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WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!

this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.

this is the FOURTH year of me doing a short story advent calendar as my december project. for those of you new to me or this endeavor, here’s the skinny: every day in december, i will be reading a short story that is 1) available free somewhere on internet, and 2) listed on goodreads as its own discrete entity. there will be links provided for those of you who like to read (or listen to) short stories for free, and also for those of you who have wildly overestimated how many books you can read in a year and are freaking out about not meeting your 2019 reading-challenge goals. i have been gathering links all year when tasty little tales have popped into my feed, but i will also accept additional suggestions, as long as they meet my aforementioned 1), 2) standards.

if you scroll to the end of the reviews linked here, you will find links to all the previous years� stories, which means NINETY-THREE FREEBIES FOR YOU!

2016: /review/show...
2017: /review/show...
2018: /review/show...

reviews of these will vary in length/quality depending on my available time/brain power.

so, let’s begin

DECEMBER 6: KAIJU MAXIMUS "SO VARIOUS, SO BEAUTIFUL, SO NEW" - KAI ASHANTE WILSON



They couldn’t guess what shape, this time, the hero’s metamorphosis would take; she had no idea herself. Their only forewarning was that, whatever changes, they would be always perilous, always a shock.

soooo, this was great. i'm always excited to read new stories by this guy, and this is probably my second-favorite of everything of his i've read (The Devil in America is still #1). this is the least linguistically playful of his work (although there's still a touch of that here), but it's also the biggest and broadest in terms of concept/story, even though the main focus is still small; on three of the four members of an unusual family. there's always some ambiguity leftover for later, and i would love to know more about sofiya, but i'm very happy with all of the words that exist, so i'm not gonna grouse about the ones that don't.

short review for a short story, but think of all the time i've saved you! now you can go read the story itself, which is much better than any of my sentences about it have or would have been!

read it for yourself here:



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THE STORIES:

DECEMBER 1: FOR HE CAN CREEP - SIOBHAN CARROLL
DECEMBER 2: TAM-O'-SHANTER - DONNA TARTT
DECEMBER 3: TRASH BIRD - REZA FARAZMAND
DECEMBER 4: COLOR AND LIGHT - SALLY ROONEY
DECEMBER 5: SEONAG AND THE SEAWOLVES - M. EVAN MACGRIOGAIR
DECEMBER 7: BEWARE OF OWNER - CHUCK WENDIG
DECEMBER 8: THE TALE OF THE THREE BEAUTIFUL RAPTOR SISTERS, AND THE PRINCE WHO WAS MADE OF MEAT - BROOKE BOLANDER
DECEMBER 9: OUT OF SKIN - EMILY CARROLL
DECEMBER 10: PROBABLY STILL THE CHOSEN ONE - KELLY BARNHILL
DECEMBER 11: THE HUNDREDTH HOUSE HAD NO WALLS - LAURIE PENNY
DECEMBER 12: GIRLS, AT PLAY - CELESTE NG
DECEMBER 13: MR. THURSDAY - EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL
DECEMBER 14: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE - MADELINE ASHBY
DECEMBER 15: A FOREST, OR A TREE - TEGAN MOORE
DECEMBER 16: OUTFOXED: A FABLE - DYLAN MECONIS
DECEMBER 17: THEN LATER, HIS GHOST - SARAH HALL
DECEMBER 18: OH, WHISTLE, AND I'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD - M.R. JAMES
DECEMBER 19: PREMIUM HARMONY - STEPHEN KING
DECEMBER 20: KNOWLEDGEABLE CREATURES - CHRISTOPHER ROWE
DECEMBER 21: THE HOLE THE FOX DID MAKE - EMILY CARROLL
DECEMBER 22: MRS. FOX - SARAH HALL
DECEMBER 23: SEASONAL WORK - LAURA LIPPMAN
DECEMBER 24: THE PLAGUE - KEN LIU
DECEMBER 25: ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS - SEANAN MCGUIRE
DECEMBER 26: BLOOD IS ANOTHER WORLD FOR HUNGER - RIVERS SOLOMON
DECEMBER 27: CIRCUS GIRL, THE HUNTER, AND MIRROR BOY - J.Y. YANG
DECEMBER 28: ALL ALONG THE WALL - EMILY CARROLL
DECEMBER 29: SWEETNESS - TONI MORRISON
DECEMBER 30: DERIVING LIFE - ELIZABETH BEAR
DECEMBER 31: EVERY LITTLE THING - CELESTE NG