The Book Plank

Best Short Fiction of 2015 Short Fiction. Perhaps even more trickier than writing a full length book. One of the most obvious limiting factors is the page/word count. Some stories just fail utterly because they want to show to much or show to little and would have been better if turned in a novel. The stories below are the ones that just wowed me. Short, to the point and they pack a punch. First there is The Builder  which is published by the new Tor.com imprint. Daniel Polansky is no stranger for me. His books have always left a mark on my but The Builders has definitely left a strong one. Daniel is master of the creativity. Today I am Paul  is by far the most emotional story that I read this year. Martin L. Shoemaker created a emotional rollercoaster of a story. Powerful and heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. Paul Cornell who i know best for his Shadow Police series. Find a Way Home  is something completely different. It's part a boisterous adventure of a...

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley, Lightspeed Magazine Issue 66 [no synopsis provided]  Kameron Hurley is far from a stranger in the Fantasy world. Being the bestselling author of the Bel Dame series and her most recent Epic Fantasy series the Worldbreaker series. Earlier this year I read a short story by Kameron Hurley, Elephants and Corpses which blew me away. So when I found out that Lightspeed Magazine reprinted one of her stories. What else was there left to do! The Light Brigade definitely picks up with one of the catchiest introductions. Stating that the war has turned them into light and that light is the fastest way to travel. You have to take this last bit very literal. People have literally been turned into light making them heroes. Because aliens once took over in a more than hostile way and this was the only way to fight them. In this introduction you meet a young man who turned from being a soldier into an light hero. There is something very unique to this sto...

The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley, Worldbreaker Saga #1 On the eve of a recurring catastrophic event known to extinguish nations and reshape continents, a troubled orphan evades death and slavery to uncover her own bloody past… while a world goes to war with itself. In the frozen kingdom of Saiduan, invaders from another realm are decimating whole cities, leaving behind nothing but ash and ruin. As the dark star of the cataclysm rises, an illegitimate ruler is tasked with holding together a country fractured by civil war, a precocious young fighter is asked to betray his family and a half-Dhai general must choose between the eradication of her father’s people or loyalty to her alien Empress. Through tense alliances and devastating betrayal, the Dhai and their allies attempt to hold against a seemingly unstoppable force as enemy nations prepare for a coming together of worlds as old as the universe itself. In the end, one world will rise – and many will perish. Kameron Hurley is b...

Elephants and Corpses by Kameron Hurley The corpse-jumping body mercenary Nev is used to filling other people’s shoes. When his assistant Tera recognizes the most recent waterlogged cadaver they bought off the street, though, he finds that his new body is carrying more trouble than he bargained for. I have heard a lot of positive news about Kameron Hurley's writing, her Bel Dame series and the last year released The Mirror Empire have gotten rave reviews. A week ago or so this story was posted on Tor.com and I took to reading it and was hooked. This is a cool story with an awesome concept, it is with such stories that I wish that there were more stories, or that Kameron Hurley writes a full length book with the adventures of Nev and Tera!  The story picks up with Nev and Tera standing and the cities pier where they are bartering to buy a body. Here you learn that Nev is a body merc and that Tera is his body manager, Nev can use dead bodies to jump into and well, yeah liv...