A Window or a Small Box by Jedediah Berry
My rating: 3/5 cats
What they wanted was to get home in time for the wedding—their wedding. They held hands as often as they could. They got used to not getting used to things. They knew that his name was Jim and that her name was Laura, and sometimes that was all they needed
i’m not sure if this is magical realism, as advertised, or the exact opposite of magical realism, where the biggest chunk is surreal and the recognizable, realistic elements are the invading species. i recently read A House at the Bottom of a Lake, and this is a similarly odd blend of (verylight) horror and romance and adventure, which is not a genre-blend i’ve come across frequently, monsterporn aside. i liked this one more than house/lake because i felt both the menace and the dislocation more in this one and i enjoyed the overall “whaaaaaat?” vibe on the discovery-trail. the denouement isn’t as grand or as punchy as i’d hoped, but it ends well, in a nice exhausted melancholy that matches my overall mood these days.
i’m glad i have 2018-resolved to write mini-reviews of these weekly free tor shorts on the day i read them, because otherwise i’m not sure i would remember this one well enough to say anything at all, which is the problem i’m having with many of the shorts on my “review pending” shelf. it was a nice cozy saturday-morning read that would adapt well into graphic novel form.
read it for yourself here:
https://www.tor.com/2013/06/05/a-wind…
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