IROSF reviews Clapping for the Fairies

Here's what Lois Tilton had to say about "Clapping for the Fairies".

A choose-your-own adventure. Some fairies have gone rogue. They kill people. Jade is supposed to kill Green before she can do more harm to the fairy reputation. But Jade is reluctant. She and Green were lovers, once.

The narrator offers Jade alternatives.

That night she crawls under the blankets with you while you sleep. Your body remembers how to wrap itself around hers, reviving comfortable positions that you learned a long time ago. You are almost halfway through lovemaking before you wake up completely, and realize these are the same hands that took a man's life. Whatever she looks like, this is not the Green you fell in love with when you were sixteen. She's grown into something ugly and demented, and no amount of logic on her part can excuse what she does.

If you want Green to die, go to section 5.

If you don't want Green to die, go to section 6.

This is definitely one time when a second-person narrator makes perfect sense, when it contributes a closing to the story that no other technique could have done.

She calls this issue of Helix "a superior one" and gives RECOMMENDEDs to three of the seven stories. Sadly, mine wasn't one of them, but I still think the review was rather positive.

Last Short Story Project on "Clapping for the Fairies"

This is what girliejones had to say about "Clapping for the Fairies" published in Helix 8

This year I have promised myself not to fall behind in my blogging so I am going to blog my story recs as they come, and regardless of how many form a post.

So today? Just this one:

Clapping for the Fairies by Sara Genge, Helix 8

I'm becoming a bit of a fan of Sara Genge's work. I think she writes from left field which makes her work stand out in a crowd. And her style is very readable. Here, she is very playful with form and that really appealed to me. I liked this story and *I'll* clap for the fairy.

I'm developping something of a crush for the Last Short Story project. These guys read hundreds of stories a year and bother to post about them. I can't help but think of them as uber-literate as far as short stories are concerned and when they like one of mine it's a huge ego-boost.

Writerly Powers Of Persuasion

I'm getting some wacky feedback from people who've read "Clapping for the Fairies" saying that they actually clapped in the end. This makes me feel all tingly inside and strokes my writer god-complex, but I wonder if I haven't passed up a wonderful opportunity to get readers to do something more productive.

What would have happened if I had applied my writerly powers of persuasion to get readers to send me a buck?

You, the white dude with tired eyes, paypal me 20$. You, the harried exec with a heavy check-book, send me dough. You, yes, I do mean you (your shirt is horrible, by the way, Hawaiian is so 80s) get a girlfriend and support Helix while you're at it.

Hmmm... For some reason the money isn't raining in. Maybe it only works when there's a story behind it and a powerful emotional trigger.

Oh, I have an idea... Story-evangelism, here I come!

"Clapping for the Fairies" in Helix #8

Helix #8 is up and my story "Clapping For The Fairies" is in it. This is my second story in Helix, coming exactly a year after "Pretty Little Thing". was published.

I'm a bad self-pimp, but I'll say this: it's a weird little story, told from a weird perspective. If you like the idea of a second person, choose-your-own-adventure, lesbian horrortale, this might just be the thing for you.

Incidentally, I've been contacted about translating "Pretty Little Thing" into Spanish. This will give my non-English speaking friends an opportunity to find out what that writing thing is all about and, possibly, defriend me.

Helix SF

Check out this review of the first year of Helix SF.

Three novelettes were among my favorite stories. John Barnes’s "Rod Rapid and His Electric Chair" (January) is a very mordantly funny send up of a Tom Swift-like series of books and the racist and fascist views expressed therein. Also from January, "The Narcomancer", by N. K. Jemisin, tells of a man who brings peace to those who need it by easing their way to death -- at considerable personal cost. "The Snake’s Wife", by Ann Leckie (October) is a story of dynastic struggles between two regions in a fantastical world, and also as legitimately shocking as any Helix story so far. It's a story of war, forced marriage, mutilation, and revenge: ultimately suggesting that the promises of gods may come true but ought to regarded with great suspicion. Other particularly strong novelettes came from William Sanders and from Jennifer Pelland.

Of the short stories I liked Esther Friesner’s sharply satirical "A Sacred Institution" (July), in which a slimy politician marries his dog but runs into trouble when aliens show up who demand that promises like marriage be kept. And N. K. Jemisin’s "The Brides of Heaven" (July), set on a harsh alien world in which an Islamic colony seems doomed because all their male colonists died in an accident, until one colonist decides that true obedience to God requires a particular, chilling, solution. And Robert Reed's "The Hoplite" (April) is an effective and dark variation on the "eternal soldier" theme. Other good short stories came from Sara Genge, Vylar Kaftan, Michael Payne, Samantha Henderson, and Jay Lake.

Indeed, on looking over the magazine's sum of stories I am again impressed -- there is a lot of nice work here.

Yeah, baby. I've gotten quite a bit of love for Pretty Little Thing. I think Helix has done a great job getting good work and putting it out there and I am glad that Clapping for the Fairies has landed me a second publication in this ezine.

"Clapping for the Fairies" sold to Helix SF

Helix SF has agreed to buy "Clapping for the Fairies", a second person, choose-your-own-adventure, lesbian horrortale written for the Liberty Hall Shimmer sponsored contest.

This is the second story I've sold to Helix (check out Pretty Little Thing) and I'm happy that it's found such a good home.