Super Bass by Kai Ashante Wilson
My rating: 4/5 cats
“Man, you been coming ever since that shark bit you. Every year the Summer King say the same damn thing: ain’t no growing back hands, feet, or nothing like that. What’s gone is gone. You been knowing it!”
so many free tor short reviews to burn through, my friends…
i was happy to find this older story by the author of one of my favorite free tor shorts ever: The Devil in America. like devil, this is beautifully-written and fully-realized, with a densely constructed world the reader is shoved into and allowed to experience and understand more completely as the story goes on. i’m 98% positive this is a standalone piece, but it reads like something excerpted from a much larger narrative. not because it feels incomplete or lacking for anything, but because it’s impressive that a writer would go to all the trouble of building such an intricate stage full of ritual and religion and cultural specifics for something so damn short. i would definitely be interested in reading more about these characters and this world, and the strength of his writing makes me very eager to read his pay-for-play tor novella duology: The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps and A Taste of Honey, the first of which i have already bought.
in keeping with my determination to not spend too much time reviewing these little shorties in order to get all mostly caught up on my to-be-reviewed mountain, i will say no more and trust that you will be inspired enough by my enthusiasm to check out his freebies (particularly The Devil in America) and then go out into the streets and throw your money at him for the stuff that costs money.
and if you know, clue me in, because i have no fucking clue what this title means.
read it for yourself here:
http://www.tor.com/2013/05/22/super-b…
read my book reviews on goodreads
