"I don't believe in haunted games," Carrie said. She was lying.

October 22, 2020 6:10 PM

Four short fantasy stories in which unpleasant things happen to characters who (kinda?) seem to deserve them. "The Wolf and the Woodsman" by T. Kingfisher (a.k.a. Ursula Vernon), a darkly funny "Little Red Riding Hood" retelling about a That Guy. "The Vampire of Kovácspéter" by P H Lee (2020; author interview) is witty: "The village of Kovácspéter was plagued by a vampire, which was increasingly embarrassing." And "Nobody Gets Out Alive" by George R. Galuschak (2020), a thriller about a livestreaming celebrity getting back at her stalker.

And: "The Spirit of the Leech" by Alex Bledsoe (2020), dark humor about a boy witnessing to an old man. (Content note for implied harm to a child, and for the least they-deserve-it factor re: the unpleasant thing.)

posted by brainwane (6 comments total)

People who like these short story posts: I plan to keep making them till the end of the month, and then other people should step up if you/they want them to keep going.
posted by brainwane at 6:39 PM on October 22, 2020 [13 favorites]

I love the short story posts! I'm hoping to find time to, you know, actually read most of them eventually as well! I've discovered several authors I like by reading short stories linked on MeFi earlier, so I have high hopes.

Now autumn has well and truly arrived, and I have a backlog of interesting short fiction to help me through it. Thanks, brainwane!
posted by Harald74 at 10:40 PM on October 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

I haven’t had a mefi account for years. My
old one is lost to time. But I enjoyed the Wolf and the Woodsman so much it finally tipped me over into recreating one just so I could post this comment saying: I liked that.
posted by Probabilitics at 3:50 AM on October 23, 2020 [10 favorites]

It may please you to hear that it is quite representative of the rest of author's prose.
posted by hat_eater at 5:35 AM on October 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Probabilitics: welcome back! And here's a recent thread where people are sharing a bunch more Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher recommendations.
posted by brainwane at 7:11 AM on October 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'd say that brainwane is not allowed to stop posting these. I've been thoroughly enjoying the series, but I'm no tinpot dictator, just a grateful consumer.
posted by drewbage1847 at 1:38 PM on October 23, 2020 [1 favorite]