The week’s best online fiction, with recommendations from FictionDaily’s editors.
“Relationship Story” by Tao Lin, Vice
I like Tao Lin’s writing. Roll your eyes. “Relationship Story” is in a slightly new style (there are at least two times as many punctuation marks and kinds of conjunctions and phrasings than in other fictions I’ve read of his) but the data set remains: a novelist comes out of Bobst library onto Washington Square in New York City sometime in the 21st century and makes certain demands on a woman he’s dating who responds in such-and-such a way. There’s a metaphysical Gchat between their nearly-digitized consciousnesses and some hugging and grinning in the vicinity of a Macbook on the floor of a dark apartment. But, like a pair of ducks floating in the brackish-green waste water of an industrial construction site, something natural, sweet, and genuine emerges amidst the forced and awkward acts these humans and their conspecifics commit. It’s a good story because it’s our story. And if you roll your eyes it’s because you know it’s true. –Reviewed by David Backer
“Taco Mission” by Ian Golding, Juked
Keith has problems – a bounced paycheck, burglars, ingrown pubic hairs. A possible lifetime of loneliness ahead of him. And Big Baby might be more trouble than he’s worth – “thirty-one years old and the size of a boom box.” They resolve to partake of every taco stand in the city. Health complications ensue.–Reviewed by Ryan Nelson
“Blood Blood” by Abbey Mei Otis, Strange Horizons
The aliens have already arrived in “Blood Blood.” Abbey Mei Otis has them visiting in a way we’ve seldom seen before in genre science-fiction: Not as hunters, conquerors or even ambassadors, but as wildlife observers. Otis’ aliens aren’t driven by domination or culture clash like most in science fiction—they’re extra-terrestrial snorkelers who have floated into Earth’s ecology to watch us with an amateur scientist’s uncouth fascination. This is the driving force of the plot—one that, as if compelled by the pulse of YouTube, goes from casual voyeurism to a craving to see people at their worst. As brilliant as this cosmos and narrative is, Otis also manages to supply rich characterizations. It’s a concept sci-fi piece that tries something new and succeeds on every level.–Reviewed by Matt Funk
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