals to the inner Star Wars fans among us and a pollution themed ‘Morher of Synthetic Seas’ by Aishatu Ado
Overall as expected another issues highly recommend
