“Stitched to Skin Like Family Is” by Nghi Vo in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 57, March/April 2024 by Nghi Vo Format: ebook
Source: supplied by publisher via Hugo Packet
Formats available: magazine
Genres: fantasy, historical fantasy
Series: Uncanny Magazine Issue 57 March/April 2024
Pages: 19
Published by Uncanny Magazine on March 5, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
Goodreads
The March/April 2024 issue of Hugo Award-winning Uncanny Magazine.
Featuring new fiction by Nghi Vo, Lavie Tidhar, Katherine Ewell, Annalee Newitz, Valerie Valdes, Parlei Rivière, and Amanda Helms. Essays by John Scalzi, G. Willow Wilson, Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko, and Brandon O'Brien, poetry by Jennifer Mace, Zaynab Iliyasu Bobi, Tiffany Morris, and Eva Papasoulioti, interviews with Nghi Vo and Valerie Valdes by Caroline M. Yoachim, a cover by Antonio Javier Caparo, and an editorial by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas.
Uncanny Magazine is a bimonthly science fiction and fantasy magazine first published in November 2014. Edited by 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023 Hugo award winners for best semiprozine, and 2018 Hugo award winners for Best Editor, Short Form, Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, and Monte Lin, each issue of Uncanny includes new stories, poetry, articles, and interviews.
My Review:
The fun – if sometimes frustrating – thing about reading the Hugo nominated novelettes and short stories is that I generally go into the reading without much in the way of preconceived notions about the story itself.
That doesn’t mean I’m not already acquainted with the author, but that I haven’t seen anything in the way of reviews or summaries – at least not until the Hugo Readalong discussions over on Reddit get into full swing.
Which they certainly have at this point as the votes are due later this month.
But I did come into this one with a few, not so much notions about the story as notions about whether or not I’d like the story – because this is an author I do know as the author of the Singing Hills Cycle. A novella series which I love, one of which (The Brides of High Hill) is nominated in the novella category – and deservedly so.
So it is not a surprise that this story did remind me, at least a bit, of Singing Hills in its tone. But the story of the author’s that it really reminded me of is On the Fox Roads, a novelette nominee from 2024. Apparently the author has written several other short works in this loosely historical American setting – and I wish I had a definitive list of them because the two I have read have been fascinating.
Although I have to confess that On the Fox Roads worked better for me, I think because as a novelette it has a little more room to work. I still liked this in its bittersweet tone as a story of family and justice and revenge and love.
Escape Rating B: After turning the final page, I think that this story reads like fantasy that is so dark it tips over the edge into horror just a bit. It also reminded me just a tiny bit of The Keeper of Magical Things by Julie Leong as the protagonists of the two stories have similar magical talents – although Keeper is rather cozy and Stitched most definitely is NOT. This one drew me in from the very beginning even though at first I had no idea where it was going. The language of it was beautiful, as I expected from the author – I did have some expectations after all – but I’d have liked this more if it had had more room to work.
I have more nominated short stories to come, but so far these are not quite living up to the novelettes. We’ll see as my read through continues!
