World Fantasy Award Nominee: "Swift, Brutal Retaliation"

“Swift, Brutal Retaliation”

Meghan McCarron

Tor.com

Nominated for 2013 World Fantasy Award: Short Story

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This is the second time I’ve read Meghan McCarron’s “Swift, Brutal Retaliation”, a story focused on the aftermath of the too young death of the brother of Sinead and Brigid with both their escalating war of pranks on each other as well as their desire to help the ghost of their dead brother find peace. 

That’s a gross simplification, of course, and when you get down to the heart of the story, what “Swift, Brutal Retaliation” seems to really be about is grief.  The grief of parents, the grief of sisters, the grief of the deceased, and how that grief and anger manifests throughout a family.  How losing that son and brother through a drawn out illness changes the dynamic, most likely irreparably.  

 “During Ian’s last few months, their mother was usually busy taking care of him. When he died, they had briefly hoped she would recover her interest in their well-being, but instead her caring engines shut down completely. She spent whole days in her room; the girls had no idea what she did in there. If they put their ears to the door, they heard the television, but they had the eerie feeling it wasn’t being watched.”

Told mostly from the third person perspective of the sisters, “Swift, Brutal Retaliation” is a story that begins a touch lighter than the subject matter would suggest, but simmers at a slow burn and has a powerful, explosive ending.  Explicitly, there is a touch of the supernatural with Ian’s ghost, but in this case it is one of the least important supernatural elements in a story and very well may just be a manifestation of the emotions of the family.  Regardless of that, this is a worthy story for the World Fantasy Award nomination.

some more Twilight commentary

These are old, but since this might be my Twilight Review Week, I wanted to point out another couple.

First off is Cat Rambo guest blogging at Jeff VanderMeer's Ecstatic Days. I read this when it was first posted, three months before I read the book. Rambo's post is good, but the 100+ comments are just as interesting. Rambo does spoil the series, so avert your eyes if that's a problem. Check out Cat Rambo's commentary on Twilight.

She has the usual “oh I am so ugly because it has somehow escaped me that I actually have a body type that fits inside American beauty norms” thing going. Interactions with female friends are kept to a superficial minimum because we all know women can’t do the friendship thing with each other. That might be too empowering a message. So would Bella being able to save herself. But in everything she does, every faintly brave action, Edward is her motivation, the center of the universe for her.

Then, and a recent post from VanderMeer himself pointed out Meghan McCarron's thoughts on "some things Twilight says are awesome but they are not awesome at all".

Here is #3 from McCarron's list of 8.

3. Your boyfriend, who does not sleep, stands outside your window every night without your knowledge. He also breaks into your house without warning. He also follows you whenever you leave town in case you "get" into "trouble." (Hint: this will be less awesome when he is your ex-boyfriend.)

Rambo and McCarron are both quite awesome and got their points across far more succinctly than I did.

"Tetris Dooms Itself", by Meghan McCarron

So, “Tetris Dooms Itself” from Meghan McCarron is not actually about Tetris. I’ll chock that one up in the “disappointed” column.

The story itself...it’s a Clarkesworld story. This is actually something of a description. It’s a bit on the weird side and I’m not sure that describing the story will really capture it. Running at just under 3300 words, it’s worth the time to check it out.

It’s a story with random kidnapping, disfigurement, re-growing limbs, obsession, some sort of a “sham-game”, and I think this is all somehow metaphor for emotional abuse and being the “other woman” in a relationship. I think. Maybe.

Oh yeah, and Tetris does make an appearance, but it isn’t really about that.

“Tetris Dooms Itself” is a bit grotesque in the abstract (or, perhaps it is grotesque in what gets described, but if the story is metaphor, is it really grotesque in the physical? Does this even make sense?)

Decent story. I liked it, but I’m not sure I really know what it is about.

Tetris Dooms Itself?

There is a story up in the new issue of Clarkesworld titled "Tetris Dooms Itself".

How awesome is that? I don't know what the story is actually about (though if it really is about Tetris dooming itself, I may be in love).

No matter what I may think of the story after I read it - Thank you Meghan McCarron for what I firmly believe is the best story title I have ever seen.