#ReadShortStories about stories. Sort of. (131 to 135)

A small departure from Mother of Invention stories in this batch, mainly to mix things up a bit and partly because I was feeling behind on my Uncanny subscription. An interesting batch here, but none that jumped out at me as favourites.

A Robot Like Me by Lee Cope — An agender AI programmer makes an AI in their image. A lovely and slightly bittersweet story about gender. I liked it. Source: Mother of Invention edited by Rivqa Rafael and Tansy Rayner Roberts

Girls Who Read Austen by Tansy Rayner Roberts — A cute story about the main character’s failure to get agreeable college roommates. Short and sweet. Source: Tansy Rayner Roberts’ Patreon

Restore the Heart into Love by John Chu — In a future with space flint and high tensions/war between China and Taiwan, a Taiwanese-American computer scientist works to preserve traditional Chinese text. An interesting take, but not my favourite Chu. (It was not helped by the baffling way Uncanny rendered the Chinese characters which did not play nice with Pocket and definitely affected my reading experience.) Source: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/restore-the-heart-into-love-2/

New Berth by Elizabeth Fitzgerald — A futuristic take on regency romance that put me in mind if Austen in tone. However, I found it a bit confusing to keep track of characters and motivations and it didn’t really work for me for that reason. I expect some readers will enjoy it more than I did. Source: Mother of Invention edited by Rivqa Rafael and Tansy Rayner Roberts

Blessings by Naomi Novik — An short and amusing story. I liked the premise and the execution wasn’t bad, but I kind of expected it to be funnier (the premise of drunk fairies fighting over blessings for a child lends itself to humour, in my opinion). Source: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/blessings/